Description: Community organizations need care and maintenance, just like our looms, spinning wheels, and tools. Okay, so this seminar isn’t really about learning any actual fiber craft technique. In this seminar, you’ll learn the care and feeding for the future of our craft. Every guild is currently faced with similar questions about its future: what is our relationship with the broader community? Are we a social group or an educational organization? How will we bring in more members? What do our members really want and need?
Come learn about ways you, as a guild member or as a guild leader, can ask and answer these questions in your guild, for your community. Without putting too fine a point on it, many guilds are struggling to maintain membership and funds as the fiber world around them changes. Larger gaps are appearing between younger entrants to the fiber crafts and older practitioners who are already part of guilds. As more and more young people learn about these crafts by themselves through platforms like TikTok, Pinterest, and Youtube, our community-based organizations struggle to keep up with the changing times. The answer isn’t a simple one – we don’t all need to trudge through maintaining internet accounts to teach the craft – we need to be willing to approach the future of the fiber arts and fiber communities with the same level of interest, discipline, and commitment we bring to our own fiber work.
In this seminar, we’ll focus on three main areas, and you’ll walk away with tangible tools to use in your own guild:
– Membership & Outreach: novel ways to attract and keep new members of all ages
– Programming, Engagement, and Partnership: understanding your local fiber landscape to produce programming that supports your membership and takes advantage of what your region is already offering
– Finance & Sustainability: developing easy-to-manage strategic plans and finance goals to keep your guild functioning
Instructor: Kristen Buchanan
Duration: 1/2 Day
When: June 18 – Morning
Level: All
Supplies that students will bring: None
Fee: $20
Materials Included: Notebook, pen, and printed workbook for the seminar