Sept membership reporting
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Byron Connell
Sep 26, 2025, 11:32:40 PMSep 26
to ICG Board of Directors
Jeanine --
Thanks. I fiind numbers very disturbing. The years of a 1,000+ member 1CG are long passed, since Guild West removed itself from membership. However, I wonder whether some chapters tnat are reporting steady annual small memberships changed are correct. What do we do to both encourage costumers to join ICG chapters and to encourage chapters to accept them and report the voting membership?
Let’s talk about this.
Byron Connell
NJNYCG
On Sep 22, 2025, at 12:29 PM, 'Jeanine Swick' via ICG Board Online Meeting <mee...@board.costume.org> wrote:
Better late than never. Sept chapter membership reports.Jeanine
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<Sept reporting.pdf>
Byron Connell
Sep 26, 2025, 11:37:43 PMSep 26
to ICG Board of Directors, Jeanine Swick, Richard Fine, Debi Chowdhury, Tina Connell, Abigail Welsher
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Jeanine Swick
Sep 28, 2025, 9:34:47 AMSep 28
to ICG Board Online Meeting, Richard Fine, Debi Chowdhury, Tina Connell, Abigail Welsher
Byron,
The question really is what is the ICG doing to support the chapters, or why hasn't there been an ongoing policy to do so? We have had many chapters join and then fail and vanish within a few years. Some still retain a Facebook presence but even those are not very active.
This is an overall ICG issue that all the chapters need to address and work on to support growth of both new and existing chapters. The PR committee has a budget line item that has not been touched in many years. Who is on the committee and why haven't they been doing anything over the years to promote the ICG?
Jeanine
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/board.costume.org/d/msgid/meeting/592C80FA-7A6C-4506-BB35-E887F057CBD0%40gmail.com.
Patrick J OConnor
Sep 28, 2025, 11:59:41 AMSep 28
to 'Jeanine Swick' via ICG Board Online Meeting
Hello, Jeanine,
I wish the ICG was still a chapter, but the Grim Reaper has decided otherwise and there just weren't enough of us to do as much as in prior years. Cons in the Chicagoland area are down to 2 a year (that we know of) so Grimmie is working on that front as well... We're mostly in Silicon Web now...
The 2022 Worldcon Masquerade in Chicago was our last hurrah, I'm afraid.
Patrick
Byron Connell
Sep 28, 2025, 9:18:42 PMSep 28
to ICG Board of Directors
Patrick —
Thanks. Do you have any suggestions about what we ought to do?
What are some ways we can use to introduce ourselves to the many cosplayers who are oblivious to our existence?
Byron
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/board.costume.org/d/msgid/meeting/1021044926.855939.1759075175501%40mail.yahoo.com.
Jeanine Swick
Sep 29, 2025, 12:30:53 PMSep 29
to mee...@board.costume.org
One thing that is not shown in the counts is if a chapter has local only members. Being they are not ICG members they will not show on the master list but only on the chapter's membership list.
jeanine
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/board.costume.org/d/msgid/meeting/EED1061B-68C5-4F1E-85BE-4FA411C6FE7C%40gmail.com.
Patrick J OConnor
Sep 29, 2025, 7:25:32 PMSep 29
to 'Jeanine Swick' via ICG Board Online Meeting
Byron,
I wish I knew.. There seems to be a bigger generation gap here than between the 'Greatest Generation' and the Boomers.
(And that one was a real Doozie!)
The cosplayer ethos isn't as much about making your own costumes, as about buying clothes and *accessorizing* them into a specific costume, rather than designing and sewing the entire thing from bolts of textiles.
I went to a workshop on drafting your own patterns by a guy named Frank Lutterloh, last weekend. He has a system that I might write up for the Newsletter sometime. It was attended by 54 women, and me. The women appeared to be between upper-fifties and mid-seventies. (e. g. Boomers) My wife and I fit right in. Except for me being the token male.
Even fifteen years ago, my workshops in the Chicagoland cons entitled "Beyond Textiles" (workshops about metalwork, 3D printing and otherwise crafting attachments and accessories for steampunk costuming) drew bigger crowds than the regular costuming and the 'stitch-and-bitch' sessions.
I filled a room to overflow at 10:00 AM on a Sunday morning(!) with the Beyond Textiles presentation. (Of course this was after the CCG group had just won best in show at the Masquerade the night before, and Steampunk was the theme.)
The crowd was mostly the early edge of the Gen-X generation. Age of my kids...
My grandkids are the Millennials (Gen-Y) and I think they're in the 'buy stuff at a resale shop and accessorize' generation...
It's not wrong, and in some ways, they're almost as frugal as my parents' generation whose working years were affected by the Great Depression. History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes...
