November Meeting Minutes

November 2014 Meeting

• Call to order.
• Roll call.
• Sign-in
• Review of Minutes from  Last Meeting
• In October Meeting nominated New Board Members.  The New Board now consists of the following members...
• Rebecca (7/13)
• Stef (7/13)
• Anne (7/13)
• Marija (1/14)
• Kim (10/14)
• Jan (10/14)
• Lisa (10/14)
• Victoria (10/14)
• Sharon (10/14)
• Noel (10/14)
• Robi (10/14)
• Pam (11/14)
• Board members hold a 3 year term.  (WNYMQG Bylaws 3.3)
• Quorum = Majority 
• The majority of the Board Members is needed to pass new business.  This will require 7 members of the board being present at a meeting to conduct new business. 
• Officers reports.
• Nominations from New Board to Create the 2015-2017 Exec Board
• President: Lisa 
• Treasurer: Victoria 
• Secretary: Kim 
• VP of Charities: Pam
• VP of Events: Stephanie
• VP of Communications: Rebecca
• To learn more about the roles of the Executive Board and the rules of the Guild please see the bylaws here.
• Challenges facing WNYMQG
• Membership Issues
• Do we want to continue requiring meeting attendance, what does meeting attendance requirements accomplish for us as a group?  Some people are in favor of doing away with meeting attendance requirements.  [We currently require 2 meetings and then payment of dues before becoming a member.]  Others voiced a concern that coming to meetings where no one attends is discouraging and the attendance requirement encourages participation.  One member suggested that we have tiers of membership based on a member's commitment to attending events/meetings.  Nothing was decided at this meeting regarding this issue..it was simply brought up as an issue to be considered for the new Exec Board.  
• Longevity —> NYS Non-Profit.  This came up in the context of whether it is worth staying with the MQG.  Or do we want to branch off and become our own group?  Do we want to be a Guild or a Social Group.  The Board Members are continuing this discussion via email prior to the December meeting.
• Tax Issues --> Still taking our cues from the MQG.
• Updates on Bee.
• November Month is Robi!
• 
• If you need fabric from Robi please contact her via email or Facebook.
• Prior Queen Bees tried to identify who else they needed blocks from.  If you haven't received blocks from everyone please let them know.
• If the Queen is at a meeting and you are not it is Your Obligation to figure out how to get fabric from/to them.
• If the Queen is not at the meeting is up to her to figure out how to get blocks from or fabric to people.
• Do not expect the Queen to pay postage to provide you with fabric if you don't attend the meeting.  And Queens do not expect people to mail to you if you aren't going to attend the meeting.  
• This Bee is centered on meeting attendance.  If you cannot attend please communicate with the Queen and remember to consider the burden of whose responsibility it is to pay for postage.
• New business.
• December Meeting - Rebecca will be unable to attend due to a wedding.  But hopefully with Stephanie's help she'll be appearing via FaceTime!
• For the December Meeting people will be bringing food.  Please go to the Events section of the Facebook page to share what you intend to bring!
• Board members have been notified via email that there will be a vote at the December meeting concerning continuation with MQG Membership.  Proxy voting is not permitted, however, board members unable to attend the Dec Meeting are encouraged to email the Exec Board their vote.

• Show and Tell

Charity Quilt Created from the Feather Swap

Stephanie's Snowball Quilt with Vintage TMNT Backing!

Pam shows us her feather quilt used from the feather swap...

Pam's Do Good Stitches Quilt

Marija's Bee Month Blocks (so far...)

Devon showing us her son's colonial jacket made for their reenactment group

July meeting fun

Hi everyone,

We had a wonderful time at our July meeting at Quilter's Heaven in Lakewood!

Huge thank you goes to Janice and everyone in the shop for being such nice hosts - we had great meeting space, plenty of fabric inspirations and delicious food too! 

 Quilter's Heaven is a lovely shop located on beautiful Chautauqua lake, with fabric, yarn, notions... So well worth the drive (that is beautiful in itself!)

We were a disciplined bunch and started with business part of the meeting first!

Here are meeting minutes:

1. Rebecca opened the meeting and informed everyone about the discussions at our executive board meeting: We mainly discussed our future meeting places and schedule. In our first year and a half, meetings spread out all over western NY and at local quilt shops was a great way to introduce our guild, get to know our area and recruit new members. However, constantly moving the meeting place can also be somewhat an inconvenience and obstacle in having a well defined schedule of meetings a year in advance. Since now we are established guild, (yet still very much growing!), we will change this to have meetings in two specific public libraries - one in Southtowns (Eden library) and one in Northtowns, (Williamsville library) alternating every month. Meetings will still be every third Saturday of the month.  Look for the meeting schedule for October-December and next year coming out soon!

2. As we grow as a guild we also need to consider having additional functions in the guild, such as Membership coordinator, Newsletter etc. - so all members (and future ones!) are encouraged to think about this and share their ideas. This also goeas for ANY OTHER IDEAS for the guild you may have!

3. Rebecca informed us that we have a request from Keenan Quilter Guild to give BOTH presentation and a workshop, next year - very exciting!! If you have ideas about what kind of workshop we can do, please share!

4. Feathers from our swap were distributed by Stephanie and Deb graciously volunteered to piece and quilt our charity quilt form feather blocks designated for it - THANK YOU DEB!!

