Kia Ora Everyone,

Lovely to have a week away at Symposium but so nice to be back home. I am sure those are the sentiments that many of you will have expressed as you got home after a wonderful week in Wellington. It was certainly colder, but that was to be expected. Debra and her team did a wonderful job of providing everything we needed and it all seemed to work like clockwork. I am sure that behind the scenes there were problems to solve, but to those of us that were participants we were unaware, (apart from the fire alarms and having to evacuate the buildings!)

(closing night antics at Symposium!)

The Aotearoa Quilters Exhibitions of Brown and the members ‘Lines’ challenge were very well received and we got lots of compliments. It was great to talk to people about our organization, to meet our members, to sign new members and to sell some Brown quilts.  On the prize giving night I felt very proud to see so many of our members win prizes and be selected for the Suitcase exhibition.

The Annual General Meeting of Aotearoa Quilters was well attended and the breakfast was great. Again, so good to see so many of our members there. We farewelled Liz, Judi, Donna, Julia and Jill and welcomed our five new members on the committee, Judie, Jenny A, Sheryl, Nita and Jenny F. We will be having a face to face meeting in November to plan an exciting program  for the next few years and continue the planning for the Great NZ Quilt Show.

A very special thing we did at the AGM was to award Felicity Ellison (better known as Fliss) with a life membership of Aotearoa Quilters. Over the years she has worked tirelessly for our organization and continues to do so. Judging by all the comments on facebook, you all agree with us.

We also announced the new colour challenge. In 2023 it will be ten years since we announced the first colour challenge of Red. To celebrate the occasion we decided to go Red again. The dates and conditions of entry will come out shortly. One change we have made is to limit the entries to one per person. Whist it was fantastic to get so many entries for Brown, it has made it difficult for the smaller groups to exhibit them.

I hope those of you that attended symposium have managed to stay covid free. To those that returned positive tests I hope you are recovering, having rest and getting help if you require it. Some of the community health systems have a great network of helpers if needed.

Stay safe, Best  Wishes, Regards
Valda Sutton, President