Congratulations to all involved in 'Benalla Rugged Up'!

Congratulations to Benalla Yarnbombers on the 2018 Yarn Bombing Event - 'Benalla Rugged Up'.

From small beginnings, a dedicated and inspired group of potential yarnbombers took up the challenge, learning about yarnbombing and possible designs along the way.  The planning group included NEA members Annie Longmuir, Maggie Hollins, Sally Wallace, Jennifer Gill and Mary Kennedy.  As the deadline for contributions neared, photos began to be shared on FB of the collected knitting and crochet contributions building up on tables in the Uniting Church Hall.  The cane collection baskets at NEA began to fill to overflowing.  Heart warming creations began to appear in Bridge Street, with one of the trees outside NEA featuring Mary Kennedy's hula skirt and Annie's colourful knitted, crocheted and flowered swathed creation hugging the tree just outside NEA's front door.  Wonderful bollard creations include Jennifer's daisy flowered crocheted chains which loop between the bollards outside Millers' store.  The inaugural installation has proven to be beyond  expectations both in volume and design.  

NEA was listed as a venue for planning sessions; knitting sessions at the Red Road Cafe and as a collection point,   NEA's role also included providing the requested option of website within  the NEA website.  A 'Planning Portal' prepared by Bev and Maggie provided an early point of contact and 'referral on'; however the Yarn Bombers FB site, email list and Mailchimp newsletter were clearly used more effectively as communication strategies during the busy period in the weeks leading up to and during the installation.   

Websites can, however, provide a repository function which FB and Mailchimp are perhaps less suited for.  They can come up in search engines for people researching Benalla's yarn bombing event and be a useful source of information for media releases.  The Planning Portal has been retained in the Projects area of the NEA website for now.  Updating the Gallery tab in the Planning Portal with images of the 2018 Yarnbomb would be worthwhile; as would  retaining its links to the FB page, and also links to all news posts categorized under Benalla Yarn Bomb.  Next year, it could be used again or it could form a base from which to begin discussing the development of the Yarn Bombing event's own website.   

Benalla's inaugural yarn bomb has been memorable,  There is a substantial resource base on which to build next year - both in terms of knitted and crocheted works and knowledge of patterns, installation, and more.  The event has considerable capacity to continue to reach out to the community in unanticipated and engaging ways such as happened this year with the joining in from knitters from Estia Health;  volunteer support by regional ANZ staff using their 'community bank' hours to help with the installation; and many other examples of unanticipated contributions by the community.  More recently,  the Yarn Bombing group has received a request from Benalla P-12 college for speakers to enable them to find out more about what is involved as they are hoping to motivate their 5/6 classes to become involved with the YB project next year.  

Congratulations, Benalla Yarn Bombers!

An Occasional BLog