Again this year we provided a retail space for Mayan Hands, Upavin Crafts and China Ethnic Crafts. I had thought that we over-exposed these crafts by repeating them again another year, but that seemed to not be the case. Their items were enthusiastically and quickly snatched up and I even had to special order some items that we ran out of.
Mayan Hands and Upavin Crafts allowed us to sell their pieces at a reduced cost due to potential economic resistance. This helped the sales.
The China Ethnic Crafts group sent us some items that they had reduced in their inventory along with the pieces we selected to sell. Their sales were somewhat less, but then their cost is more than the Guatemalan pieces.
After taxes and return shipping costs, we sent the China Ethnic Group $437.29, Mayan Hands $930.92 and Upavin Crafts was sent $731.67.
I want to offer a special Thanks to Joan Furci for her help in working the booth at Conference along with her class schedule and Blythe Batten who guided us in acquiring the items and helping in the set-up. We are always looking for volunteers to help us so if you feel you could give us some time, please let me know.
I would like to repeat having these goods in our booth next year, but would like to stress to the membership the desire to search out and offer our help to others that may benefit from our offering their crafts at our Conferences. The group could be as diverse as our Conference as to what pieces we would be willing to sell - baskets, gourds, jewelry, twining, etc. We want to aid those who are attempting to not only support themselves with their craft, but promote the crafts itself.
If you have someone or group that you'd like to recommend, please contact Sandy Carr at 727-784-1905 or turn-weave@tampabay.rr.com.
To see the 2008 Outreach Committee Report, please click here