CETG AGM on Monday 14th October 2019
Members Social Evening - card making, egg decoration, and a sale of fabric for charity*
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Here is a summary of Liz Smith's report, as Chair of CETG, along with some photos of members stitching, gluing, and socialising on the evening.
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Good evening - it’s lovely to see you all this evening - thank you for coming to the AGM. Thank you also for continuing to support the group - without you there wouldn’t be a group! Another year has flown by and brings me to the beginning of my final year as your Chair. We don’t - as yet - have anyone volunteering to take over from me, but I am certain one of you will come forward, as this group is too precious to lose.
Committee
I want to thank my wonderful committee for supporting me for another year. They are always full of enthusiasm and ideas and, most importantly, they keep me on the straight and narrow. They work very hard behind the scenes to keep this group up to date, vibrant and a joy to belong to. A very heart felt thank you to you all and I look forward to working with you all again next year. Amazingly we don’t have anyone leaving the committee at this AGM! We do, however, have a new member who will, I hope, be elected this evening. May I take this opportunity to introduce you to Pirkko. She and Linda are taking on the organisation of our workshops and trips. I do only have one year left as Chair so it’s vital that one of you volunteers to take over from me in Oct 2020. If anyone is interested in this post, please see me as soon as possible. I will not be standing for another year after 2020.
Non Committee Members
There are other members of the group that help us all out that are not on the committee. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their hard work and commitment.
Jackie continues to organise the coaches for our trips. This takes a huge load off me and I am very grateful to her. Steve and Margaret do a Stirling job of looking after our library, which is a wonderful resource for the group. Thank you both for your continued help and hard work. Liz Wilmott has taken on keeping our scrapbook up to date - this is a record of all that goes on within the group. Again, this takes one more job off my shoulders and she is doing a great job. It is important to keep our scrapbook going, as not everyone has a computer to access our website. Liz has also taken on the organisation of our stitch group, which she does brilliantly. Thank you Liz!
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Speakers
Again we have had another year of great talks covering a broad range of subjects - with a fantastic mix of contemporary as well as traditional artists coming to speak to us. I feel it’s the main strength of the group that we have such a varied programme. Because of this variety not every speaker is going to be to everyone’s taste, but it keeps us fresh and open to new ideas. We have had a number of members of the prestigious 62 group to speak to us this year. One such member was Richard McVetis. Men are so few and far between in this field, it was refreshing to have him speak to our group. We had a wonderful talk by our very own Mary Gamster who delighted us with stories of her travels. She very kindly stepped in at the last minute when Nancy Nicholson cancelled on us. Helen has now completed our 2020 programme, which is no mean task, so a huge thank you to her. She has managed to persuade some very interesting people to come and talk to us and I am really looking forward to her programme. I would just like to acknowledge the huge contribution the Jenkins family as a whole has made to the group over the years – Val, our treasurer, Helen our programme secretary, and Viki, a past programme secretary and speaker next year. They turn up to every meeting and very quietly just get on with their jobs. So thank you all very much.
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Website and Social Media
Our website, Face book and Instagram sites are all working well. I hope you have managed to take a look at least one of these! Thank you to Fiona and Helen for maintaining these sites for us. It takes a lot of work and you both do a wonderful job. I don’t know if you all realise, but the website is a great source of reference, not only for what is happening now but with archive material going back to 2012. Fiona worked very hard to get all our archive information transferred across to the new website, so please take a look at it. You can find it under the ‘more’ tab- archive on our website. Fiona has also managed to have our programmes printed for us all while driving up to Scotland and back every few weeks! She is a real asset to the group. Thank you Fiona!
Our Coffee Morning come Exhibition
I would like to say a big thank you to the ladies who held ‘making sessions’ this year. During these sessions we learnt how to make various items and were given ideas to inspire us to use our own designs. These sessions were very enjoyable and I really appreciate the members doing this for the group. Thank you to everyone who has made and who is still making items for sale at our coffee morning - I hope you are enjoying yourselves. The items we have seen so far are really beautiful and I am very grateful to you all for the time and effort you are putting into making things for us.
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Workshops
We had two workshops this year, one was given by Nicola Jarvis, which I was unable to attend but the feedback from this workshop was it was very challenging and extremely satisfying. Nicola was reported to have been a wonderful teacher. I must get you all to bring in the insects you have finished so we can all see them. We had to cancel our workshop with Marilyn Pipe, which was very disappointing, but Dawn Ramsay came forward to give us a workshop on botanical contact printing. The ladies that attended her workshop produced some beautiful pieces of fabric and had a very enjoyable day.
I have to say I feel I have let the group down slightly this year, the loss of our very capable organiser Judith left a massive gap which I did not manage to fill. This was partly due to circumstances out of my control, and partly due to my lack of organisation. So I apologise to you all for that. But the main thing is I am doing something about it! As you know I have appointed two committee members to organise our future workshops. We will be offering you some very interesting and enjoyable workshops next year.
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Trips
We have had two great trips this year, including the Knit and Stitch on Saturday, which as always, had us buying things we didn’t know we needed and inspired us with examples of great work. Our trip to Hemmingford Grey was a great success and has left a lasting impression on me personally. There is something about that house that is very special. We were blessed with wonderful weather and found an ice-cream van parked next to our coach before we returned home - what more could you ask for!
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Our two stitch groups go from strength to strength and we have brought along examples of the projects we have been working on this year. I am very keen for more small groups to be set up. They are a wonderful way to get to know each other better and to develop your design and embroidery skills. It is also an opportunity to explore any textile techniques you are interested in. I have benefited so much from being in my little group. It has made me really use what I have learnt about design and stitch in very different ways. I have had to think about colour and the texture of threads. This in turn has taught me to appreciate and really look at works of art and textile that I see in exhibitions. All of this plus getting to know a lovely group of ladies better. So hopefully we will be able to get at least one more group set up this coming year.
Well, enough from me, can we please move these chairs back around the tables so we can start out social evening! There will be two different types of cards to be made - one design is sewn the other uses glue. I will be demonstrating how to decorate polystyrene eggs. So please have a wander around the tables and see what takes your fancy.
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Please don’t forget to collect your 2020 programmes from the sign in desk.
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* from a sale of fabric on the evening, a total of £88 was raised for Oxfam
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