President’s Message

It occurred to me that in the Needlework Guild’s 129 year history that we have had pandemics and world wide changing events other than Covid-19 such as World Wars I and II and subsequent unpleasant diseases, (no flu vaccine, no antibiotics etc.) the Spanish flu in 1918, the Asian flu (1956-58) killed over a million world-wide, the development of the March of Dimes after 1938 to find a cure for polio which they did in 1957.  The measles vaccine was approved in 1963 and the mumps vaccine in 1967. The AIDS epidemic in 1981, Chicken pox vaccine was adopted in the mid-90’s as was one for hepatitis.  SARS struck in 2003 (April – June) so on and on it goes. (Queen’s Quarterly – summer 2020)

My point for mentioning these statistics is to celebrate the longevity, strength and perseverance of the Needlework Guild as it is still breathing…, working its magic with the agencies and assisting those less fortunate.

Things we have learned in this pandemic we can carry forward into the future – we have all learned how to zoom! – a miracle!

We will be able to meet regardless of the weather and pandemics and it will be a way of embracing new knitters.  We are embracing social media with Facebook and Instagram to get our message out.

Knitting has had renewed interest and allows us to meditate and get us through these challenging times.

Special thanks to each member of the Executive who have stepped up to help sail our Distribution Day into port.  (Carole Pixley, Cathy Langdon and Sherry Gerstl, Linda East).  Their flexibility, commitment and humour led to an outstanding day.   I would like to especially mention Sue Garskey and Joyce Hisey who have laboured behind the scenes to cement our structure going forward in the re-writing of the convenors’ book and Joyce and Liz Christensen who have stabilized and updated our membership list on the computer.

I am also grateful to Heather Crawford for her wisdom in NGC matters and Cathy Reith for managing secretarial duties and Marg Martin for keeping us on an even keel with CRA.  I truly does take a village!

Respectfully submitted,

Jane Craig, President