The Guild was founded 24 years ago on October 17, 1991. As we begin our 25th year of operations we are looking for a new date or location as ISA is no longer extending our rental agreement. We were already contemplating alternatives as the number of members has dwindled somewhat over the past year or two. Our annual dues are what support and pay for our programming.
So now we are faced with a decision regarding what is most important
- To keep the same date of the 2nd Thursday of each month, which we have stuck to all these years
- Stay in the vicinity of our meeting place which we have had since 1992
- Do both??
There is a poll online https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3G37VBY and a link is on our Facebook group and will be on our website and emailed to members as well
If we choose to stay in the vicinity, two thirds of our current members live in the Fraser Valley or nearby, our options are…
To meet on Mondays (not always the second one of the month) at a private room at Stefanos, this means that some of our members gather for dinner as we have been doing for the past 18 years. This way we save the room rental costs of $500 per year. That amount equals 10 memberships. In order for this arrangement to work, we need to have 8-10 members for dinner. We did this in September this year. However, if these numbers dwindle, we would have to subsidize by paying the difference from our account. As time isn’t on our side as in January we need to have a new date and/or new location in place.
Another good location scouted out by our Executive is a brand new meeting room close to both dining and the Skytrain. The Anvil Centre at 777 Columbia Street allows us to renew in four month increments and looks very promising. Visit our Facebook page for a post and pictures by our Vice President, Rebecca Garcia, who writes: Very nice meeting space…We can set-up whatever way we want…It has a video TV…can accommodate 20/50 or more…they the divider can be opened to increase capacity to 100 people. The cost is minimal, $7 per hour and we’d be booking it for about 3 hours each evening. It would be only about half of what we have been paying.
The newly elected executive is looking for options. Therefore we’d like to hear from you; the link to the questionnaire is at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3G37VBY
At this point we have two good options, one would involve changing our date to Mondays and the second one means we could keep our long standing date and still be in the area. Should we have any issues about booking these premises, we would have a second location for a Monday once in a while. Please take the poll, help us decide.
Done! I’ll vote yes for the Anvil Centre!