January Meeting Recap

One of the two quilts Gerry will be teaching at the Pgh Knit and Crochet Festival

January meetings are always a little different from the rest of the year.  We are looking at by-law changes, electing new officers and trying to both assess the past year's programming while looking ahead to the new year.  We opened introductions (and welcome to all of those new faces!) with the question of what we enjoyed most in 2016 and what we were looking forward to in 2017 for the guild.

2016:
Overwhelmingly, the answers were about the interaction with our fellow quilters.  From having fellow members teaching at the meetings to the eye-opening icebreakers, we all just really like learning from  and sharing with our fellow guild members.  Show & Tell is a favorite as well as the sewing days when we can all be together.  The introduction of challenges in 2016 also ranked very high.  Some said that the ability to be focused on a short project with a firm deadline was helpful and others said that trying things like limiting colors or making every month helped in other areas of their quilting.

Karen made this after taking Nikki's FMQ class.  It's so good, y'all!

2017:
It should come as no surprise that more chances to be together were a common feeling.  With the addition of two monthly sew days in January and February, the guild is hoping to foster that fellowship.  There was a definite excitement about working through the UFOs on our lists this year, too.  Other topics included how to prepare your quilt for a show, what judges look at, selfish sewing, and future challenges.

Guild Business:

1. The first monthly sew-in is January 21st.  Please RSVP through the Evite you received via email.  There were still 2 openings left as of Sunday.
2. The Upcycled Clothing Challenge minis are due in February.  They will hang in Spool for the whole month and the winner (by public voting) will receive a $50 gift card. Karen will be speaking about organizing your stash.
3. Nikki has the QuiltCon quilt but we may need a backup quilter.  Contact Amanda if you are interested.
4. The March meeting will be at Spool.  The topic will be sashiko.
5. Gerry will be teaching two classes at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival.  This year, the festival is committing to quilters by adding more classes, vendors, etc. The dates are the same as our March retreat, but you can still attend both.  Watch their website or Instagram for more information.
6. The March retreat is coming up fast.  Watch your emails for more details.

The next piece of business is the by-law vote.  As the guild has grown, the by-laws were added to, tweaked and changed to fit the way we functioned.  However, by-laws are meant to be broad - a framework of how an organization operates, like the duties of a position.  The minutiae of day-to-day tasks are better kept separately and examined more often.  This might be how much money we allocate to photocopies for handouts during meetings.  There was such great input and interest in making sure that our by-laws are correctly governing the guild that a motion was put forth to suspend any voting until the current by-laws could be examined and a determination made whether a policies and procedures document should be formed.  This vote carried and the following members volunteered to be a special committee to carry out this action.  They are Angela, Tamara, Sandra, Cheralee, Melissa and Lauren.  

The elections of new officers also took place!  Unanimously, your officers for 2017 are:

Amanda Hancock - Guild President

Nikki Maroon - VP of Programming

Michele Krugh - VP of Membership

Barbara Cain - Treasurer

Melissa Jennings - Social Media

Thank you to Quilter's Dream and The Warm Company for the generous donations!  These prizes went to the monthly #pghmqgic winner.  

Lots of administrative stuff in January, but we'll be back to our regularly scheduled creative programming in February!  See ya!