Jeri writes: The above is an illustration of how one of you might take over some lace news reporting, so I can cut back. I would like to reassure Jeri that in fact Elena and I do a great deal of lace news reporting, but it is invisible to those people without facebook or instagram. Some years ago the IOLI decided it should have a facebook page and I became editor. I try to post daily, sometimes I post multiple times a day. I subscribe to all the lace facebook pages that will allow me to subscribe to them, then cull the information that I think would be of interest to the larger community of the IOLI. I reach out to lace groups asking for photos from their demonstrations and the other fun things they do, since I think that photos of people happily enjoying lacemaking and lace club membership is a way of increasing lace club membership. I also share anything else that comes to me that I think would be of interest. For instance yesterday I shared an essay about the Feast of the Bobbin (May 9th), the announcement of workshops and speakers at the Finger Lakes Guild lace weekend, and I reposted a post that Elena made on the Brooklyn Lace Guild facebook page announcing a demo at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn this Saturday, 3-5, a full day introductory bobbin lace class at the same venue on Sunday, and the next meeting of the Brooklyn Lace Guild on May 19th. The International Organization of Lace's facebook page is oriented toward providing information about lace events and activities mostly in the US, although there is some international content if I think it would be of interest to IOLI members. Particularly enjoyed has been my series of profiles about the teachers at the IOLI convention, and my moment to moment coverage of the Philadelphia IOLI convention with the help of the rest of the media committee. It was an exhausting tour de force culminating in exciting video footage of members of the IOLI, including Kenn Van Dieran, dressed as Uncle Sam, dancing ecstatically through the banquet hall doing the Philadelphia Mummer's Strut to the tunes of the legendary John A. Ferko String Band. (I should really get some award for this footage, as I was almost strutted over.) The IOLI facebook page is followed by 3213 people, so I assume that if there are arachne members who are interested in US based lace activities that they are among the followers. In fact, I think it quite likely that Jill picked up the Yale event from either the IOLI facebook page or Elena's Brooklyn Lace Guild facebook page (2332 followers) , or Instagram account (2447 followers) Elena posts a constant stream of interesting, well composed pictures and announcements on the Instagram account which reaches and sparks interest in people who are often a different demographic than arachne members. In fact, I think that the invitation from Yale to demonstrate bobbin lace there probably came as a result of someone who may have been a follower of her Instagram account. The Yale event has been announced several times in the Brooklyn Lace Guild Instagram and facebook pages, and likewise on the International Organization of Lace's facebook page. I do encourage anyone who would like to share information from the facebook page to repost it on arachne. It is a little hard to navigate the every changing digital world, but one consideration is that if most people who are interested in US based lace activities are following them on the IOLI facebook site, is it necessary to repeat them on arachne, an international site, or does this result in information overload? The good news is that while it may appear to people who do not subscribe to facebook and instagram that lace communication is dying out, it may actually be the case certain elements of it have shifted to different platforms. Arachne, of course, remains the preeminent site for intelligent lace discussion by the best informed members of the lace cognoscenti. Devon
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