There were six of us present for the Guys Read book club last Saturday, members present included: Theo, Grayson, Milos, Milo, Casey, and Jason (me). Since part of our goal is to spread our love of reading and inspire others to pick up our favorite books I thought it would be cool to have the meeting publicly at The Wedge next door! Even before we arrived, a happy stranger loudly exclaimed that the book Milos was carrying (Leviathan) was cool. “We know!”
We set up our sign, got a slice, and talked about books for an hour. Good times! Everyone was impressed with this month’s selections and we agreed we’ll be reading more from both of the series on our own. For the December meeting we decided to tackle Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan since it is on the Iowa Teen Award list, and, instead of a comic this month, we’ll sample from the Guys Read short story series (thanks to Oscar for the idea last month). A few members mentioned that they get extra credit for reading from the Teen Award list so that’s a bonus, also it was mentioned we should hit these teachers up for extra credit for attending Guys Read!
Most members were receptive to the idea of meeting for an extra hour of free reading as a group after the discussion time. I thought other young guys would benefit from seeing a group of guys hanging out publicly and reading for fun, might also be a good way of picking up a few new members! We’ll try this at our December meeting and see how it goes.
Here’s a list of some reading our crew is in the midst of:
Happy to report the first meeting of the VOYA book club was a success. We had a great time meeting everyone, hanging, and talking books.
Love reading and making new friends? We’d love to hear from you!
We’re seeking students in grades 6-8 who like reading nonfiction to join our VOYA book club. We’ll gather a few times this fall and winter for review sessions with food and drinks. The books cover a variety of interesting topics including: technology, nature, sports, poetry, biographies, history, and comics. Students will help compile a list of nominees for the top nonfiction books of the year.
TAG Meeting Minutes
12/7/10
4:30-6:00
ICPL Meeting Room B
Who was there: Julian, Yuxuan, Darian, Azzah, Ellen, McKinley,
Antoine, Derek, Maddie, Jason, and we welcomed new TAG member Sam. Thanks to Darian for inviting Sam!
TAG Meeting Minutes
3/2/10
11:30 – 1:00
Meeting Room B
WHO WAS THERE
Darian, Zoe, Shecharya, Derek, Naftalia, David, Rachel, Jason, Brian
RECRUITING NEW MEMBERS
You had some great ideas for recruiting new TAG members! Here they are, in no particular order:
Make posters to hang up at school
Distribute fliers to friends & members of existing clubs
Flash Mob / Flash Freeze, followed by flier distribution
Wear banana suit on ped mall, followed by flier distribution
Make TAG bookmarks and distribute at ICPL
Give TAG applications to all Summer Reading Program participants
Bake sale: make cakes and/or pizzas that say “TAG”
Create Facebook Group and invite Facebook Friends to join TAG
Advertise on local radio & TV (The Library Channel?)
Hire Skywriter / Blimp to advertise TAG
Invite existing ICPL Volunteers to join TAG
Word of mouth — invite your friends!
At the April TAG meeting we’ll decide which ideas we like best (and are most realistic )and start working on them.
UPCOMING EVENTS
YES, we are on for a gelato-making tour at Capanna in April! This might be a registration-only event with limited openings — we’ll keep you posted. We’ll try to make sure TAG doesn’t conflict with prom on 4/17.
In May we’ll have a ginormous party and play outdoorsy games such as tag, hide-and-go-seek, sardine, and kickball.
ECO SUMMER READING PROGRAM
Your eco give-away & event ideas:
Bike accessories (bells, water bottles, etc.)
Seed packets
eBook gift certificates
Gift certificates to erase library fines
Bike day! Bike safety, bike repair, helmet decorating
Invite master gardener to give presentation
Produce “Horticulture Friday” teencast
Learn how to make handmade paper & altered (note)books
BLOG & PODCAST STATS Some of you were wondering if anyone ever reads the blog or listens to the podcast. WELL! This month the blog has had 2621 unique visits by real people, and the most recent podcast has been downloaded, played directly from the blog, or picked up via RSS feed 113 times!
…AND OTHER STUFF
Brian is going to start planning and attending some teen events!
TAG members expressed interest in having a greater influence on library decisions. We will explore ways to make this happen, including the possibility of TAG contributing input to the Library Board.
Someone asked if 18 & 19 year-olds can participate in TAG, even if they have already graduated from highschool. We’ve never considered this before! We’ll keep this in mind when recruiting for next year’s TAG.
