July Notices note correction

Please note National Stitch Day is on 1^st August not as shown on the notices at the meeting.

Birmingham Branch Notices July 2015

Welcome to our summer party and to our speaker tonight Stevie Walker we are in for a treat and those members going to Westhope take the chance to think about what you would like to focus on that weekend. Please place your vote in our competition and enjoy looking at all of the pieces and thank you to those who have entered. Make the most of the cakes, many thanks go to Angela and Jayne for working so hard to provide them.

Extraordinary AGM the resolution was carried with a large majority. Thank you to Clare for attending on our behalf and she will happily tell you more about the meeting if you want to ask her. Thank you as well to all of you who voted.

Regional Day happened in June at Leamington Spa. Those of us who went to the event had a great day with fantastic speakers and took lots of notes for next year. It inspired us all to look forward to our event which is also going to be well worth going to. Great news is that Frank Nutt has agreed to provide a sewing machine for the raffle next year we are very grateful for his support. For those of you who don’t know his shop is in Poplar Road Kings Heath its great to have such local backing.

Regional AGM is on 26^th September if you want to go please let Clare know tonight, or over the summer, there are notices on the side table with more details. We will organise shared travel at our meeting in September.

The list for individual members who are willing to lend their own equipment is up and running please have a look and add items you can lend if you would like to.

Thank you all for continuing to support the raffle and the colour for September is Violet so please bring a contribution in that colour if you can, to that Meeting.

Don’t forget our Saturday Day Schools and see Margaret if you are interested in any of them.

West hope if you are coming please speak to Anne or Bernadette tonight about what you would like to do with Sarah, having had a chance to see her work. Please also put your name and details on the list on the side if you want to share transport.

Clear Vision: This is going well. If you would like to get involved see Elizabeth Parker.

CoCoMad Thank you to those who helped on the day and with donations of things to sell. We made £222 with the raffle being particularly successful. A particular thank you to Angela and Janet Molloy they raced around at the beginning of the day when we were without a table (my fault). Temporarily lost keys and sweet talking a nice young man and the problem was resolved.

Membership fee 2015/16. As you know the membership fee from the National Guild isn’t increasing and we are continuing to absorb last year’s increase and aren’t putting our rate up so the overall fee for our branch remains the same. We are able to do that locally because of your support for the Raffle and for Cocomad which help to balance our books!

Show and Tell The committee has decided that starting in September there will be a table in the foyer each meeting for you to put items of your work for us to enjoy and learn from. We will have cards on the table and ask that you put your name on a card to identify your piece and to allow others to ask you about it. Please support this we have missed the pleasure of seeing members work on a regular basis. Please bring your summer stitching to share in September

National Stitch Day is on 1^st August we will be in the Library as usual and instead of doing our own projects we will all be joining in and completing a piece of stitching on the theme of the Tea Party. Materials will be provided on the day so please join us and bring your sewing kit and some threads if you would like. Tell friends this is happening and they are welcome to call in.

Branch Exhibition we are exploring with the Coffin Works in the Jewellery quarter to have an exhibition of our work themed around Memory in the Autumn of 2016 so watch this space for more information soon.

Next year’s committee. As you know all of the committee are willing to serve another year if you would like us to. Heather is staying as Vice Chair but relinquishing IT to Jayne. We have set up a new programme planning committee for the programme 2016 to 2017 and Jayne and Meriel are going to head this up with some help from Anne. We would like another couple of member’s to join us: one to join the programme planning group and another to act as membership secretary, working with Anne to take some of the load off her. Please think about standing and see anyone of us for more information. We have a lovely time working together and new members bring new ideas which are always needed.

There will be nomination forms for the committee and for the officers available in September for the AGM the following month.

2016 is the 300th Anniversary of Capability Brown's birth. A visit to Charlecote Park on 14^th July has been organised by the region and Clare and Margaret are going on our behalf. Lorna is going to be our liaison person with the region for this project and we should know much more when we meet again in September.

Makitlace and Needlcraft show in Solihull December 5^th have offered exhibition space to the Guild, we have said that we would be interested in sending some exhibits, but don’t have more details as yet.

Beautiful Birmingham Project: Bernadette is meeting with someone from the Asian Women’s Textile Group in the city to discuss some coordinated contributions to this. Again we will know more in September.

September’s meeting on 14^th features Sarah Burgess talking about Landscapes of the Imagination should be an informative and stimulating start to the new programme. The Raffle colour is violet so please bring a contribution if you can stitch related or not.

Hope you really enjoy tonight and have a great summer. Keep in touch via the blog we will continue to update it. As you can see there are a number of exciting projects around as well as the regional day next year, so September’s notices should make for interesting reading, as further developments get reported on. Hope to see some of you at the Library in August.

Bernadette on behalf of the committee