Happy 20th birthday to TheOneRing.net

I think we may have missed a birthday greeting, so here is a belated one to all the good folks at TORn, otherwise known as TheOneRing.net. They were the original LOTR movie fansite, and certainly throughout Welly-moot's lifecycle (and NZ Noldor's time before that, still available as an archive on http://nznoldor.blogspot.com/) there were a lot of interactions with them.

They've been around for 20 years - about twice that of my efforts. For that, a big congratulations for continuing to serve the fans well!

Happy 20th birthday TORn, from all of us here!

  - Jack

Register your interest?

Hello everyone,

As you may have heard, the new Tolkien bio-pic is to be released in New Zealand on June the 6th. Obviously we should go to this, either individually or as a group - who is keen to join us? So far we've got Alex & myself, and Kathy from the One Room LOTR Fan Museum. If you're keen, leave me a message here, on the Welly-moot Facebook page, or email me on jack@welly-moot.com.

If we've got enough people interested, we can organise an evening around it, with possibly a dinner somewhere (Yum-cha anyone?).

https://www.flicks.co.nz/movie/tolkien/


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On another note, this link seemed appropriate at the moment, what with the events in Christchurch prompting some soul searching for us all (hopefully). The question is often asked - was Tolkien racist? There are definitely racist overtones in the Middle-earth sagas - the superiority of the elves compared to, say, the dwarves is obvious, and is explained well in the Silmarillion. However, was he alluding to his feelings about the Human race?

Read what Dimitri Fimi has to say about it. It makes for an interesting read, I think. (thanks Kathy for the link)

https://theconversation.com/was-tolkien-really-racist-108227

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One final note - an administrative note, and probably of interest to nobody. As you may have heard, Google is cutting its Google+ service, which means the G+ button will be removed off the main welly-moot blog. I have the distinct impression our Google+ site has never been used by anyone, so feel free to ignore this Very Important Notice. If you don't know what this is all about, just ignore the whole paragraph.
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  - Jack

General update

As some of you may know, I've gone back to full-time studying this year, and as a result I'm finding that I'm not able to dedicate as much time as I would like to Welly-moot. I have been looking for a way to alleviate this, and I think a solution has been staring me in the face for a while.

At the last meetup, the Welly-moot paid a visit to Kathy, who owns and runs Wellington's newest museum, The One Room LOTR Fan-museum. Her and I have been in talks about the direction of Welly-moot, and she's able to dedicate a lot more of her time than I currently can.

As a solution, Kathy is going to be doing some of the updates here for a while. We're hoping to organise a few more meetings as well, and there is one very cool event coming up - the Roxy is once again showing the LOTR trilogy, in less than a month from now, in fact. Yes, they're the Extended editions.

Kathy has been busy making costumes, and proposes that we all turn up as a group, and in costumes (she has spares, if anyone needs one). What do you all think? Sounds like something we can be part of? Of course it does!


Comment on this post, or reply via email if you got this from the mailing list, or leave a comment on the facebook page - however you're reading this, let us know your thoughts (except via Google+ - I don't think anyone's reading that). :)


  - Jack

Developments for Welly-moot, and myself

Hello everyone. It's been a while, but things are looking like they're settling down to some sort of normality again. A lot has happened since the last post.

For starters, I'm no longer a LOTR tourguide. After 13 years, and almost 2,500 LOTR tours (almost 1,500 were full day tours) and over 300,000 kms driven, I finally hung up my cloak and called it quits. To begin with, I'll be doing a year of study, hopefully gaining a Diploma in Business, and after that I'll see where that takes me.


So, where does that leave Welly-moot? Everything has been on hold for eight months, but doesn't mean I've sat still in that time. My collection of LOTR and Hobbit memorabilia has found a new home - more about that in the next post. Alex and I have been thinking about what we want to do with the Welly-moot group. It would be a shame to see it disappear, after the hard work we've poured into it. I would like to see what other people's opinions are.

Here are some options:

• Go back to normal - a regular meeting every two months, discussing Tolkien related topics (or perhaps every three months?)
• Have special meetings, but a little less often. For instance, we could hold an autumn party in Isengard, a spring picnic in Rivendell, a summer beach party in Scorching Bay on the beach, and a winter feast at someone's house. I'm sure we could convince the Roxy to host another repeat Hobbit/LOTR marathon, from time to time.
• Keep the blog going but stop the planned meetings altogether. That's pretty much where we are now. I would love help with writing some material, if we're going that way though.
• Something else. What do you think?

So what do you all think? I'd love to hear from everyone, even if it's just a "goodbye" email.

Drop me a line at jack@welly-moot.com, or leave me a message on facebook.

  - Jack

Update: no update

Heya all,

You may have noticed that nothing has been updated for a while. There's a few things going on in my life that's taken a higher priority lately, and Welly-moot has taken a backseat for a bit.

