Is your Quilt Guild looking for Program Ideas for your Monthly Meetings? Below you will find a few ideas with budgets from $0 up to "whatever you can afford." If you have an idea you would like to share, please send an email to our webmaster. Please be sure to specify that this is for the Guild Program Ideas section of the web site.

Guild Program Ideas

• Mystery Quilt as a monthly series; either in your guild's newsletter, or handed out at meetings - one Part per month.
• Tell the members to bring their basic sewing boxes with them to the next meeting for a "special program," then have a Scavenger Hunt and award prizes to those who come up with the most items on your list. Just be sure you don't tell anyone what the "special program" is in advance. Some unusual items you could include on your list might be: screw driver, masking tape, lipstick, and flashlight, as well as the normal stuff like thimble, thread, needles, etc. Try to think "outside the sewing basket" as you make up your list.
• "First or Worst Quilt" Show and Tell. Our guild did this a number of years ago, and the members are STILL talking about it!! It helped to reinforce to the newer members that even the "pros" had humble beginnings. One of our members even brought a paper bag to put over her head to try to hide her identity! (She had to take the bag off to talk, though, because no one could hear her!) Each person who entered put their name in a bag, and we randomly drew names for prizes, including Ami Simm's book, "How NOT to Make A Prize-Winning Quilt." (Go to www.amisimms.com - I think it may still be available.)
• Have an Ugly Fabric Swap and Challenge. Everyone brings a Fat Quarter of fabric (or half-yard, or whatever you think is appropriate) in a brown paper bag and places it on a table as they come in. At some point during the meeting, everyone who brought a bag chooses one from the table. Their Challenge is to make something with a recognizable piece of their "Ugly" fabric. You may need to snip a small swatch from each fabric before the members leave, so you'll have a record of which fabric belongs to which member (to help prevent cheating!!). Results can be revealed in a month or two at another meeting.
• Have a "Round Robin" night, when several members volunteer to demonstrate a tool or technique during a 15-minute period of time. The "audience" is divided into the same number of groups as the number of presenters (for example, if you have four people demonstrating, you would divide the audience into four groups). Someone volunteers to serve as the timer, and sets a kitchen timer at 15-minute increments. Each demonstrator does a 15-minute presentation to each small group - in this case, they would do their demos four times: once for each group.
• Have a "Book Report" night, where each member brings their favorite quilting book and says a few sentences about it. You will probably need to set a timer for each person, though - some of them tend to get a little long-winded!! They can also show any quilts they have made from their selected book.
• Ask a member to present a lecture about a topic which they seem to specialize in. For example, someone may be into making Crazy Quilts, so they could talk about the history and how-tos of making a crazy quilt; they could also share where they find their supplies and such, too.
• Hire someone to present a lecture. Visit www.quiltprofessionalsnetwork.com for a list of professionals - some of whom are lecturers or go to: http://www.maqgnet.org/membership.html and sign up as a member. It only costs (I think!) about $15 per year for your guild to join, and it includes a HUGE resource list of professional lecturers, as well as program ideas. They have an annual meeting in March, but you are not required to attend. Once you join, you may also browse their online Resource Lists of teachers and guilds (they are both password-protected areas).
• Join the State Quilt Guild of NJ as a member Guild. It entitles you to our quarterly "NJ Quilts" newsletter, with all the latest information about our guild and its activities. Click here for more information on Guild Memberships.

This page was last updated on January 02, 2007 11:05 PM.