Heads up - welly-moot tomorrow!

Just a quick reminder - the next Wellington Tolkien Society meeting, Welly-moot #3.2, will be held tomorrow, Sunday the 4th of May, at the ROXY CINEMA, not at the Embassy Cinema.

The theme will be "when does Saruman go to the dark side?".

The meeting will start at 2:00pm. Bring money for coffee from the roxy's cafe. Hope to see you all there!

  - Jack

Next moot one month away... May 4th 2014

The next Welly-moot (#3.2) will be held on May the 4th this year (Star Wars day!), and we'll be talking about that Sith Istari, Saruman the White. Specifically, when does Saruman go to the dark side? Is it when he captures Gandalf? Or when he first starts using the Palantir of Orthanc? Or does it happen much, much earlier - some say he gets jealous when Gandalf (his subordinate!) gets the Narya, the Ring of Fire from Cirdan the Shipwright.

What do you think? Come and join us for another afternoon of in-depth Tolkien based discussion (or George Lucas; sometimes we go offtrack a little).


NB - This meeting will be held at the Roxy Cinema in Mirama; NOT at the usual venue of the Embassy in Courteny Place.

The time will remain at 2:00pm. The meeting is expected to finish around 5:00pm.

Membership is still free (but bring money for coffee at the Roxy Cafe), all you have to do is attend one meeting!

  - Jack

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 2.6 (Dec 29, 2013) - Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!

On the last Sunday of 2013, we opened our house once again to the Tolkien group for our end-of-year get-together. The theme for the meeting, if there was one at all, was the second Hobbit movie; The Desolation Of Smaug. By now everyone'd had a chance to see it, so any and all spoilers were totally permissable.

People started arriving around 11:00am. Appropriately, Adam was the first man to arrive, but all in all it was quite a merry gathering, with fifteen of us physically present, plus another three virtually (via Skype); Jack & Alex (the hosts), Kris, Wayne & Hilary, with Terry, Ash & Cinnamon, Kumi, Adam, Emily & Richard, Kim & Warren, Annabel, and Jennifer & Ryan with young Hawk via Skype from the USA. We hadn't met Emily's friend Richard yet, and Wayne & Hilary brought the Tolkien loving Terry with them.

Overall, it was a great way to catch up with everyone, and say goodbye to 2013, which had brought us the second Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug. Everybody had seen it, and it was discussed in great detail. I won't pretend we came to any sort of conclusion, but that's always been part of the enjoyment of Tolkien - it means different things to different people, including to Peter Jackson, apparently.


The lunch was brought out - a lot of effort had gone into the dishes from everyone - thanks to all who slavered over the hot stoves! We all appreciated it!

As always, click on the pics for higher resolution. If you don't see any pics, it's probably because you're reading this on facebook. You need to come to the blog welly-moot.com instead.

That's Kim's hands cutting into the gorgeous Smörgåstårta (Scandinavian Sandwich-Cake), a recipe from Weta's Magnus Hjerte. It tasted terrific, and didn't last long enough, I thought.

Nibbles galore, freshly baked breads, pasta salads, and in the bottom right in the picture, Kumi's Sushi.

Special mention : Warren & Kim brought these great tasting biscuits, shaped like a certain other Dragon, currently residing in the Wellington Zoo.

Ash starting the dessert, while Adam contemplates another Mead.

Terry and Wayne engrossed in Kim's views on Hobbit 2:DoS. She seems to be speaking in sign-language though. (Emily on the right).

Hilary and Kumi deep in conversation. Warren deep in chocolate brownie-heaven.

Me (Jack) enjoying Kris' Mead. Very nice it was, too! Adam looks like he already enjoyed a few there (actually, he just blinked at an inopportune time). Cinnamon destroys a cupcake.

At some point in the afternoon, the party split into two groups - almost all the boys went downstairs, to the mancave, while almost all the girls stayed upstairs. We hadn't intended to break away for more than a few minutes, but the girls kept bringing us food down there. Almost... like they were encouraging us to stay... longer...? Surely not!

