This is the first AGM of Y.AR.N.S. - CR as we start this new guild for yarn/fibre artists.

Willing to serve on the Exec or teach a skills class? We are looking for you!

Come and see what we are about, our plans for the future and join the Society membership.

We will be meeting in the basement of the Church. Stairs only at this venue.

We look forward to meeting you!

Excerpt from Forums Reply:
We have several big and crazy ideas about how YARNS will work. First, it will be a safe and inclusive organization, and will formally recognize the protections of the Alberta Human Rights Act (this was very important to us). Second, we want to be all about personal development, whether that is in yarn arts or public speaking skills or teaching skills. We want to develop an education program made up of short, skill-based workshops. For example, if your end goal is to learn to knit socks and you’ve never picked up needles, you will take sessions on casting on, basic stitches, basic decreases, knitting with dpns, heel turn, and Kitchener stitch. (I just made that up - there will be lots of going back and forth and input from students and teachers before the à la carte menu of skills is ready!) At the same time, we want to encourage yarn artists to expand their teaching skills by offering a curriculum they can teach from. We are also considering making up badges as people complete certain sets of skills.

In addition to the education component, we’d also like to run special events, either ourselves or in conjunction with other area guilds. There is the Edmonton Fibre Frolic coming up in May (and if the organizer is here on Rav, we’d love to hear more about it!), but that is one of the first specific yarn/fibre events in the area that may become annual. We’d like to see more, and this is a way to do it without burning one or two people out and having him/her take the financial risk.

We also want to leverage communication technology to make it easier for people to take part. For example, if you aren’t feeling well or weather conditions are poor, you can still join a Google Hangout and attend a YARNS meeting. Or maybe you could offer to instruct one of the modules via Skype or FaceTime if scheduling with travel time is an issue.

We are in the process of finalizing the bylaws, which is the last piece we need before we can register the society. When they are ready, I will upload them to my website and post the link here.

We have a great community of yarn artists here in Edmonton. In fact, that was in part my inspiration. Did you know that each knitting group in Calgary has their own Ravelry group, but Edmonton only has this one group for all our varied and different groups? We are all connected, even if we never go to the same groups, because someone at the groups I go to also goes to the groups you go to. YARNS is merely going to expand on that, offer opportunities for people who aren’t yet on Ravelry to find us, create educational and development opportunities, and in the end teach more people to love yarn.