Welcome, welcome to 2018 and many new and exciting things for the Calligraphy Guild of Indiana!
The first thing I'm sure you have noticed is the new format for Nib Notes. Our newsletter editors/designers over the years have worked countless hours to gather articles and format them into a tight, beautiful publication. This task today has proved too daunting and time consuming for anyone to volunteer for. Rather than dispense with the newsletter, we are adapting. We have opted to move to a blog format. Just to get you settled on this idea here is a definition:
A blog (a truncation of the expression "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries ("posts"). . . In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
I think the blog has some great advantages. The big one is that no one has to spend time formatting a newsletter, and, right behind that reason, it saves the guild the cost of printing and mailing the newsletter. I know nothing is quite like a hard copy, especially for people like us who love to touch paper, but you can certainly print out any article you like. One board member has volunteered to print and mail our articles to the few guild members who do not have computer or internet access. The blog can also have videos you can link to immediately, a huge advantage for seeing demonstrations and interviews. Many thanks to Christopher Newgent for volunteering to be our blog editor. We welcome contributions from all guild members for our blog.
While we are on the subject of technology, I have been wanting our boost into the 21st century to be a bit smoother and have asked Christopher to give us a blurb at every meeting to help educate us about how we can use technology to the advantage of our group and the community. He began by telling us about our guild Facebook page, where currently 290 people are following us. Please like our posts; it makes more people see them. Let us know if there is any related topic you would like to know more about.
Pat Rock is now keeping our website updated. Our goal is for you to be able to point anyone to the website as a resource and listing of current meetings, classes, and events. As we have more and more people, especially via social media, request information, a current website is key. Thanks to Pat for this service.
Another huge change for the guild is meeting location. Beginning with the March meeting, we--and our library!--will have a new home at SullivanMunce Cultural Center in Zionsville. Cynthia Young, the director there, is thrilled to have us and happy to house our collection. The meeting space is free. In exchange, we will periodically offer our services as calligraphers for labels for special exhibits or the like. Our backup meeting space is Zionsville Town Hall, a brand new building two minutes from SullivanMunce. Our big workshops for the year have already been scheduled in this wonderful facility.
Just in case you are not sensing a location theme, I will remind you that our Calligraphy Jams, held on the third Saturdays of the months we don't have a general meeting, are being held at the Hussey Mayfield Memorial Public Library in Zionsville. The library is about two minutes from Town Hall and also from SullivanMunce (like a triangle of awesome free meeting space). I guess we will all have to get used to coming to Zionsville. It is a very cute town with some nice restaurants for lunch after these meetings, and if we need anything, my house is a few minutes away. I assure you that other options were explored; we scoured the Indy Metro area for another place to have our meetings. I am just grateful that we have these spaces, even if this whole situation looks a bit self-serving.
We continue to be asked about classes, especially beginning classes. Ellen Simon offers classes at the Jewish Community Center (not in Zionsville!). Periodically I teach at Hussey Mayfield Library and will be teaching Italic at Hamilton East Public Library on Febrary 22 and March 22. Christopher Newgent has volunteered to organize affordable half-day classes, probably quarterly. Let us know your thoughts on how the guild can help you fulfill your calligraphic goals.
Kathy LaPorte is heading up the Link program where new members are paired with a more experienced member to help them get the most out of their calligraphy guild experience. We would love to also see those whose membership has lapsed. Please reach out to your calligraphy friends who have previously been members and tell them about the exciting changes in the guild.
Keep working on your pieces for our Members' Show! I thrill to see an exhibit of our work. I want to see all skill levels represented. Isn't that the point of the guild, to improve and to share? Please consider entering at least one piece; Wendy says enter three!
My thanks for the hard work of the fantasic board members and all who so willingly give of time and talents to make our guild flourish. See you at the Calligraphy Jam on April 21st!
Julia