Freda Neale lived in Strathfield and loved to weave. She greatly appreciated the help given to her by members of the Guild as her multiple sclerosis worsened. Consequently, she has given us $10,000 to help spread the joy of weaving particularly to the disadvantaged or handicapped.

This sum is invested and earns about $450 each year. The committee feels that this interest should be spent in the way that Freda wanted rather than being absorbed into the general funds to run the Guild.

It could:

• pay a weaving teacher to instruct the staff of a sheltered workshop
• provide prize money for a competition category for the handicapped at a Show (although there are insufficient entries in those categories at the moment)
• provide a grant to a member to help them go to a conference, take a class, or otherwise develop her/his practice
• subsidise the travel expenses of a country member to come to a city workshop
• subsidise a guild workshop so that those who wanted to attend could even though there were strictly not enough participants to let it run
• make a place available in each Guild workshop to a student from COFA, UTS, etc

There are probably as many ideas about how to spend $450 each year as there are members in the Guild.

What we need is a small group (2 or 3 people) who will sit down and ponder the possibilities, prioritise the points, plan the proposition and present the proposal to Committee. A guild I belong to in the US has such a grant program. They have to raise the $500 every year by special auctions and sales. They require guild members to submit a proposal, which is assessed by an expert selected by the grant committee. It is a condition of the grant that the recipient gives a program to the guild members telling about the way they spent the money. So something comes back to the Guild.

Let the committee know if you think this is a good or a bad idea for our Guild. If you would like to help set this up, contact a committee member too.