Moot Report - Welly-moot #3.1 (Feb 23, 2014), short but sweet

Just came home from the Welly-moot this afternoon and, as we expected, it wasn't a huge meeting, but very productive. In the end, only six people attended - Alex & myself, regulars Martyn as well as Kumi, and two new members Sinead and Luke. A warm welcome to the new members; Sinead and Luke are young passionate filmmakers, who have recently come (back) from Australia, and are now living in Miramar itself.

[pic]: Jack, Luke & Sinead, and Kumi. Jack is wearing the new Welly-moot longsleeved t-shirt. Let me know if you're interested in getting one.

For today's meeting we didn't have a specific Tolkien theme, but I wanted to run a few administrative issues past the group to see what the general feeling was about the direction of the Welly-moot.


Don't worry - the low attendance this meeting was more likely due to the holiday season than lack of interest, so the actual future of the group is not in question.

Embassy or Roxy?

We discussed the meeting location - for the past few years we've been meeting at the Embassy. For various reasons I've been mulling over the Roxy as an alternative venue. We decided today that the next meeting could be held there as a trial run, to see if it suits our needs better. There will be a bigger announcement coming if we decide to go through with that decision.

[pic]: Kumi and Martyn

Riventroll

There is some tentative news about the Riventroll project. We have been working to get this project running for almost one and half years. We think we have found a potential local sponsor, and the project might be about to get started properly soon. We will keep you informed, especially any willing volunteers who want to support Kim & Warren in creating our Troll. More updates as they come to hand, but watch this space!

Another related project might be launched soon afterwards. If you've been to the Rivendell location in the Kaitoke Regional Park lately, you may have noticed a new structure there.

[pic]: "Which way is it, Gandalf? Mordor, is it left or right?" -Frodo

Over a year ago, when the RivenTroll project was being decided, we also looked into making other structures within the Rivendell area (the Troll will be just outside it, at the entrance). The meeting, which was held in the park itself,  was attended by representatives of the Wellington Greater Regional Council, the Welly-moot group (ie, me), and people from all the Wellington LOTR touring companies. It was agreed at the time that we could add appropriate structures into the area, and the first one is almost complete - the Entrance Gateway into Rivendell. A lot of the work on the structure was put in by Ted Guise from Movie Safari Tours, and the project was headed up by Nathan from the GWRC. It's not quite complete - it will still get a full elven look - but the structure itself is there, and it's in a photographable state.

Eventually, we hope to put other structures into place as well - Frodo's Bedroom, or Elrond's Study, or even just certain garden features. Since the area is in a publicly accessible corner of the open park, it was decided by all that there would be no company names logos on any of the structures, but would be gifted to the park. It's a very exciting project, and I'm proud to say I'm part of it all!

Extended Ultra Marathons

Welly-moot wants to be the first group in the world to watch the Hobbit Marathon, later this year. Hopefully we can convince the Roxy to show Hobbit 1 and Hobbit 2 before the premiere of Hobbit 3, so we can watch them all in a row. As an extra goal, we'd be keen to wath all SIX movies in a row, and if we achieve this, we can be the first people in the world to do so (nice being this close to the dateline, eh?).

With that in mind, there's another potential "first" coming up late in 2015 - the Extended Ultra-Marathon. This would be at the release of the last Extended Edition of the 3rd Hobbit movie, so we would be watching a VERY long Middle-earth saga. LOTR is now 11 and a half hours long, and the first Hobbit movie is alread 3 and a quarter hours, so extrapolating that would make it some 21 hours long, hopefully all in a single sitting. It will be a one-off event, and we still have to convince a cinema to screen them all in a row, but it's the only chance we'll have to do it first. Wellington SHOULD be first, I think. :)

We had some discussion about this, potentially at the Roxy, since the Embassy seemed unwilling to do anything for us last year. We could potentially organise a Welly-moot event gaining support by collaborating with the Roxy and/or the Red Carpet Tours, who hosted a very succesful Hobbit 2 party at the Roxy last year. This year will be the last movie, so we don’t want miss any opportunities.

Leave a comment, here or on Facebook, with your thoughts about this, and let’s talk about it more at the next Welly-moot!

