Young Stationers' Prize, Bride's to Brighton Cycle, and Tuesday's Publishing Event in Oxford

[Pádraig Belton]

Dear Young Stationers and Bursary Recipients,

 Hullo, and just a few very quick notes - about our Oxford publishing event on Tuesday, our Bride's-to-Brighton cycle on Sunday the 21st, and our call for committee members for the Young Stationers Prize:

1. Young Stationers Prize

We're very much looking for committee members to help with the first Young Stationers' Prize, hopefully to be awarded at a dinner in Stationers' Hall in January 2014. 

The idea (as it now stands) is to give a prize for a recipient under 40 in the categories of journalism, publishing, digital media, and printing. We'd hope to attract corporate sponsors to offer short executive-shadowing placements, bursaries for short courses, or other mentoring opportunities.

We've already had several friends kindly offer to judge, and Melissa Tricoire and Charles Haynes have generously offered to serve as members of the Prize Committee. The Company has also given us very kind encouragement, and we look forward to using the Stationers' Shine School Media Awards and the several prizes administered by Booktrust as models. 

So please do get in touch, if you'd like to serve on the Prize Committee! A few of us will have the chance to discuss this on Tuesday, at our Dinner with High Sheriff in Jesus College, Oxford (see item 2!)

2. Publishing Event in Oxford This Tuesday

We are also holding a small evening on publishing in Oxford between Merton and Jesus Colleges on Tuesday!  The Society of Young Publishers are sponsoring it jointly with us.  We've also the Stationers' Clerk, William Alden (a former Oxford publisher), along in his capacity as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire.  Our dinner speaker is Bobby Nayyar, who runs Limehouse Books, and will be ferrying back choice gossip from the London Books Fair, along with his suggestions for those interested in publishing careers, and top tips for those who would like to pitch book proposals. 

Dinner is at 7.15 for 7.45 at Jesus College, and £48.  The preceding event, with wine and cheese in Merton College at 6 pm, is free.  We've Dr Giles Bergel (Merton) talking in Merton about the Stationers' Register and writing the history of the beginnings of publishing in Britain.  Professor Tiffany Stern, Oxford's leading expert on Shakespeare, also will be along, and we will be touring the Merton College Upper Library, which is the oldest continuously-used university library in the world.

3. Bride's to Brighton

The London church of publishers, printers, and journalists, designed by Wren, is in some danger of having its spire collapse.  To help defend this bit of our architectural and publishing history, a group of Young Stationers will cycle Bride's to Brighton on the morning of Sunday the 21st - next Sunday.  We will have some jollity in Brighton, and then either train back or - for those keener cyclists who would like a good century - cycle back before nightfall.  Recreational (and slow) cyclists very much welcome!  We will certainly have groups going at keener, and gentler, paces.  And bacon butties in the churchyard before we leave.  Please do come join us!

with all very best wishes,

Paddy