Nothing wrong with economizing, and salaries haven't kept up with inflation worth diddly. Frugal is getting more in style every year...
Patrick
Byron Connell
Sep 29, 2025, 9:04:35 PMSep 29
to ICG Board of Directors
The Sick Pups are an example of this. We accept local members who do not want to join the ICG. Currently, we have one family of four that has a local family membership. We’ve had more than that in the past.
Byron
Jeanine Swick
Oct 1, 2025, 8:29:00 AMOct 1
to mee...@board.costume.org
We really need to do a better job on outreach and support. Why do chapters join and then fail within a few years? Even our established chapters do not have the numbers that they did years ago.
Jeanine
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/board.costume.org/d/msgid/meeting/302118418.1134016.1759188325039%40mail.yahoo.com.
Byron Connell
Oct 1, 2025, 7:32:22 PMOct 1
to ICG Board of Directors
— Equally important, we recognize very small groups as chapters. If they meet the six-member minimum, we happily recognize them and then abandon them to their fate instead of working with them to develop into stable organizations. Lately, new chapters tend to be local and already organized on a local basis. Over time, members drift away and are not replaced because the locality has no replacements. They may have a small city and its suburbs as its their specific areas. In contrast, when we recognized the Sick Pups, we gave the chapter the states of New Jersey and New York as their specific area. We were quite successful in attracting members in New Jersey, less so in New York. Costumers Guild West had the entire state of California. Half our members used to be from Guild West. When it left, due to its financial problems, it took them with it.
— Related to the small size, I don’t think we make it sufficiently plain to chapters that they may accept members from anywhere, not just their specific area. (I recall a dispute over whether the Oregon chapter could seek members in Washington, back when I was ICG President. Since I’ve been the Pups’ Prez, I’ve been carefully active in bringing our chapter to the attention of costumers from outside our specific area. At this time, we have more members in Pennsylvania than in either New Jersey or New York and have members in California, South Carolina, and Ontario. The 2025 worldcon in Seattle had a rather impressive display of costumes and some costuming-related information. It also had 40 copies of the Pups’ standard flyer that we provided. So far as I could see no other chapter provided any information about themselves, or even their existence. Nor did the ICG.
— Like many membership-based organization, we were hurt by the pandemic. Many artists who would have been drawn to a group of like-minded practitioners avoid participating in potential sources of illness. Compounding this is the change in costumers’ interests. Today, most are cosplayers, not traditional costumers who may make costumes from the skin out and prefer to show them on a stage rather than in a ballroom. We haven’t been very effective in bringing them to us by offering services that might catch their attention. (I admit I’m not blameless.) The one service I can think of is Guild West’s videoconference series. Note that it’s offered by a chapter, not the ICG.
Perhaps we should create at least two working groups, one to work on the development of support for new chapters, the other to develop our outreach to new costumers, and especially in the cosplayer groups. There are groups; cosplay is well organized.
Byron
Meghan Lancaster
Oct 2, 2025, 1:44:47 PMOct 2
to ICG Board Online Meeting, byronp...@gmail.com
I don't have time to read all the responses here at this moment, but my two cents, at least for BRCG, is a nearly complete lack of recruitment. A few members w/ teenage kids dropped out during covid. They live far from either meeting place and have full-time jobs. Most of our regular attendees now are retired. We picked up a few new paid members at our local con last year (very unusual), but I have a feeling the looming Worldcon here brought in new people to Norwescon.
My plan, since I won't be making any new costumes this year, is to visit local maker spaces and the local college cosplay clubs. I have not yet worked out the exact pitch for college students, but the county library has a couple in-library makerspaces, and my city library has one that is mostly fabrics and yarn. Also, from a local sewists club I have learned that the American Sewing Guild (a national club) has Cosplay groups nationwide. The people who told me about it were over 50 and sounded interested in our BeyondCon.
I suspect it is our job/destiny to convince younger costumers--both buyers and makers--that costuming is just another "form" of cosplay (that existed first, but we don't need to press that--remember when you learned you didn't invent something?).
Gotta go clean the studio. Tacoma Studio Tour in 10 days!!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!
Meghan Lancaster
Prez-BRCG (PNW)
Merrily Wolf
Oct 2, 2025, 9:38:38 PMOct 2
to mee...@board.costume.org
I love my local chapter and the ICG, but I don’t have the disposable income to participate in lots of cons, other events, and make new costumes for them. And often find it intimidating dealing with people who seem to have endless resources to make AMAZING costumes or attend so many events. There are others with in the same position. Recruiting takes resources. In my area lots of people are worried about keeping their job.
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