Welly-moot Mailing List

I'm in the process of setting up a Welly-moot Mailing list so you can receive any update from Welly-moot directly into your email address. That will be handy, and has been requested by a few people. I will update here as it happens.

Weta Digital Presentation

While not related to Welly-moot, I was reminded that for the Wellington Writer's Week festival coming up next week there will be a talk on The Hobbit's Smaug by members of Weta Digital, entitled  “WETA Digital Presents the Desolation of Smaug". The talk will be an hour long, will cost $18 to attend, and will be held at the Embassy on Saturday the 8th of March. Sounds exciting! Details on their website. Let us know if you go/how it went.

Next Meeting

We also agreed on the topic for next meeting; "When and why does Saruman go to the dark side?". Speaking of the Dark Side, the meeting will appropriately be held on International Star Wars day, May the 4th ("be with you").

As a secondary topic, both Tauriel and Radagast were picked as interesting characters that we might want to discuss also, so get watching the movies for Tauriel and Radagast, and start reading the Unfinished Tales for Saruman's Untergang!

Full details will be posted on this blog later, but expect the next moot at the Roxy, on May 4th, 2014.

See you there!

Headsup: First Welly-moot of 2014 coming up February 23 - next weekend!

Look sharp everyone, the first meeting of 2014 is almost upon us. I've got a few announcements and updates to talk about, and would like to talk to people about a few directional issues of the group. Nothing stressful, I just want to discuss a few items to make sure we're all on the same wavelength.

The meeting will be held at the usual place - at 2:00pm, upstairs in the cafe at the Embassy. All welcome, including new members, so spread the word!

Free as usual, but bring money for coffee (from the cafe).


  - Jack

Welly-moot 2.2 (April 28th, 2013) - Dual Themes

We had our second meeting this year, on Sunday, 28th of April. All the regular members attended: Jack, Alex, Kris, Martin, Ash, Cinnamon, Ben, Iain, Ryan and Jennifer with Hawk, Annabel, Kumi, and one new visitor; Kate from Germany.


We started with Jack opening the moot. He mentioned two projects; Mt Tolkien (the renaming of the mountain in South Island) and Riventroll (a statue in Rivendell (Kaitoke Regional Park)). Unfortunately the naming of Mt Tolkien was not successful at this time. However, we will continue to try to rename a New Zealand feature officially – we might be able to do some local renaming (perhaps formalise Rivendell). We will keep everyone informed. Regarding the Troll statue, we have applied for the Art Grant from Creative Wellington NZ for Riventroll’s funding. We are still waiting for the contract from them in the end of May. Fingers crossed!

Some updates from the members; Cinnamon showed us the photo of herself with a large group of the Hobbit’s cast, including Sylvester McCoy (Radagast), Stephen Hunter (Bombur), Dean O’Gorman (Fili), from this year’s Supanova in Brisbane, Australia.

Welly-moot member and jeweller Annabel has finished creating a gorgeous badge for our group. The introductory price for members at the meeting was $16, and it will shortly be available on our website for $20 (not including P&P). An announcement for that will be made soon.

Another great piece of news is that local LOTR touring company Wellington Rover Tours has granted us a special discount of 50% off for Lord of the Ring Full-day Tours for Welly-moot members. At this stage the discount will go all winter, so book in over the next few months. Send Jack a message and he can arrange the tour at the special price.

So, come and join our Welly-moot meetings, and enjoy this VERY special deal! Ben will be the first of our members to enjoy this, as he's booked in later this week. Hopefully we can get him to write a quick update about it afterwards.

Some other news:

• Tolkien’s new book will be published in May 2013 (The Fall of Arthur).
• Armageddon in Wellington on 1 - 3 June 2013. Annabel will have a stand, and we may be able to get representation there as well. More news as it comes to hand.
• Kim’s Dragon is at Shelly Bay at this moment if you want to see it.
• Two members of the Chilean Tolkien Society are coming to Wellington, and will take Jack’s tour with Ben. This report will post soon! (their site in "Google English" via Google Translate)

Kate mentioned that a German Sword Trainer is coming to Auckland in May. She suggested if we have enough people we can have the workshop in Wellington as well. However it was too short notice and we didn’t have enough time or resources to prepare for this. Hopefully in the future we may have another opportunity like this.

