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

Welly-moot #6.4 will be held on July 30

Another meeting coming up, back at the Embassy. We're repeating the theme of last meeting - this time we'll actually get to it.

Reality vs Metaphor
In The Hobbit, the Rock Giants are portrayed as real in the films, but many believe they are just metaphors - what are are thoughts on this? And are there any other instances of this in the stories?

Rock Giants - are they real or did Bilbo imagine them?

So, if you're keen on a good fun afternoon with a bunch of fellow coffee drinkers and cake eaters, come join, and add your $0.02 worth to the discussion - or just come and sit back and enjoy the bun-slinging.

Usual time, usual place: 2:00pm, upstairs at the Embassy cafe. Entry is free and gives lifetime membership as a Welly-mooter, but bring money for coffee and cakes.

  - Jack & Alex

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.

Welly-moot #6.3 report - Forgot to discuss the theme. Oops.

The group met at the Embassy Cinema today, and although our intentions were to discuss the set theme of Reality vs Metaphor (were Bilbo's Rock Giants real or were they a metaphor for something entirely different?), in the end we kinda never got around to it. The discussion went a lot of different ways instead, everything from politics (VERY briefly), various educational models around the world, Bela Lugosi's role in early horror films, and yes, some Middle-earth.

The group was pretty relaxed about it all. Coffee was drunk, cake was demolished. Last week was Armageddon, so that was a nice catch-up since most people had been to it - Wellington's annual Sci-Fi and Fantasy convention at the Westpac Stadium. And speaking of Sci-Fi, the Wellington Sci-Fi group came and sat beside us in the cafe and started their monthly meeting as well. Looks like a good place to hold these things, I guess.


We'll be meeting again in a few months, perhaps we'll get around to the theme then! The silver lining of today's meeting - it's great to see that this is such a social event, and I hope it always stays that way.


Till next time!

Final date change - Welly-moot #6.3 will be held on June 11 (not June 4).

Due to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention Armageddon being held over the same weekend as our original Welly-moot scheduled meeting, we've decided to change our moot day to June the 11th.

Apart from the date change, we now also have a fun theme for the discussion:


Reality vs Metaphor
In The Hobbit, the Rock Giants are portrayed as real in the films, but many believe they are just metaphors - what are are thoughts on this? And are there any other instances of this in the stories?

Rock Giants - are they real or did Bilbo imagine them?

So, if you're keen on a good fun afternoon with a bunch of fellow coffee drinkers and cake eaters, come join, and add your $0.02 worth to the discussion - or just come and sit back and enjoy the bun-slinging.

Usual time, usual place: 2:00pm, upstairs at the Embassy cafe. Entry is free and gives lifetime membership as a Welly-mooter, but bring money for coffee and cakes.

Last night's Royd Tolkien charity event for MND(NZ) was a success!

Royd Tolkien talks about his brother Mike

Royd Tolkien's event at the Roxy Cinema last night was a great fun evening, with some very exciting auctioneering from Jed Brophy as well. The Roxy had put out a delicious spread of hors d'oeuvres, which were excellent as always.

The first part of the evening was basically a meet-and-greet with Royd and Jed, as well as with Wellingtonians Peter Hambleton (aka Gloin!), and prolific stuntman/suit actor Shane Rangi. Some speeches followed, where Beth Watson from MND NZ spoke about the disease, and Royd spoke about his brother Mike, and the challenge of his bucket list. The sobering speeches put the evening back into perspective.

Deep in the Woods, by Rieko Woodford-Robinson (2014)

 The auction began halfway through the evening, with the non-Hobbit/LOTR items. The crowd was pretty intent on spending money on this very deserving charity - the money will go to the support of people suffering from Motor Neurone Disease (aka ALS disease). Some very good prices were reached for the items. One of them, a gorgeous giclee print by Rieko Woodford-Robinson titled "Deep In The Woods" went for around the $1000 mark, much to the delight of Rieko herself.

Also under the hammer went a lovely bottle of wine, the last one made by Stefano Guidi, chief winemaker at Heron's Flight, before he was diagnosed with MND in May last year.





Three prints by Weta's artist Gino Acevedo were up next, and one of them was snapped up by Troy, who I had the pleasure to take on a tour to the Paths of the Dead a few weeks ago (aka, the Putangirua Pinnacles). Troy is travelling around New Zealand for a year, taking in as many LOTR locations as possible, so he was enjoying the evening especially!

"A tour for two people to THAT MAN over there" -Jed

The LOTR Tour for two people that my employer Rover Tours Group had sponsored went well - I didn't get to meet the lucky winner of that one, but I suspect I will soon.

Everybody seemed hungry for the big prize of the evening - the Orc Mask, which was not only worn by Royd Tolkien, but was molded from Shane Rangi's head. The bidding was fast and furious, especially since we knew there were some quite high overseas absentee bids already on the table. Sorry Kylie, it wasn't to be - the mask ended up going to Tom, from Weta Cave. He's pretty much changed his life around a number of times, just to live in Wellington, and is definitely one of the biggest LOTR fans I know, of both the movies and the books. I think he may be broke for some time though - the look on his face when he put in his final bid spoke volumes.

Well done, Tom, and everyone else who was successful (I wasn't!), and to all those who missed out; better luck next time!

Jack, Royd, and Alex

A big thank you goes out to Royd Tolkien, to his brother Mike Baker who spurred Royd on to complete this mission, to the organisers of the event, the people at MND (NZ), the good folk at Roxy, Weta, and the other sponsors. Last but not least, to the overseas bidders who certainly helped get those bids high - you may not have won your items but you helped all the same!

  - Jack