I hope you’ve all had lots of wonderful summer adventures and are now enjoying the arrival of fall, with its vibrant colors. Here in Monterey, where I live, we eagerly anticipate this time of year—these blissfully warm California Indian summer days, when the weather is truly at its best of the year.

Here’s an update on the latest OWAC activities, including our ongoing efforts to secure conference sites for 2025 and 2026. Your board of directors continues to meet monthly over Zoom to discuss these plans, as well as the upcoming California High School Student Contest and the Excellence in Craft (EIC) awards, both scheduled for the next few months.

We’re also reaching out to various locations and tourism bureaus across the state to explore potential future venues. Executive Director Bob Semerau (who may say he’s “retired”) has taken the lead in connecting with these location contacts and highlighting the unique value OWAC members bring to each host region. Bob has also been gathering tear sheets from previous conferences to showcase this value to prospective hosts. These are very important! If any of you have additional conference-related tear sheets to share, please send them our way! The more we can demonstrate the benefits of hosting our members, the sooner we’ll be able to announce our next conference destination.

In closing, please send in any conference tear sheets you have our way … and stay tuned. Hopefully, we will have some news on this front to share with you all soon!

~ Carrie ~

President, OWAC