DATE: Thursday 22.01.2026
PLACE: Torakina Park, Brunswick Heads NSW
PRESENT: Norma Watts, Richard Watts, Robyn Braithwaite, Quendryth Young, Vivien Royston, Angela Smith.
Summertime, and the Cloudcatchers’ Group celebrated its eightieth gathering of haiku poets at the spot where it all began. It was in the December summer of 2005 that John Bird assembled a group of writers who had indicated a yearning to learn more about haiku. The site was Torakina Park, a picnic spot at the mouth of the Brunswick River, at Brunswick Heads, on the north coast of New South Wales. So this is where we gathered once more to celebrate our eightieth ginko, twenty summers later.
We all live within the caldera of Mount Warning, also known by its Aboriginal name of ‘Wollumbin’, meaning ‘Catcher of Clouds’. Since that time many different poets have joined us.
However, before this union of haiku poets, John had assembled a trio with Nathalie Buckland and Quendryth Young, who met in each others’ homes for discussion and writing in the genre. A website was created which lingers to this day entitled ‘Wollumbin Haiku Workshop’, 2006 – 2010, which foretells the sort of haiku we may be writing now. Not much has changed, with old images already resurfacing !
Lunch at ‘The Bruns’, Brunswick Heads, New South Wales.
Left to right around the table:
Norma Watts, Angela Smith, Vivien Royston, Robyn Braithwaite, Quendryth Young, Richard Watts
Another Round Robin has been conducted, with three haiku submitted by each participant receiving comments from all other poets, and a composite report distributed.
Quendryth Young
Australian Haiku Society 