Welcome to the first newsletter of 2023. I hope you have had a peaceful summer filled with sunshine and relaxation, whether you were on holiday or not. I must admit, I’m still in holiday mode – you may notice this newsletter is a little later than normal…. 
 
We have a big year planned for Aotearoa Quilters. Our biggest project of course in the Great NZ Quilt Show in May. Many, many volunteer hours go into planning this show, we hope you will visit Rotorua and the show to support quilting in NZ. Or if you can’t attend, support the show in other ways by entering a quilt into the exhibition or sharing the advertising poster on Facebook and in your local guild newsletter.
 
Aotearoa Quilters is committed to providing education to the NZ quilt community and this year we have an exciting program coming up. We are kicking off the year with a copyright webinar in February with Brenda Gael Smith, then we will start another book study course in April and we will be offering an extended set of classes at the GNZQS in May. We have more fun coming up later in the year, but details are yet to be finalised.
 
Remember, if you have some sort of special project or education idea that you would like to run for AQ members, don’t hesitate to get in touch and give us a proposal. You don’t have to be a committee member!
 
 Apart from education, we also have challenges designed to help you stretch your quilting muscles, and to help us get together exhibitions of work to showcase quilting. We have the RED colour challenge, I hope you are all busily making an entry, and we will also have another members only challenge, with further details to be announced at the members breakfast at the GNZQS. 

Roll on 2023, I think it’s going to be a good one!

Charlotte Scott
Vice President

PS – remember my Spiced Rum Christmas Pudding Cheesecake that I was going to make for Christmas Day? Well, I did and it was AMAZING! I think it’s going on my menu for next year too.
Here is the link to the recipe if you’d like to try it.