There is very limited availability of seating in the art room and even more limited space in the kiln. Most glass projects require 2 or more trips through the kiln to be completed. The projects need to be stored on the shelves awaiting kiln space as they cannot be transported back and forth from home anymore than a half finished jigsaw puzzle could be moved. So, limited work space, limited shelf space and limited kiln space. The kiln can only hold about a dozen typical projects a day. So all of this combines to make membership very limited. If everyone who is a member came to every meeting they could not be accommodated. There are two options for this. Open seating and no membership restrictions, first arrival at the room gets in. Or closed membership as is done now. If they go to open rooms, then tell me, where are all those half done projects going to be stored if you can't get back in for several weeks? And who is going to run the kilns for you? It takes the kiln person about an hour to unload, clean, and reload the kiln correctly. This is done by members and also done on days where there is not a meeting, 7 days a week. Who would possibly agree to be a volunteer kiln person if they risked being shut out of the art room when it is too busy?
There are more than two glass fusion groups as can be found in the rec news.
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