[sun surfer]

With various posts and discussion going on, so it doesn't get overlooked and to be clear so there's no confusion:

December is Billi's and I'll ask for Billi's nominations at the beginning of the month.

Any other conversation is about what's going to happen some month farther away when no one volunteers.

Originally Posted by issybird

Can I make a suggestion that if no one volunteers for December that we have an open month rather than a second chance month? My reasons are that it would give an opening for books that are hard to classify and that we wouldn't have to revisit a theme.

Thanks for the suggestion issy. When I first considered the eventual situation, I decided between a few options, including this, an open month.

I went with a retrospective month because I like the idea and feel it will be a fitting conclusion to a rotating “cycle”. What I really like about it is that each member will be represented by one nomination in the vote if they have volunteered; it will be a nice reflection that equally includes all of us for one month before we start the cycle over. It will be a celebration of us once every few years, and I like that.

I see it not as revisiting a theme but as celebrating together in one place something that each of us has chosen in our rotating month. But, we do happily revisit themes each year in certain repeated categories and have had re-nominations. In fact, one recent winner had been nominated earlier in the year as well and it won against first-time nominees, so I don’t see people as being against the idea of a book winning that’s been considered before.

A retrospective is simple, easy and gives a nice definite plan that gracefully closes out a rotating cycle. We do have the option of having Open as a regular category; it didn’t get voted in this year but it might next year.