Tea Making for the Flustered!!

Well its all doom and gloom – and that’s just today’s weather. I hate this, constant grey, we have heavy mist this morning – its like the colour gets sucked out of the world, even the lovely autumnal shades lose their zing against this backdrop.
Saturday at EG, had the most wonderful talk from Lynda Monk. She is a very very generous lady in terms of sharing both her actual pieces to look at and the information on how its done. She did give me permission to take photos, but I didn’t ask for permission to put on my blog – so go to Lynda’s and see for yourself, I can tell you in the real they were stunning.
I’m feeling sad….. PaperWEIGHT of which I’ve been a Member for many years is struggling. Actually it’s a sign of the times, so many organisations are struggling for volunteers to run them, and also with finances being what they are at the moment, people have to make more considered choices as to where they spend their money.  I don't think anywhere is safe.
There was a time when loads of people volunteered, when all sorts of things, not just art, sprung into life and were realised by people with strong conviction and a willing attitude.  Times have changed, we don't live the same way as we did, time is precious.  Plus these days we can be overburdened by officialdom - I know several things have disappeared because of Health and Safety or insurance premiums - I do wonder what's wrong sometimes with common sense and being responsible for you and yours.  This brings about another problem because someone will say: "when I did it back in..... we did it like this" and they can't understand why it now has to be so complicated, thinking its now excessive in the minute detail.  But we've seemingly progressed this way, "risk assessment" everything has to be thought of and covered from every direction.  No wonder what was a pleasure to join in, help, organise and participate in the end result - by necessity has become lots of box ticking and headaches.  But it has to be like that, so everyone knows what's what, there's no bending and manipulating because once one does it, others follow and soon everything is more of a muddle, tasks get duplicated or not done at all, and lots of precious volunteer time is wasted chasing things up, checking on things, and volunteers end up thinking - never again.  So sorry but we do need some rules, just to make sure we all know we're talking about the same thing at any given time. When people get on and do the tasks they're allocated, the end result is so often brilliant  But still I think we ought to volunteer, we ought to try - because belonging to things is a joy, and if we want to take away, we ought to contribute, in whatever way we can - even if its just tea making for the flustered!!!  I don't know what I can offer to PaperWEIGHT, but ideas and thoughts have been requested, so, as someone who has taken - the very least I can do is to answer that request - to ignore would be very rude and insulting to all those who have put efforts in...

Terre Verte went to its new home at the weekend.