The Web - March 2013 Issue

Volume 36/1

March 2013

WEB

Buckinghamshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers

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CHAIRWOMAN’S ANNUAL REPORT

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BEALE CUP

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VIC POTTER AWARD

10 BEALE CUP WINNER STORIES 11 TREASURER’S REPORT 12 SECRETARY’S REPORT 13 GUILD PROJECT 15 MEMBER PROFILE Dear Members This year’s AGM has seen a lot of changes for the Guild. Our Chairwoman Maggie Brookes has retired and handed the reins over to Dani Harvey. Dani in turn relinquished her Editorship of WEB and has passed that role on to me.

At the same time Gillie Russell-Mann has finished her term as Secretary and her post was taken over by Kay Waite. Margaret Baker has agreed to be Workshop Co-ordinator. All other officers remain the same.

Thank you all for your tireless efforts over the years!

In 2014 we are celebrating our diamond jubilee and are planning to hold an exhibition and to get everybody in the mood the theme for the next Beale Cup Competition is ‘diamonds‘. We are hoping for a record number of entries.

Martina

POSTAGE FOR WEB Postal members will continue to receive their copy of WEB by mail, but because of the rising postage costs we can no longer send uncollected copies free of charge. If you wish to have it sent please let us have a stamped addressed envelope (A5), but we will also send out electronic copies.

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CHAIR’S ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2012 - 2013 AGM Welcome to the 59th AGM of the Buckinghamshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers.

And welcome to our new members and visitors, we hope you will enjoy the meetings and become involved in the activities of the Guild.

I have divided this report into our activities over the past year, what we discuss in the Committee meetings and plans for next year.

The 58th AGM was held in January. There were nine entries for The Beale Cup competition ‘Inspired by Flowers’ and it was won by Susan Mousley with her lovely bag which was inspired by Old Man’s Beard, and Mary Newland and Margaret Baker were equal in second place.

The competition subject for the 2013 Beale Cup is ‘Skies’.

The Vic Potter Award was presented to Beverley Thompson in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the Guild.

During the year we have enjoyed eight talks, three day workshops held on Sundays, a meeting to stuff cushions (more later), one to enjoy Audrey Gurney’s garden and finally our December meeting described as ‘Guild project’ but involving a ‘what are they’ quiz by Alison Jolley and instruction on the Brinkley loom by Jenny Kahan and Wendy Fowler. We hope to encourage more of you to borrow the Brinkley loom.

Looking back on the year, the great thing has been the willingness of our members to contribute to meetings. Gilly Pusey and Alison Jolley both gave talks and demonstrations and several other members found their voices in our meeting in July. We all love to listen to people we know, or think we know, telling us about some of their activities. Thank you all. Unfortunately two of our speakers were cancelled. Thanks to Mary Newland for arranging alternatives at short notice, and for the excellent programme she has organised for 2013. I have not gone into detail of all the meetings as they have been so well reported in Web. Thanks to all who have written up meetings and workshops and sent in articles, keep them coming.

We had a visitor from Australia who loved our meeting and suggested a ‘fibre swap’ with her Guild in Sydney. Some of us on the committee are hoping to get this going. Beverley has many international links and if any others do please tell us about them.

Members have also started up two very successful groups this year. Many thanks to Wendy Fowler for getting so many of us into spinning, and to Martina Muller for following this up with a knitting group to help us to use all 3

the wool we are spinning. Both of these groups meet fortnightly in the Pottery Room and are not only contributing to our skills and friendships but also to the Guild funds which is an unexpected bonus.

Workshops have helped many more members to learn to spin, improve their spinning and spin even fancier yarns, to use Indigo for dyeing and to make felt slippers! Workshops are self-funding and organising them is not easy, in particular making sure the money is collected. They need the support of you members. We also need members willing to accommodate the speakers overnight.

The cushion making became a highlight, Marjorie Waye helped many to contribute to this by setting looms up and inviting members to her studio to weave. In the end the Guild contributed about thirty cushions made of and stuffed with English Wool. This was our contribution to Woolsack, the Cultural Olympic scheme to present each athlete competing in the Olympics with a cushion. Thanks to Adelheid for collecting all the stuffing and delivering the completed cushions. We were delighted to receive some messages of thanks from athletes, see our photograph in the Bucks Examiner and followed the news of cushions in the media with a very personal interest.

