Today, I am hoping to finish up the September Kit video, and this week I’ve also been working on finalizing the rest of the materials for October, November, and December.
 
With each month that arrives, I get so much joy from sharing the new kits with you, but even more so, I LOVE seeing all the ornaments that you all come up with.
 
I also love when people ask questions and others jump in to help. I love when someone asks where they can find a particular fabric, or embellishment, or whatEVER, and 10 people post the links for them.
 
I love when Ornament Girls take time to explain various solutions, because someone has said they are having difficulty with something.
 
I love when someone says, “I’m totally addicted to making these!”
 
Sometimes I log in and my jaw literally drops open from the amazing things that you ladies create and post.
 

That is what this group is for. That is how it started, and that is how I plan to keep it.

 

Ladies, there has been some drama lately, ever since I put some community guidelines into writing. Not only have some of these rules been twisted & turned, but in some cases, I’ve been vilified for even having rules at all.

 

First, I am asking that before anyone dramatizes something that I have supposedly said, allowed, or “not allowed”, that you please go and read our guidelines for yourself. This is how you will know exactly what I’ve said. And, if there is something there that you don’t like, it’s okay. I do not expect everyone to always agree with me.

 

However, the rules are in place to keep our very large community running smoothly. Every one of the few rules I’ve put into place has come about for a specific reason. Please understand that I am on the backend of things here in this group, and so the things I do are the result of the information I have gathered and learned from you, our members, and from running the club. I see it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly! I even did a survey a few months ago, and received hundreds of responses, full of information that I have used to shape the things I do and the decisions I make.
 
(We actually have a shorter, and much less strict, list of rules than any large group I’ve ever been a part of.)

 

With that being said, if any of my rules and guidelines are something you feel you cannot live with, then I ask that you gracefully exit the group, rather than dramatize and blatantly disrespect the rules, or other members, or me, or Jonathan. I will hate to see you go, but I will understand. It is not possible for me to please everybody (though, I am certainly guilty of trying to sometimes. ? )

 

Contrary to what has been said several times in threads lately, we have not been losing members due to “the rules”. Our cancelation rate itself is under 2%, which is absolutely incredible. We ask every person who cancels, their reason for leaving, and if there is anything we can do better. Many have said they left for financial reasons, or that they were just too busy to complete their kits. One person recently said the kits were too boring (ouch). But, not one person has told us upon cancelation that it was because we have rules. This is a falsehood that is being promoted in the group by those who do not feel we should have rules.

 

Another amazing thing – many of those who leave, have come back 1 or 2 months later! There’s no “mass exodus” occurring, chased off by Facebook group rules. We actually have the opposite problem – there’s a line of people who want IN!

 

The fact is, the only complaints I have received about our group, have been the ones that caused the need for rules and guidelines in the first place. These were the complaints about negativity, drama, and self-promotion.

 

Ladies, again I must stress this… a group of this size needs rules and guidelines in place. The group will quickly self-destruct without them. Imagine what would happen to a group of 1K people (and growing), with no rules and regulations in place. Please though, read our rules for yourself, and you will see that they are all common-sense items, some are privacy-protecting, and they are all about respect…. they are not the crazy, over-the-top, controlling rules that a few people in the group are trying to portray them as.

 

Some of the members who are complaining about the rules, are the very people who are dramatizing, misconstruing, and even blatantly disrespecting them. The Facebook group is voluntary (as is the membership in this club). Again, I ask that if anyone does not want to respect our group’s guidelines, that they gracefully exit the group.

 
A note about the specific rules that seem to have caused the most issue:
 
1. Keeping things on topic: Ladies, we have close to 1K of our 1200 members participating in the Facebook group. Please understand that we are a Quilted Ornament Club. The group will become utterly insane if we don’t keep things on topic as best as possible (ornaments, crafting, creative support, holidays, supplies, etc). I have only asked that it be kept “loosely” on topic. Again, read the rules for yourself. I simply asked that we leave out things like politics and personal issues. That is not too much to ask. It is why we are here. Please do not go around “policing” everyone’s posts, or making a big dramatic production on your own post about whether it’s allowed or not. When you do that, you are only feeding the drama. If someone else’s post is bothering you, please come to me or Jonathan.
 
2. Self-promotion: I was told that I must feel “threatened” by this. That is a shortsighted and self-serving presumption, and really upsets me. I’m sure a lot of you have seen that I’ve actually let many things slide, over and over. But, here is the problem… in a group this large, I can’t let some members promote, and then say “no” to others. My answer is to say “no” to all self-promotion. Saying “yes” to self-promotion is almost always the utter death of an online community. Please think back to any other groups you are/have been in, and consider what happened any time members continually engaged in self-promotion. In the beginning, we didn’t have many people try to do this, and the rule wasn’t needed. But, over time, some members joined our group in order to use it as a platform for themselves. And so, I made a rule against self-promotion. In fact, I can’t think of another successful group that I belong to, that does allow self-promotion. But, the only way it works is if it applies to everyone.
 
Ladies, these rules are completely common rules, that you will find in almost any successful group or forum. It is the dramatizing of them that has created the problem.
 
I make it my mission to always show complete respect towards each and every person I interact with – especially each of you, the members of this Ornament Club. I always will, because it is a personal value of mine, and because every person in this group matters to me. If a member does not like a rule that I have created, and because of that, continues to ignore it, or dramatize it, or promote to the rest of the group how “wrong” the rule is, etc…over and over… well, that is extremely disrespectful to me.
 

One last myth that I would like to debunk, is that I tyrannically throw people out of the group whenever something happens that I “don’t like”. The fact is, in the 10 month span of this Facebook group, I have removed only ONE person.

 
(In fact, a little known secret – even when someone cancels their membership, we don’t take them out of the Facebook group right away. We wait until the very last minute of the month. Rather than setting up the automatic removal of a canceled member, Jonathan actually keeps a manual list of those members, so we can leave them in the group as long as possible. We are not tyrants. We ADORE all of you, and we are sad every single time someone needs to leave.)
 

Removing members is something I have avoided doing. I hate the very idea of it… and I only will if the negativity and drama make it absolutely necessary.

 

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been pretty upset to see how terribly misconstrued things have become. I was particularly upset to see that Jonathan was immediately vilified and ripped apart because he posted a reminder (one sentence) of one of the rules.
 
I hope that by explaining these things from my heart, it will help to peacefully dispel some of this nonsense drama that’s been brewing lately. I get that you may not like all of the rules, or agree, and that is fine, but they are there for a reason. If you are upset by any of the above, I am sincerely sorry. If you are interested in canceling your membership, HERE is a step by step on how to do so, or if you still need help, please send us an email and we will get you all taken care of.
 
No matter what, thank you for reading, thank you for being here. I appreciate you.

 
I am going to get back to that September video now. I would like to have both the eBook, and the video, available on the website by the 1st. It’s also my goal that we will be starting to box this coming week. 🙂
 
 
 
 
 
 

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.