London Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers

LONDON GUILD OF WEAVERS, SPINNERS AND DYERS

Minutes of the Management Committee Meeting held on Saturday 18th October 2014 at St Stephen’s House, 48 Emperor’s Gate, London W7 4HJ at 1000am for 10.30am

Present:

Christine Eborall (Chair)

Helena Timms (Secretary)

Karen Firmin-Cooper (Treasurer)

Eve Alexander (Webmaster)

Jane Rutt (Membership Secretary)

Joan Scriven (Programme Secretary)

Lyn Duffus (Editor Warp & Weft)

Elite Bernet (Committee Member)

Jan Slater (Librarian)

Penny Brazier (Guest) (part time)

1. Apologies:

Apologies received from Wendy Morris (President) and Roberto Campana.

1. Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on July 12th 2014 were approved and signed by Christine.

1. Matters Arising:

Item 3 Selvedge – still outstanding. Action: Jane.

Item 3 Book disposal – still outstanding.Action: Wendy.

Item 3 Poster – completed.

Item 3 Online form – unknown.Action Wendy/Jane.

Item 3 Mannequins – completed.

Item 3 AV instructions – work in progress. Action: Christine.

Item 4 Online banking – completed.

Item 4 Workshop cancellation policy – outstanding.Action: Karen.

Item 4 Contacting advertisers – completed.

Item 4 Report – completed.

Item 4 Flyer – to be moved to Publicity discussion.

Item 5 Email non renewals – completed.

Item 5 Meet & greet rota – completed.

Item 5 Interest groups – completed.

Item 6 Programme draft – completed.

Item 8 Warp & weft – completed.

Item 8 W&W guidelines – outstanding. Action: Lyn.

Item 8 Copy dates for advertisers – outstanding. Action Karen.

Item 8 Advertisers – moved to Publicity discussion.

Item 11 Workshops – work in progress. Action: Roberto.

Item 14 Refreshments rota – completed.

Item 15 Archive – work in progress.Action: Karen and Christine.

Item 17 VP position – work in progress, included in notes for AGM.Action: Christine

Item 17 Keys – outstanding. Action: Roberto.

1. Treasurer’s Report:

The Treasurer’s Report is in the Appendix.

a)It was noted during review of accounts that only 120 member’s subscriptions could be traced, with 7 missing. A new system of checks to ensure payments and membership match up is needed. Action: Karen and Jane.

The report on current position of accounts shows a consistent shortfall of income from monthly meetings, warp & weft, equipment and exhibition costs. This position is considered unsustainable in the long term, so ideas on raising funds are needed.

It was agreed that a proposal was to be put forth in the 2015 AGM to raise the membership fee to £26 for 2016, and note that there will be regular increases in the fee in the future to cover increasing costs, including increased Association affiliation fee. Action: Christine to propose at AGM.

It was proposed that more workshops should be arranged as these are popular and a good source of income for the guild. Action: Joan to organise workshops as an integral part of the programme.

It was agreed that the attendance fees for monthly meetings should be raised to £3.50 for members, and £7 for guests from January 2015. There will be no change to the student fee being free for the time being.

b)Online banking has been set up and is being used by Karen to review the last 2 years accounts.

c)The change to the constitution as proposed by Christine was agreed by the committee to be put forward as a proposal at the 2015 AGM. Action: Christine.

1. Membership Secretary’s Report:

The Membership Secretary’s report is in the Appendix.

The cards for 2015 membership are ready, and renewals will open in November.

The meeting felt that members who lapse (by not paying their membership by 1st April) should not be entitled to effective free membership for the year if they re-join after 1st September. The Constitution doesn’t make this entirely clear.

1. Programme Secretary’s Report:

The Programme Secretary’s Report is in the Appendix.

The Programme is being finalised with 1 space still in July. Suggestion of a spinning or travel related speaker to be approached – Jos Graham, John Arbon or the Halifax Spinners were suggested.Action: Joan to progress.

It was also suggested that the interest groups can be listed as starting at 10:30am from next year, as we have the hall available from 10am so they can have a longer session if they want to.Action: Joan to update on new programme; Eve to amend website.

The blurb for the longer version of the programme still needs to be written and the poster created and distributed. Action: Joan.

1. Webmaster’s Report:

The Webmaster’s Report is in the Appendix.

The Guild’s details have been updated on the new Association website.

The membership renewal form on the website needs to have a note to ‘enable editing’ in order to use. Action: Eve. (this automatically pops up when you download the form)

Possible option of a calendar on the website to track hot news and Guild events.Action: Eve to enquire about possibility.