The Themes:

Finally, it was time for our discussions. The main topics were “What is your favourite part in Hobbit book?” and “Tolkien’s other tales and short stories”. To allow for a more active discussion, we divided the groups into two smaller circles and we had exciting, and fun discussions, with appropriately high geek-levels.

Theme 1 – What is your favourite part in The Hobbit?

A lot of people liked the moment where the Dwarves come Bilbo’s place, because it is so funny. Alex likes Gandalf and Bilbo’s first encounter – Gandalf said “What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that…..”. It is a very “unexpected” reply, and from this conversation onwards, unexpected incidents happen continuously to Bilbo, which is one of the main elements.

Part of the group - Martyn on the left, Cinamon and Ash at the top. (that's Kate's arm to the right, and Kris's head at the bottom)

Kris read the part of the book with her nice low tone to make people concentrate even harder. Even young Hawk was completely drawn in...

Theme 2 -Tolkien’s other tales and short stories

In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. (Wikipedia) – Alex did her home work

• The Father Christmas Letters - annual christmas letters from Father Christmas for his children
• Mr. Bliss
• Roverandom
• Smith of Wootton Major ( Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium)
• Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf)
• On Fairy-Stories (part of Tree and Leaf)
• The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
• Farmer Giles of Ham

Kris recommends “Roverandom”; it is easy, shorter, and fun. We agreed that the stories have fairytales, giants, wizards, dog which talks, magic, etc, and it is not only children but adults can enjoy these stories. Other opinions are that adults tend to analyse the stories but children don’t and they just accept them and enjoy them. Why shall we not enjoy them rather than analysing or criticising? Overall it was fun discussion and we will do it again.

Ben, Ryan and Jack debated whether the shorter stories could be interpreted as being fairytales told within Middle-earth by its own denizens – potentially a post “war-of-the-Ring” Middle-earth, long after the elves are all but forgotten. Certainly Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major could be read as such, while Leaf By Niggle is more of a “meta” work, a story that perhaps describes how the other stories came about.

Ben on the left, then Ryan & Hawk, Jenifer, Annabel, and Jack at the bottom (wearing the Finnish Tolkien Society's t-shirt)

An interesting point arose when sympathy was expressed for both Tolkien as well as for Peter Jackson, who have both described originally as creating their works for themselves, but have later also both said that the can’t read/watch them again (references?). Iain suggested that this echoed Frodo’s predicament in saving the shire, but finding himself unable to stay there afterwards. Interesting.

Welly-moot this year

We are based in Wellington NZ and so, will most likely have great opportunities to get involved locally especially next a couple of years because of the Hobbit 2 & 3.

• Welly-moot will be actively looking to join any event and hopefully won’t miss any opportunities! Because of that, we want to organise Welly-moot parties in December 2013 and 2014.
• Movie marathon – LOTR 1, 2, 3 and Hobbit 1 at Embassy Theatre before Hobbit 2 would be great idea. Jack will look into this in before the next meeting.
• We will invite people from in film industry in Wellington to our meetings.

As Jack was too busy talking to others, the meeting was closed by Kris and Alex. The next meeting will be on Sunday 14 July 2:00pm. We usually have meeting every two months, however this June, Jack and Alex are going to Japan, where they might be able to visit Tolkien Society in Japan! Expect a report if this ends up happening!

We will keep everyone informed on this website when any activities we will do. All posts here are automatically placed on our Facebook page as well as on our Twitter account.


  - Alex

Welly-moot 2.1 (Feb 24, 2013) - All about Tolkien

A great meeting on Sunday - an almost record number of people turned up - 19 in all! Especially good since we hadn't done anything other than announced it on this blog (which automatically posts to Twitter, Facebook and Google+). So, apparently you guys are all watching then! Always good to know!


The meeting started with a welcome message from me to the first Welly-moot of 2013.

From far left/top, clockwise - new member Annabel; Charlene; Miranda; new member Elliot; Wayne; new member Karena; Kris; Jenifer; (and in front, backs turned) Alex; Kumi, new member Ben, and Mervi

We have several new guests; Annabel and Elliot joined us today - I met both of them a week before, at the Weta Cave while I was showing a group around on a tour. Annabel is a jewelery designer who has created some beautiful pieces for her Doctor Who passion, as well as recently a badge for Weta Workshop's Doctor Grordbort Range. Elliot is currently studying digital animation and SFX, among other things.

