National Stationery Week: April-May 2016. Competitions. Xmas gifts.

National Stationery Week is back again next year; proving that picking up a pen is important and that writing matters!

When I first read it I thought it was this week. On re-reading I found it's next year.

The event will runs from 25^th April – 1^st May 2016 and has announced the 2016 theme of ‘Why Writing Matters.’ 

I thought I would share with you the highlights of the email I received from the amusingly named 

'Captain

"We at National Stationery Week, and especially myself who had to earn his handwriting licence at the age of 7, believe that the pen and paper are brilliant and can be close friends with the stylus and screen. We champion the written word and were disappointed to see that Iceland and parts of the United States are phasing out handwriting all together!

"On our website, nationalstationeryweek.com, we have a huge array of resources including lesson plans, ideas and competitions that can be interwoven with any subject for primary and secondary school children. It’ll get them exciting in writing and teach them the importance of the pen! Maybe some will be inspired to be the next Lennon and McCartney, J.K. Rowling or John Cooper Clarke. 

"Alongside this, the Cambridge University Press have launched their 2016 handwriting competition to find the neatest and fanciest handwriting in the United Kingdom.

"If you’d like to get involved with the campaign; please let me know, it’d be superb for fantastic professionals like yourselves to be involved in this brilliant national campaign triumphing stationery and championing the pen!

"Please find below a fantastic opportunity for the education sector, in conjunction with National Stationery Week and Cambridge University Press. 

"By the way, Did you know that 97% of people write their own name when they test out a new pen? Or that U.S. President James Garfield could write Greek and Latin simultaneously?"

***

An Italic pen and calligraphy set? If you already have a calligraphy set, time to use it to make a DIY Xmas card or New Year card including photos of the year and your hand-written message.See my next post on Xmas gifts.

PS Stationery with an e, letters. Stationary with an a is cars. (I have another blog on spelling.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, tutor, author and speaker.