On Sep 21, 2005, at 10:37, Elizabeth Pass wrote:
We are so lucky to have many, many lacemakers here in UK, but this has
taken
35 years or more for the numbers to build up.
IOLI celebrated its 50th birthday a couple of years ago (in Hasbrouck
Heights, NY); Montreal's Convention will be 53rd. So, longevity is no
guarantee of fruitfulness :)
In the past we had lots of encouragement and support from local
authorities
I don't think we ever did. I think, in general, the atittude is along
the lines of the famous (Kennedy?) statement: "Ask not what the country
can do for you, but what you can do for the country". So we all
scramble the best we can, and knock on wood daily, when we get not only
dependable but efficient people as our officers and other "working
ants".
£2 PER LITRE. At 4.56 litres to the gallon,
Not the gallon as I know it, which is just a tad under 4 litres (3.76
l, to be precise) :) Nevertheless, you're paying *per litre*, what I'm
paying per gallon (ie almost 4 times as much), and I was paying about
2/3rds of what I'm paying now 3 short weeks ago. A lot, of course,
depends on locality; gas (petrol, not the heating and cooking stuff) in
our area is relatively cheap and has always been compared to, say, San
Francisco area.
IOLI "collects" demonstration hours - to maintain its charity status -
As far as I know, this concession doesn't apply to bona fide
organisations
with charity status, such as the Lace Guild.
A charity gets a tax exemption on some basis; in IOLI's case, and in
the case of all individual lace groups also registered as charities or
chartered to IOLI, it's education. I suspect the Lace Guild gets its
exemption on similiar grounds. Demonstrations (lacemaking ones, not
political <g>) fit into that category, as do exhibitions. The Lace
Guild, which actually owns a building (probably also tax-exempt; it
would be in US) can stage exhibitions. We don't have central
headquarters - even maintaining a central Post Office Box is a problem
- so we can't fullfill that obligation to the public in general in the
same way (except, perhaps, opening the display room during the
Convention to the public). So, basically, demonstrating lacemaking at
different venues is our best bet.
Individual groups *do* organise/ cooperate in organising exhibitions in
existing museums (Chicago a couple of years ago, more recently
Baltmore) but I really do not know how much of that counts towards
keeping *IOLI* afloat; mostly, we're happy just to bring lace and
lacemaking into general attention. I think The Lace Museum (which rents
its buliding) and its Lace Guild gets some tax break on the basis of
its - often changing - exhibitions, even though it's located a bit "off
the beaten tourist track".
But there's a distinct difference between getting a tax break and
getting active support, and I don't think we've ever got the second...
Nobody lives in Paradise, this side of the grave :)
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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