I had handed Annabel a Welly-moot card in the hope they might both make it for the moot, so that went well! What I hadn't anticipated was that she liked our logo so much she made a badge out of it!

Welly-moot Bronze Lapel Pin

I will talk to Annabel further about this - I'm very keen to be able to offer our members the chance to buy this - you'll be supporting a very talented artist! Can everyone drop me a message if you're keen on buying a badge - they'll be in the vicinity of $10-$20 each, depending on final design and number of orders, I suspect.

Ben also attended for the first time, he's from Christchurch originally, and has decided to make Wellington his new home. Ben has also done some papers with Corey Olsen, aka the Tolkien Professor, so it sounds like we have another hardcore Tolkien fan!

Finally, Karena also joined us, from France. Karena had been on a tour with me the day before, and had taken me up on my invitation. I suspect Karena won't join us again since she's only in NZ for a short time, but it was very nice to have you with us, all the same!

Also with us for her last meeting was Mervi, who will have to return to Finland again shortly, after her extended stay in New Zealand. We will all be very sad to see her go, but at least she has another Tolkien group to return to - Suomen Tolkien-seura Kontu ry. Mervi gave me a present from her group - a beautiful T-shirt with "Hobbit" written in Suomi and in Runes. Thank you - I shall wear it with pride!

From far left/top, counterclockwise - Ryan; Jenifer; Kris; (in front) Karena; Wayne; Elliot; Miranda; Charlene; Annabel; Martyn; Mervi; Ben; Kumi; Alex. The empty seat is mine (-Jack). Missing here are Adam, who was getting another coffee; and Hawk and Annabel's two girls (separate table - their discussion was about whether boys can wear tutus or not).

Next on the agenda was to discuss the two projects we're currently working on - the naming of Mount Tolkien is awaiting me to write a letter to the Geographic Board to let them know of the Tolkien Society's support for the proposal. I shall finish that by next moot, so an update on that then.

The big project is still the Stone Troll project out by Rivendell in the Upper Hutt Kaitoke Regional Park. We're referring to the beastie as Riventroll. Currently we're spending an astounding number of hours into filling in an Arts Council Grant application form, and that should all be done (and handed in!) by the end of this week. After that, we can relax a little!


Finally then, we got onto the main theme for the day - "It’s All about Professor Tolkien". Kris brought some beautiful books and introduced the drawings and pictures by Professor Tolkien and shared them with the group. Hobbiton, Rivendell, the Eagles, Smaug the Dragon, and the Lonely Mountain all were drawn by Tolkien. Kris also had a lovely postcard from a valley in Switzerland that looked remarkably like Rivendell. Apparently Tolkien had stayed in the valley, and the inspiration does seem to match. It also looked very much like Ted Nasmith's version of Rivendell.

It was also remarked by a few people that the Lonely Mountain looked somewhat like Mount Taranaki in New Zealand's North Island.




The discussion went to Tolkien's languages, and how it all begun with his love for them. There are some noted similarities between Quenya and the Finnish tongue, as well as between Sindarin and the Welsh language. We consulted with our resident Welshman, Martyn on this, and with our Fin Mervi.




A quick poll was taken also - had everyone read LOTR and Hobbit? Of the 16 adults, 15 had read The Hobbit, and 12 had read LOTR. I thought we'd also asked Silmarillion readers but I can't find the statistic for that right now.


As we rounded the afternoon's discussion off, Kris wanted to know if anyone had ideas for future meetings. Here are a couple:

• Tolkien's short stories
• Tolkien's theology (and his academic writings)
• Middle-earth cuisine

Please let us know any other ideas you may have.



That concluded the first meeting for 2013 - if this one was anything to go by, it should be a cracker year!

  - Jack

Welly-moot 1.6 (Dec 29, 2012) - International Lunch

For Welly-moot 1.6, the last meeting of 2021, we enjoyed a shared international lunch at Jack & Alex’s place. We had asked for members to bring food from their own countries, and so, the yummy meals and desserts came from seven different nationalities. A big thank you to everyone who brought nice meals, especially thanks to Noei who brought three different Thai meals and thanks to Alex for preparing and organising this occasion.

