Summary
As 2023 comes to an end I would like to reflect back on my two years as President of the Athens Art Guild. These two years have been difficult for the organization as change or “adaptation” does not come without growing pains. Everyone deals with new ideas in a different way, and I ask that you continue to work with the new board and add support wherever you feel you can. The Guild is only as strong as its board and membership. When I assumed responsibility as president, I told every member on the board that they should prioritize their personal life, family, health, and business needs first before turning their attention to the Guild.
I picked up the role as president in a membership meeting that had no one stepping up for any board positions. At this point, the Guild would not be able to continue and legally we would have had to dissolve the organization. I stated that I would take on this responsibility but not without organizational change that would strengthen the Guild through adaptation to new ideas and increased membership. I had plans to streamline operations and to provide more opportunities for our membership, and I feel that we accomplished this, and more.
Change is Good
For years I struggled to answer the question, “What does the Guild provide to its membership?” What is the reason artists join the Guild? At the time I agreed to take on the presidency, we had one major show, the Holiday Shoppe, and the opportunity to vend at the farmers market, then a yearly potluck meeting.
I am not being critical of past Guild’s boards, as I have sat on the board since we organized. However, we have come to a time when we need to adapt to the new selling realities of our post-pandemic situation. There was what I hope was a misconceived brand image on the street that we needed to overcome, and we had to provide new members with additional benefits to help the Guild grow and retain new members. SIDE NOTE <If the member that filled out the Holiday Shoppe survey could reach-out to me anonymously with the artist’s name who was told they could not be a member of the Guild, I would like to contact them- thanks>.
I would like to sincerely thank the current board, support staff, and event coordinators for all of their hard work, dedication and support during these tough times as we moved into an uncertain future for the Guild. We accomplished many amazing things over the last two years, and I would like to recognize these individuals and list a few of the board’s accomplishments below. These are all new benefits and events that were added in the last two years, and they did not exist before this board/support staff/event coordinators worked tirelessly to make them happen.
Sincerely, Mike West, your 2022-23 President
Board Members
- Michael West – President
- James Colgan – Vice President
- Kathy Abfall – Secretary
- Rod Sauer – Treasurer
- Hannah Sickles – Trustee
- Marsha Egleston – Trustee
- Elias Martinez – Trustee
Support Staff (All new positions)
- Lisa Heinz – Marketing Dir/Social Media Coordinator/Website Coordinator/Editor
- Stefanie Mace – Social Media Facebook/Instagram/Art Market Email
- Mark Mace – Website Developer
- Marsha Egleston – Socials Coordinator
- Elizabeth Murry – Newsletter/Graphic Design Coordinator
Event Coordinators
- Kathy Abfall – 2022-23 Holiday Shoppe
- Sue Cadamagnani – Moms’ Weekend Show at The Dairy Barn, aka Dairy Barn Fest
- Marsha Egleston – Alonzo Weed Festival
- Elizabeth Murry – Halloween Bash at the Saturday Market
- Jay Hostetler – Winterfair/demonstration coordinator
- Nickie Boczko – Winterfair pre-planning
As we jury new artists into the Guild, I always ask the question, “What do you want to get out of the Guild?” The top two answers were NETWORKING and VENDING opportunities. Many of the items below are the result of what new members seek for our organization to provide. The Social events (Socials) were a direct response to this request, and we added several new vending events. Socials were also responsible for developing many of these items and providing the avenue to make them happen.
Membership and Events
We have 58% new members in the Guild. In a time of declining organizational membership in Guilds, chapters, clubs and similar organizations across the US, we not only maintained but grew. The Guild has more than doubled over the last two years. We have welcomed new members and with them come new ideas and requirements to keep current with the times. Holiday Shoppe vendors comprised 29% first year artists and 50% two year or less artists. That’s half the artists who have been members of the Guild for two years or less.
We created two new membership categories. Associate for existing members of the Guild that move outside our “geographical area” so they can maintain membership and take advantage of the Guild’s opportunities. Supporting members support our work in the community with their donations and volunteer time, but they do not sell at our events.
