Website $1250.00 ( Maintenance and web hosting and Flickr)
Mailout of a single newsletter $550.00 for 200 members
2 committee meetings where we get together $6000.00 (rest of work completed via email) and the 2 meetings in Wellington (early bookings)
Auditor/general expense $700.00 Auditor, charities commission
General expense 2000.00 PO Box, Committee allowance, etc
*TOTAL* *$10500.00*
This would require:
- at the very least a membership of 265 at $40.
- 300 members if 100 paid for 2 years second year at $35
In the above table:
The figures can only be an estimate.
The meeting costs are based on the March meeting, if new committee
members do not live in main centres this could increase.
The mailout would cost more with more members. Postage at .70cents a letter.
Our bank account stands at $9000
There is still approx. $1000 expenses for the Feb 1 and Mar 15
meetings (people still to claim, food, mileage to airport and meeting)
There are Liabilities of $3700 (members paid for 2014/2015 year,
auditors costs, website)
A membership of 400 would give us some leeway to do things but we
have already discussed this and tried very hard to increase the
membership to no avail.
We also need resources i.e. people to run the association so if we continue we need new volunteers for the committee as a bout 5 would be retiring
I hope this gives members a perspective of why we need more membership as we seem to sit around 200 members which just isn’t enough.
There have been some wonderful comments and support via the website, email or Facebook which your committee appreciates very much. It is good discussion but we need to know now if some of you would stand up and go on the committee if we were to continue.
Please continue to give us your feedback
It would be a shame not to have a national body for quilters and I don’t understand why more people don’t join. I wonder if more of the meetings could be run either on skype or a conference call. Maybe only get together once a year.
Thanks, Catherine, for that break-down of costs. Very useful.
I was reading an article in a recent Down Under Quilts magazine, where Sue Dennis was writing about a quilt show in France. She mentioned that the France Patchwork Association has 12,500 members nationally!! I realise the population of France is considerably more than NZ, but that is still a whopping number, and one wonders what they do that membership is obviously so popular.
Maybe Aotearoa Quilters’ profile is still too low, and the association is still not known by the average quilter in the street, or is just typical Kiwi apathy……..
I think our main issue is kiwi apathy. We have tried to get the profile out there at the last two symposiums and regular adverts In NZ Quilter. If we had a stronger membership we could do so much more. People want to know what’s in it for them personally which is understandable but I think we need to look at the whole of the quilting community benefits as well. BY having a membership that would allow us to promote our craft nationally and help to get more people interested our local guilds/groups and shops would benefit which long term would benefit the individual.
$1250 for a website that has a calendar that doesn’t work. This is a facility to promote events nationally, but no calendar is shown, and so clubs are not able to take advantage of this facility to promote their shows. Yet, that is the important event in a club’s life that helps to promote the craft, increase club membership and benefit the local quilting community.
Promoting AQ at Symposiums and in the NZ Quilter is great, but it is still limited as many can’t afford to attend Symposiums, and I am amazed at the number of people who don’t see or subscribe to the NZ Quilter.
The association, as a national body, needs to work with the large quilt clubs around the country. Perhaps the presidents of these clubs need to be approached to see what they expect from a national association.
I agree with Juliet Fitness.
Saying it’s “kiwi apathy” is an easy way out. It means AQ has done enough and it’s ‘everyone else’ that’s the problem. That’s simply not the case. The average quilter on the street has no idea who Aotearoa Quilters are. There is a whole new breed of quilters out there, and they don’t read advertisements for starters, and Symposium is such a massive experience, one tiny little bit of information that doesn’t appear to offer anything is easily overlooked.
AQ *needs* to connect with the guilds and get back to the grass roots quilters if it wants to continue.
There are some very good ideas here.
I think having committee meetings by Skype or conference calls would keep the costs down in that area.
Most people have email now days, why post out to everyone? Just post out to people who don’t have email systems.
Wow, do you pay $1,250 every year for the website? I can believe it may cost this to set up by a company for the first time, but the site should be able to be corrected, added to, by you girls. But I admit I couldn’t set up a website, well done to Cheryl who I think first set one up.
Great idea as suggested that a small fee could be added to all members of guild groups, to go to Aotearoa Quilters, so we all belong. This is a brilliant way to be in contact with huge numbers and a way for all the guilds to share ideas and activities e.g. shows, workshops.
We need to keep the Aotearoa Quilters going to benefit all quilters, but to that you must get in touch with the guilds and the little groups that are out there. There is a lot of quilters who have no idea you exist and a lot who don’t go to symposiums for a number of reasons from expense to lack of knowledge that they exist.
The website costs are way too high, if I was paying that it would not be viable. Our costs are much lower than that and we can change and add content at any time.
Firstly the website costs include hosting costs plus a set support fee each month. On the website we have things most ordinary sites do not have which means our site is quite complicated. E.g. major membership program attached, online subscription, online competition entry, viewers choice voting for junior challenge etc. So difficult to compare it with someone’s own personal website costs. We are able to change content at any time.
We do communicate a lot by email but you do need to get face to face as a committee where possible but I agree we need to look at cheaper ways of doing this.
Re letting people we know we exist – we have advertised in the NZ quilter for the last two years, sent news letters to members and past members to encourage renewal but again there has to be other ways of getting the word out.
Thank you all for your feedback, positive support and ideas