"To the batcave, men!". Warren in the red shirt, then Richard, Adam, and Terry. I think that's me with the iPad on the left.

I should point out that Cinnamon was honorary man for the afternoon, and joined us for an in-depth geek-out in the Tolkien-themed room I keep hidden down there.


What a great way to end the year! And looking forward to the rest of 2014, which will bring the last movie set in Middle-earth.


The next Welly-moot will be on February the 23rd, where we will discuss all the things we were supposed to discuss this time around but were too busy stuffing our faces. Normal time and place (2:00pm at the Embassy Cinema, upstairs in the cafe).

  - Jack

Dec 29: Welly-moot 2.6 - last moot of 2013

The last Welly-moot of 2013 will be held on the last Sunday of 2013, December the 29th. Unlike most moots, this meeting will NOT be held at the Embassy. Like list year, Alex and I (Jack) are hosting the meeting at our home. As such we're not taking in new members for this moot, but it might be nice to catch up with regulars in our lounge for a shared lunch.

So, if you're currently a member of Welly-moot, and want to come and join us for a friendly get-together, send me an email and I'll reply with the address. If you're not sure if you're a member, email me anyway. :)

My email address is "jack@welly-moot.com".


We're aiming for a "bring a plate" lunch, so please bring something to share. Last year we had mostly desserts, (which wasn't a big problem), but mains would be most appreciated as well!


Details of the lunch:

• Arrive here at around 11:00am
• Lunch will be served around 12:30pm
• Finish around 4:00pm

The theme, if there is one at all, will be the obvious one: "what did you think of the second installment in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy".


Please email me with your intentions!

  - Jack

Welly-moot visits Stansborough

Peter Kenny visited us today from Brisbane, Australia. He was in Wellington for a few Hobbit 2:DOS events, and I had arranged to take him to Stansborough Fabrics, the people who created the fabric for Gandalf's cloak, as well as the Elven cloaks used in LOTR.


To get us there, I managed to convince Wellington Rover Tours to lend a hand, and they provided me with a van for the afternoon. Peter Kenny will be coming on one of the LOTR tours over the weekend as well.

 
In fact, Stansborough created far more than just a bit of fabric for LOTR. Think: over one kilometer of fabric for LOTR; enormous amounts for The Hobbit movies, more for Avatar, Narnia, The Waterhorse, Thirty Days of Night, and a whole lot of other movies.

A few scarves with different colours weaving patterns.

We arrived as a small group - it was just me (Jack), Peter Kenny, Franziska, and Adam, and Kris joined us as well. When we got to the factory, Cheryl Eldridge met us at the door, and took us into the small shop area. Through the window we could see the enormous looms already.

Cheryl explains some of the finer point of the machinery

Cheryl described how the factory came to be, from breeding these odd looking grey sheep, to finding the old looms, to searching for people who had the almost lost knowledge to use them (and fix them when they break)!
 

This loom is set up with the LOTR Hobbit pattern, ready to go.

Barry took over the tour, and showed us what he was working on. All items are created by hand, and apart from some mechanical tools, no modern machinery is involved in the process at any stage. It's nice to know that when you see the final product on screen, I think. The looms are over 100 years old at the stage.

Barry making hats for a certain wizard. Note what SECRET ingredient he's using!

After seeing how the hats were made, it was Richard's turn - to show us the looms in operation. Incredibly noisy, I tried to film a bit of it but got too close, and Richard shut them off, as apparently (and only occasionally) the little shuttle can shoot off and kill the closest camera person. I'm not sure if he was kidding but took him at his word!

Richard looks calm, while the loom has become a blur of action. Peter looks on and seems impressed!

All in all, a great afternoon - I think everyone enjoyed seeing the factory in action!

Franziska looks like she had a good time.

Stansborough has an online shop as well, where a lot of products are offered for sale. Check them out, they ship to most countries.