Meeting Place

Every city has many possible places for a circle to meet. For us this was the trickiest part of getting our circle started. We live in a small community and while there is a variety of locations we needed something that would suit small numbers while we grew our circle. It is important that you chose a place whose price is within your means and in an location where knitters will feel comfortable.
We started by calling and talking to people in the community about where we could find a space to rent. As we live in Armstrong, a small bedroom community of Vernon, BC, our goal for the number of people attending our first meeting was ten.

In Armstrong the following were possibilities for our first meeting

• Upstairs of the Curling Club
• Use of a school room after hours
• Local coffee house
• Use of a room at the evening school
• Centennial Hall
• Local Churches
• Odd Fellows Hall
• Restaurant meeting rooms

Organizations you could consider for your meeting place

• Church halls
• Odd Fellows
• Royal Canadian Legion
• Local Coffee Shops
• Schools
• Community Colleges
• Curling Club
• Parks & Recreation
• Arenas
• Eagles
• Elks
• Army Navy Veterans
• Community Halls
• Hotel Meeting Rooms
• Pub Meeting Rooms
• Check the yellow pages under Halls & Auditoriums
• Homes of knitters
Our next step was to call each of the possible venues and ask a few questions. We put all our questions into a phone script and set about calling each one.

Phone script

• Hi. My name is ________. We want to start a knitting circle in _______ and need a place to meet.
• How many people will fit in your meeting room, hall or?
• How much do you charge?
• When is it available?
• Do you know of any other places to rent?

Decision

We decided to try the Odd Fellows Hall. It was centrally located and everyone in town used it for meetings. It cost twenty-five dollars for the use of a smallish room plus a kitchen for two hours. It had flexible seating so we could arrange the chairs into a circle. It also had a couple of small tables that we could use.

After our first meeting we concluded we could not afford to meet at this venue on a regular basis because of the cost, especially if we wanted to meet more than once a month. We decided what we needed was a place that we could grow into that had a low hall rental or was based on a donation.

We luckily connected with the Chamber of Commerce through the local Parks & Recreation Commission. Our local Chamber of Commerce offers to the public a meeting room in exchange for a donation. This suited our circle perfectly as we had five to six people consistently coming to our first few meetings. We were then able to book three nights a month. We each donate two dollars per meeting which the Chamber uses for community projects.

Private homes

Do not forget the possibility of meeting in your own homes. If your numbers are small and everyone is comfortable with the idea this could be an excellent alternative. Meeting locations would then rotate between members homes. Everyone would receive a basic calendar with the members names, the date and phone number of the host or hostess for that meeting.

Our circle discussed the possibility of meeting in our own homes but everyone was interested in meeting in an easily accessible central location. So we were pleasantly surprised to find the Chamber available for our use.

Pointer: If you are new to or not familiar with your community, talk to someone who is. We would not have found the Chamber without networking with a longtime community member.

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