Two of our members, Susan Mousely and Mary Newland had work accepted for the Association exhibition held this year at the Weald and Downland Museum in W Sussex, it was pleasing that they were the winners of our own competition. We had an outing to the exhibition on a glorious summer day, admired the variety in the exhibition, and wished our Guild had done more of the six inch rings! But the added bonus was the Rare Breeds show, what lovely animals and so much else to see, and buy. It was a good day, we must do it again.

Some of our members are very loyal in representing us at Heritage days, Craft fairs and Open days. Spinning particularly always attracts interest and it is a very good way of attracting new members. This is arranged informally and we are very grateful to them. New volunteers are always welcome.

Our cupboard with articles for loan, and much else has been cleared out and altered, thanks to Chris Fowler, so we can now get the Brinkley loom into it.

During the clearing out we came across our archive of Web magazines which are a fascinating read. You will have noticed an article in September Web dated 10th June 1954 which was the proposal for the formation of Buckinghamshire Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers. This got Gilly Pusey thinking about our Diamond Jubilee.

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This cupboard, along with the library, is a constant headache to maintain and enables members to borrow equipment and books.

The list of those available is on the notice board and sent to new members and Wendy Fowler has volunteered to look after them for the moment.

This brings us up to some of the more significant things discussed in committee meetings!

We have a very active and hard working committee and I am very grateful to them all for supporting me in this role of Chairman. Gillie has been secretary for five years and is now standing down. She has done a great job not only of keeping accurate minutes but being the contact for the Association and enquires and introducing fun into the procedures! Penny as treasurer has kept track of our complicated system for the sales table and all other monies and is our contact for membership and mostly standing at the door to welcome people. My thanks, on behalf of the Guild to them both. Alison volunteered to act as Deputy Chairman when I took on this role as I knew I would be away for some meetings and I am very grateful for her support.

We had two new members of the committee in a new’ job sharing’ role Susan Mousely and Margaret Baker. Unfortunately Susan has been ill for much of the year, so our thanks to Margaret for taking the main share. We have had two resignations from the committee during the year, sometimes this is unavoidable for personal reasons and we are grateful for the time they were able to give to the Guild. Martina was co-opted onto the committee and has proved a most valuable member.

Publicising our meetings and activities is really important, we have very good speakers and workshops and we need to make sure the speakers feel it is worth their while coming, we attract new members, and make sure we can balance the books. This year we have joined Facebook, and that has brought contacts. We are represented on the Amersham and Chesham web based newsletter and we have a website. All of these take time and trouble to keep up to date and our thanks to Martina and Wendy for this. If anyone has marketing skills we would be delighted to hear from you.

Web is one source of publicity as this is sent to The Association and to other local Guilds. Dani has done a brilliant job with Web, we now have advertising which helps the costs, and to give us more information.

One of the most recent developments has been use of electronic media for communicating with the committee between meetings and to all members.

We have suggested that we produce Web ‘on-line’ to any member who agrees. This would enable Web to contain more images, be more current and would save on printing and postage. Dani has already introduced a web 5

newsletter in between Web publishing dates and notices given at the beginning of meetings have sometimes also been distributed on-line. We now receive updates from the Association on-line and will distribute these to all members. We will print copies for those who prefer to receive a printed Web and put a copy of Association updates on the notice board.

Another subject related to this was the use of the logo, which we agreed we would keep and try to get more badges made as we have sold out. This is on-going. However for electronic media we need more eye catching images and are using photographs for these. If you take photographs you think could be used please let the committee have them.

We discuss news from the Association. Unfortunately we again did not have a representative at the Association AGM and Conference. One main piece of news from the Association was the proposal to form groups of Guilds to organise the Exhibition, Summer School and the Conferences. We are in group G with Bedfordshire, Berkshire, London, Mid Herts, North Herts, Northants and Oxford and On line Guild. Our responsibilities are 2018 National Conference, 2023 summer School and 2028 National Exhibition.

We shall need to keep an eye on this.

You will have noticed an article in September Web dated 10th June 1954 which was the proposal for the formation of Buckinghamshire Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers. This got Gilly Pusey thinking about our Diamond Jubilee.