TAG Meeting Minutes
1/9/10
1:30 – 3:00
Meeting Room B
WHO WAS THERE
Emma, Erin, David, Zoe, Kim, Rachel, Jason
ANIME FEST
Anime Fest 2010 is coming! This year’s fest will be on Saturday February 13, and will feature anime film screenings, J-Pop music, DIY bento boxes, and books talks about our favorite manga (à la David and Kim). Meanwhile, Emma has agreed to blog about anime vs. manga, and maybe Erin will even tell us what she thinks of Yotsuba… — thanks everyone! Email teens@icpl.org if you have any other ideas to make this year’s Anime Fest the most amazing ever.
FAHRENHEIT 451
ICPL is launching The Big Read of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 on February 1st! TAG’s contribution to this huge community event is going to be another one of our thoughtful and poignant podcasts (you know, the ones where we discuss G.I. Joe super powers and “Blawesome”-ness). So get reading ASAP — it’s really short! — and come with your radio voices to February’s TAG meeting. David is going to blog about upcoming Fahrenheit 451-ness in late January, and Kim will keep the blog posts coming in February.
UPCOMING EVENTS
So another year of TAG is halfway over We are still going to try to fit in a movie night, gelato-making tour, and playground games extravaganza (including the game “tag.”) We are thinking March = movie night, April = gelato-making tour, and May = outdoorsy end-of-the-year bash. Stay tuned for more info!
ECO SUMMER READING PROGRAM
What are your ideas for Eco SRP? We brainstormed a few ideas at the meeting, including a bike repair workshop, an ICPL community garden, and reusable water bottle giveaways. Email teens@icpl.org with your Eco SRP ideas, or just leave us a comment!
TAG Meeting Minutes
12/1/09
4:30 – 6:00
ICPL Meeting Room E
WHO WAS THERE
Kim, Darian, Shecharya, Naftalia, Zoe, Alek, Jason, Rachel
PODCAST Yesss, we finally recorded a new podcast! Topics included: New Moon, Life-Threatening Knitting Catastrophes, No Shave November, and Cheese Club. Now that’ we’ve got the recording, it’s time to crank this puppy out. Hop on over to Teen Tech Zone during Winter Break Dec. 21-23 and Dec. 28-31 from 1:00-4:00 if you want to get teched out and earn some volunteer hours.
“CRAFTY TEENS @ HOME EC. WORKSHOP” December’s event is. . . felted soap? OK, I didn’t know what that was either, but it looks pretty awesome! Meet in the ICPL lobby on Saturday Dec. 19 at 12:45 to head over to Home Ec. Workshop and get your craft on. Registration is limited to 15, so sign up here, now!
“THE BIG READ”: FAHRENHEIT 451 The Iowa City Public Library is doing an awesome series of events about Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, sci-fi, censorship, and more in February 2010. TAG is going to tackle this book with an amazing and creative project (we just don’t know what it is yet!). Read it over break, finish it up by the January TAG meeting, and we’ll plan something crazy-fun and Fahrenheit 451-related for February’s event.
TAG Meeting Minutes
10/6/09
4:30 – 5:30
ICPL Meeting Room B
WHO WAS THERE
Kim, Darian, Shecharya, Naftalia, Jason, Rachel
VOLUNTEER HOURS
So I need to know how many hours you spent on TAG-related activities in September, as well as August. How many hours did you spend at TAG meetings & events, working on podcasts, and writing blog posts? Let me know by this Tuesday (Oct. 13) at the latest. If you don’t tell me how many hours you volunteered, then I can’t give you credit — and that would be sad.
“VIDEO GAME SHOWDOWN”
This is happening ideally some Saturday in November from 1-3:00 p.m. Keep your little eyeballs peeled for the official date, coming soon. We’ll have our November TAG meeting before the tournament, at noon, with pizza. Shecharya has been dubbed the Tournament Master, due to his logistics expertise. There will be prizes! Snacks! And non-video games such as Apples to Apples! I think I also promised Kim that I would bring my cribbage board, so get excited.
HI, NEW MEMBERS!
New members Darian and Naftalia were at Tuesday’s meeting. It was so great to see both of you — you had great ideas for our upcoming events!
PODCASTS / BLOG POSTS
It’s official: Zoe and Shecharya are our Podcast Directors. Kim, David and Darian are our Blog Editors. Keep your eye out for info from them about upcoming podcast / blog projects.
Also, check out the blog for a super write-up by our Scribe, Erin, about the Banned-Books Read In. Emma took photos, which I hope she will share with us on the blog sometime very soon!
)and start working on them.
We are still going to try to fit in a movie night, gelato-making tour, and playground games extravaganza (including the game “tag.”) We are thinking March = movie night, April = gelato-making tour, and May = outdoorsy end-of-the-year bash. Stay tuned for more info!
