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Anne Chehebar and Karen Carlson, president@northernstarquilters.com

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Help make NSQG even better-click to take our survey

What a wonderful show to celebrate “A World of Quilts” 40^th Anniversary!  I want to thank everyone who helped make it so successful – those of you who had quilts on display or donated a piece to the silent auction; members who volunteered at quilt drop off, judging or during the show itself; the quilt show committee chairs; and especially Daisy and Debby who did such a terrific job of organizing and running the event.  We could not have done it so well without all of you helping.  As an acknowledgment to how good it was, I had several attendees say that our show was better than the Mancuso show!

Although not all of the numbers are in, it looks like the show was also a financial success – between that and other  positive increases in revenues and savings in expenses throughout the year, it appears that the overall Guild will break even for 2018/2019 – again, a big improvement over our budget for this year.

I also want to thank Carol Sterk and her Member Retention and Expansion Committee for all of the work they have been doing.  We had ten new members sign up at the Quilt Show and the eleventh at our May meeting.  We are now just shy of 200 members!  To make sure we retain new members and meet the needs of our long time members, the Committee created a questionnaire to help us understand what people expect from us.  If you did not fill out a questionnaire either at the May meeting or online, please do so.  The link to the online questionnaire is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GQQB736.  Or if you prefer, you can complete one at the June Salad Supper.  The committee will be evaluating the answers over the next few weeks so that next year’s Board can address any issues that were raised and take action.

Finally, I want to thank this year’s Board for all of their help and work throughout the year.  Without their hard work we would not have had such a great year.  I also want to thank all of the guild members for their support and understanding of the changes we have made to improve the finances of the Guild.  It appears to have worked.  I know the new Board will continue to look for ways to improve how we operate and I wish them lots of success.

I hope to see many of you at the Salad Supper on June 18 – remember the meeting starts at 6:00 that night.

Susan Fasnacht, Acting President, president@northernstarquilters.com

NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING – MAY 2019

Board Candidates-Click pic for Bios- Anne,Karen,Daisy,Deb,Linda,Rona,Karen,Rebeka,Rosemary,Linda,Narci,Julie

The Annual Meeting of the Northern Star Quilter’s Guild will be held on Tuesday, May 21, 2019, at 7:00 p.m., at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School, Somers, New York.  At that Meeting, the membership will vote on the following candidates for the NSQG Board for the 2019-2020 Guild year.  The candidates are:

Co-Presidents: Karen Carlson and Anne Chehebar
Secretary:  Rona Spar
Co-Treasurers: Rebeka Glacy and Karen Martinez
Co-Vice Presidents: Communications – Daisy Dodge and Deborah Warren
Vice President:  Education – Linda Finegan
Vice President:  Membership – Rosemary DePaola
Vice President: Programs – Linda Stern
Co-Vice Presidents: Quilt Show – Narcita Medina and Julie Long

The Board appointed positions to oversee Charitable Activities and Hospitality and Special Events are still open. Please let us know if you can help or would like further information.

President’s Message

This message should be arriving in your in-box just as A World of Quilts XL is wrapping up.  I saw a sampling of the quilts at Saturday’s quilt drop off and it looks like we will have a stunning display.  Everyone involved has done a fantastic job and I want to thank all who have volunteered.  Daisy and Debby have taken on the show with a lot of enthusiasm and energy.  They have done a great job organizing it, and looking for ways to make it even more exciting and successful.

This year’s Challenge Quilts were fantastic.  I was overwhelmed by the workmanship and the variety of interpretations of the theme – Ruby Red Flowers.  What a way to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of A World of Quilts.  I offer a big thank-you for April for organizing the challenge.  She enjoyed running the event so much she has volunteered to run next year’s challenge.  Look for the announcement of next year’s theme in the coming months.

Our May meeting will have a lot going on.  It is the guild’s Annual Meeting and we will be voting on the proposed slate of officers for 2019-2020.  We will also be drawing the tickets for the winner of this year’s raffle quilt and the Bernina sewing machine.

Additionally at the meeting, we will be handing out a member survey for you to complete. Carol Sterk has formed a committee to look at what it is the Guild is doing right, where we can improve things, and what do members expect of us.  Membership has been dropping the past few years and we want to see what we can do to bring in new members and retain them.  Please take the time to complete the form; it will be a great tool for us to shape the future of the guild.

Our program is a repeat of the one canceled last May when Kennedy Catholic lost power just before our meeting.  Sue Beever will be giving a “hands-on” lecture in the cafeteria.  In groups of 6-8 people with 36-40 fabric “chips” at each table (provided by Sue) we will discuss real life color harmonies.  A color wheel only shows us color theory; using real fabrics, both prints and solids, Sue will lead us in a discussion to help us create different color scenarios.  I was sorry we missed out on this “lecture” last year and am glad she is able to return to us.

