July 10, 2013 EMQG Meeting Notes
Diane was the meeting presenter.
Reminder: Please donate $1 to OSR for attending the meeting.
Visitors
We had four new faces at our meeting:
Cindy lives in Marcola. She has been quilting for years and years.
Madyson recently moved to Eugene; she heard about EMQG from Piece by Piece. Deanna moved back to Eugene.
Swap
The July swap was red, white & blue.
The August swap is needle cases.
Announcements
Nelda, the Textile Coordinator at the Lane County Fair, brought packets for the people that volunteered to help with the Fair.
Parking signs – Wanda warned us that the City of Springfield has put up parking signs, and has contracted out parking enforcement. Effective around the first of September, they will enforce 2 hour parking. As they get more information, they will pass it along.
Our August meeting will be held outdoors at Friendly Park in Eugene (2721 Monroe St.). It will be a potluck meeting; sweet or savory; families are welcome to come; bring a blanket or a chair.
September meeting – please contact Kelly, our Glorious Organizer, if you have any ideas for our September meeting.
Discussion
Most of our meeting was focused on whether or not we should officially join The Modern Quilt Guild. The discussion was led by Denise and Kelly.
Our deadline to join is by the end of the year. If we decide not to join we have to change the name of our guild. It could be something like, “The Modern Quilters of Eugene.”
Fortunately, people have the option to join as individuals, or as a group.
Our discussion focused on the requirements for joining, the benefits, and the reasons not to join.
If we join the MQG we’d be required to pay dues based on the number of people in our group. We’d also have to do the paperwork to register as a non-profit group, have by-laws, officers, a tax ID number, maintain a bank account, and file annual statements.
Some of the benefits of joining are: discounts, early bird registration for events, permission to use the MQG logo, access to leader materials, participate in challenges, a blog button.
Some of the reasons for not joining were:
It will cost money to join. We’d have to charge membership dues, or have a fundraiser.
Will anyone volunteer for the new positions, such as treasurer?
People like our informal format. Many people are members of, or have belonged to, more formally organized groups.
Many of our members are very prolific quilters, others are not. Would the less active members still be welcome if we joined the MQG?
We took an informal vote to see how many people were interested in joining. One person was in favor, but the majority were not, and quite a few were still undecided and would like to hear more information from other Modern Quilt Guild's.
We’d like to have more discussion at our next meeting. We’d like to sit down with Jessica and Jenny to draft/discuss possible by-laws.
Bee
July is Tracy’s bee month.
Upcoming Events
Thanks Karen for great note taking, we really appreciate it!
Stay tuned for the Show and Tell post with pictures.
