Red Dragonflies met on Saturday the 5th March at Barbara Fisher’s home for their summer gathering to workshop haiku and enjoy each other's company.

Present were Lesley Walter, Barbara Fisher, Cynthia Rowe, Dawn Bruce and their leader Vanessa Proctor.

Unfortunately Beverley George couldn’t make it.

Vanessa had set some very challenging writing exercises, but everyone rose to the occasion and the haiku presented were varied and fresh.

Two marked haiku were placed in the bowl after lunch and read in turn. This is always a popular activity as everyone tries to guess the author.

The meeting finished at 1:30.

- Dawn Bruce

Posted by Rodney Williams at 11:16 PM | Permalink

On the 5th December Red Dragonflies, Vanessa Proctor, Cynthia Rowe, Barbara Fisher and Dawn Bruce, met for a ginko of the Great Masters Exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery. Members Beverley George and Lesley Walter were unable to attend and were sorely missed.
After the ginko, lunch was enjoyed on the café patio and haiku writing exercises read and workshopped. Small Christmas gifts and good wishes for the 2016 writing year were exchanged over coffee.

Dawn Bruce

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 07:32 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies Haiku group met on Saturday, 12th September at 11.30 am at member Lesley Walter's home for their 2015 spring gathering. Cynthia Rowe, Dawn Bruce, Vanessa Proctor and Barbara Fisher were present. Apology from Beverley George, whose husband is ill. As usual there were some challenging exercises set by convenor Vanessa, which stimulated many fresh and interesting responses, and included much discussion and laughter. The meeting concluded at 2.30 pm.

Barbara Fisher

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:37 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies had a rewarding autumn meeting kindly hosted by Lesley Walter and her husband Terry. As well as Lesley, Barbara Fisher, Beverley George and Vanessa Proctor attended. The atmosphere was convivial as we sampled a delicious variety of cakes, drank Terry's excellent coffee and discussed haiku over an overflowing haiku bowl. Haiku for discussion were on the subjects of migrating birds, families and home-grown food. As always, topics for the haiku bowl were individually chosen and varied from travel to the streets of Sydney and from lighthouses to rabbits.

Vanessa Proctor

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:21 PM | Permalink

The spring meeting of the Red Dragonflies was held on Saturday 25th October at Dawn Bruce’s home in St. Leonards. Dawn kindly met us at the garage entrance so that we could all go up in the internal lift together.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies’ Spring Meeting 2014" »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:18 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies, with the inclusion of guest, Bill Tibben, held their winter meeting on Saturday 19th July at Vanessa Proctor’s home. With the smells of freshly baked bread and buttermilk cake with passionfruit icing wafting about us, we workshopped our pre-set exercises which had presented the usual challenge, i.e. to compose original haiku on topics including a night in the country, a winter plant, and International Friendship Day.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies winter meeting 2014" »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:36 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies gathered on Saturday 12th April on a rainy afternoon at Barbara Fisher’s home for our autumn meeting. All members were present. Over cups of tea and coffee and some spectacular cake made by Barbara, we workshopped poems on topics ranging from family pets, to the night sky, to the subject of happiness. Interestingly, the poems on happiness were all written in a particularly clear and accessible way and resonated strongly with our own personal experience of happiness. We left the meeting fulfilled after an afternoon of good company, good food and excellent poetry.

Vanessa Proctor

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 04:48 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies met at Mosman for their Christmas get together on Saturday 9th November. We went on a short ginko around the harbour foreshore, enjoying superb views across to Sydney Heads and Watsons Bay.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies November 2013 meeting" »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 01:59 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies held their spring meeting on Saturday 31st August ― a very summery last day of winter! ― so we seem to have rolled three seasons into one on this particular occasion.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies spring meeting " »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:17 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies met on Saturday 13th July at Dawn Bruce’s home in St Leonards. Vanessa Proctor led members Dawn Bruce and Cynthia Rowe. Lesley Walter, Barbara Fisher and Beverley George were unable, regrettably, to attend and sent their apologies.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies’ Winter Meeting 2013" »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:51 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies (minus their leader, Vanessa Proctor, regrettably) met on Saturday 23rd February at Cynthia Rowe’s home in Woollahra. Vanessa had preset members three interesting topics for their prepared haiku ― namely ‘books’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘natural disasters’.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies Autumn Meeting" »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 08:16 PM | Permalink

