Surveys in your guild - what do you think?

We had her several years ago. She knows a great deal about fabics and is a very good speaker on the whole quilting industry.

Last January our guild did a "Five Quilters -- Five Quilts" program. Five members each showed five of their quilts; they were asked to bring one of their first quilts and one of their recent quilts, if possible. It was very well received and we're repeating it again in January with different members. With the weather sometimes being undependable in January in Minnesota, it's nice to not have to worry about an out of town speaker being able to get here.

Julia in MN

Part of the deal is the size of a guild and location. Smaller guilds just have a tough time with the bigger names. The folks that look towards those big names tend to seek them out at quilt shows on their own too which makes the demand less at the local level. Harriet is my hero. Her method of pinning alone is wonderful. I would enjoy hearing her. She is pretty knowledgeable about fabrics and such so that would be worth hearing too. Taria

Sandy Ellis> Howdy!

One of the more popular programs in the big (350 - 400 members) guild I used to belong to was sewing room camera tours. Once a year, one of the members would visit 6 or 7 member's sewing studios/rooms and do a slide show. It was really neat to see the different rooms. Everyone has different ideas about storage, lighting, work space, etc. Some quilters had really spacious rooms, some sewed in a closet. One year she did a before and after of one studio. I wouldn't let anyone in my sewing room with a camera when my room looks like hers did in the 'before' pictures! One member had a problem keeping up with her scissors, so she tethered a pair of scissors at each different work area in her room.

Donna in Idaho

Howdy!

The guild's newsletter and emails specify that HH will be talking about machine quilting, with a focus on machine quilting. I appreciate that warning. ;-D (The other meeting that night is more important to me.)

We have a fairly large guild, and will sometimes partner w/ Ft.Worth &/or Dallas to share speakers, programs, displays.

R/Sandy

For a number of years, our guild did an annual survey like this, and tons of people grumbled about the membership. About two years ago, we got a new President who decided that she was tired of all the grumbling, so instead of doing the fill-in the blank and get a low response survey, she did the survey by phone. She called each and every member (about 80) and kept calling people back until she got to speak to EVERYONE. She said that it was a GREAT use of her time because she got tons of responses that she never would have gotten otherwise, and it was more of a one on one dialogue....people that never say anything in meetings gave her an earful, people who don't participate much explained to her why, people that never volunteered before did. And last year, she made a bunch of program changes that were fabulous and well received.

One of the biggest changes we got was our holiday party. We had always had the first Tuesday in Dec, potluck party. In recent years, the number of people attendinng the holiday party had dropped a lot. Because of what so many people told her during the survey (and she started asking EVERYONE about this after just a couple people mentioned it), we found out that it was too hectic and we were all too busy then. So she asked people if they would rather do it at our end- of the month meeting date in January, and last year we had the biggest turnout for a holiday party ever! Instead of a holiday party we had a new years party and they called it, Endings and New beginnigs party or something like that. Instead of potuck dinner, we just had the best parts, the endings and beginnings (appetizers, cocktails and desert).

So I guess I'm saying that maybe you should consider asking people questions one on one....you might get a better response than with a survey.

What an important lesson to learn! I'm not sure why more people don't learn it. At every church I've attended, lack of people volunteering for things has been a problem. The vast majority of people seem to think that if you ask in a general way often enough, you'll get the volunteers, or that if you don't, you've made the best effort and you'd never have got them anyway. But the reality is, lots of us don't push ourselves forward, or we don't think what we could offer would be good enough, or simply don't really know what it involves, so don't know whether we could do it, for example, I would never volunteer to run a craft activity for children, or for adults, I wouldn't feel confident, I'd feel that as I'd put myself forwards, the standard would have to be high etc. etc. yet if someone asked me, I'd feel that that would be some kind of approval that what I could offer would be sufficient and as long as I could commit the time I'd say yes. Same with quilt group, I'd never volunteer to teach a session, but if someone came to me and said "I liked your mariner's compass, did you do foundation piecing? could you teach that to the rest of us", then I'd be quite happy to do it.

Anne

Anne, I agree with you about asking for volunteers. I had chaired our quilt show for several years and the first time I did it - myself and another made a list of all the positions and who we thought would be good. We called those people and spoke to them about the position and all but one accepted.

Kathy > snipped-for-privacy@prodigy.net wrote: