new quilters guild

[Sylvia]

Greetings Fellow Quilters

We are in the process of finding out if enough interest exists to set up a new Guild in our nearest town. I have some questions in this regard.

What is the minimum number of people do you think makes a lively guild?

How can we keep things positive and focused on helping and teaching one another?

What are some of the activities your guilds undertake during the year?

How beneficial is guild membership on a personal or professional basis?

Thanks for any info you may share.

Sylvia from Canada

[Bonnie]

Don't quote me on this but I think for a sanctioned quilting guild with by-laws and officers, you only have to have 5 due paying members to qualify for guild status.

[Tamarack]

I think the minimum number of people you will need to start (and 'keep it lively') is about 15. Our guild started 10 years ago with about 25 and quickly jumped to 50 then as high as 100 in our 7th year. We are now at 80 members, we lost a few when our local quilt shop closed as they only had a membership for the fabric discount at the store. Our guild meets once a month from 9am to 9pm. From 9am to 5pm it is a workshop where we work on comfort quilts. We have about 20 members that show up to the workshop during the day and then at night about 40 members show up for the meeting from 7pm to 9pm.

Your second question is an excellent one as our guild is getting to the point where the new members/quilters are being forgotten. Now that i'm am vice i'm trying to get the focus back on the basics ...for example i will be teaching basic machine quilting at out next workshop. The past few years it has turned into a sweat shop make comfort quilts where certain people have the same jobs all the time. That can scare people away. So to keep things positive and focused on sharing knowledge with each other try to have a 'basics' lesson at each meeting, maybe as part of a program for each month and get differnent members teaching each month. I know it is hard to get others to teach, but if you pair up a confident member with a 'shy' member that really helps and makes the program more relaxed and fun.

Activites?? Mystery quilts are great, block of the month quilts are good too. Round robins are a blast and can be done so many ways. You want the members to have something to look forward to seeing each month. We have retreats twice a year, all we do is rent the large room at the local hotel (i live in a small town about 5,000 people) for a weekend and everyone brings there own project to work on and we bring lots of food to share. We have a quilt show every two years, those take a lot of work!

The benefits of a guild membership...Professionally...members make up about 80% of my customers for my longarm business. Personally the guild members are my extended family (my closest family members are 750km away) and i love guild day!!!!

Hope my ramblings helped.