OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW

Fun Foam art pieces
October's Altered Minds workshop

This late afternoon and evening, instead of my usual Zentangles I spent the time catching up on blogs I follow and reading a book I just started. It was a time to relax and renew and contemplate the end of a relationship with ASG as a leader and the beginning of a new one as a follower.

I have belonged to the American Sewing Guild since I moved to Florida in 2002.. I dropped my membership for a year and then picked it up again after spending a year as leader in the newly formed Florida Sewing Sew-ciety where again I was a leader. Having four sewing groups to keep up with was a bit much so needing to downsize many parts of my life and commitments in order to have time to do some things I want to do I decided to resign as the leader of one of  the neighborhood groups. I am excited! This is going to allow me time to explore some creative endeavors I have wanted to do for a long while. My groups will now consist of  two sewing groups and one art group.

The two sewing groups being garment sewing and the other hand sewing. Both groups are lead by the same very accomplished person and with her I hope to glean more knowledge on  construction of  well fitting garments and  the fundamentals of the Alabama Chanin technique of hand sewing. I know I have mentioned this before but it is worth mentioning again.

I will renew my membership in the Altered Minds Mixed Media Art group that I joined several years ago but will only attend  certain workshops. The group is floundering as many groups do from apathy and lack of participation in both leading of workshops and participation in workshops after they are planned and put together by the person leading them. A lot of work goes into the facilitating of a workshop and when you get 20 people signed up and 10 of them have appointments or whatever it is discouraging. 

In the Mission Statement and rules of the art group it clearly states that each person will contribute their talents to leading a workshop. We limited our membership to 30 but in the past 5 years the same few people lead all the workshops.I will be teaching my last one in the month of October and then I am done for at least one year. If no one steps up to lead the group will fold.

I think this is a common problem with all the groups here in my area but no one seems to be able to spark a new interest and recruit new and active members so perhaps having them fold because of lack of active members is what has to happen before they realize what a treasure they had. A few can carry the masses but it is easier and more fun if the masses help carry the load. 

Along with the groups I belong to I will keep plugging away at getting my LifeBook 2013 caught up and finished this year or for sure by early next year. I am deciding on whether or not I want to join in the LifeBook 2014 or do I want to explore a different type of art. I have plenty of time to make that decision.

And last but most important is my health. I will have more time and spend more time on getting my body healthy again by getting out and doing more active exercises such as biking and walking. I will not be able to use the weather as an excuse for many more days. Exercise will actually be my number one priority from now on...!