Houston Polymer Clay Guild
Board meeting minutes, Saturday, April 19, 2008

The meeting began at 12:00 p.m. Present were: Bob Wiley – President, Ronalyn Hurley – Treasurer and Membership Coordinator, Paula Kennedy – Secretary, and Meg Marchinado-Education Coordinator. Absent were Rebecca Wells-Stout and Carmen Anderson.

Ronalyn gave the treasurer’s report and membership report. We currently have $7,476.21 in the bank, and $117.06 in our PayPal account. There are 38 paid members at this time, one new this month. There are also 12 lapsed memberships, most of which are from out-of-town members.

Future meeting demos:
April: Bob will demonstrate several different methods to do photocopy transfers to clay.
May: Bob was scheduled to demonstrate “invisible canes” and techniques for sanding and buffing. However, Ronalyn has receive the box of sample blocks of the new Sculpey Studio clay for the members. It was decided to change the May demo to a day of exploring the new Studio clay. Bob’s invisible canes demo will be moved to July.
June: Rebecca has arranged for Ginny Eckley to demonstrate her silk screening on clay techniques.
July: Bob will demonstrate “invisible canes” and sanding and buffing.

Classes:
Maureen Carlson will be teaching in the spring of 2009. Exact dates have not been set.
Patricia Daugherty, as new Education Coordinator, will be asked to arrange something for the fall. Ronalyn brought the teachers’ information she collected at Synergy for Meg and Patricia to use.

Events:
Empty Bowls: Houston Center for Contemporary Craft’s (HCCC) Empty Bowls fundrasier for the food bank will be held in May. All bowls entered into today’s challenge will be donated to the event.
Shoe Exhibit: HCCC will exhibit most of the 40 polymer clay shoes that were made for Donna Kato/Van Aken International’s competition for the Craft and Hobby Association’s 2004 tradeshow. The exhibit will begin Thursday, May 15. That evening there will be a grand opening party and HPCG has been asked to donate $100 to cover the cost of wine and cheese. Ronalyn made a motion that HPCG do so, Paula seconded and all approved. Guild members are invited to the opening party to talk with attendees about polymer clay.
Hands-On Houston: In conjunction with the shoe exhibit, HCPG will be the demonstrator for the July 6 Hands-On Houston at HCCC. The guild has been asked to do something related to the shoes. We will probably have the kids make small “flip-flops” or another simple design. Help will be requested from the membership to staff the event.

Challenges:
The challenge for April is “Empty Bowls.”
The July challenge will be “bugs.”

Sale: Bob contacted the Houston Bead Society (HBS) about HPCG having a sale table at HBS’s annual sale November 7-9. HBS will give HPCG space for a one-table booth. Details will need to be worked out on how to handle the logistics and fee structure.

Retreat: Meg is willing to help with the 2009 retreat. We still need a committee chairman for the event. Everyone on the board was asked to check with hotels in their part of town about rates/availability/food/etc.

Election: Ten on-line proxy votes have been received. (Secretary’s note: At the general meeting later in the afternoon, the slate was approved unanimously.)

Library DVDs: At the March meeting one of the members reported to the librarian that she had lost one of the guild’s DVDs. Paula was asked to make another DVD copy from the videotape. It was decided that the member who lost the DVD is still subject to the $40 penalty. If the DVD is not found, her $40 check will be cashed. It’s not the cost of the replacement, but the penalty for losing the DVD that’s the issue.

The meeting adjourned at 12:46 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Paula Kennedy, secretary