QuiltE

You're both from Pennsylvania ... so maybe you have found a speaker?

Minnesewta-sam

At the beginning of the year our guild has a sign-up sheet for anyone in the club who would like to do any type of demo to the group at a monthly meeting. I signed up.....Many years ago I purchased a quilt in SC that I knew was special. Recently I saw a picture of one on the front of a book. So, I set out to research my quilt. It is a pinecone quilt completely made by hand. I bought the book and made a small sample to show. I laid the quilt out across 2 tables at the back of the room and sent my sample and the book around the room to be checked out. I got many positive comments on the presentation, and it gave me more of a sense of belonging to the group. Just an idea.

QuiltE

Minnesewta-sam ... Totally intrigued with the idea of a pine cone quilt.
Care to share a photo, so we can get a look? Please and Thanks!
Also any info/links re the book would be helpful too.

Gemm

[QUOTE=scrappingfaye58;8646885]Onebyone... such great input! You hit it on the head about non-participation. We do require committee participation (and many are very simple participation) and contributing a quilt to be donated to a kids organization.

One of the things that made me want to join the guild I did was how flexible they were in participation expectations. To be fair, every member of our guild participates at a basic level just by paying dues! I am not currently in a space to be able to spend hours at committee meetings or sew-ins or to go away for a retreat/workshop weekend, but that hasn't been a problem. While it's been made clear that the guild can't run without active members, they've given so many opportunities for members to be active within their personal restrictions/limits. Some examples? Having short (less than an hour) volunteer opportunities such as sorting fabric donations right after the guild meetings so people who may have limited time or not have easy transportation can still help out in a social setting; asking for volunteers to reach out to (email/phone) different organizations/stores to determine needs or opportunities for advertising or seeking donations; identifying opportunities for tasks to be broken into chunks so people can collaborate using the skills/abilities they have, like having donated tops (flimsies) from one member go to someone who can layer and baste to someone who can do the quilting and then off to a fourth person to make and attach a binding. Round robin mini-courses also allow someone who might not be confident/comfortable presenting to the entire guild to share a skill or favourite approach or tool/notion to a small group.

Some of these activities could even be expanded to become (part of a) program/activity?

I've been on non-profit boards and councils and executives in the past and I know how important those roles are (and how time-consuming they are) but it's been so nice to be in a group that recognizes and actively promotes the little efforts that can help as well. :-)

Peckish

I'm not really sure what you're saying here... you're directing this comment towards my suggestion of bringing Bethanne Nemesh in for your guild's program? Firstly, I have no idea what her rates are, so who knows if $2k would be her fee. I simply stated that, having taken a couple of classes from her, even if she DID charge that much, it would be well worth it, IMO.

Secondly, it doesn't have to be a "pop up shop" by which I'm assuming you mean a trunk show? She offers classes, also. She's a wonderful teacher, loves to teach, and has several interesting techniques, projects, and methods I've never seen taught anywhere else. She does gorgeous, unique bindings. She does show-stopping yarn couched quilted projects. The possibilities for inspiration are endless.

It might be worth shooting her an email and finding out what her rates actually are, what classes she would offer, and what her availability is, then putting it out to the guild to get feedback. It's possible that they'd go bananas over the opportunity to learn something new from a world-class, award-winning quilter, and it's possible they don't have a clue who she is and couldn't care less.

Another thought is to do what my guild does: when they bring in world-renowned quilters, they open the event up to guild members first, then to the public in general for a fee.

ETA: I just checked her website. She states she will drive within 2 hours of Allentown, with further distances being an extra fee. Your avatar says you're in SE Pennsylvania - seems pretty close! She offers several classes for guilds, most are in the $400 range, with some going higher if the guild wants longer class times. Wow - now I'm wishing I was close enough to go!! 😍😍☺️☺️

scrappingfaye58

Peckish, my response was about the conversation my guild has several times a year about how we need to raise funds since we will go broke in XXX amount of time even though we have money that we cannot touch.
I will be reaching out to her. I have looked at the webpage and there are some really great quilts there!
My issue is that we pay a speaker several hundreds of dollar, so that essentially they bring their store for us to spend more money.