Knit Camp story published in UK

Back in October 2010 I'd very much hoped I could put the bad part of Knit Camp behind me, and just move on with my new skills (spinning), new interests and passions (rare breed sheep and breed specific fleece & fibre products) and enjoying the new friends I was meeting online and 'in real life' through these interests.

Abhorring the way an individual has behaved towards others does not mean I wish them ill.  In fact I very much hoped that Jo Watson had learned from her multiple and serious mistakes, would gain some benefit to her own peace of mind by continuing to make what reparations she could, and very importantly that she would gain the insight to appreciate she does not have, in my personal opinion, the necessary character and business skills to take on what she had attempted in the past, or similar future endeavours.

It was with great shock then that  we realised she was in fact moving on into new business ventures in the knitting and craft arena.  A number of us were appalled at the thought that she might, in future, do to other people what she had done to the hundreds affected by Knit Camp.  At times UK law, especially relating to companies, can be frustrating and appear not to offer protection from those wilfully deceptive, fraudulent or incompetent.  In early November 2010 the thought was that it was probably largely the latter that could be applied to Jo Watson.  My personal opinion has now changed.

The tutors had made multiple complaints using the regulatory bodies that do exist for companies.  However any result of that may never be made public.  Public information on the internet about Jo Watson and her new endeavours was shared on Ravelry.  Then the Americans did the 'cavalry charge' over the hill and an article, Unhappy Campers, was published in Yarn Market News in November.  This is a free print and on line trade journal for the USA and, I think, the international yarn industry.  Sadly the article itself wasn't available on line through Yarn Market News.  The content of the article however did reach people outside their normal readership.  I've read it - a well written, good and accurate summary of most of the main events, and pretty damning (in my opinion) of two of the people it named - Jo and Doug Watson.

For 'us Brits' though it was still frustrating that the story wasn't available to the British public.  Also, having been dragged back into the Knit Camp aftermath, some of us on Ravelry started trying to think laterally about the facts and information that were either publicly available, or that we and others might unknowingly have in our possession.  Some interesting possibilities presented themselves.  Miss Marple would have been proud of what people uncovered and posted about that was available in public places for anyone to read - it was just a matter of finding it.  A very vague post requesting certain information from campers also produced some very revealing facts - my thanks again to all those Ravellers who took the time to send information to me - it was more valuable than may be apparent at the moment.

 Image from Wiki

OK - this is going to be frustrating for many of you reading this.  If I say what we found out and what was done with it, then someone might be alerted.  So my apologies, but I'm sure all of you reading this (well, excepting one obvious person) will understand.  There is also the possibility of course that there may be future developments related to this that are in the public arena.

With this new knowledge at hand, and still frustrated that 'the story' hadn't been told in the UK, but having the USA publication of the story as 'new news', I tried a long shot.  I contacted a certain UK publication with all this information.  Bullseye!  Over the Christmas and New Year period one of this publication's reporters was busy sifting through all the reams of information that I and some of the tutors sent to her.  Then we waited - it's a 2 weekly publication and the first one in January was a day later than usual coming out.  No article - too much other news.  Two weeks later on the Monday evening emails between the reporter and myself as the sub editors (I think that's the term)  decided what was going in the next issue.  Not good news and frustration for both of us.  She did however say that if it kept being bumped, then she had other publications in mind that might pick it up.  Time passed and I stopped even rushing for the publication when it came (we've been subscribers for years).

One thing that did crop up as a result of the reporter doing the investigating was that we found out that the University of Stirling was owed, by Events by British Yarn Ltd an amount of money that meant they decided to take action. (bottom LH corner).  The result of that was a Winding-up Order and an Official Receiver appointed as Liquidator.  A Raveller made contact with the University of Stirling and all the information people had gathered from public websites and documents, or sent from their personal records, has also been sent there and we've been told that their lawyers are finding it helpful.

Then something very exciting happened on 10 March that caught me totally by surprise - and full credit must go here to a Raveller, Judithknits, who spotted this and posted.  The story had been published by The Oldie.  Quick email to the reporter and yes, it was her work.  (thank goodness after all the time and effort she'd put in!)  The post was made in the evening so I had to wait until the next day to track down where to purchase The Oldie.  Not easy to find.  WH Smiths and Waitrose may be the only nationwide outlets that stock it.  There were then stories appearing on-line of people trying to track one down in their local area, and of course the international interest was very great.  It appears I wasn't the only person who emailed or rang The Oldie to plead if the article could be published on their website when the current issue was off the shelves.