A selection of the food. All of it was great!

We enjoyed the meal as much as the discussion on “Hobbit: Unexpected Journey”. Noei has seen the movie the most times, five times both in 2D and 3D formats. She gave us her views, and we talked about the difference between 2D and 3D, and 24fps and 48fps.

Comparing the story of The Hobbit movie with the original book, we were impressed and enjoyed Sir Peter Jackson’s Hobbit. The original story is of course only a single book, and aimed at children. Peter Jackson has expanded the story by inserted some characters into the mix, like Radagast the Brown, who is not in the original Hobbit book (but is in LOTR). We were also surprised at how rabbits were so useful for escaping from Wargs...


We went around the room for everyone’s favourite characters. Thorin, Gollum, Gandalf, Balin, Nori, Kili, or even “all of them” were mentioned. Unlike in the book, all of Jackson’s thirteen Dwarves have distinct characters and their hair styles and faces are well-designed, and easy to distinguish from one another. One comment came back - the ladies like Thorin (Richard Armitage) because he is good looking, of course :)

(Most of) the group - Counter-clockwise starting at Bilbo (yes, we listened to the soundtrack) - Hanne, Warren, Kris, Noei, Ryan, Jennifer, Hawk, Mrs & Mr Rasmussen, Heike, and Jack. Missing: Alex (photographer), Erika (getting more food, probably)

Both Heike and Alex mentioned the scene where Bilbo encounters Gollum for the first time in the cave, where Gollum is talking to himself and tells himself to “Shut up”. The group really liked Andy Serkis’ performance of Gollum. Gollum looks younger, and is both more evil but also more childlike at the same time. Andy Serkis (and the digital team behind him!) did a great job of the physical and virtual performance of Gollum.

Lastly, we discussed our expectations for the second Hobbit movie - The Desolation of Smaug. Some of the Welly-moot’s members are Extras in the Hobbit movies, and they are expecting they will be in next movie. One of the most anticipated creatures is Smaug. We can’t wait to see more of him, and expect that we will finally see the whole Smaug in action!

Plans for the group in 2013

We will gather as usual every two months. The first meeting will be on 24 February 2013. We will keep informed in this website (and via the usual Facebook and Twitter etc).

The big project this year will be “Riventroll”. We will set up a separate website for this project and start fundraising in 2013. We will keep everyone informed.

The other project we’re going to try and get involved in is the “Mount Tolkien” project that was begun by Aaron Nicholson from Manapouri in Southland. The group is right behind him in his efforts to honour Tolkien with his own New Zealand mountain. The mountain is currently (officially) unnamed, so this is not before its time!

Two minor but significant events this year - the DVD/Blu-ray release of “Hobbit 1” will be along shortly, and hopefully there will be Extended Releases, like LOTR’s.

And of course December 2013 will be another Hobbit Release month, so there will be lots of excitement again for that. Stay updated by following the blog, our the Facebook, or the Twitter feed. Subscribe so the information comes to you and you don’t have to go searching for it every time.

2012 - the year in (brief) review

The year 2012 has been extremely successful year for Welly-moot. It was our first official year. It was the year we became officially affiliated with the UK’s Tolkien Society. We now have official T-shirts, a Welly-moot banner, the committee members have business cards, and there's even a rubber stamp!


We had 6 great meetings, hosted some fantastic guests, and discussed Tolkienish background information. We lined up for Premiere Tickets, almost missed out, got saved by Sir Peter Jackson himself, then attended the Hobbit Premiere, had the World’s Best Ever Second Breakfast on a Red Carpet, and finally watched the world’s first showing of The Hobbit movie.

We have been visited by other Tolkien Society members from overseas groups, as well as individuals who were previously not part of any other Tolkien groups.

So a great big “Thank You” to all the great members of Welly-moot who made it all happen this past year, with all your good conversation, your amazing knowledge, and all your unbridled enthusiasm!

