Exciting times ahead

God gave me the idea of starting a book club, 10 months before I actually did anything about it. I am glad I eventually did. When I finally launched “Activate” on the 9th of February 2008, 14 ladies signed up. Since then, “Activate” has been growing in size. My husband once said to me, “where there is God, there is always growth”. Currently, there are 35 ladies signed up.

In order to create room for growth, “Activate” Book Club has now split into three groups. There is only One “Activate” Book Club, which is made up of three small groups. Apart from creating room for growth, the small group will have a cosier atmosphere and will be easier to coordinate. There will be more time for each member to be heard and more time to socialise. However, group members will need to be committed to keep the meetings lively.

Remember, book clubs are meant to be fun. We certainly want “Activate” to be fun. "Activate" isn’t just about reading and discussing the chosen book, it is also about meeting other ladies, developing friendships, learning from each other and strengthening ourselves spiritually.

In order to keep “Activate” exciting, we have opted for a dynamic split. With the dynamic split, the group members are not permanently attached to a group.

The split process is as follows:

· There will be two “big bang” meetings annually where all members of “Activate” will meet.
· These “big bang” meetings will take place every six months, where the groups will re-shuffle so that all groups will hopefully have new members.
· Re-shuffling will be done by balloting (hence some people may end up in the same group as before).
· Apart from the two “big bang” meetings, there will be 4 small group meetings. Every big bang meeting will be followed by two small group meetings.
· In total, we will have six meetings in a year - 4 small group meetings and 2 big bang meetings. Therefore, we will read 6 books annually and will aspire to meet bi-monthly.
· For now, starting from this first split and to avoid any further complexity, all groups will read the same book. Reading the same book will make the “big bang” meetings (where all members of “Activate” meet) easier to organize and handle. As we won’t have to break up into three groups during the meeting to discuss each groups current reading book.
· For “big bang” meetings, we will have the following venues available – K2, Oakwood and Costa Café in Bracknell town centre.
· Group meetings will take place as usual, in member’s houses. Group members will volunteer to host group meetings (we do not impose hosting on members). Where no member of the group volunteers, then the group leader will host the group meeting.
· Ideally, all groups (A, B, C) will meet on the same day (for consistency and time scale) at their various venues. Where not possible, the meetings should be within a week of the other groups meeting. Ideally we want everyone to have the same timescale for reading. This will also be helpful when we have to meet up for the “big bang” meetings.


The dates for our next 3 meetings are as follows:
17th January 2009 – group meeting;
28th March 2009 – group meeting;
13th June 2009 – big bang meeting;
On 17th January 2009, we will meet at our various venues to discuss our current reading book: “BLOOD & FIRE” by Roy Hattersley.
On 28th March 2009, we will meet at our various venues to discuss our next book: “GET OUT OF THAT PIT” By Beth Moore


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For those of you who may not want to be active members of “Activate”, but want to read along side us, please feel free to subscribe to the “Activate” blog.
The link below will take you to the “Activate” blog. You can then subscribe to the blog. Please follow the instructions on the screen to complete your subscription.

http://uniqueactivate.blogspot.com/

If you want more information on "Blood & Fire" by Roy Hattersley, a synopsis of this has been posted on the "Activate" blog.

Happy reading!

God Bless.

Ope