Wild n Free: All the fun of Mayfair ... Post 1

All the Fun of the Mayfair

I am still smiling after finally meeting over half of the talented young authors in the Wild n Free Book! We met at Mayfair Library in London yesterday to celebrate our special book and what a great time we had. I will be posting this week as I get more photos hopefully, but I thought I would kick it off today while it's still buzzing happily in my head :)

Mayfair Library, London

The event took place in the fabulous library in the large events room upstairs -- a great venue! I roped in the whole family (as you do!) and we arrived about 10 and luckily the nice people there let us in early to set up.

The Events Room

We were set to start at 11 but it was nice so many arrived early so there was time to meet n greet! I set up a table as people came in, lots of hugs with these fab children! All the authors/artists were given a name badge and I got my book signed by them all and then encouraged everyone to get their books signed by their fellow authors too!

We had a raffle for Born Free and a few books for sale as well. Jen from Born Free was there to talk to people too and sign up children for the WildcreW Club! By the way the raffle made £25 for Born Free! Thank you all :)

It was a great time to mingle and get some free bickies and drink before we started the readings. Some of the artwork was on display and a message board about the 14 children that couldn't come along -- so their presence was felt, and missed :(

I gave a little talk about Born Free and Paws n Claws and how I am on a mission to get more and more children to enter the competition and raise awareness about wildlife and conservation.

Then in turn our fab authors came to the front where I asked them some questions and introduced them before they each gave a short reading (about a minute) from their stories. And they got a lollipop for their efforts (no expense spared!) We did it alphabetically per age group and we also had a few words from Gill James and Julie-Ann Corrigan our first round author judges who explained a little more about the judging process and how good all the stories were.

Everyone did so well as I know how scary it can be reading, but they were great-- made me feel very proud :)

When the readings were finished we went outside to the lovely secluded park next to the library and took a group photo -- see below.

Then we had more mingling and book signing before we drew the raffle, thanked everyone -- Jen from Born Free, judges, artists who helped us, my family and the biggest cheer had to be for the children! We hope this is the beginning not only of future writing careers but friendships as I know some exchanged emails. So I do hope this acts as a catalyst and I hope everyone stays in contact with me as well as I want to build on this.

I especially want to thank those that travelled from as far as Scotland, North Wales ... even France for the event.

If anyone wants to post their experiences or add photos and tell us about your day at the event, email me and I'll invite you as a guest Blogger.

Here are some photos ... More to follow in the week .. these are years 5 and 6:

Charlotte Ash (Runner-up)