I now have enormous respect for The Oldie team.  They could have just left things and let the magazine sell out in the shops, or have promised it would go on the website next month.  But no - that appears not to be how they operate.  Virtually the next day the article was there - up on the website - where people all around the world could read it.  (Link doesn't not work now, so see below for image of article from The Oldie April 2011)  My view of it - succinctly damning.  Just having the story out in public, has been helpful for many people, especially those in countries that would have dealt differently with the situation through their legal systems, and who feel especially frustrated about how things have happened over here.  We all have a sense of 'natural justice', and in this case there is a feeling that proper justice has yet to be done.  (as a small aside, after reading The Oldie my mid 50's husband asked it he could have a subscription for his upcoming birthday!)

So my heartfelt thanks again to the reporter and The Oldie team - you've done more than you could know.  
Thanks also are due to the University of Stirling for doing what they have done - having an Official Receiver dealing with the financial records of the Jo Watson's company can only help bring justice.

One last point to add.  In the course of all this I received a number of private and confidential messages from people linked in some way to Knit Camp, Ravelry, or Jo Watson prior to Knit Camp.  Confidential is a word I take seriously.  Knowing what I do though, I want it to be known in public  that these people, in how they responded publicly and on Ravelry to certain situations that arose, all acted, (for the greater good of minimising damage to people booked to attend Knit Camp), with great restraint and dignity and accorded Jo Watson a level of courtesy that was in no way reciprocated.

One glass of grape juice. Or why I didn't get any knitting done this afternoon

The beginning of this tale has not been photographed – I mean, how many of us, at the beginning of a 'simple' event in the kitchen think to photograph it.

We have a grape vine growing in our south facing back yard. It was planted to be trained across the yard so that the leaves would shade the kitchen which has a lot of glass along that wall. It's also nice to sit underneath it when eating outside during the summer. The shading effect hasn't been quite as effective as I'd imagined, but after 3 years of training, pruning and tlc the vine is there to stay. This year, for the first time, we had grapes. Quite an achievement I thought for a northern outdoor vine.

A rather alarming tasting in September suggested that the grapes were of the red rather than green variety. I left them hanging. Despite an early autumn that didn't even attempt to be an Indian Summer the grapes did start turning a rather attractive purple colour during October, but as gales started to rage we had to pick them all before they were blown down. 

A quick tasting revealed quite an intense flavour in the darkest grapes, but there was a lot of pip and thick skin involved. Having spent most weekends during October at Apple Events and observed juicing of apples I decided the solution would be to turn our flavoursome grapes into juice. I'll skip over the rather tedious choosing and purchasing of a juicer, but we ended up with a juicing attachment for the kitchen workhorse – my food mixer.

By now the grapes had been sitting in the fridge for a few days, so there was no time to waste. I separated the purple and 'reddish' grapes from the stalks and the green grapes and filled 2 colanders. After rinsing the grapes I opened the juicer box. This was where it started to get "interesting" – this is my polite, possible future grandchild-friendly term for what actually happened.

 Having failed to take a picture of my overflowing box of grapes, this is what was left after removing the 'ripe' ones.

The 36 page instruction book had one page of diagrams and one page in English. This juicer is obviously shipped to every country in the world, and a couple of planets as well. That one page of English contained the assembly instructions, the 'how to juice' instructions, the 'warnings' (no, I hadn't thought of juicing underwater using my fingers instead of the pusher!), instructions on how to prepare the food, how to clean the juicer and finally the warning never to immerse the base in water. Given that said page is 21 x 10 cm, you'll appreciate the brevity of all these essential instructions.

However I was in full 'homemaker' mode and looking forward to a well earned afternoon of knitting at the end of a busy week. After all, I just had to pop the grapes through the juicer and then have a little sample drink of the clear fragrant, jewel coloured juice before putting my feet up and finishing my sleeve. Rolling around the floor with hysterical laughter is allowed at this point, although you may wish to include a glass of something that will anaesthetise you for the rest of the tale.

Dear family descendants – it took rather longer than anticipated to get the ****** juicer assembled and perched on top of the food mixer. I then discovered that feed tube was rather narrow and the shape of a kidney bean. The grapes had to be inserted by hand, virtually one at a time. By now I'm realising that future plans for juicing apples will include a lot of chopping and I am regretting not having purchased the juicer that said it could take whole apples.

