Carolina Calots First Annual Report

Carolina Calots

(Carolinas chapter of the Burroughs Bibliophiles)

Annual Report for 2022

Submitted by

John Hood, President

Aaron Oliver, Secretary

We, the elected officers of the Carolina Calots, are pleased to submit this report about the formation and initial activities of our Carolinas chapter of the Burroughs Bibliophiles. We have gotten off to a promising start with regular correspondence, monthly Zoom meetings, and plans for in-person meetings in the spring of 2023.

Formation

During the monthly Zoom gathering of Bibliophiles members nationwide in June 2022, it was suggested that there might be enough members and potential members in North Carolina to form the basis of a successful chapter. Over the ensuing July 4 holiday, member Aaron Oliver of Salisbury took the initiative to send a group email to other NC-based members to gauge their interest in such a venture. He elicited immediate, enthusiastic support, and those 10 founding members settled on Carolina Calots as the chapter name. Following that, a formal chapter application was submitted and in August 2022, the Bibliophile Board of Directors made the chapter official.

We held our first planning meeting as a chapter on August 9, 2022 via Zoom. Eight out of 10 members were present. The group decided to hold monthly meetings via Zoom to help continue our chapter’s momentum, and we began organizing topics of discussion. John Hood of Raleigh volunteered to be the President (to serve as meeting host and moderator), and Aaron Oliver volunteered to be Secretary (to manage the club’s communications and work on any online, audio, and video content the members might wish to pursue). As of the end of 2022, there were 22 names on the Carolina Calots roster.

2022 Activities

In September, the Calots began regular Zoom meetings, typically held on the second Tuesday of each month at 7pm. Attended by an average of a dozen members and lasting between an hour and an hour and a half, these meetings are devoted to one of two kinds of subjects: 1) in-depth discussion of a single ERB work or 2) broader discussions of films, programs, comics, or other media either adapted directly from or inspired by ERB stories.

Through both Zoom meetings and emails, we also encouraged our members to give to the Palm Springs walk-of-fame project. These efforts resulted in more than $1,000 in contributions from Calots members.

Our topics during 2022

• September Discussed John Carter film & the future of cinematic depictions of ERB works.

• October Began our in-depth analysis of the Moon trilogy with The Moon Maid.

• November Discussed The Moon Men

• December Discussed The Red Hawk

Future Plans

At the end of the 2022, we began planning our first set of in-person meetings, to be held in multiple locations across North Carolina during the spring of 2023. We also discussed ways to recruit new members such as the creation of a Calots website and social-media accounts, personal outreach to friends and colleagues, and sending members to comic shows, fan conventions, and literary clubs to spread the word about our chapter. We also expect multiple Calots members to attend the April star unveiling and ECOF in Palm Springs, the 2023 Dum-Dum, and other fan events around the country.