The Tolkien Society of Kansas City

We had some excellent discussions at our August meeting! David gave a fun presentation of a vintage board game, and we enjoyed some birthday treats.  Our next meeting will be on September 23, in the Main Hall, and we will be celebrating Hobbit Day! If you so desire, you can bring a Hobbity food or beverage, and we will toast our most esteemed Bagginses whilst enjoying each other’s fine company.  We will pause on the reading this month, and then pick back up in October.

Our July meeting was at the Irish Center at Drexal Hall.  We had a big group, including two first-time attenders, and we discussed the first three chapters of The Return of the King.  Our August meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 26, at 6:30 PM.  This month, we'll be at the Irish Center again, at Drexel Hall, at 3301 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO. The reading for this month is chapters 4-6 of The Return of the King.

Our June meeting was at the Irish Center at Drexal Hall.  We finished The Two Towers!  Our July meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 22, at 6:30 PM.  This month, we'll be at the Irish Center again, at Drexel Hall, at 3301 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO.  Location update!  We’re going to be meeting in the 21 room this month, rather than the main hall at Drexel.  The door is just around the corner from the main entrance, on Linwood.  The reading for this month is the first three chapters of The Return of the King (which is not a spoiler, probably.  Maybe.)

We’re going to be meeting in the 21 room this month, rather than the main hall at Drexel.  The door is just around the corner from the main entrance, on Linwood.

Our May meeting was at the Irish Center at Drexal Hall.  Some of Bilbo's Seed Cake was enjoyed.  Our June meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 24, at 6:30 PM.  This month, we'll be at the Irish Center again, at Drexel Hall, at 3301 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO.  Update!  We'll be in the 21 Room this month .  You are welcome to bring your own food or drink.  Parking is available in the lot to the South of the building. The reading for this month is The Two Towers, Book Four (book four being the second part of that volume) Chapters VIII - X, which will complete The Two Towers.

  We’re going to be meeting in the 21 room this month, rather than the main hall at Drexel.  The door is just around the corner from the main entrance, on Linwood. Also, there’s a performance in the main hall that day, if you’d like to see it, “We will be having a  performance of  You'll See... May 27th at 4pm and 7:30 pm if any of your members would be interested in attending before or after your meeting that night! The play is an adaptation of  Ulysses  by James Joyce aimed at audiences 8 years old and up - it's truly so charming!”

Updated!!!  We’re in the 21 room instead of main hall at Drexel. Our April meeting was at the Irish Center at Drexal Hall.  We had our usual excellent discussion.  Our May meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 27, at 6:30 PM.  This month, we'll be at the Irish Center again, at Drexel Hall, at 3301 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO.  We’ll be in the 21 room.  You are welcome to bring your own food or drink.  Parking is available in the lot to the South of the building. The reading for this month is The Two Towers, Book Four (book four being the second part of that volume) Chapters V - VII.

Our March meeting was at the Lansing Library, where we did a Tolkien Reading for Tolkien Reading Day, with some members in costume.  Then we went back to the home of some local members for our usual discussion. Our April meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 22, at 6:30 PM.  This month, we'll be back at the Irish Center, at Drexel Hall, at 3301 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO.  Enter through the main entrance on Baltimore. The reading for this month is The Two Towers, Book Four (book four being the second part of that volume) Chapters II - IV.

 Our March meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 25, at 6:00 PM, please note the earlier time! That also happens to be Tolkien Reading Day, which commemorates the destruction of The One Ring, and the fall of Sauron.  So we'll be celebrating with a program at Lansing Library, 730 1st Terrace, Lansing, KS.  We'll be doing a reading from Tolkien, and there will be crafts.  Everyone who can is encouraged to dress in costume, and be ready to answer questions about Tolkien and the books.  It will be a fun, casual program for all ages! If we end up having time and energy left after that, we'll be discussing the last two chapters of Book III and the first chapter of Book IV, in The Two Towers.  But if not, we'll save those chapters for April!

Our February meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 25, at 6:30 PM.  This month we'll be reading chapters VII - IX of the first half of The Two Towers.   For our meeting location, we've got good news!  Starting this month, we'll be meeting at Drexel Hall, at 3301 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO.  We can bring our own food and drink.  This will relieve the overcrowding we've had recently.  There will be occasional conflicts during the year that we may have to work around, but it should be an excellent location for us.  

The December party was a great success, with a White Oliphant exchange, and plenty of po-ta-toes and other appropriate delicacies.  Many thanks to Steve and Cindy for hosting! We took a break from our reading in TLOTR for the month of December, to discuss Letters to Father Christmas , so for January we're back on track, reading chapters IV - VI of the first half of The Two Towers .  We'll be meeting at Cardboard Corner once again, at 6:30 on January 28.  The address is 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS We're currently researching a new venue, since we've outgrown the 12-person limit for the Cardboard Corner rooms.  We've got some ideas that we'll be investigating this month.