We instituted the Emerging Artist option for new members starting out that may not have years of vending experience but possess great potential. These artists are paired with members in related mediums to mentor them and help successfully jury them into a selling membership within a year.
Socials in 2023
These events are held in local small businesses to raise awareness of both the Guild and the business. Many of our members did not know these venues existed so it promoted both those venues as well as introduced the Guild and our mission to those small businesses. These relationships have helped forge, establish, and support existing events and develop future events. We organized 9 socials and 2 studio/shop tours:
- Pleasant Hill Winery
- Stew Mac
- The Union
- Athens Uncorked
- Eclipse Company Store, which featured an artist panel discussion that included ACEnet for economic growth and small business support
- Park Place
- Jack Pine open studio tour and meet “Jack”
- West End Distillery and Green Edge Gardens indoor sprouts farm
- Hocking Hills Winery with special guests from Ohio Designer Craftsmen who were available to answer questions regarding ODC /Winterfair and what they can provide, including other selling opportunities
These events allowed artists – both members and those interested in becoming members – the opportunity to meet the board, talk with other members, bring new ideas to the table, or answer questions. This model works because it allows a member to bring to the table new ideas without others telling them it will not work.
Many of our smaller events grew from these conversations because the format also helps people who do not like talking in front of large groups. The format gives them a way to voice their ideas in a relaxed atmosphere. Socials also promote networking with people you never get to talk to during a show, event, or market. They are open to all area artists and provide an excellent way to recruit new members. If you have not attended a social, please do so – you can even bring an idea with you to share!
Vending Events
In 2023, we added three events to our usual lineup:
- Mom’s Weekend – in April, tied in with Ohio University’s Moms’ Weekend events
- Alonzo Weed Festival – a community event in Amesville
- Halloween Bash – a fun family friendly event coordinated with the Athens Farmers’ Market
Plans are underway for the Southern Ohio Fiber and Arts Festival in October 2024. SOFA, the Southern Ohio Fiber Arts organization, was rebranded from the Athens Area Fiber Faire, which has not had an event since 2019. We look forward to this jointly planned event in the fall, so keep an eye on your email for opportunities to volunteer to help with planning and to sign-up for a vending spot.
The Halloween Bash opened up the regular Art Market to allow any juried Guild member to vend for free that day, and we brought in local nonprofit organizations to set up informational booths. This event was a major success and we are exploring similar events in the future to boost sales for both artists and farmers while promoting the Guild and recruiting new selling members.
The Saturday Art Market
We negotiated a great contract for the Art Market with the Athens Farmers Market this year in the new location. We also implemented an electronic sign up process for art markets that saved the committee many hours of time searching through emails trying to determine who would be at market that weekend. Each week the committee has to assign a market manager and inform the Farmers who will be the designated manager and how many spaces we will occupy.
Our Website
We are continuously adding information to the website. We have been asked, “When will it be finished?” The answer: never. Websites are never finished, and to make sure our site continues to show in search engines, it needs constant refreshing with new content. We hope the site continues to evolve and support our members, and we encourage feedback to help us implement new features that would benefit our membership.
Someone recently asked why we don’t develop a printed membership directory. This feature already exists on the website and all of our members and event customers use the internet. If you have not provided your photos, artist statement, contact information, business website, Facebook and Instagram information it’s time to do so. Please look for an email with a link to renew your membership. The form will contain spaces for the information you want in your listing.
The online membership list serves not only Guild members but anyone that visits the website trying to figure out who sold them the perfect gift so they can purchase more. With your help, all of this information will be as current as we can reasonably keep it up. Please keep in mind that we are mostly volunteers and perform this work in our spare time. This means you may not see immediate changes made, but rest assured those website content changes will happen.
