Showing posts with label Finnish Tolkien Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finnish Tolkien Society. Show all posts

Friday, March 3, 2017

Finnish Tolkien Society Kontu - WorldCon announcement


Finnish FlagWhile we're announcing international Tolkien events we're invited to, there's a cool few things on in Finland later this year as well. The New Zealand Tolkien has enjoyed a great friendship with the Finnish Kontu in the past, and we would very much like to continue that relationship!

I received a message from them a little while ago - check it out!



Greetings from the Finnish Tolkien Society Kontu!

As you most likely know by now, the 75th Worldcon will be held in Helsinki, Finland from the 9th to the 13th of August. It is quite probable that many Tolkien enthusiasts from around the world are going to attend the con, so we thought that it could be fun to organize something for our international friends. The plan is to have a big picnic at Suomenlinna (http://www.suomenlinna.fi/en/) to which we'll invite every Tolkien fan that attends the con. It's a great and easy opportunity to meet Tolkien fans from all around the world, and we hope that you could inform your society's members about this.

The picnic will be held on Tuesday, the 8th of August. We chose the day before the con because people will be a bit too busy during the actual con to have time for an extra activity – and many people are arriving to Helsinki on the previous day anyway.

Suomenlinna is really easy to access from central Helsinki, and provided that the weather is good, it's a really nice place for hanging out with friends – in fact, our society goes there once every year with other speculative fiction groups! So while additional information will be given later (I'll create a Facebook event soon!) it'd be nice if your society could mention this to its members – we hope to see plenty of international Tolkien representation at the con!


With warm greetings,

Janne Seppänen
Secretary of The Finnish Tolkien Society Kontu
sihteeri@suomentolkienseura.fi



So let me know (or email them directly!) if you have any interest in attending this event!

  - Jack

Monday, February 25, 2013

Welly-moot 2.1 (Feb 24, 2013) - All about Tolkien

A great meeting on Sunday - an almost record number of people turned up - 19 in all! Especially good since we hadn't done anything other than announced it on this blog (which automatically posts to Twitter, Facebook and Google+). So, apparently you guys are all watching then! Always good to know!


The meeting started with a welcome message from me to the first Welly-moot of 2013.

From far left/top, clockwise - new member Annabel; Charlene; Miranda; new member Elliot; Wayne; new member Karena; Kris; Jenifer; (and in front, backs turned) Alex; Kumi, new member Ben, and Mervi


We have several new guests; Annabel and Elliot joined us today - I met both of them a week before, at the Weta Cave while I was showing a group around on a tour. Annabel is a jewelery designer who has created some beautiful pieces for her Doctor Who passion, as well as recently a badge for Weta Workshop's Doctor Grordbort Range. Elliot is currently studying digital animation and SFX, among other things.

I had handed Annabel a Welly-moot card in the hope they might both make it for the moot, so that went well! What I hadn't anticipated was that she liked our logo so much she made a badge out of it!

Welly-moot Bronze Lapel Pin
I will talk to Annabel further about this - I'm very keen to be able to offer our members the chance to buy this - you'll be supporting a very talented artist! Can everyone drop me a message if you're keen on buying a badge - they'll be in the vicinity of $10-$20 each, depending on final design and number of orders, I suspect.

Ben also attended for the first time, he's from Christchurch originally, and has decided to make Wellington his new home. Ben has also done some papers with Corey Olsen, aka the Tolkien Professor, so it sounds like we have another hardcore Tolkien fan!

Finally, Karena also joined us, from France. Karena had been on a tour with me the day before, and had taken me up on my invitation. I suspect Karena won't join us again since she's only in NZ for a short time, but it was very nice to have you with us, all the same!

Also with us for her last meeting was Mervi, who will have to return to Finland again shortly, after her extended stay in New Zealand. We will all be very sad to see her go, but at least she has another Tolkien group to return to - Suomen Tolkien-seura Kontu ry. Mervi gave me a present from her group - a beautiful T-shirt with "Hobbit" written in Suomi and in Runes. Thank you - I shall wear it with pride!


From far left/top, counterclockwise - Ryan; Jenifer; Kris; (in front) Karena; Wayne; Elliot; Miranda; Charlene; Annabel; Martyn; Mervi; Ben; Kumi; Alex. The empty seat is mine (-Jack). Missing here are Adam, who was getting another coffee; and Hawk and Annabel's two girls (separate table - their discussion was about whether boys can wear tutus or not).


Next on the agenda was to discuss the two projects we're currently working on - the naming of Mount Tolkien is awaiting me to write a letter to the Geographic Board to let them know of the Tolkien Society's support for the proposal. I shall finish that by next moot, so an update on that then.

The big project is still the Stone Troll project out by Rivendell in the Upper Hutt Kaitoke Regional Park. We're referring to the beastie as Riventroll. Currently we're spending an astounding number of hours into filling in an Arts Council Grant application form, and that should all be done (and handed in!) by the end of this week. After that, we can relax a little!


Finally then, we got onto the main theme for the day - "It’s All about Professor Tolkien". Kris brought some beautiful books and introduced the drawings and pictures by Professor Tolkien and shared them with the group. Hobbiton, Rivendell, the Eagles, Smaug the Dragon, and the Lonely Mountain all were drawn by Tolkien. Kris also had a lovely postcard from a valley in Switzerland that looked remarkably like Rivendell. Apparently Tolkien had stayed in the valley, and the inspiration does seem to match. It also looked very much like Ted Nasmith's version of Rivendell.

It was also remarked by a few people that the Lonely Mountain looked somewhat like Mount Taranaki in New Zealand's North Island.




The discussion went to Tolkien's languages, and how it all begun with his love for them. There are some noted similarities between Quenya and the Finnish tongue, as well as between Sindarin and the Welsh language. We consulted with our resident Welshman, Martyn on this, and with our Fin Mervi.




A quick poll was taken also - had everyone read LOTR and Hobbit? Of the 16 adults, 15 had read The Hobbit, and 12 had read LOTR. I thought we'd also asked Silmarillion readers but I can't find the statistic for that right now.


As we rounded the afternoon's discussion off, Kris wanted to know if anyone had ideas for future meetings. Here are a couple:

  • Tolkien's short stories
  • Tolkien's theology (and his academic writings)
  • Middle-earth cuisine



Please let us know any other ideas you may have.



That concluded the first meeting for 2013 - if this one was anything to go by, it should be a cracker year!

  - Jack