We have decided that to celebrate our Diamond Jubilee in 2014 we will have an exhibition and need to form a sub-committee to manage this.

We need lots to exhibit so keep making! The competition for next year will be Diamonds so we need a bumper competition entry in January 2014 to get us started!

We plan the coming meetings, sales table, tea, door, etc and the committee has taken this on but it doesn’t mean we don’t need help from all members.

The sales table is enjoyed by us all and makes a useful contribution to our funds but it is quite complicated to organise and our thanks to all the committee members who have taken this on over the year.

And of course we discuss funding, next year’s programme, venues for meetings and how much we can afford for speakers. This is an increasing cost, particularly the travel.

Which brings us to the programme for 2013.

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We have six talks, five workshops and three meetings to share our skills and experiences. The programme is on the back of the December Web and you will receive your membership cards with the details in February.

We have introduced a meeting on knitting so that we can share knowledge and techniques and non knitters can learn how! Similarly in June we have a meeting on braids, finishing techniques, card weaving etc, anything to do with fibres you think other people would be interested to see and learn.

Alison offered to follow up her inspiring demonstration on natural dyeing this year with a workshop in June. In July we are looking forward to hearing what you members would like to tell us about your activities. Last year this was a great meeting. We’ll have a garden meeting and will organise another outing if that is what is wanted.

Please volunteer to contribute to our meetings and sign up for the workshops. We are continuing to use the weaving room and/or the pottery room at Amersham Community Centre for workshops, unless there is a lot of water or heat involved. I hope the spinning and the knitting groups will continue to flourish and encourage more of you to learn these skills.

Are there other groups which members would like to start?

Shall we have another outing? Where would you like to go to?

Let’s make it a bumper year for attendance, new members and work towards our Diamond Jubilee Exhibition!

This is my last year as chairman/woman My thanks to you all for supporting me in this role.

Maggie Brookes

KNITTING AND SPINNING GROUPS The Guild has a knitting and a spinning group now. Spinning is on Mondays and knitting on Thursdays in alternate weeks at 7.30pm in the Pottery Room.

If you would like to come along please contact Wendy or Martina for the dates.

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BEALE CUP COMPETITION We had 13 “sky” entries this year which is a record number and it was a really hard choice to pick a winner. But we did!

The cup was won by Ann Northam who had entered a gorgeous felted bag.

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Second place was shared by Margaret Baker who entered a felted sphere and Margaret Kaye who had knitted a “Sarah Lund� jumper.

VIC POTTER AWARD The Vic Potter Award was given to a flabbergasted Kyllikki Turner for all the support she has given to the Guild over the years.

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SKY by Ann Northam Following the enjoyable workshop run by the renowned felt maker Sue Pearl I decided to make a bag for our ‘Beale cup’ competition titled ‘Sky’. As usual I had left little time to get Merino tops and Martina kindly recommended ‘World of Wool’ where I purchased several mixed bags hoping they would arrive promptly as this was the week before Christmas.

Fortunately they arrived two days later.

Kyllikki had a template I could use so it was decided the Saturday after Christmas I would duly make the bag in her kitchen, not an easy task when you are recovering from a broken wrist! Although I did all the work and design we had a lovely time chatting through the technique and discussing the merits of the different colours. Even Vic had his say, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day, I proudly took the finished article home and left it in my airing cupboard to dry.

The next week saw me in ‘The hobby shop’ Watford purchasing a special ‘hole/ring’ punch for the handles which I made from my first home spun wool, twisting it looped through a door handle and my hand drill as learned from Alison, after several attempts I manage to get an acceptable length and the job was complete.

The bag has been made for my life time friend’s sixtieth birthday in February.

She attended the ‘Slipper’ workshop and has won many awards for different things (even ‘a gold’ and ‘Best in show’ at Hampton court flower show).

Throughout our friendship she has given me numerous lovely ‘hand made’ gifts. I on the other hand have never made her anything or won an award so I can’t wait to see her open her gift and ‘bore her’ with my trophy!

Thank you all for voting me the winner.

ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID - NEVER THE BRIDE by Margaret Baker ...(mmmm, beginning to sound like the story of my life!)

Anyway, second again, or as Maggie pointed out “it’s just not good enough”!

Thank you to all of you who thought it was though.