At the recent November meeting, we discussed the first three chapters of The Two Towers, chapters I - III.  Once again, we had a large crowd!  We're going to be looking for a bigger space to meet, since we've outgrown the rooms at Cardboard Corner. For December, we're having a party, on Friday, December 19, starting at 6:00 PM.  We'll be having Tolkien-themed food, things like lembas bread, taters, anything else that you can think of.  We'll also have a White Oliphant gift exchange, so please bring a wrapped gift if you'd like to participate in that (Tolkien-themed gifts are recommended), and we'll discuss Letters to Father Christmas, so read that ahead of time if you're interested; also, we may watch the animated Hobbit movie, if time permits! Please email us at tolkiensocietykc@gmail.com to let us know you're coming, and we'll send you the address. And please post what food you're planning to bring, to the Discord and/or the email list, so ...

At the recent October meeting, we discussed the last four chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two Chapters VII - X.  We had what may have been our biggest crowd ever, at least since the start of the pandemic! We'll be holding our next meeting on Wednesday, November 19, at 6:30, at Cardboard Corner Cafe, at 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS.  PLEASE NOTE - This will be the THIRD Wednesday of the month, we've rescheduled to avoid Thanksgiving week.  We'll be in the Fantasy Room this time. We'll be discussing the first three chapters of The Two Towers, chapters I - III. For December, we're looking at having a Christmas Hangout/Party some time early in the month, location TBD.  If you have thoughts on what that can look like, feel free to discuss on Discord or the Google Group email list!

At the recent September meeting, we discussed The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two Chapters III - VI.  One of our main topics of discussion was the evil agency of Caradhras, and The Misty Mountains in general.  Since the mountains were raised up by Morgoth himself, we agreed that it wasn't surprising that they would work against the Fellowship.  Also, we noticed that Frodo seemed to have some heightened senses, in his noticing the footsteps of, presumably, Gollum following them through Moria. We'll be holding our next meeting on Wednesday, October 22 6:30, at Cardboard Corner Cafe, at 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS.  We'll be in the Sci-Fi Room this time. We'll be discussing the final four chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two Chapters VII - X. Please note, we've made some schedule adjustments for our last two meetings of the year, in order to work around the holidays.  We'll be meeting on the third Wednesdays of the month in both November and De...

At the recent August meeting, we discussed The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One Chapters XI and XII, and Book Two Chapters I and II. Please Note! There were no available rooms for our usual meeting night this month, so we've had to shift our meeting to Thursday ! We'll be holding our next meeting on Thursday, September 25 6:30, at Cardboard Corner Cafe, at 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS.  We'll be in the Sci-Fi Room this time. We'll be discussing the next four chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two Chapters III - VI.

At the recent July meeting, we discussed chapters VII-X of The Fellowship of the Ring.   We had 14 people there, probably the biggest crowd we've had post-lockdown!  Several new people were in attendance. We'll be holding our next meeting on Wednesday, August 27, at 6:30, at Cardboard Corner Cafe, at 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS.  We'll be in the Fantasy Room this time. We'll be discussing the next four chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One Chapters XI and XII, and Book Two Chapters I and II.

At the recent June meeting, we discussed chapters 4-6 of The Fellowship of the Ring.   We had a full house, with ten people in attendance. We'll be holding our next meeting on Wednesday, July 23, at 6:30, at Cardboard Corner Cafe, at 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS.  We'll be in the Sci-Fi Room this time, as the Fantasy Room was not available.  And we're upping our reading game, we'll be discussing the next four chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, chapters 7-10.  

by Elizabeth Perico So, it begins A little over a year ago, I met with what was to become the ‘Council of the West’, as we began discussing and planning the first ever Tolkien Society event in the USA, which became Westmoot. Today, it is already more than a month since the event took place, and I can truly say it met, and even exceeded all our hopes! What goes into holding a moot? When you attend one, especially the more established ones such as Oxonmoot or Mythmoot, they typically run like clockwork, and rarely do attendees see the rudders spinning furiously under the water. (Or at least you hope they don’t!) The more established events will normally have a regular venue, and vendors, and equipment that they are used to working with. For Westmoot, EVERYTHING was new! We did not have the budget to purchase A/V equipment, so the good Professor Olsen brought his own gear he used for Signum moots, and did much of the set up for recording presentations, showing slides, and making sure micr...

At the recent May meeting, we discussed the first three chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring.   We had a full house, with ten people in attendance, including some first-timers.  We had a great discussion. We'll be holding our next meeting on Wednesday, June 25, at 6:30, at Cardboard Corner Cafe, at 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS.  We'll be in the Fantasy room.  We'll be discussing the next three chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, chapters 4-6. 

By Chase Spears What do you mean the barrel scene from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Hobbit isn’t anything li ke what’s portrayed in the book? This was one of many points of entertaining co nversation between me and Lori during our evening walks as I read through Tolkien’s 1937 adventure , along with the Kansas City Tolkien Society over the last few months. Though a longtime fan of Tolkien’s works conveyed through film, I’m still cutting my teeth as a newbie when it comes to ta king in his actual writing . I’m learning much about middle earth, now in my middle age. But th e thing stands out in grandest fashion is the development of Bilbo Baggins as a strategic character in the plot . If put into a lineup with those who more looked the part of soldier , few would likely pick him to fill the role of stealthy warrior on a quest with infinitesimal odds of success or even survivability. Yet he was the essential man for the task . In my office hang s a painting by John Paul...