Date and Location:  Wednesday, January 25, 2012, Poole’s Downtown Diner, Raleigh

Attendees:  Linda Anderson, Jen Baskett, Kathleen Dautel, Nancy Frame, Jennie Hagenberger, Jenna Perkins, Jina Propst, Vicki Shafer, Alison Steele, and Rhonda Zack

Discussions:  We were all very happy to see such a large turn-out for our January meeting and with so many new faces.  Introductions were made.  Several requests were made for a better venue for conversation as Poole’s was pretty loud.  Also a request to try to control costs at future gatherings and events was made.  We do not want to price anyone out of the group, so we will make every effort to keep that in mind when planning future gatherings and events.

Fun.  Enlightenment.  Service.  (not necessarily in that order)

Rhonda Zack presented:  TWILL began as a group of women who got together to talk about design and issues of being a woman in the design/building industries.  It became clear in our 2^nd meeting that we wanted to do more, that we wanted to help women in the community as well as ourselves.  We had stated goals of performing service projects to help women in the community and also to host or participate in classes or seminars that are targeted to women and/or small business owners that had the added benefit of educating us…thus the “Learning” part in our name.

We ended last year with a whole string of service projects one after the other.  In the last 4 months of the year, we had 3 service projects:  the Supplies Drive, the 5k for lung cancer, and the Toys for Tots drive.  These were fantastic projects to undertake, but after a while, we seemed to be overwhelming our members with requests for donations of their time and money.  Though we get the satisfaction of knowing we helped others, we were not also getting the education or support we had stated in our goals and started running the risk of stretching ourselves too thin.  The women of TWILL already have busy lives.  We want TWILL to enrich those lives by giving TO our members, not just asking them to give.

Therefore, going back to our originally stated goals, we will focus our energy in 2012 equally on fun, enlightenment, and service.   As we are just starting to brainstorm ideas, we are finding that many of these things can incorporate both fun and enlightenment, or fun and service… overlapping our goals (such as with the scarf dying).  We believe that 4 service projects a year with 3 months to plan and execute each is a very reasonable goal.  The other 8 months can be dedicated then to things that we find interesting and want to learn more about or to investigate with others and that also appeals to our inner-child.  Brainstorming Ideas to follow.

February Scarf Dying  (fun and enlightenment)

Linda Anderson presented:  The February  29^th meeting will be at Linda’s studio just south of Carrboro.  We will be hand dying silk scarves in a quasi-Shibori style. The process involves liquid dyes, silk scarves and imagination.

• Participants are asked to contribute $8 toward the cost of supplies for which you can take home 2 scarves dyed by you.

• If you have latex gloves bring them, Linda will try to have some on hand.

• Wear an apron and/or something with a short shelf life unless you are a really neat person.

• If you want to bring wine or an appetizer, great, otherwise you will be at the mercy of the hostess (a la 2-buck Chuck and Funyuns)!

A follow-up email will be sent out in February with directions to Linda’s studio.

March SECU Family House Dinner  (service project #1 for 2012)

Alison Steele presented our first 2012 service project:  SECU Family House is a home away from home in Chapel Hill that serves extended-stay adult patients and their families at UNC Hospitals.  The guests of the house are patients and/or family members dealing with bone marrow transplants, burn patients of the Jaycee Burn Center, and other critical care patients.  The house has 40 rooms and runs on private donations and volunteers.  Last year, TWILL hosted a supplies drive for SECU Family House to provide the rooms with shampoo, soap, paper towels, and other necessities that are acquired thru donations.  We were given a tour of the facility and all felt very moved to do more and decided that providing a dinner one night for the guests would be a great future project for TWILL.

The dinner will be held March 29^th at 6:00.  We will be serving roughly 35 guests of the house.  More information will be sent out to everyone very soon.

Angels of ’97:  Also, on a personal note, Alison wanted to make everyone aware of a 5k Run/Walk and Spaghetti Dinner event benefiting the Angels of ’97 in Huntersville.  This scholarship fund was started in memory of five high school students, including Alison’s sister Mandi, who were killed in car accidents prior to graduating with their class of 1997 at North Mecklenberg High School.  The proceeds go to college scholarships for students of North Meck.  They have raised over $400,000 so far.  This year’s event will take place on Saturday, March 17^th.  Alison and Rhonda will be participating and ask if anyone wants to join them to let them know.