Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Plans! This is what happens when I have some time on my hands :0

Good day to you all! I've been monitoring our little Advent Book Club poll, and have of course read over and considered all of your comments. I've also been dwelling over my return to the Tea Time podcast, and how this can tie in the seasonal book clubs I'd like to regularly do. I have some ideas! Grab your cup of coffee and let's chat. :)


So, this time away from podcasting has been good for me. The freed up availability led to a lot less stress for me during the crazy part of my semester, and it allowed me to think about what I'd like to do going forward. I was also able to devote time to a longer post each week, which I LOVED!

I think what I'd like to do moving forward is have Tea Time be a weekly, but seasonal podcast, like I mentioned in our last episode.The seasons would be for Advent, Lent, and summer Ordinary Time (June through August) each year. Looking at my weekly schedule in terms of my job and home life responsibilities, doing more than that is not what God is recommending to me right now. ;-) I think this is a fun, very liturgical calendar-driven approach, which makes perfect sense given the theme of this blog.

When I took a hiatus from Tea Time, I knew it would be back in some sort of seasonal format, but I wasn't sure how I would structure the episodes. I had added some features following the 100th episode (What's Happening, On My BookShelf, Prayer Corner, The Creative Commons), but besides What's Happening, I cover the other issues regularly over in the blog Facebook group. Having tea together lends itself to the What's Happening segment, to be sure, and I think what I will do is keep that, and then add in a seasonal special, depending on which season we're in. For Advent and Lent, that can be a book club. In the summer, I'm not sure. I may do a series on the saints, or Marian apparitions, or something like that, we can decide ahead of time! But doesn't that sound fun?

As well, adding the book clubs into Tea Time solves our dilemma about where to host the club. Many of you preferred the Facebook group for book club discussion, but a few others aren't on Facebook or otherwise would prefer to discuss it back at the blog. So here is our perfect solution:

Each week, I will discuss my thoughts on the book during Tea Time. If you're averse to Facebook, you can comment right on that post, and I and others will respond to you and get a conversation going over here. :) I will also post a thread weekly following the podcast in our private Facebook group. Then our little community over there can discuss the book in that forum as well. This way, everybody has a place to participate!

What do you all think? Once the poll closes for our book voting period (so far, the leading contender is the fiction choice, The Christmas Quilt), we can set up a schedule for reading. I may start up the week before Advent begins, a pre-Advent/preparation episode. :) Plus that gives us an additional week to read the book. Voting closes on Monday!

Thoughts? I'm super excited, y'all!

6 comments:

  1. The podcast/book club plan sounds like a good one to me. Looking forward to finding out what book has won the poll.

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  2. I like the idea of putting the bookclub in the podcast. Sometimes I prefer listening to someone talk about the book and then comment later on than reading. I like that we now have the fb group to chat as well. A lot of podcasts are going to a "season" format where they podcast for like 10 weeks and then take a few weeks off and podcast for another 10 weeks.

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    1. Thanks Beth Anne! I agree, talking about the book just feels natural to me. And Tea Time isn't a long podcast - under 30 minutes. So it should be accessible for everyone to listen to who would like to participate!

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