thoughts about a show...

Earlier this month Nancy asked us to try to attend the 2010 quilt show of the Pieces 'n Patches Quilt Guild. Her thought was that perhaps the next time they have a show, in 2012, we might "piggy-back" with them and hold our show at the same day, same venue, in one of the smaller rooms.

The show was at a middle school in Steger and I was very impressed. They filled the gym with quilts. The theme was "quilts from Grandma's clothesline" and they followed through charmingly. All of the members wore aprons and clothes pins were used to hold tags. The show had a quilt appraisal room, lectures on aprons, a quilt raffle, bake sale, silent auction, and raffle baskets. There was a boutique with several shops and demonstrators, including a scissors sharpener, and a resale/last chance book sale area.

I thought about how we could fit in and decided to share my thoughts and questions with you in the hope of getting you thinking about it and coming up with your questions.

My first question was would there be a smallish classroom available and, if so, could we lock it for security. What kind of tables/display areas would it have? I wondered about insurance, too.

What would our expenses be? Perhaps a portion of the rental fees. Could we contribute to their silent auction, bake sale, raffle baskets or should we have our own fundraiser in our own room? Or both? How would we raise money? If we pay a portion of the rent would we get a similar portion of the entry fee? Would people interested only in embroidery pay the higher entry fee? (their entry fee was $5)

I came up with one fundraising thought: a coupon sheet. Ideally, we'd target needlework shops but since there aren't any nearby...

We could print up a sheet of coupons, 12 in all, one for each month. On each a local business would offer a discount for the month. So for the month of January, Homewood Florist would offer $1.00 off a bouquet, in February, Country Cupboard would offer 10% off of any red fabric or fiber, in March Walt's would provide a coupon good for a dozen eggs with a $10 purchase, etc. We would print up the coupon sheet and sell them for, say $2.00 each.

Those are my ideas and thoughts and questions. What are yours?