We kicked off our Red Dragonflies’ meeting on Saturday 8th September with a visit to the Sphinx at Bobbin Head, a memorial carved out of natural sandstone by an ailing ex-soldier, William Shirley, as a tribute to his fallen AIF comrades. We then retired to Vanessa Proctor’s home in Pymble, where we spent a wonderfully creative afternoon composing a Junicho renku entitled “Unexpected Rain”.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies’ Spring Meeting" »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:10 PM | Permalink

On Saturday 28th July the Red Dragonflies met at Lesley Walter's home for a very enjoyable and entertaining meeting which was fuelled by Lesley's delicious chocolate cake with cream and berries. All six members were present.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies - Winter Meeting 2012" »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:49 PM | Permalink

The six members of the Red Dragonflies haiku group met at Dawn Bruce’s home on Saturday 25th February in glorious sunshine for our first meeting of the year.

Continue reading "Red Dragonflies’ Autumn Meeting " »

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 03:12 PM | Permalink

A ginko had been on the agenda for the Red Dragonflies’ meeting at Pearl Beach on Saturday 26th November, however, inclement weather put a decided stop to that plan. The weather being assuredly for ducks rather than dragonflies, we met, instead, at Beverley George’s home, where we workshopped our pre-written haiku before the skies fortuitously cleared and we managed to flit around Beverley’s home and garden in quasi-ginko fashion. By the time we arrived at the beachside café for lunch, the day had turned quite summery. Our spirits more than matched the sunny afternoon. All in all, a thoroughly uplifting occasion.

after the rain
the laughter of kookaburras
suddenly joins ours

Lesley Walter

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 08:13 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies met at Vanessa Proctor’s home in Pymble on Saturday 15th October. Dawn Bruce gave a short talk on haiga, and set the group a challenging and instructive exercise. Members had also been invited to bring along photos of their own which might be turned into haiga, so some little time was spent working with these. We were then encouraged to bring some of our own haiga to the Christmas get-together in November. The haiku workshopped at the meeting was, for the most part, met with resounding approval, so the few hours spent together literally flitted by, just like a dragonfly.

Lesley Walter

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 05:09 PM | Permalink

The winter meeting of the Red Dragonflies was held on 18th June at Barbara Fisher’s home in Mosman. Vanessa Proctor led members Dawn Bruce, Cynthia Rowe, Lesley Walter and gracious host, Barbara Fisher, in a productive afternoon.

Bill Tibben, a guest at the meeting, was a wonderful addition to the group. Beverley George sent her apologies.

Vanessa gave each member a delightful booklet of haiku selected from poems written by members and inspired by the Red Dragonflies’ summer ginko at Pearl Beach, December 2010. Many thanks, Vanessa!

Dawn brought up the subject of photo haiku and it was suggested that we might discuss the basics of haiga at the next meeting.

Cynthia Rowe
President, HaikuOz

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 03:11 PM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies met at Cynthia Rowe’s home in Woollahra on Saturday 12th March. We were joined by an invited guest, Dy Anreasen, who had been fortunate enough to ‘tread in Basho’s footsteps’ with Beverley’s tour last year. It is confronting, however, to reflect that we were sitting sharing haiku in Sydney on the very day that the earthquake and tsunami were wreaking such havoc on Japan and its people. Haiku must continue to remind us of, and instruct us in, the ephemeral – and therefore precious – nature of existence…

Lesley Walter

Posted by Greg Piko at 11:16 AM | Permalink

The Red Dragonflies met at Pearl Beach on Sunday 12th December for a ginko in the Crommelin Native Arboretum (which will hopefully produce a pamphlet in the new year) followed by lunch at the bayside cafe.

During the course of the afternoon, members workshopped their pre-written haiku and senryu and, as always, found much upon which to ponder and much about which to laugh.

Understandably, the sound of cicadas rang out loudest amongst the Christmas haiku, but the gentler ‘clink’ of threepences in a china bowl produced nostalgia, too, for mothers’ and grandmothers’ plum puddings…

Christmas get-together –
the joy of exchanging
haiku

Lesley Walter

Posted by Greg Piko at 08:26 PM | Permalink

An overcast day did not lessen the conviviality of the ‘red dragonflies’ group when they gathered at the home of the group’s leader, Vanessa Proctor, to share spring haiku.

All members were present.

Poems on the pre-set topics of the energy of spring, gardening, and empty snail shell were workshopped. After lunch, two anonymous haiku per member were drawn from the haiku bowl for general discussion, before the authors admitted ownership.

report by Beverley George

Posted by Jo McInerney at 09:00 AM | Permalink