I eventually ended up with a system that involved popping the grapes, one by one into the food tube, switching on the mixer, ramming the pusher down the food tube and trying to keep the plastic jugs in the right place so neither juice nor bits trickled onto the work surface. The ratio of pulped bits to juice was not quite what I had imagined. In fact 2 whole colanders of grapes was being reduced to about 200ml of juice. This was my entire grape harvest. 3 years of lovingly tended grape vine and half an afternoon of ******juicing was giving me 200ml of juice!

I looked at the vast mound of bits and decided that there was still a lot of juice lurking in there. It seemed eminently sensible to run the bits through the juicer again to extract all that 'waste' juice. After all there wasn't anything on the one English page of the instruction book telling me this wasn't a good idea. Plus, the bits poured into the feeder tube much quicker than the whole grapes had done.

With renewed enthusiasm I ran the bits through the juicer, not once but twice more. What a prudent home-maker I was, extracting every ml of clear fragrant juice from our grape harvest. Sadly I was so busy noticing that the volume of juice had almost doubled that I failed to notice that what was coming out of the juicer spout was rather lacking in either clarity or jewel red colour. In fact it resembled the sort of brown sludge you see in the waste oil bucket in a garage. My beautiful juice had acquired a sort of brown 'whole food' look about it. For those of you who have any memories of whole food cafés in in the 1970's, staffed by earnest sandal wearers, it had 'that' sort of look about it.

Time for plan B. Time being something that was quickly running out I should add. The knitting was starting to acquire cobwebs. First idea was to pass the soupy juice through a sieve. While it captured some of the sludge and the odd grape that had escaped being individually placed into the feeder tube, the smaller quantity of juice I was left with still looked like primordial soup. Next plan involved one of the muslin squares I use for making elderflower

hooch cordial placed inside another sieve. This was too efficient and very little trickled through. Squeezing the muslin to try and encourage things along went a little wrong and great dollops of primordial soup surged across the worktop and trickled onto the floor. By now I had every plastic measuring jug I owned in use and if the 'soup' had been red the kitchen would have resembled a serious crime scene. Final attempt involved the jelly bag I should have used in the first place and the results were acceptable. The volume was back down to about 200ml.

Anyone who has read this far and not resorted to a glass of some strengthening liquid or a strong cup of tea is advised to drink one now, while I divert to a textile aside from the juice story.

As I moved the chaos around the kitchen I noticed that the muslin had turned a rather gorgeous muted neutral colour.  The sort of colour that goes with everything, that you search the world for in a yarn, or spend hours trying to achieve in home-dyeing, but never quite find in the perfection that was there in my square of muslin.

I stood there amongst the ruin of my kitchen and tasted the juice. A mere sip was enough to tell me that the couple of grapes I'd tasted after picking were probably the only grapes that were ripe. Yes, there was a pleasing complexity of flavour, but my 'tubes' were being seared more effectively than I'd ever experienced with the strongest vindaloo curry.

By now it was dark outside and the knitting was becoming petrified. Deciding that the French were experts in the fruit of the vine, and having read that they added all sorts of things to their wine, I reached for the sugar. The result was palatable, just.

At this point my dearly beloved arrived having been on a train for 3 hours. He may have been expecting a warm welcoming kitchen and a hot meal – he got a glass of juice shoved in his direction to distract him from the state of the kitchen. To give him his due he very quickly seemed to realise what I might have been up to for the better part of the afternoon and early evening. He took one sip, announced it seemed to be very good for his virus ridden 'tubes' and suggested he have a glass of wine and meal before tackling the Grape Juice. There was some mention of the flavour improving with a little standing in a warm kitchen. He seemed very keen that we should divide the Grape Juice between 2 glasses and have a 'shared moment'.

As I write the glass of Grape Juice is still standing on the kitchen work surface.

I shall leave it there. You don't need any details of the clearing up or the intricate operations required to disassemble the juicer so it could be washed – oh and don't forget the bit about not immersing the base unit in water. I did! Just imagine the worst case scenario, take a swig of whatever fortifying drink you have to hand, and take your imagining several stages nearer to total disaster meltdown.

Ah, the joys of home making............

And yes, now we've eaten and drunk wine, we have shared some far pleasanter than anticipated sips of an intense, fragrant juice.  The 'moment' was a little tarnished however when 'he' (he's not getting any 'dearly beloved' after this) started trying to work out the cost per ml of producing the Grape Juice - I feel his final tally of 30p per 1 ml grossly underestimates the value of my labour!