Susan Fasnacht, president@northernstarquilters.com

2019 Ruby Challenge Quilts

Our 40^th Anniversary “A World of Quilts” is only a few weeks away.  It’s shaping up to be a great show.  We will have on display nearly 200 registered quilts; quilts by our speaker, Paula Nadelstern and our invitational quilter, Karen Eckmeier; the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; our SIG’s; FANE; and our beautiful Challenge Quilts – in the neighborhood of 300 total!  It should be spectacular – invite your friends and relatives to see all these great quilts.

I received some good news this past week.  It seems that WCSU made a mistake when looking at their 2020 calendar when they told us we could not hold the show there on our traditional weekend.  After looking again at their calendar I received confirmation that we will be able to have our show at WCSU on May 2 and 3, 2020.  This takes the pressure off of us scrambling to find a new venue in just a few months.  However, the Board also recognizes that there is concern with the financial aspects of holding the show at WCSU and will still be looking at that.  We made changes for this year’s show to increase income and decrease expenses to help with the finances.  Once the accounting for this year’s show is done, we will evaluate its cost and decide if we need to make a change.  Keeping our show at WCSU in 2020 gives us almost a full year to decide what changes, if any are necessary.

Thank you to April Russel for organizing this year’s Quilt Challenge.  She had 39 beautiful quilts submitted.  It was great seeing how people interpreted the theme of ruby red flowers.  I thought that since it was such a good display of techniques and showed a wide variety of quilting methods, it could be a good display for Arts Westchester to exhibit.  This is the organization that gave us the $1,000 grant to support our speaker costs.  I have made initial contact with them and hopefully will have more to report at our meeting.

Susan Fasnacht, president@northernstarquilters.com

Click to register your quilt in the show!

According to a recent survey conducted by the American Quilters’ Society, the month during which most quilters finish projects is February.  That means several of you should have completed a quilt last month, so why not enter it in our show?  We could use more quilts registered – please don’t wait until the end of March to enter your quilt.  It makes the registrar’s job easier if they don’t all come in at the last minute.  Remember you don’t have to have it completely finished until quilt drop off on April 27.

Once again Super Saturday was wonderful.  Thank you to Pooa Bloomberg for organizing the day and to all the people who taught classes.  Also thanks to our Hospitality Chairs, Micky Green and Christine Langan for arranging for the food that day.  I saw lots of beautiful projects being worked on with a real variety of items.  If you participated in a class, and didn’t get a chance to show off your work at the February meeting, bring it in March for our Show and Tell.

The Challenge Quilts will be displayed at the March meeting.  You will be able to vote for Most Creative, Best Use of the ‘Ruby’ Challenge Color, and Viewer’s Choice.  I don’t know the final count, but April had close to 40 quilts turned it.  It will be a great display for our meeting and the quilt show.

I hope to see you in March – spring is not too far away.

Susan Fasnacht, president@northernstarquilters.com

Organizers Rosemary and Linda

Auctioneer Sandy

January’s Ugly Fabric Auction was a great success, netting $676 to help support guild activities. Thanks to all who bid and donated!
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I am pleased to announce that the guild has been awarded a $1,000 grant through ArtsWestchester’s Arts Alive program to help fund our speakers.  We are honored to receive the money and are thrilled that ArtsWestchester recognized quilts as an art form.  We hope to use this relationship with them to publicize the guild, and help build interest in quilting and increase our membership.  Thank you to all who helped in writing the grant application.

Now for some not so good news.  We were informed several weeks ago by Western Connecticut State University that in 2020 the first weekend in May will no longer be available to us for the quilt show (don’t worry we are okay for this May).  They are going to start using the arena on the Friday of that weekend for their sport’s award dinner, which will impact with our set up.  The Board looked at possibly moving the show to another weekend, but found that it would not be possible without conflicting with another quilt show or a holiday.  We are starting to examine our options and will be reporting back to you as we develop them.

Remember the Challenge Quilts are due this month.  I hope we have lots of submissions – it will be great having a large display at the show.  Our program will be demos by various guild members and it looks like we will have a good variety of presentations at the meeting.

If you have not signed up for Super Saturday, you can still do so.  Contact Pooa Bloomberg at Supersaturday@northernstarquilters.com to register.

Unfortunately, we have had to cancel this year’s Lancaster trip.  We only had 10 people who had signed up and paid by the January meeting.  After struggling last year to get enough people to sign up to cover our costs, we decided not to risk losing our deposits and cancelled the trip.  We plan on offering it again in 2020, and maybe a year’s hiatus will create more interest.  Thank you to Jen Cannizzarro for keeping on top of things so we will not lose any money.

Stay warm and see you on February 19.

Susan Fasnacht, president@northernstarquilters.com