Also a big “Thank You” also to all our friends, our wonderful visitors, and to all the organisations who helped when we needed a hand, with a special thank you going out to Sarah Meikle and Helen Player from Absolutely Wellington Tourism, for all their help in getting us into the first screening of the movie, and for providing all those goodies, both on the red carpet, as well as at the Cinema later.

And of course to Sir Peter, Matt Dravitzki, and the entire team for taking us to Middle-earth one more time!

Now let 2013 begin!

Welly-moot 1.5: Trolls

Last Sunday we had the fifth Welly-moot meeting of this year. We started with a welcome from Jack, who also shared updates on projects, general news, and introduced three Riventrolls.

Kim Beaton with an earlier project on the left - the three "mini-trolls" on the right.

The Troll project Jack and Alex are working on has been progressing nicely. Jack brought with him three original trolls maquettes made by the our sculptor Kim, and designed by her husband Warren. Jack will set up the website for this project to start fundraising as soon as possible. We will update any progress as it happens. ((Jack: Don't expect too much before the premiere!))

The group discusses Trolls

The most exciting topic is of course the Hobbit premiere. It is less than a month now! The plan is that on the morning of Premiere Day (November 28), Welly-mooters will make their way towards the the Weta Tripod (across the road from the Embassy Theatre ) for a picnic. We will have banners, and members will wear "Welly-moot" T-shirts, so people can find us. We are looking forward to meeting a lot of people from all over the world! There will be a full agenda posted here as soon as it's finalised, but that's the gist of it. If anyone has a cool flag, please bring it, and send me a photo so I can post it here for people to recognise on the day. I'll be bringing a Rohan flag, hopefully.


Related with the premiere, are some other events. One exciting party is the Hobbit Costume Party by Red Carpet Tours on 26 November Monday at Amora Hotel ($125 / person). And there are some other parties in the town on the same week of the premiere. The Youth Hostel (YHA) will be hosting a party as well, and I'm trying to find out if they will accept non-YHA guests at that event. More details as they come to hand!


The first 'Hobbit' movie will start showing from 13 December and the tickets will start selling on 7 November at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington and internet. Of course we want to have midnight-session tickets if there are any, however there will be distinct possibility that the tickets for 13 December will be sold out via the internet before the office opens at 9.00am on 7 November. We'd like "real" paper tickets, of course! For the Hobbit collections later!

So, Jack has spoken to Elly, the manager of the Embassy Theatre to please open the Box Office at midnight as well and if they receive enough requests to sell the tickets at midnight on 7 November, they will open the office at midnight. We're VERY happy to be there at midnight (12:01am, Nov 7th)

Elly has made her email address available, so please send your request to the Embassy Theatre as soon as possible!


Our new members, Ash and Cinnamon are big fans of the 'Lord of the Rings' and enjoyed talking about Tolkien's world and hearing related news. Originally they met Jack through one of his tours, and are living locally.

Ash, Cinnamon, Charlene, Hanne, Iain, and Jack

Hanne from Norway visiting NZ mentioned that in Norway they have sold the tickets of 'Hobbit' already, although they have been told off by the studio, and have ceased for now! One theatre has 15 screens to show 'The Hobbit' on 13 December. Amazing!

Ayako and Maki joined our meeting from Palmerston North. They have the passion for 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'Hobbit', and drove a four hour trip to join us again. It was great to catch up with them.

Jack, Ayako, and Maki examine the Trolls

Special visitor, Ken, stopped by and say hello and join our meeting. Ken was an extra on The Hobbit, and it was great to meet him.

The regular member; Martin, Iain, Charlene, and Miranda discussed news and topics. Jack and Martyn debated the merits and demerits of Peter Jackson making the Trolls speak, as per the book (the outcome of that particular debate is as yet undecided).

Kris and Kumi bought offered apologies - Kris was still on holiday, while Kumi is busy studying for her final exams.

It was another fun meeting for the members and visitors. The premiere is getting closer and is becoming a focal point for the meetings at the moment. This most exciting event this year will start soon!


So to recap - there will be a Welly-moot picnic on Premiere Day (November 28), at 10:00am, underneath the Tripod (or closeby, depending on the crowds). More details will be announced soon, including pictures of banners and flags to look for on the day, so you can find us. Everyone (including non-wellymooters!) will be welcome - bring a plate though!



- Report by Alex, posted by Jack