Hot Pot Storytelling

A nourishing day of storytelling with a skills development workshop, AGM, the traditional telling of Stone Soup~with soup and Tales Told Live.

Our morning workshop was a lively affair with Lindy Mitchell-Nilsson warming us up with the energetic Amazing Alliteration Name Game. Then we enjoyed a few rounds of Ear to Ear,with Michael Patterson, practicing our storytelling listening skills with hilarious results. Jill Webster then had us embodying our inner witches and practicing the art of transformation. Christine Carlton exercised our imaginations, our listening skills, as well as our story creation skills with a fun round of That’s Right. Sue Alvarez ran the group through their paces with Emoting Storytelling Statues before Lindy finished with a Storytelling Gestures Exercise and discussion.

All in all it was a fun and informative workshop followed by morning tea with the presentation of Accreditation Certificates to Michael Patterson, Jill Webster and Ulf Nilsson~ and of course the ceremonial cutting of the Accreditation Cake made by Sue Alvarez.

The next part of the proceedings was the Australian Storytellers, NSW’s Annual General Meeting. We are delighted to announce the committee for the next year to be President: Lindy Mitchell-Nilsson, Vice President: Liz Locksley, Treasurer: Michael Patterson, Secretary: Kiran Shah and on the action committee we have Judy Mitchell, Christine Carlton, Christine Greenough, Dorothy Makasa and Sandie Jessamine. Thank you to last years’s committee, especially our outgoing treasurer, Ulf Nilsson. Thanks also to our Public Officer Sue Alvarez.

Storytellers NSW has a tradition of inviting a member to tell the folk tale Stone Soup, it is a tale about sharing our gifts with each other to create a stronger community. This year Dorothy Makasa shared a wonderful African version of the story. The story was of course, followed by soup for lunch.

The feast continued after lunch with a feast of stories at Tales Told Live~ with prizes for those who managed to mention food in their story. It was a smorgasbord of stories with personal tales, fables, folktales and fairy tales. The storytellers were: Vibha Gulati, Sandy Jessamine, Dorothy Makasa, Christine Greenough, Christine Carlton, Stephen Martin, Judy Mitchell, Sue Alvarez, Jill Webster, Lindy Mitchell-Nilsson and we were especially delighted when newcomer, Feride Tekin from Turkey shared a tale too.