When we were first given the title “Sky” as our inspiration for the 2012 competition, it set my creative juices flowing and, as a usual, I was full of loads of ideas which ... well ... never quite made it!!!

I though I would make a collection of my feltmaking spheres, each one representing a different mood of sky. As the year unfolded it became clear that I was never going to get around to doing this. However, a light bulb must have switched on one day and I thought “Why don’t I make just one sphere - to represent night and day around the globe?”

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With the aid of my dad’s 90th birthday balloons I set to. To start with it was pointed out to me that I’d got my East/West orientation a bit wrong! (I still prefer the pattern on that one though!) So back to try again ... any excuse for getting messy.

Having got my clear sky, night sky, sunrise and sunset pretty well sorted (there’s always room for artistic license) for that extra glow I included an electric tealight and there you have it - my entry for the 2012 competition.

See you next year - let’s get more entries in 2013.

TREASURER’S REPORT – 2013 AGM Membership Numbers Overall membership numbers in 2011/12 remained the same as the previous year with leavers being ‘balanced’ by the fact that we had the opportunity to welcome eight new full time members who joined us during the year – demonstrating the importance of continuing to recruit new members. In summary, then, we had 46 full members, 3 postal members and 4 life members. We previously had 5 life members but during the year we found that we no longer had any current contact details for Margaret Boone.

Meetings held during the year The average attendance at meetings was 25 – the same as last year. The most popular talk was Gilly Pusey’s talk on spinning different fleeces in February 2012 which was attended by no less than 32 people.

Accounts I am pleased to report that for the first time in five years we had a surplus of income over expenditure. The accounts for the year ended 31 August 2012 show a surplus of £100.10.

As far as the finances are concerned, of particular note are: - This was the first full year of increased meeting fees and resulted in an

increase in income from meeting fees of £93.50 when compared to last year.

- Speakers’ costs are always a difficult and variable area, and we have

had to contend with an environment where many speakers are increasing their fees and their travel costs.

This year the costs were actually £394.02 less than last year.

Recognising the problem with speaker’s costs, we have been taking a 11

more structured approach. Our objective is to utilise the amounts received from the meeting fees, together with the income from the sales table and half of the donation income, to cover the speaker costs and this objective was achieved this year.

- Hall hire costs increased by £24.85 during the year.

- The sales table and raffle increased the guild funds by £147. 01 which

is £112.56 less than last year’s figure. However, last year’s figure included a ‘one-off benefit’ from the sale of part of the guild’s library.

The sales table and raffle continue to represent a major contribution to our income for the year. So once again, a big thank you to Helen Munday for making the Christmas cake for the raffle and to everybody who helped to run the sales table, brought goods to be sold and those who purchased them. It is an important activity for the guild funds and I would encourage you all to bring items for sale – and to ensure as little as possible is left ‘on the shelf’.

- As far as workshops are concerned, you know that these are now

priced so that they break even when 10 members attend them. This year, thanks to their popularity, the workshops generated an income of £283.79. Particular contributions to this figure came from the fact that 17 people attended the Spinning workshop held by Gilly Pusey and Alison Jolley in February 2012 and 12 people attended the Daniela Kloppmann workshop in May 2012.

- Income from equipment hire increased by £50 to £65. This was due to Marjorie Waye renting out our screens to the Embroiderers’ Guild.

- During the year Wendy Fowler set up the Monday evening spinning group which meets fortnightly in the Pottery rooms. This has generated £74 for our funds.

- Dani has continued to be successful in letting advertising space in our

WEB magazine and we received £40 of advertising revenue during the year. Unfortunately, the WEB costs increased by £193.70 during the year.

This is a reflection of the increased costs of printing the magazine and increased postage. As Maggie mentioned in her Chair report, we are looking into whether it may be possible to produce the WEB on –line for some members and in particular the copies we send to other local guilds.

- When what passed for summer arrived, we had our first outing for

several years, travelling to the national exhibition in Sussex. There was a small monetary loss at the end of the day but it was enjoyed by 12

everyone that attended and I hope that it is the kind of event that we can repeat.

To conclude, then, the finances are in good shape and we have an overall surplus of £100.10 from our activities in the year ended 31 August 2012.

Consequently, we are not proposing any further increases to either membership or meeting fees for this year.