Marketing
We are continuing to grow our marketing and outreach efforts with our growing marketing team. Our efforts mostly focus on social media engagement and ads through Facebook and Instagram, efforts that increased attendance at the Mom’s Weekend/Dairy Barn Fest event and our Holiday Shoppe. Each event we do comes with promotion of the Guild and individual artists vending at those events. The work can be intense, but has proven to be well worth the long hours the team puts in to bring awareness to the art scene in Athens.
This year at the Holiday Shoppe, we created a door prize that required entrants to fill out a small form with their demographic data. Based on this data, we know we had at least 500 people who attended the event based on the forms entered for the drawing – 75% on Saturday & 25% on Sunday. Attendees who filled out the form traveled from over 59 cities with many outside southeastern Ohio.
As a result of this encouraging data, we’re compiling an email list of over 450 shoppers so we can reach out and invite them to future Guild sponsored events. Our well-planned marketing efforts also help determine which type of advertising method produces the best results. This year we utilized social media, newspaper, radio, and flyers available at various shows, placed around Athens, and at Winterfair. We are Analyzing this data to determine the best way to bring potential shoppers to our future events.
Professional Development and Continuing Education
The Guild offered the first professional development grant this year it was open to all Selling Members and is intended to allow one member up to $750 for professional development. This can be used for travel, fees but cannot be used for personal assets- cameras, tools materials- tangible items. The winner will be announced in the January membership meeting. This grant is funded out of the Educational raffle money- same funding that supports the K-12 educational school grants. We changed our signage to include both the k-12 and continuing education missions to be totally transparent.
Support Staff and Event Coordinators
The Guild is governed by Robert Rules Revised as a non-profit. You can find position descriptions and the fundamental requirements of operation in that document. We have added 5 support staff positions, 6 event coordinator positions (these positions expire after the event) and do not interfere with the required organizational structure that we were chartered under in the state of Ohio.
New Email Address for Events Only
We setup a new email account: AthensArtGuildEvents@gmail.com. This provides both board members and non-board members working on events access to this account. The primary email is used for administrative business and has restricted access to board members. If you receive something from the events email please READ IT- it’s probably more important than what I’m sending out under the Guilds email.
Our Newsletter
We have developed the first newsletter with a quarterly publication target, given we have enough information. This was developed to disseminate information to the membership and keep members informed of upcoming events, cover what has happened and includes a classified section if you want to sell, buy or give something away. Elizabeth Murry has taken on the role of editor.
Winterfair
The Guild was offered the rare opportunity to have 3 booth spaces at the event- two for demonstrations and one for artists to sell items they were demonstrating. Artists got to sell their work for FREE, experience a large national show, network with other artists and meet other show curators. At least 3 members were invited to jury for major shows and a few to place items in the ODC gift shop. Artist rotated through the demonstration area and had the opportunity to meet other artists, see booth displays, pricing of other artists work. This gave many members the opportunity to see if this style show is something they want to pursue in their professional carrier. A super thanks to Jay Hostetler for organizing and demonstrations for three days!
Conclusion
I’m certain I have forgotten and or missed some items it’s been a busy stressful two years- if so it was not intentional. I would like to see all the membership attend the next meeting in January it is important because this meeting determines the direction/future of the Guild. The only way an organization like this can survive is with strong membership, support and leadership. I hope the last two years has provided you with opportunities, professional growth and an organization that you are proud to be part of. For me I cannot believe the accomplishments this organization has achieved in two years, it has been fun and rewarding.
Election of Board Members for 2024
The election of board members will happen during this meeting. I have included my position as president to the list- this gives the membership a voice in the direction and how you would like the Guild to proceed in the future. An email will come out asking for nominations for offices please watch for it and consider running for an office and or volunteering.
Positions Up for Renewal
All Board positions are up for renewal this year. Paid members will have the opportunity to nominate people to fill the positions – or nominate themselves!
- President
- Vice-President
- Secretary
- Treasurer (6 month transition period)
- Trustees – 3 of them
Thank you to everyone who has helped to keep the Guild up and running, and for your time and effort as we navigate our post-COVID reality.