SA Book & Challenge Lovers discussion

We revived this Group at the start of the year after a hiatus in 2019 and 2020 and we were so pleased to see group members joining in the various activities.

We need your comments and ideas to plan 2022.

Some questions we would like feedback on:

Too many or too few challenges?

If you participated in the challenges, which were your favourites and what format did you enjoy the most?

Book of the month: we had 4 people participate in reading any of the books of the month. Any ideas to increase that number would be very welcome.

What didn't we do that you would have liked to see?

Please share your ideas so that we can plan for 2022!

We had very few people joining the Books of the Month this year and are looking for ideas for 2022.

One option that has been mentioned is to create a "book pool". Essentially those who want to participate would nominate 3-5 books each. We will create a pool of all the books and people can read as many as they want from the pool over the period which we run it (could be 6 months, could be a year).

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. If you belong to a group with a great process to read books together which you would want us to consider, please send us these ideas.

Hi Carolien and other members, I would like to express my support for a pool of books for six months. I do think we should have some measure to limit the number of books, in order to ensure that as many different members read the same books. This would facilitate group discussions and sharing of different viewpoints. My firm proposal would be 3 books per member, to be added to a six month pool.

Carolien wrote: "We revived this Group at the start of the year after a hiatus in 2019 and 2020 and we were so pleased to see group members joining in the various activities.

We need your comments and ideas to pl..."

Some comment:
I do not think the number of challenges are too many. Three per quarter works out to less than 30 books, plus four (4/5) for the Word of the month and 1 for the book of the month (might change in future.) With overlaps I think this is manageable.

My favourites are the series challenge (any format) and the New Edition of the Scavenger Hunt.

I thought the badges from Lu was a wonderful idea, and we should try to implement it in future. Almal laaik mos 'n goue sterretjie (Everybody likes a golden star. Well, most people I should say.

My bit

Hi guys :)

I will have a think. Sorry I have been gone for so long.

I also want opinions on the Mishmash challenge please. We had it as 10 random tasks to complete this year like this:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I gave it a theme for the Q4 challenge.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

We also had seasonal challenges. The Winter one was a slightly expanded Mishmash format with a theme: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The Spring one has a different format: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Questions: Do you want both seasonal and mishmash challenges or should be use themes for the Mishmash and consolidate?

Which formats did you like?

Carolien wrote: "I also want opinions on the Mishmash challenge please. We had it as 10 random tasks to complete this year like this:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I g..."

I really enjoyed the format of the general and seasonal Mishmash challenges.

Hi, firstly, thank you to everyone that sets a challenge, give ideas and to the admins of the group. I appreciate how much time it must take and I really appreciate it. It made another horrible year bearable. When things got tough, I could plan what to read and enjoy participating in the challenges. At least one thing in this uncertain year I could control.

I support the idea of the book pool, it makes a lot of sense and we should get a variety of books that could provide something for everyone.

I like the various challenges, the standard ones e.g. A-Z title etc. and the fun quarterly challenges. I wouldn’t change anything. I especially liked the bingo challenge. I have one bingo left then I am done. Other fav is the serial killer challenge.

Thanks, Marlese!

I'll put up the thread for the book pool now and the Q1 challenges.