Report from the Program Committee (July 2011)

First, a huge thank you to everyone who completed the questionnaire. You put a lot of thought and energy into your responses; in fact, we were overwhelmed by the positive energy and talent expressed by everyone in the group.

Here are some factual details from the survey:

• Twenty people have completed the survey so far. That's a response rate of approximately 50%, which is a high rate in the world of opinion polls. (The true rate is likely higher - Carol has 39 people on the mailing list but three or four are probably "dead" addresses.)
• 70% of members who answered like the idea of rotating formal and informal meetings, 20% were undecided, and 10% did not like the idea.
• The six highest interest items for formal topics are: thread crochet, pattern reading (including symbols), finishing garments, Tunisian crochet, crochet with fabric, and felting. For most of the high interest topics, numerous members are willing to present or assist the presenter.
• There is high interest in most of the informal topics in particular: resources (magazines and websites), share tool ideas, book/yarn/tool exchange, and UFO session.
• There were very mixed results to the question about whether to continue our current community project: 15% said yes, 15% said no, 35% said other, and 35% did not answer. We did get lots and lots of suggestions of other items and ideas for community projects.
• The 5th Saturday outings are a big hit - 85% of us are interested in yarn shop tours, 70% are interested in Midtown Global Market gatherings. Plus there were some really good ideas for other venues and activities.

Now, here's the less objective part, the actions and conclusions we're drawing from the results.

• We're taking the 70% "yes" to the rotation idea as a go-ahead so we planning a rotating schedule of formal and informal meetings for the rest of the calendar year. See the Meeting Calendar for more information - the actual topics are being selected from the high interest topics.
• Members shared a lot of additional meeting ideas so we need to run a questionnaire periodically (probably once a year) to help rank the topics of interest and to generate ideas for the group.
• There's lots of energy in the group about doing community projects but we need some focus. It would be great if someone would step forward to organize our community activities. There are many suggestions and ideas from the questionnaire, two things in particular were very interesting:
• Use 5th Saturday as a time to work on community projects
• Meet more than once a month as "mini-meetings" (a sub-group of people who are interested in a particular community project)

So that's the scoop. Please feel free to comment or to "cuss and discuss" at the upcoming meetings.

Respectfully submitted,
Gail, Jodi, Julie, Maxine, Peggy