1. Warp & Weft Editor’s Report:

The Editor’s Report is in the Appendix.

Lyn Duffus has taken over as Editor of Warp & Weft from Roberto Campana due to his increased pressure of work. The meeting thanked Roberto for his work on recent editions and especially the introduction of colour.

It was noted that at present we do not charge differently for colour or black and white advertising, we should review and possibly charge this for next year.Action: Karen & Lyn

It was suggested that we include less membership, library etc type information and have more articles on things people have seen, dependent on what we have for each issue though.

We should include the titles of the Christmas competitions in the November issue to remind people to encourage entries. Action: Lyn

It was suggested that reports on monthly meeting talks, if they are very long should be shortened in W&W and the full version put on the website instead. Same for additional photos of events and talks.

The addition of a column along the lines of ‘what’s on your loom/spindle/dyepot’ should be added as well as an ‘ask the expert’ column (for non urgent technical advice) could be included to add more interesting variation.

A request for any articles, event write ups, photos, column entries should be included in the October notices. Action: Christine.

Lyn will create a dropbox for people to upload photos to as the large file sizes are often hard to email etc. Action: Lyn.

It was agreed that 2 committee members would proofread each issue, for November this will be Helena and Christine.

1. Librarian’s Report:

The Librarian’s Report is in the Appendix.

a)Items that need storing because of Jan’s move. Lyn to buy Peg Loom from Guild as not needed. Helena to take Spinning Wheel. Gazebo and exhibition box to temporarily go to Karen’s archive store. Sheep board to stay at St Stephens. Any knitting items to go to Knit for Peace. Other spinning items and misc to hopefully go to one of the spinners. Self storage far too expensive an option (£874/year).

b)Jane has agreed to take over posting of W&W from Jan.

c)Job Ad to run in November W&W for a new librarian, to be reviewed again in January if no-one volunteers.

The library catalogue needs to be priced for insurance purposes, as this is a lengthy task, it can be done over the next year in time for the 2015 renewal.Action: new librarian

1. Coordinator’s for next quarter’s meetings:

January – Helena

February – Christine

March (AGM) – Wendy

April – Susan Dye

1. Workshops and Visits:

Joan to organise workshops and add to programme. Action: Joan.

Roberto to work on visit schedule. Action: Roberto.

1. 2015 Exhibition:

This update presented by Penny Brazier from the Exhibition Committee. Penny’s report is in the Appendix.

Approval was given for publicity costs similar to last years, although suggestion to check for cheaper printing options as the prices seem quite high. Agreed that postcard leaflet for publicity is a good idea. Approved costs of working lunch in exchange for artwork. Aiming for electronic copy of artwork to be ready to send to the printers by the end of the year.

Agreed to offer option of artist postcards to sell at the exhibition, but organise closer to the time.

Awards were agreed to be a good idea, possibly with sponsorship. Agreed that private view should be organised, about 1 week into the exhibition so that the awards can be announced then as well. This will probably on the 2nd Tuesday of the exhibition.

Request for publicity volunteer to be put in notices. (catalogue shown to Wendy and Penny B)

Submissioncharge to go up to £10 for up to 4 items, reflecting increased costs from last year.

Selection criteria to be made clear: must be ‘fit for purpose’ and suitable for hanging in the Crypt area. The Exhibition Committee’s decision will be final.

1. Publicity:

The Publicity report is included in the Appendix.

The sub committee have not met but discussed some ideas via email.

Promotional items urgent – leaflets and programmes to be prepared before end of year. Action: Lyn, Helena and Joan to finalise and get printed.

Jane to draft a leaflet regarding benefits of membership over guest to have at meetings. Action: Jane.

Social media such as twitter and facebook to be set up. Action: Helena.

List of potential advertisers, locations for placing leaflets and sources for free listing of talks and events needs to be compiled. Action: Elite.

1. Meeting Refreshments rota

This has been done and is up on the website.

1. Archiving of Old London Guild Documents:

Held over until next meeting as no time left to discuss.

1. Association Matters:

a)Information about 2015 AGM in today’s notices and on noticeboard.

b)2018 conference: A Region G meeting is being held on 25 October and there will be a report back at next meeting.

c)New association website up and running. Eve has updated our details, announcement in notices.

1. AOB:

a)Planning for today’s table sale – Karen to get table money, Helena has set up tables.

b)Ask the Expert – agreed to include in W&W.

c)Feedback form: agreed it should include whether member or guest. Action: Christine

d)Old noticeboards – Jan to take away. Action: Jan.

e)Spinning groups – Wetlands don’t have as much space and lots more members, may need to move. Will continue as is until becomes an issue. For other meet ups, suggestion of I Knit on an evening, or somewhere on south bank like stitchlondon used to organise. Action: Helena to progress.

