April General Meeting Review
by Minoli de Soysa
The April general meeting was held at Liti Lissner’s house on April 26 at 11 am.
President Vanessa Brooks began the meeting by emphasizing that the new Board’s number one priority was a membership drive. She said there had to be a balance between associate and full members, and urged full members to bring in new full members. Vanessa pointed out that there had to be a global balance and that UNWA needed more members from Latin America, Africa, the former Soviet Union and the Caribbean.
She said that every member should select at least one activity to take responsibility for, be it an event, a meeting or an exhibition. If everyone does just one thing, UNWA can keep going for the year, she pointed out. Vanessa said she was looking for a full member as co-chair for Membership.
Liti demonstrated the UNWA website and urged members to visit it once a week.
Then members and their guests listened to a talk by Ellen London, a professional librarian, who now designs and makes jackets. Ellen lived in Dhaka before moving to Bangkok with her husband. She started by making tribal dolls in authentic costumes, as well as dolls of various types of people. Later she began making her own clothes and found that, wherever she went around the world, people always wanted to buy the clothes off her back.
So Ellen decided to go into business, starting with hemp jackets in collaboration with a person in Thailand. She now has a studio and showroom in Bangkok and her dolls and jackets are selling like hot cakes.
Her creations are a work of art, combining different materials, designs and textures. For inspiration, Ellen looks to the beautiful traditional clothes of the tribal people in Thailand and adapts them to suit modern styles.
The morning ended with members modeling some of Ellen’s unique jackets and many people went home happy with their exotic purchases.
Pictures included in the article
by Naoko Anzai and Hanna Satyawati
(for complete collection see PhotoGallery)
[click to enlarge]
