Who We Are 2001
The e-mail loop members quickly began to think of each other as a family of writers. With every family comes celebrations. Tracey Bateman became the ACRW Birthday Greeter. Those celebrating a birthday were announced to the loop and members were encouraged to send private e-mail greetings to the celebrant. It wasn’t unusual for a birthday person to find e-mail birthday wishes from almost everyone in ACRW.
On January 29, 2001, ACRW celebrated its first birthday. Membership had increased to 100. The organization’s prayer for 100 was answered sixteen days ahead of the target date of February 15. God was blessing ACRW.
As ACRW continued to grow so did the need for volunteer help. In March, Sandra Moore was selected as Webmaster of the new website. and in April, Rachel Hauck and Patty Hall agreed to co-host the Verse of the Week devotional feature. In July, DiAnn Mills and Sharon Dunn collaborated to start the ACRW Experts File-a website resource hat listed members’ areas of expertise. In September, Margaret Brooks agreed to take over as Crit Group Coordinator.
August brought ACRW’s first Book in a Week Challenge. Members were encouraged to sign up and write for an entire week without stopping to edit. The goal was to write a complete novel in seven days.
By October ACRW had increased its membership to 140 members and during the same month the Board held its first face-to-face board meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Attending were: President Lynn Coleman, Vice President Andrea Boeshaar, Treasurer DiAnn Mills, Brandilyn Collins, and member-at-large Tracie Peterson. Secretary Gail Martin was out of the country at the time. The main goal of the Board’s meeting was to set goals for ACRW’s future.
The Board discussed, defined, and decided upon the following topics:
- Incorporation
- Elections of Board - An Operating Board would be elected by members to preside over the day-to-day operations of ACRW.
- Formation of an Advisory Board that would not be elected.
- Membership Drive to get the word out about ACRW to Christian writers.
Incentives for published authors that would encourage them to join ACRW, including announcement of new book releases on the ACRW website and a Book of the Year contest. On October 26-27 the Second ACRW Regional Conference was held in Houston, TX. The conference was coordinated by DiAnn Mills. Keynoter Deb White Smith spoke on The Six Stages of a Writer. Other speakers included Becky Germany of Barbour Publishing, and ACRW’s DiAnn Mills and Lynn Coleman.
In November, the Board announced that ACRW’s first National Conference would be held in October 2002, in Kansas City, MO. Best-selling author Karen Kingsbury would keynote and member Dorothy Featherling would coordinate the event.
In late November 2001 nominations opened for positions on ACRW’s Operating Board.