We renewed with National MQG with 31 members. We have swag from Quilt Con that can be used in prizes. Also, Amanda purchased books for a few dollars a piece and Diane and Rachel pulled out the ones we thought would be relevant.
Finances
The Tax Form 990-N has been filed and accepted. The Purchase Request and Reimbursement form has been finalized. The form can be filled out online or a link can be sent or it can be printed and scanned and sent to the Treasurer at [email protected], A form is needed to request a purchase be made by credit card. Diane presented the February Financial report. There is a new Year to Date report to better track spending by officers. The Budget column has been moved to the far right. The principal income categories have been grouped at the top. We discussed whether to add sub-categories to better capture “Flow Through” money – this is a particular issue for workshops, kits, etc. which we round up the charge of and therefore end up with a balance after completion of the event
We decided to leave the general flow through category due to overhead of removing one time use sub-categories and reviewing at Officer Meetings whether we should have a balance floating in flow-through or if it is a good time to zero out the balance.
We also decided it is currently a good time to reallocate the flow through balance since we're in between Quilt-Con hotel deposits and Retreat deposits. We decided that to mitigate a treasurer absence and workload during the meetings, we will buy envelopes for people to put payments in and braintsormed that they should include:
Name:
Email:
Amount:
Purpose:
Date:
Diane will investigate what she needs/prefers and get them ordered before the next meeting. Officers will get the envelopes collected at the meeting to Diane and she will email receipts. Diane will also investigate keeping a spreadsheet record of payments and issuing digital receipts based on the spreadsheet number rather than keeping up with a receipt book.
Membership
Amanda told us that Glenn does not currently want to be reimbursed for the fabric cupcakes she provided for February birthdays.
Charity
A new roll of batting is on order. Amanda picked up our existing batting from Diane. We decided we will plan on 8 yards of the wide backing fabric (estimated cost about 2/5 remaining charity budget) and bring proposal to guild since sale goes through March 30th and 8 yards with estimated shipping is right on the $75 line. Several quilt tops, quilt bundles, block/pillowcase kits were made at Sewing Saturday. Crystal is working on a new charity block to be announced at the April Meeting.
Fundraising
One of the auction quilts was lost in the mail. The appeal for an insurance claim from USPS was denied. We recieved a mailed letter dated 2/20 that the original decision had been upheld. We recieved an additional email notice on 2/26 that they are still looking for it, but it hasn't been found. Amanda recommended that we write it off as lost and reimburse the customer 50% as discussed previously. Amanda will PayPal the money to purchaser since that is how she originally paid and guild will reimburse Amanda for the expense.
The BJ's Brewhouse fundraiser has been set for March 28th. Fliers have been emailed out.
Amanda uploaded one new tote to Zazzle, in case anyone who took a business card at Quilt Con follows up. Amanda also just found out that Zazzle is changing some policies and will start charging a nominal fee to accounts that haven't uploaded a new design in some amount of time. She will find out the details of how often a design needs to uploaded and what the fee is. We researched raffle laws. A raffle is allowed if you are a non-profit. In additon the tickets allow purchases to take part in a contest of skill (not luck) or you allow entries without purchase. Otherwise, it's a class A misdemeanor with up to a $6,000 fine and possible jail time.
We previously contacted St. Jude’s at Huntsville Hospital and the website pointed to national organization, Amanda called and was told to make the check out to the hospital foundation. We may need to research another charity or St. Jude's national that has some kind of auction already that would be able to get a better price for full size quilts.
Lucky Spool has a brand new program, registration opens 3/18 (the day before our meeting). If no distributor of Lucky Spool books is in the area, guilds can sign up as independent distributor and get a percentage of all books sold as well as a discount on books. We will put this on the agenda to discuss with members at meeting.
Programming
Rachel will be presenting an Everyday Creativity demo for members on 3/30 from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. The location has been rented from 12:00pm - 4:00pm to allow for setup and clean up. Attendees may bring a lunch at noon for social time. The demo will be held at the clubhouse in the neighborhood that Kris lives in. Sherry will buy the supplies for the demo after the meeting. Sherry will buy the supplies after meeting. Participants should bring sewing machine, cutting implements and small cutting mats, black thread (or other color if desired). We will need a few irons and ironing boards. The cost will be $5.00 for members and $10.00 for non-members.
The Fabric Dying workshop will be held after April. Sherry to check with Trina to see if her house is still available and set a date. The colorways will be primary, garden, and autumn. Jen will demo ice dyeing and marbling. It takes too long to do during the workshop. Participants will dye 18 fq and play with ½ yard. We need to purchase good quality ziploc bags for this class quart and gallon (name brand NO generic). The cost will be $50.00 for members and $60.00 for non-members. Canopies and fans would be nice to have outside along with a cooler of water. We'll wait to see what date it works out to be scheduled on and whether it will be as hot as last year.
ECMQG has responded about the small item swap. Sherry is working out details with them. Laura will poll guild members during the meeting to determine interest in the Gee's Bend trip. Amanda and Rachel will bring tables to the meeting for the Scrap Dash Challenge. We plan to set up 5 equalish piles. Members will grab scraps from the pile in front of them for a short time limit, then they will rotate to a new pile.
We will start collecting Retreat deposits at the March meeting. It will be open to members only until day after May meeting. The final balance will be due at August meeting. We will discuss Nifty Notions and Quilt Con quick tips.
The National Guild has released new Community Standards. We will mention them to the guild and make a point that we will be following them. We plan to add a link to them from our website.
Quilt Con DeBrief
Amanda and Rachel attended the Leadership Breakfast. New Community Guidelines are coming out shortly, we will review and adopt these. These were a recommendation from the new Inclusion and Diversity committee. There is a new 60+ page document for guild leadership to help stand up guilds. Including programming ideas. Coming this spring.
Ideas from Quilt Con
Have a Quilt Photography Booth - hire a professional photographer, people bring quilts, pay $5 or $10 per quilt, get a couple of pictures, maybe invite other guilds. This would be a good way to get better photos, it might be fast for the photographer to reuse the set up. We thought this sounded like a good idea. Amanda will investigate cost & feasability.
Amy Friend (During Quiet Time) offers workshops. We will email for pricing and info. The Stitch TV Show based in Atlanta, offers 1 hour lectures ($400) and all day workshops ($600). For both of these we will put together a list of topics and ask members what they are interested in. We may possibly pursue splitting the cost with the Athens guild.
We also collected challenge ideas from Quilt Con. We will add a section with the current challenge and coming up deadlines to the Meeting Agenda.