5. Robi distributed Anne's Bee block kits and explained the block, since Anne couldn't come this time.

6. We discussed our upcoming exhibit at the Quilts Around Chautauqua Quilt Show in September too. This is actually fast approaching and everyone is encouraged to have at least one quilt for the show! Please, please!! This is really excellent opportunity to present our guild! Jan had a great suggestion of having nice LABELS for every quilt - these are not the labels that you already have on the back of your quilt, but printed signs with quilt name, size, pattern and any other information you wish to have, that will be pinned to the front of your quilt. Even better - Jan volunteered to make these!! THANK YOU JAN!! However, for this to work, we will have to fill-in registration forms so that she will have something to work with. Jan will make registration forms too!! Hooray!!

On this wonderful note we concluded the business part of the meeting and went on to fun stuff - Show and Tell, food and shopping!! :)

Business part of the meeting:

Robi was showing and explaining Anne's Bee block for next month: 

Time for show and tell!!

Stephanie has her MQG Michael Miller challenge on the way to finish:

And then she up-cycled her old sofa pillows into a small quilt -whoa!

Robi's blooming Nine-patch quilt is just awesome:

And, as per Robi-the Srapmaster, this was not really scrappy enough for her, so the back had to be...

Bonnie made this lovely baby quilt!

And the back is so lovely too:

And this cute pillow with lovely puppy photo transfer:

And finally, yours truly showed my latest finishes, table runners that I also have on my blog (these photos are from before, not the meeting, since I was the meeting photographer) 

This one had a bit of a different finish due to zig-zag edges: no binding, just fluffy chenille zig-zag stitched to the edge.

That is all for now, my friends!

Our next meeting is Saturday, August 16th at 1:00 pm at Jen's house - see you all there!!

Remember - Stay Calm and Quilt On... and have a wonderful week ahead,

Marija

Quilty Math

Doing some quilt math in preparation for cutting fabric for our banner...

Rebecca

President

May meeting photos and stories...

Hi everyone,

SPRING IS IN FULL SWING, YEAH!!

 I confess that this green color takes my breath away EVERY year, over an over....

I am finally getting around to write this blog post!
My life has been busy and exciting these past weeks, so much so that I was late for the May meeting (have a good excuse, I promise - but more about that later!), and forgot my camera too!! - so for this meeting's photo journal I am grateful for all the wonderful photos taken by other members (thank you Robi and Jan!). To add to that - I was so overjoyed and excited once I came to the meeting that I completely forgot to write down meeting minutes too! Oh my.... total failure of the official...

Sew, what's going on you may ask? Well, if you haven't heard already (now that would be a miracle, since I practically shouted from the rooftops and harassed everyone in my reach) - I became a grandmother!!! YEAH! Our beautiful Juliana Marie Vujcic was born just few days before our May meeting (now you see my excuse??) and she is the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen!

But if that wasn't enough joy - on Saturday, when I finally made it to our meeting - I got another surprise!! Yup - this my silly, surprised face and some tears too...

 All of my wonderful, amazing, creative WNY MQG friends MADE A QUILT FOR ME AND JULIANA!! AAAHHHHH!!!! To say I am thrilled, overjoyed and grateful is all the understatement galore.

Isn't it beautiful???
Everyone made a star block AND a lovely, lovely label for the back:

This quilt will stay in grandma's house, for all the snuggles and stories and songs...CAN'T WAIT!!!
I even have a rocking chair, where it lives now.

 

I smile every morning when I get up and see it!! 

So, once more - thank you everyone, from the bottom of my heart!! Love you put into these stitches is going to wrap around our precious granddaughter like a cape of strength and love, the most precious gift. :)

And for even more photos, you can click HERE, to see the story on my blog.

OK, of course other things happened at the meeting too, ha ha!
Lets get right away to all the fun of Show and Tell:

Anne's beautiful work in progress

 Anne is discussing her progress and thoughts? :)

Anne also brought her lovely mom to join us - what pleasure!!

Rebecca's work in progress:

I love those "whispering" colors! And so much good quilting space too!
Janice's colorful, cheerful quilt:

 Pam's latest creation:

You can read more about Pam's circles on her blog too! And I really, really like the label!!

Another one of Pam's beauties:

 LOVE that quilting:

Robi - The ScrapMaster finished another stunner!

 Nice quilting too!

This month's Queen Bee is Kim and here is what we will be making for her - what fun!!
And all over good time was had by all...

Now my friends, if you are wondering what was the business part of the meeting (aka - the minutes), I would have to apologize again - I was just too excited and overwhelmed with joy! :) But in some informal form, here is what we talked about:

1. Reminder that Feather blocks for our swap are due next month! Steph is collecting them only at the picnic and will divide and deliver them at July meeting.

2. June meeting/family picnic!! Don't miss the fun and - bring your family! Look at the pinned (up on top!) post at out Facebook Page to leave a comment on what you want to bring (food-wise). Visitors and potential members are welcome!!

3. Next MQG Challenge - fabric was divided to all paid members at April meeting and we did realize that MQG did not send us enough for everyone... However - it seems that everyone who WANTED to do the challenge has the fabric, so all is well. Also, few of us are willing to share, if you didn't get it and still want it - so please speak up!

4. Think, plan and quilt - for our next quilt show exposure - Quilting Around Chautauqua 2014!! Anne will have more information and details as it is set. Last year's road trip/meeting there was fabulous and this one will be so much better since we will have OUR quilts in the show - YAY!!

Well, that is all this bad secretary can remember folks. Promise to get my brain back and do better next month! :)
Enjoy spring in full swing, keep calm and quilt on,
Marija

PS - stop and smell the lilacs every chance you have!

 Look up to see this stunning green!!

 Peonies will be blooming soon!! (these are from the Gullo's nursery I visited over the weekend...droool...)