Preparing for Thursday's meeting! (and other stuff)

YOU TUBE VIDEO IN HONOR OF LONG ARM QUILTERS!

For those of you who haven't yet seen this, here is a link that Kathy found "In honor of our Diane and long-arm quilters everywhere..."  Check it out; it's fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzoL7ddTEnA&feature=em-share_video_user

QUILTS FOR BOSTON

Here's what Janita emailed to me - "My sister Berene is part of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and they are making flags for Boston in response to the tragedy. It is a great project and they have an awesome potential place where these are going to be hung in Boston. She has just called me and told me so far 20 modern quilt guilds are participating as well as individuals as far flung as Ireland and Australia! I think it would be a great project for us to do this month - what do you think? ( esp as she said there is no one from NJ yet! - I said not for long….. :-) ) "

Janita and Beth will work together to coordinate this for anyone who is interested in participating. They'll give us all the details at Thursday's meeting. Meanwhile, here are 2 links you may wish to look at to get an idea of what the project is about:

Main blog post:

http://vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca/blog/2013/04/to-boston-with-love/

Patterns & inspiration:

http://vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca/blog/2013/04/to-boston-with-love-tutorials-and-inspiration/

KUDOS TO MELANIE!

Melanie is scheduled to teach both beginning quilting and free motion quilting classes at Rock, Paper, Scissors! As a "graduate" of her trial FMQ class, I can tell you she's a great teacher - she was so encouraging, gently and slowly pushing us along so we were able to make real progress. Though she talked us through the basics, she is a great believer in the hands-on approach; the real learning came by actually doing the quilting ourselves under her watchful supervision. Good luck, Melanie - you'll be great!

WHERE ARE WE GOING?

It's hard to believe, but we are coming up on our 1 year anniversary in June and we have grown to 44 paid members!

As we discussed at the March meeting, over the next 2 months we'll be talking about what direction we want to go with our guild in the upcoming year. Please spend some time thinking about what YOU would like the Guild to be - your opinion is important! 

Here are some of the things we'll be talking about. It might be really helpful for you to check out the blogs and web sites of other MQGs to see how they are organized and what activities they are doing. Some are very organized, some not so much; some are very active, some not so much, etc.

If you go to the overall MQG site, themodernquiltguild.com, you can choose geographic areas and will be directed to their sites On our own blog we also have links to many of the local MQG blogs. The Bay Area MQG also has a nice site and blog (http://bamodernquiltguild.ning.com/, http://bayareamodernquiltguild.blogspot.com)

Goals -

What do you think the main goals of our Guild should be? Ex: camaraderie, learning, inspiration, community outreach, etc. A little of everything - specifics about how often?

Organization -

How do you think we should be organized? What leadership positions do we need, if any, and what would be the purpose of each? 

Ex: President (or co-Presidents), Treasurer, Secretary (Blogger/Emails/Social Media Chair), Community Outreach, Program Planning, etc. (One or more of those positions may be leaders for smaller groups instead.)

Should these leaders be elected? How would that be handled? Defined terms? In many guilds, people in those positions make up the Board which serves in an advisory capacity. Should we do this? If so, what would be the "job" of the Board?

Programs

What kinds of activities are you interested in - at meetings and outside of meetings? How often do you think we should have meeting activities (whether that be a demonstration, a speaker, a technique, a guided discussion, or whatever).

One thing many guilds do is to have members complete a survey to assess interest and solicit suggestions. What do you think of that idea?

Dues -

What do you think the dues should be for a year? What should the dues $$ be used for?

NATIONAL MQG - 

Over the next few months, we have to decide whether our guild will join the national MQG. Aleeda and Rayna as our current leaders have been kept abreast of what's happening on that front and know all the details and ramifications. Rayna cannot be at the next 2 meetings, but she and Aleeda have been talking, so I'm sure Aleeda will be able to fill us in on Thursday. 

Lots to think about - should be a great discussion!

Peggy