I think it's important to note that not all lacemakers in the US belong to IOLI. In our Guild of 14 members, I believe less than half belong to IOLI. Nearly everyone belongs to a regional group, known as the North Carolina Regional Lacers. The primary reason is that the NCRL meetings, twice a year, are local, feature vendors, and the gatherings are more FAR affordable that those of the IOLI. Not all lacemakers are well endowed with private incomes and the resources to belong to groups where the gatherings cost in excess of $1,000 (US) to fully enjoy (that means having any money at all to spend in the vendor's area...)
The other reason to question the validity of numbers based on organization membership is that in the past few years, several of the larger organizations (and I won't point fingers) have become increasingly polarized with regard to power-politics. This has turned off not just a few people from participation. Clay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lorelei Halley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 5:48 PM Subject: [lace] numbers > Ilske and Everybody > I think it is interesting that Ilske tells us that the German lacemaking > organization has 4500 members. Considering that the population of Germany > is less than the U.S. and the IOLI has 1600-1700 members, that means that > the percentage of lacemakers in the population in Germany is higher than > that in the U.S. It is possible that 4500 lacemakers is the largest > percentage that can be expected in any modern population, given the > pressures of modern life. So in the U.S. we still have room to grow until > we reach that same percentage of the population. > > I don't claim to have any knowledge of lacemaking's decline or growth in > this country. But I don't think that merely counting the number of > suppliers will give a good estimate. When lacemaking appears to be rising > it is natural that more people would try to enter the business of supplying > lacemakers. But with every kind of new business, most don't survive. After > a few years, the ones that haven't found the key to survival will shut down, > leaving only those that have figured it out. I think the points about the > internet being a factor are important and internet advertising is more > important than ads in lace magazines. Nowadays a business that chooses not > to have an internet presence is probably sabotaging itself. It seems to me > that the best strategy is just to maximize every route for people to come to > you: internet, a walk-in shop, mail order, lace days. One begins to get a > picture of a lace supplier as a kind of octopus desperately running 3 > different treadmills at the same time. They ARE giving us what we want, god > bless 'em. > Lorelei > > - > To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: > unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
