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PICKING UP THREADS

 

This was written in
2007
so is now very dated

A few months after the list was founded, I realised that there might be times when I would not be able to deal with the day-to-day chores. There is very little to be done once a group is up and running but there needs to be someone on hand to review applications for membership, look out for Spam messages (which are very few as a result of the application procedure), and handle any minor problems that do occur. I asked Susan, who I have known for many years on the internet, to become a Moderator  and help with these tasks. I find it incredible that this ‘job-share’ can go on between two people who have never met. Susan lives about 300 miles from me though it would be just the same if she were 3000 miles away.

It isn’t a busy group. I think members probably sit back and contemplate until they have something worth saying rather than posting messages just for the sake of it. It is an interesting ideas forum and I hope it continues to prosper in 2007.

In the summer of 2006 there were big changes in school. The government was making huge investments in education and in a few areas of the country this involved completely rebuilding all of the High Schools. In consideration of serious social issues, our area was one of those chosen for the first phase of Building Schools for the Future. Across the area as a whole it meant closing several schools and reorganising them into a smaller number of new schools. The newly-named schools opened in September 2006, in some of the existing buildings.

In our immediate area, three schools became two. All staff had to apply for new jobs and there were big changes in the organisation of the schools. Steve is still working in the same building as before. I didn’t have a real job so didn’t have to reapply and continue to work in the same place. It is a very strange situation working in what is theoretically a new school when the only outward signs are a few new staff and a different colour of school uniform. Our school (which is now known as a college) will be the first to get its new buildings and we are now working in the midst of a building site with all the added complications that brings.

Nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. I strongly suspect that our progress along the formal education path may be coming to an end, but, as yet, there are no signs of where we might go from here.

The big plus of the reorganisation was the summer holiday. It was decided that we should finally come into line with the rest of the country. The last term of the old system ended at the end of June; the first term of the new system started in September; we had nine weeks holiday.

We decided to make the most of it and went to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand for five weeks. We had an amazing time and, while we were away, gave two informal talks. We have always been reluctant to commit to overseas workshops because they usually have to be arranged so far ahead. I can never be sure I will be fit and able to do them and would hate to let anybody down. So these were a rather novel experience.

The first was in Australia and took place in a cafe/bar in the outskirts of Melbourne. We had arranged that there should be a data projector and computer so all we needed to take was a CD with all our photos and information. It was very informal and everyone was very enthusiastic. After the talk we stayed and chatted to people and the reception we received shocked me. These were fans!

I remember the days when I considered various designers to be part of a breed apart and , not the sort of people I should question, or even approach. I discovered long ago that, however many books they had written, and however well-known they were, they were just ordinary people, if perhaps a little eccentric or obsessive. Generally speaking, the most famous were the most approachable. I had never related my ‘status’ now with my impressions of those other designers so was completely taken aback by the lady who wanted to hold my hand so that she would be able to say she had touched me, and by the lady who was unable to stay for the talk because she had left a sick child at home and had driven several miles just to see us, bringing with her copies of some of our books to be autographed.

We were ill-prepared for the second talk - mainly because we were unaware we would be giving a talk. It was arranged by a person who had used our schools booklet many years before in NZ and with whom we had communicated occasionally. When she heard we would be visiting NZ and that our time there coincided with her craft group’s Winter Retreat, she asked us to visit them. Only the first and last days of our trip were pre-booked so we were able to arrange our itinerary to fit in with the retreat.

The group were staying in a hostel in Mount Egmont National Park, taking all their own bedding, food, etc. Obviously, we were in no position to do the same but the only hotel for miles around was within walking distance of where they were. It was a place we would never have chosen, or found, if we hadn’t been told about it. It was above the snow-line on Mount Taranaki, with its own 100 year old generator and water that came down from the mountain. It was like another world.

In the late afternoon we went to meet with the ladies and to check on arrangements for the evening. We were invited to join them in their meal, which we did, still believing that we were there merely to meet with these people, not to give a talk. Pauline had other ideas. Fortunately, we had our computer with us. (This is the tiniest, lightest laptop you can imagine and ideal for taking anywhere. Even I can lift it easily in one hand when it is open and it has all those features of much larger machines that seem to come from a foreign language of  acronyms and jargon, such as DVD, WiFi, 1G RAM)

Many of the ladies were neither knitters or crocheters so they did not really know who we were. Someone had a copy of Woolly Thoughts and it was being passed from hand to hand, with arguments about who was to have it next. We did talk but it was extremely difficult.  We had just one tiny screen in a very large room with about 40 people in it. Later someone else produced another laptop and used our spare CD so two groups of people were able to look at photos simultaneously. They all seemed to enjoy it and we left them with the CD so they could look again at their leisure.

Again, this was a good place and a good time to go on holiday. In addition to all the normal considerations, the people speak the same language we speak, so talks are easy, and, in our summer, it was winter so exposure to the light was not as serious a problem as it would be at other times.

28c. 2006 continued