From: "Alan Cook" <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:02:17 GMT
Subject: [Puptcrit] Guild libraries-the pitfall


Charles referred to a problem the L.A. Guild had with our lending library. We had a good selection on many topics. The librarian had to haul boxes of books to meetings and try to get the books back from borrowers---and most members played fair. It was great while it worked.

The worst example was a member who borrowed many books, did not renew dues and moved away taking our books with him. Neither he nor the books were ever seen again. At that point the library ceased being active.

So much for tragic GRIMM stories.

ALAN COOK


-----Original Message-----
From: Mathieu Ren??
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 3:01 PM
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Workshops and Puppet Guilds

Charles, thank you for your valuable input.
What brought it up for you?
Were you working on this for a while, and it finally got finished, or was 
there a trigger event that prompted you to share this?


Your post inspires me to analyse our own association:
I am on the board of our local association (also the Unima cenbter for 
Canada), and I shall share your text with the rest of the team. Some of the 
suggestions will apply more than others, but it's good to know them all, to 
see if we are in danger of falling into bad patterns.

Our association has become well organized in the past ten years, ever since 
we found a gem of a person to be our coordinator. He is paid. He works for 
us at least 3 days a week (maybe 4, got to renew my info), taking care of 
business and bringing people together to work on all the specific projects. 
We still have all the traditional positions within the organization (the 
board of administration and various comitees for specific projects), but the 
coordinator makes everyone's job less of a burden and more of an enjoyable 
duty to perform. The paid position makes a huge difference, since it allows 
us to have him, his special skills and experience on board.

You mention the need to have monthly meetings for the members. I would like 
to see something like this happen for us. We don't have enough paperwork or 
"business" to warrant asking the members outside the board to work on it 
every month, but a "social" coupled with "shop talk" would be appreciated, 
I'm sure, if people were to get into it and make it a habit. AS it is right 
now, we only get the annual association meeting, the two puppet festivals, 
and the occasionnal running into each other when we go see some shows.

We used to have regular casual meetings, before my time. It's all about who 
makes it happen, the venue, the people who show up. It was well before my 
time in the association, and still I miss it.

We do not have very many activities for our members, but those we have are 
appreciated and useful.
Our biggest contributions are the contacts we encourage, the info shared in 
the publications (online and in print), and the professionnal Puppetry 
workshops we organize, which are made possible with the government's 
employment division. Thanks to this funding, we get to bring in 
profesionnals from all over the globe, and each participant pays a very 
small fee, making it affordable for most. Without the hard work of the past 
incarnations of the board, and the current coordinator, we wouldn't have had 
the funding in the first place.

Our library is just a small bookshelf. We mostly have old issues of various 
puppetry publications from unima centers around the globe. We had two puppet 
building books, last time I checked. They came from my bookshelf, when I 
outgrew them. They are not much to look at, but I'm sure some beginners can 
appreciate them. Puppet profesionnals should think about donating their 
books to their guild, when they don't need them anymore, or don't use them 
that often. It helps more people, and frees your space for new books! I hope 
to see the book collection grow into a fully-fledged library within my 
lifetime. Right now, each puppet enthusiast must provide his/her own books, 
or borrow the very rare puppet books within the public library system. I 
dream of a comfortable place where we can go and see it all, the wonders of 
Puppetry, available on the shelves.

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_______________________________________________
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