Jersey City Writers is more than ten years old and growing strong. This August, the executive board met in their annual strategy meeting to talk about the next year, and the next ten years: where we’re going, what we’re doing, who we’re reaching, and how we’ll provide the ideal creative community for New Jersey writers.
Here are the highlights.
JCW is looking for the positive lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. One lesson learned is the importance of outreach. Once online, JCW moderators learned there was a world of writers we weren’t reaching due to scheduling conflicts, proximity, and accessibility. While we’re looking forward to the day when we can all meet safely in person again, JCW is working towards a future that maintains a strong online presence. We hope to continue with some online meetings and to experiment with hybrid meetings.
Our second pandemic lesson was the importance of a tech investment. Aside from building a new, interactive website we’re investigating tech training and assembling a website team. Contact info@jerseycitwriters.org for more info on how you might get involved.
We’ve been both growing our programming and refining the programs already in place. In 2020 we turned a loose collection of specialty workshops into our Full Story Crash Course program. We are also seeking grants to find special guest speakers and instructors at both these workshops and our specialty poetry and nonfiction workshops.
Since its transition to official nonprofit status in 2019, JCW has been run by an executive board with 4 or 5 members. As we have grown in scope and programming we’ve come to realize the importance of the voices of all our parties and volunteers. In 2021, JCW is working to assemble a second action board.
The action board will be a large group of JCW members and partners who can contribute their ideas and, in some cases, their roles to JCW plans, ideas, and decisions. From local artists, instructors, and producers to our own moderators, hosts, and volunteers, we’re assembling a team to help make the decisions that will shape our future.
We’re grateful to all of you who have continued to show your love and support by participating in JCW programming. Thank you for helping us weather these recent storms, and we hope you’ll join us in looking forward to a bright future.