You’ll have to excuse the quotations in the title as we didn’t exactly keep official minutes. However, we had a productive meeting and great turnout. In fact, it was probably the biggest turnout we’ve had for a sew-in and meeting since we’ve been together as a guild! Thank you to everyone who came to discuss and sew!

The goal of our meeting was to ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE! (I know it may have been overwhelming to the newcomers – THANK YOU and WELCOME! It was great to see so many new faces.)

Here’s what we discussed:

General Discussion Items:

• Star Quilt Along
• QuiltCon Charity quilt (contact Andi via shutterfly for more information)
• Seattle Map Panel challenge from Underground Quilts (If anyone is interested in organizing this please contact Season at seattlemodernquiltguild [at] gmail [dot] com for more information.)
• Communication: I know this can get convoluted because we have so many outlets for communication. Right now, the best way to find out information regarding the guild is here at the blog or on our shutterfly site. On the shutterfly site you can also post questions to all the of other members on the site. If you are not a member of the shutterfly site, please contact Season at seattlemodernquiltguild [at] gmail [dot] com for an invite.

Why we are organizing:

• We are so excited to a part of such a fantastic and growing community of quilters but the group has gotten quite large. In order to accommodate everyone we’ll need a few extra hands to make sure the group continues to be inclusive and cohesive.
• Because of the size, we will need to find a larger space to meet and have sew-ins that can accommodate us. That, of course, means we’ll have to collect dues.
• Some of the current members who have been doing the organizing need to move on. While it takes a lot of work to organize sew-ins, events, challenges, etc., it can be managed with a larger team.

What we need to organize:

• Non-profit status (Chandra Wu is spearheading this part of organizing – hooray and thank you!!)
• Executive committee: We discussed having an executive board that included five people: President, Vice-President (Programs), Vice-President (Membership), Secretary, and Treasurer.
• Various committees and chairs: events, sew-ins, technology (email/blog/twitter/shutterfly/facebook, etc.), and whatever else the board sees fit.

Where do we go from here:

• We established a task force to meet and establish the executive board. Amber Arnold will be leading this task force (hooray and thank you!!). We already have about eight people on the task force. If you were unable to be at the meeting but would like to be involved in the organizing committee please contact Amber at amber [dot] arnold [at] gmail [dot] com to be put on the list. The task force will be our organizing committee dedicated to establishing the executive board and committees so we can begin to formalize as part of the Modern Quilt Guild.
• Each person was asked to fill out a member contact form which included: name, address, phone, email, social media info and whether you mind us linking to you on our blog (blog, twitter, tumblr, flickr, etc.). This information is just for internal organizing and communicating and will not be shared with any other entity – nor will we spam you :). If you weren’t able to make the meeting, feel free to send this information to Season at seattlemodernquiltguild [at] gmail [dot] com to be entered into our membership database.
• Because of the large geographical area that the guild covers, we also discussed the possibility of having smaller “bees” instead of having monthly all-encompassing sew-ins. For example, people could host a small number of people in their homes to have a smaller sew-in with people that live nearby. These could be organized at any time, at anyone’s convenience. Feel free to connect via our shutterfly site.

As always, if anyone has any questions please don’t hesitate to contact seattlemodernquiltguild [at] gmail [dot] com. Thank you! The guild looks to have an exciting future!

Finally, a very special thanks to our host, Monica of Stitch & Sew Studio and West Seattle Fabric Company, for donating her beautiful new sewing space!

Unfortunately, I was so busy sewing that I didn’t get a chance to take pictures of the sew-in. Fortunately, the West Seattle Blog was there to pick up my slack. A great post with some great photos!