Textile Forum 2011 cancelled.

On Sunday evening, Sabine and I have made the final decision on whether there will be a Textile Forum this year... or not.

It was a hard one - we did re-calculate twice, we thought hard about it some more (that was a topic already discussed time and again during the last month), and it did make us very sad, but we finally decided to cancel Textile Forum 2011. There were too few registrations in spite of all the plugging we did - here, on Facebook, on Huscarl, via the Forum newsletter, and in spite of all the promotion that friends, colleagues, former and current participants did (and our heartfelt thanks for that!). We are fine with a small event, but too small a group means that the Forum idea will not work properly. And while day visitors or short-term participants are a very welcome addition to the participant group, the core group has to be large enough to carry the event on their own.

We are deeply sorry to miss out a Textile Forum, but we are certain that it is better to have a one-year hiatus than to see through a Forum that will not measure up to the participants' expectations (or to ours). It was a hard step for us to take, and I feel almost as if a pet had died - the Forum is a thing very dear to me, and having no Forum this year does make me very sad.

"Es hat nicht sollen sein" (it was not meant to be) is the German phrase that perfectly fits this year's Forum planning, which was quite generously garnished with larger and smaller troubles, now culminating in the cancellation. We are, however, working on the Forum 2012 already - we will not be stopped by one single squib load. We'll be keeping you up to date about developments once we have settled things with our prospective venue.

And we do hope to see you then and there!