One final matter – The constitution only permits a treasurer to serve for 5 years continuously and at the end of this year I will have completed my 5 years. If there is anyone who thinks that they may like to take over this role in 2014, I would be pleased to talk to you after the meeting about what is involved. Or, if you know anyone who you think would like to be Treasurer, please let me know.

SECRETARY’S REPORT FOR 2012 Happy New Year to you all!

This will be my last secretary’s report,.... having served 5 years on the committee...and whilst it has sometimes been hard work and I’ve had to keep my eye on the ball...so to speak..I’ve enjoyed every minute (well almost!)

I have been well supported by the committee, especially our chairman Maggie, who without fail has given a review of the years activities at the AGM, which could well have landed on my desk (but then what would she have said if not an overview?....she would have had to waffle on filling in space like me.....not a good idea for the first report of the AGM.!!)

The committee have also rallied round, when I have failed to book the correct rooms for workshops and have muddled up my dates...I sound like a complete incompetent!!

I have become much more proficient on a computer! (even if I still type with one finger) and have managed to get the minutes out on time!!

So it is with regret and pleasure that I hand over my post to a younger and probably more competent secretary, Kay Waite.

But yes, I will miss the fun we have had on committee!

Gillie Russell-Mann 13

GUILD PROJECT - Meeting December 2012 Our December meeting was a very varied event. We had, as usual, a sale table, but this time with a Christmas theme and the items on sale ranged from biscuits to Christmas tree earrings.

We had two Brinkley looms set up. Jenny demonstrated putting a warp on one and Wendy showed us how to weave with it and encouraged members to have a go.

Alison entertained us by bringing 20 “things” for a quiz. She had the most amazing array of textile gadgets representing the entire process from fibre to garment. It is astonishing to see how technology moves on and how quickly we forget what came before!

We also raffled a beautiful Christmas cake which was made and donated by Helen Munday and found its way to Maureen’s Christmas table.

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MEMBER PROFILE: Marjorie Waye At the age of eight Marjorie was introduced to weaving at a summer camp in her native Canada and she is still as passionate about it as ever. She finds inspiration everywhere and sees potential in the most unlikely things. Marjorie has done most types of weaving in her time from bookmarks to carpets and tapestries and quite often will spin and dye fibre to get the perfect result. Some years ago she converted her garage into a studio which houses seven looms, from table looms right up to 60� floor looms.

With the exception of one, they are all Canadian Leclerc looms.

Having the studio has enabled her to teach and pass on her skills to others and also take part in Open Studios every year where the public can visit and see all the work in progress. To Marjorie the most important aspect of the craft is to be creative and experiment with techniques and she always has her eye on the next project.

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2013 Guild Programme 2 March

Sculptural Baskets - Talk by Shuna Rendel

6 April

Knit and Share - bring your knitting

4 May

Tapestry Weaving - Talk by Jane Freear Wyld

5 May

Texture in Tapestry - Workshop with Jane Freear Wyld

1 June

Have a Go

2 June

Natural Dyeing - Workshop with Alison Jolley

6 July

Show and Tell - bring some work to share the story

3 August

Garden Meeting

7 September

Inspired by Nature - Talk by Barbara Walters

5 October

Bringing Spinning Up to Date - Talk by Alison Daykin

6 October

Fancy Yarn - Workshop with Alison Daykin

2 November

Batik - Talk by Rosi Roberts

3 November

Batik - Workshop with Rosi Roberts

7 December

Guild Project

Meetings are held in Barn Hall at the Amersham Community Centre at 2 for 2.30pm. We always have a sale table where you can bring and buy and serve tea and biscuits after the talk.

Committee Chairwoman

Dani Harvey daniharvey@hotmail.co.uk

Vice Chairwoman

Alison Jolley amjolley@btinternet.com

Secretary

Kay Waite kaywaiteceramics@hotmail.co.uk

Treasurer

Penny Hughes pennyhughes116@gmail.com

Programme Organiser

Mary Newland noteweft2006@yahoo.co.uk

Programme Coordinator

Margaret Baker basilbaker@btinternet.com

Website

Wendy Fowler wendpot@hotmail.co.uk

WEB/Publicity

Martina M端ller martina@bimbipea.eu

Adelheid Jenkins capricorn_adelheid@hotmail.com Helen Munday helen.munday@btinternet.com 16