I'm not sure when the next meeting will be but I'll announce it as soon as I know. Give me a couple of weeks at least.

In the meantime I have postponed/cancelled all the upcoming calendar dates.


Sorry about this, folks!

  - Jack

Technical details behind the scenes at Welly-moot

Nothing major to report right now. Our next meeting is coming up later this month, so expect an update for that soon.

Meanwhile I've been updating our website, mostly behind the scenes, and hopefully without anyone noticing. Really just future-proofing the automation behind the blog, to make sure all the robots still do the right thing. This post is a test of that, as much as anything. Twenty minutes after I post this, hopefully I'll have a big smile on my face - alternatively, I know I'll have more work to do.

In essence, it ensures that everyone can read this blog in whatever form they wish, and I just have to post it in one place. The available options can be found on our blog at http://www.welly-moot.com, and they take the form of those brown "wooden" buttons on the right. You can stay updated through the blog itself, facebook, twitter, the RSS feed, yes even Google+, and the mailing list.

The only one that has extra content is the facebook page where a few other people have posted things, or left comments.


PS - does anyone actually use Google+? I know I never check it without getting a notification first.

Tolkien Society UK announcement - Oxonmoot 2017

Just for the record - any members of the Welly-moot Tolkien group here in New Zealand are automatically invited to a lot of the annual events hosted by the UK Tolkien Society, including the Oxonmoot.

Oxonmoot is an annual event hosted by The Tolkien Society which brings together around 200 Tolkien fans, scholars, students and Society members from across the world. It has been held annually in Oxford since 1974 on a weekend close to Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday (22^nd September) and is the key event in the Society’s annual calendar – if you want to come to any Tolkien event, come to Oxonmoot.

For more details, check their website here:

https://www.tolkiensociety.org/events/oxonmoot-2017/


Let me know if you're interested in finding out more!

  - Jack

Welly-moot 5.4 report (brief), plus an announcement

On July 31st, we held the fourth Welly-moot of 2016, which ended up being a very pleasant afternoon. The theme of the day was the nature of life and death in Middle-earth, which ended up being a very lively discussion, and the coffee flowed freely.

I also announced my intentions to step down as the defacto president of the group by the end of the year. I've been running the show for the last six years (counting the Noldor days, aka the First Age). In that time we've organised a good number of events, had a lot of fun, and we have got a good little group going on. I'm taking a new direction in my life and want to step away from quite so much of the "All Tolkien, All The Time" that I've been doing for the last 13 or so years.

Don't get me wrong; I'll still be running LOTR tours at Rover Tours and Flat Earth Tours, and I'll still be attending Welly-moots - I just won't be involving myself so much in the running of it; the blogging, the event organising, and the networking. I'm also not extending the collection of LOTR Cool Stuff quite so much.


I'm feeling very positive about the changes ahead, and I know the Welly-moot will fare well without me at the helm.

There are various tasks that could be handed over. At the moot, Daniel offered to take some of them, and I suspect he could do with a helping hand in a few places. If you're keen to get involved, let me know, I'm sure many hands will make light work, and two heads are better than one, etc.

Anyway, more details on all this when it actually happens (end of the year!), in the meantime, it's time I announced the next meeting (next week Sunday!).

  - Jack

One Last "One Last Time" Time...? [Watch This Space!]

Exciting news! After some months of rumours, I can now confirm that Welly-moot is officially in talks to set up one last big Middle-earth event, here in Wellington! The event would take place in Miramar, at a well-known location, in the coming months.

I can't reveal much else right now, but can I suggest you all starts saving your pennies and patching your costumes one more time, since you won't want to miss this last-time-ever event.

Not only will this be a "last-time-ever" event, but if all goes well, Wellington will be the first in the world to host this.


Mysterious enough for you? :)



If you want to hear up-to-the-minute information on this as it comes to hand, get on our mailing list by sending an email to "mailinglist@welly-moot.com", with a subject of "Subscribe".

We're also on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, so no need to miss out anywhere!


  - Jack

Welly-moot Mailing List now active (testing phase)

I've managed to get a Mailing List thing working - if anyone's interested in getting an email everytime I post a blog entry here, please click on the picture of the envelope on the right hand side of every blog page.

As an aside, the other icons there also allow you to follow the blog in easy ways - follow us on Facebook, Twitter, RSS-Feed, or on Google+ as well; whatever is easiest for you. They all work.


The mailing list is still in "test" phase, but it should work ok. I've had a report saying that on some computers the resulting emails take a little while to open but I haven't been able to duplicate that yet (so more testers would be appreciated!).

I promise not to send loads of spam your way, and at the bottom of every message there's instructions on how to Unsubscribe again as well. Keep in mind it's all a manual system so I'll be adding and removing the entries myself, when I have time to do it (so please be patient with me!).

So, hit that magic envelope button! We have operators standing by!

  - Jack