As publicity chairman for the IOL convention, I was given the info that we have, if I recall, 1628 members. Recently Gunnel Teitel turned over to me a hoard of clippings from all over the country about lace over the last 25 years. Many of them were reports of IOL Conventions. It was quite striking how the membership numbers have stayed very static at between 1500 and 1800 members. In that there was a "lacemaking revival" in the 1970's a fair number of the members are still the remnants of that, which means that the popuation although the same in number, is substantially older than it was 25 years ago. There is definitely material here for a fascinating dissertation on marketing. Consider a few anomalies of the situation. At the IOL convention no teacher actually earns enough to avoid an economic loss by working at the convention. In other words, either she or her husband are subsidizing the enjoyment of the conventioneers. Presumably there are many good teachers who cannot afford the luxury of teaching at the convention or some who would prefer to spend their vacation time and money having a vacation instead of working. Would conventions be more enjoyable if there was an economic incentive, or even competition among the teachers to teach there? Who knows? In the US there are probably between 5 and 10 suppliers. They supply goods and books which are not produced in bulk, ie. are expensive to produce, to a very small population of people who are very frugal, often on fixed incomes. Moreover, the population they sell to often feels that the vendor is "greedy" or "only in lace for the money" and ought really to be providing her services as a hobby, rather than as a business. So there is a moral judgment that the vendor is really not entitled to a profit. The small number of vendors all know each other and compete for a very small market, sometimes resulting in bad feeling when it is felt that one has "overstepped" They often find lace groups trying to cancel their teaching contracts and vending gigs after other opportunities have been refused because the lace group has failed to fill a class and doesn't want to pay for it. In many cases, only a married woman whose husband is the real bread winner can afford to be a lace supplier. They become bitter. Often it is impossible to fill a class from a lace group because a majority of the members are unable or unwilling to spend money on classes or programs. Hence, a majority of people on a tight budget has the effect of voting down any proposed activity of the group. The meetings all become "lace-ins" and those people who might like to spend money for a class or a program leave the group. Consequently, the people who might participate in classes and programs and field trips sometimes choose not to belong to local groups and don't have the ability to obtain "lace activities" that might put money in the pockets of suppliers and teachers. A lot of what happens in the lace world and the lace market runs on principles of female friendship. People help others obtain patterns and supplies in the face of scarcity imposed by relentless market conditions. There is tremendous, even heroic generosity of time and effort. However, then when favors are not properly valued or returned by the recipient, bad feeling and sometimes feuds results. I think for lacemaking to take off as a hobby it needs to be sold as enjoyable and trendy to young people in their 20's and 30's. I think a marketing campaign on MTV or in the kinds of magazines young people with discretionary income read might be a good idea. Knitting is becoming very trendy in New York. I saw a beautiful young woman, very trendily dressed, sitting on the subway knitting herself a turtle neck sweater yesterday. I think young people would become interested in lacemaking, if they are exposed to the kind of colored contemporary work that is happening now. They have plenty of time and money for going to concerts, buying CDs taking yoga and pilates classes,etc. But the other side of this is that the culture of the lace group is rather intimidating to young people. If a young person goes to a lace group meeting, it often meets in the home of one of the members, not a public place like a library. The other members of the group are of not even the parental generation, but the grand parental generation of the young person. The young person is unfamiliar with the ettiquette of such gatherings, which include taking turns baking for the group, offering to wash the dishes, working hundreds of hours to produce raffle prizes and favors, etc. The young person usually ends up violating the norms of the group without even realizing it and an uncomfortable situation results in the young person leaving. I think Julia has tremendous material here to demonstrate how market forces keep lacemaking small and unpopular and to propose a marketing plan to turn that around. She should interview vendors and teachers and lacemakers about why lacemaking stays small. Devon
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