1. Date of Next Meeting: January 10th 2015.

Appendices

1. Treasurer’s Report

Committee Meeting October 2014 - Treasurers Report.

I now have access to online banking and have been able to look back though 2013 + 2014 statements. Because of the vagaries of late invoicing and payments I have had to revise the start of year figure from the last report. I have again broken our income and expenditure down into the principle functions and activities of The Guild.

Function/Activity / Income (to date) / Expenditure (to date) / Balance (to date)
Membership
2014 Payments (67 members) / 1559.50
2013 early payments (53 members) / 1235.00 / 2794.50
ASWSD Association Fees / £544.00 / 2250.50
Monthly Meetings
Jan Door / 136.50
Jan Hall + Speaker / 320.00
Feb Door / 275.68
Feb Hall + Speaker / 140.00
Mar Door / 103.27
Mar Hall + Speaker / 75.00
Apr Door / 137.50
Apr Hall + Speaker / 240.00
May Door / 201.00
May Hall + Speaker / 300.00
Jun Door / 139.00
Jun Hall + Speaker / 240.00
Jul Door / 135.00
Jul Hall + Speaker / 140.00
Aug Door / 206.95
Aug Hall + Speaker / 140.00
Sep Door / 125.20
Sep Hall + Speaker / 284.50 / -419.40
Workshops
April – Dyeing @ Spitalfields / 550.00 / 460.00 / 90.00
Warp & Weft
Expenditure to date: 2 issues; programme inserts; admin costs / 700.00
Advertiser income / 400.00 / -300.00
Library
Income to date / 33.90
Expenditure to date / 35.50 / -1.60
Sales + Commission
Income to date: Journals + yarn principally / 166.01 / 166.01
Admin, Equipment + Publicity
Expenditure to date: incs new sound system + notice board / 636.14 / -636.14
Miscellaneous
Income to date: primarily donations / 130.00
Expenditure from Float to date / 39.66 / 90.34
Equipment Hire
Income to date: Hire £25; deposit £50 / 75.00 / 75.00
Exhibitions + Events
St-Martin-in-the-Field Exhibition space 2015 / 550.00 / -550.00
Website
Expenditure to date: hosting and email admin / 75.00 / -75.00

Start of year£4908.00Current position£5535.60

Committee Meeting October 2014 - Matters arising.

Our outgoings continue to exceed our income in several critical areas.

1. Membership.

Membership income 2014120 paying members£2794.50

ASWSD Affiliation fees 2015136 members @ £4 each£544.00

Property insurance 2015Sum Insured £7950 (£50 excess)£216.00

(Is this sum realistic?)

Usable income = £2000

2. Monthly meetings

Meetings expenditure continues to exceed door income.

To date this stands at -£419.40

End of year prediction is -£700[Hall fees £355; Speaker fees £250-£350; Door Income £400]

3. Warp & Weft and Advertising.

To date two issues + Speaker cards expenditure-£700

Two remaining 2014 issues -£600 (approx.)

Advertiser income invoiced (but not received)£400

P+P unknown

Heading for a deficit of -£800

4. Advertising & Promotional Material

Urgent need for Guild leaflets, fliers and postcards (costs unknown).Approx. £

We are heading into another expenditure heavy year with the Exhibition and mounting meeting costs. Our income remains static coming principally from membership and monthly meeting attendance fees - both of which have not been increased for a while I understand.

Unless we can find a way to increase membership and further advertise our meetings to attract more attendees our fund raising options are limited to:

1. Raising annual membership

Possible option is to increase to £27 to cover the Affiliation fee or £29 to cover insurance as well.

2. Meeting attendance fees

Possible option is to increase to £5 members, £7 guests.

3. Exhibition revenue opportunities

4. Reduce Hall rental expenditure by relocating quarterly Committee meetings. These cost £260.00.

The Study groups are just about well enough attended to cover the extra £65 hall cost.

5. Attract more advertisers to Warp & Weft if page print limitations allow OR website advertising.

2013 Exhibition Costs from Accounts Records.

From the envelope of invoices and accounts book entries I managed to pull out the following costs which seem to relate to the 2013 Exhibition.

• St Martin in the Field5 Feb 2013Gallery Hire (19 Aug- 15 Sept)£400.00
• St Martin in the Field22 Aug 2013Private View in the Gallery£253.00
• PCL Printout CommsMay 2013£278.80

(4 x A3 encapsulated posters; 1000 A5 leaflets; 250 x 3 A6 postcards)

• PCL Printout CommsJul 2013£148.80

(1 x 7 A3 posters; 6 A3 poster; 4 x A1 posters)

• Purchase of Journals, exhibition costsOct 2013£73.50
• Exhibition cost – ‘photograher, taxis, setting up, poles etc’Oct 2013£143.00
• Exhibition costs – Payment for craft council advertisementNov 2013£66.60

Total: £1363.70

1. Membership Secretary’s Report

At the time of writing the current number of Guild members is 141. This breaks down into:

• 9 Honorary members
• 132 members
• Since July we have had 6 renewals (2 of which were in September and count as 2015)
• 6 new members (3 of which count as 2015)

The New members are from a range of sources; at least 3 are via classes at Handweavers and 2 from Web search and one from Wonderwool.

NON RENEWERS

I contacted between 25-30 members who had not renewed, mainly from 2013 and some from 2012 although I did not have all the email addresses.

I received about 10 replies (sorry cannot be more specific, some got dropped off my email) I had plenty of very positive replies usually saying “forgotten” and saying they would re-join, although I haven’t seen any forms yet!

Some non-renewals were for relocation or ill-health.

Some from “teachers”/professionals said they encouraged their students to come to meetings if the speaker sounded interesting/relevant, so I imagine some lapsed members keep in touch through the website.

One response commented on the meetings/members not being friendly or welcoming. (I’ll bring the reply to the committee meeting).

It was a useful exercise and probably a brief email reminder to non-renewers early in the year will be worth doing as standard procedure.

Jane Rutt

14 October 2014

1. Programme Secretary’s Report

The Programme for 2015 is nearly complete. I await the titles of the presentations for many of the Speakers but will chase them up by phone.

There is one slot to fill in July and I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

London Guild Programme 2015

Month / Speaker / Title
January 10th / IremArig / from Sheep of Steel
February 14th / Matty Smith
Weavers Bazaar / Tapestry Weaving -
Then and Now
March 14th / AGM plus
Stuart Groom, Chair of National Assoc of WSD
April 11th / Isabella Whitworth / Dyeing with Orchils
May 9th / Laura Thomas, Weaver / Contemporary cloth and other materials...
June 13th / Bonnie Whitworth and Sarah Lowry / Young Weave Designers
July 11th
August 8th / In house workshops / Sprang /Needle felting
September 12th / Gill Chapman
Felter / tbc
October 10th / Mary Crabb
Basket weaver / My Journey into Basketry
November 14th / Caron Penney / Making Tapestry
December 12th / Competitions

JS 2014

Hall calendar from Helena:

Date / Morning / Afternoon / Area
10th January 2015 / Committee Meeting (10am) / IremArig from Sheep of Steel: TBC / Spinning
14th February 2015 / Interest Groups (11am) / Matty Smith from Weaver's Bazaar: Tapestry Weaving, Then and Now / Tapestry Weaving
14th March 2015 / AGM plus Stuart Groom, Chair of Association of WSD / Guild
11th April 2015 / Committee Meeting (10am) / Isabella Whitworth: Dyeing with Orchils / Dyeing
9th May 2015 / Interest Groups (11am) / Laura Thomas: Contemporary cloth and other materials / Weaving
13th June 2015 / Bonnie Whitworth and Sarah Lowry: Young Weave Designers / Weaving
11th July 2015 / Committee Meeting (10am) / Spinning?
8th August 2015 / Interest Groups (11am) / In-house Workshops - Sprang, Needle-felting… / Other
12th September 2015 / Gill Chapman (Felter): TBC / Other
17th October 2015 / Committee Meeting (10am) / Mary Crabb: My Journey into Basketry / Other
14th November 2015 / Interest Groups (11am) / Caron Penney: Making Tapestry / Tapestry Weaving
12th December 2015 / Christmas Competitions and Party / Guild

1. Webmaster’s Report

There continues to be a slow but steady rise in hits on the website, 621 in July, 674 in August and 684 in September. The overall majority, about 50%, come from the Greater London Area and a fair number from the rest of the UK. The majority of return visits come from these places too. There are some visitors from USA, Brazil and the rest of Europe.

Visitors look at 3 pages on average per visit, spending just over 2 minutes on the site.

The bounce rate, i.e. those who do not stay on the site is fairly steady at 55-60% of visits.

Karen continues to supplement my researches for Hot News and I receive the odd notification from other members. I’m always pleased to receive notices for inclusion in Hot News and get them onto the site fast, usually within 48 hours of receipt and remove the out of date items promptly.