Tutor Group Fund

There is however a lovely piece of news I'd like to finish with. The knit camp tutor fund I mentioned in my last post did start, more than achieved the minimum I had dared to hope it would, and the benefits for everyone who joined in went far beyond the purely financial. The story is told much better than I could by some of the people involved on both sides of the fund in their blogs. 

The company that organised knit camp still owes a vast amount of money to the tutors, and much smaller amounts to many of the people who attended. I hope one day that justice at least will be served.

September has been a whirlwind

I've been busy.  Not just physically busy, but also very preoccupied with a number of things, mostly exciting, but one of them has been something that has deeply offended my sense of justice and morality.

It relates to the Stirling Knit Camp that I mentioned in my entry for 19 August.  I've just read again what I wrote, still then on a 'high' from the wonderful experience I'd had and excited about new skills gained and exciting new chapters opening up in my life.  I'd realised in the few days before the event started that there were problems, but I had no idea of the extent of these, and I guess I trusted the organiser.  I've organised much smaller scale events myself (think Guides, tents, field) and despite my meticulous planning, some years things just didn't go to plan and we had to adapt and work around problems.  How wrong I was to have thought the Knit Camp problems were of this nature, and indeed to have trusted the organiser.

Now, at this point, you may be wondering how what I've written above can be about the same event I wrote about in August.  The answer is humbling and simple.  Everyone else who was involved in the event including tutors, volunteers, and employees worked exceedingly hard to bring about all the things that were great about the event, and, indeed, they pulled it off to a remarkable extent.  The vendors got creative with sign posting and greatly improved the market place at the end of the week.  The attitude of all the other people I took classes with, knitted with, and had fun with, also helped.  It was awesome in itself to be mixing with knitters from so many different countries and we generally accepted things as they'd turned out to be and had a really good time, despite everything.

Then gradually over the weeks after camp the whole dreadful truth started coming out.  The story from  a Tutor's point of view is best read in this post,   better expressed than I could do so here.  Basically, the reward for most of the tutors for all their 'above and beyond' efforts was not to be paid and not even to have their travelling and other expenses refunded.
One of the lovely people I met, Liz, also writes a blog I enjoy reading and she has written with integrity and honesty about her Knit Camp experiences here.

So what next you may ask.  Am I going to move on, doing lovely things with my knitting needles and spinning wheel?  In one sense, yes.   The good bits of the Stirling experience have inspired and excited me, altered my lifestyle and changed what I do. To embrace all that is to honour the efforts that people put in to give the 'campers' a fantastic week, despite everything.  

But I do tend to be a bit proactive about things.  If I get an idea then I try and follow it through.  Something that started cropping up in peoples' posts on Ravelry was their sense of appreciation and gratitude for what the tutors and others had done at knit camp, and a wish to try and help once the horror of unpaid tutors was revealed.  This echoed my own personal feelings.

So I've been setting up a scheme that will enable people to fulfil their wish to help the group most affected financially; the tutors.  What has taken the time is creating a scheme that is so professionally managed and so 'squeaky-clean' that people who have had their trust sorely tested will have the confidence to use it.  Doing things this properly takes time (note to anyone planning a future knitting event!). Even the Accountancy Firm I have engaged to set up and run the scheme has encountered delays with PayPal in setting up the account, but it is finally coming together and we, that is the amazing community of knitters I've grown to know and love through all this, will very soon have a means of safely donating  funds for the Stirling Tutor Group.  And love is also there for my husband, who gave a wholehearted affirmative to my suggestion that we cover all the costs of the Accountant, so that every penny and every cent raised will go straight into the Tutor Fund.

So now I'm feeling a bit like a woman in her 41st week of pregnancy.  A bit frustrated by delays (but it is so important not to 'launch' until every last detail is properly in place) and a bit anxious about what will emerge.  I know the scale of the monies owed, and I know how many people were keen enough to get involved to contact me personally, but I have no idea how much money will be raised and donated.  I hope that at the minimum it will cover the amount the tutors paid out in travel and other expenses, I dream it may be more.  What I do know is that already, just for the tutors to know that there is so much concern and gratitude and support for them from so many people has been of emotional help.  I also know that people have found it helpful that there is going to be a scheme that will enable them to express what they feel in a practical way by giving.  

And now for a discursive interlude with the Tudors - perchance not as discursive as it first appears.

Time for a picture.

This is the imposing frontage of Hardwick Hall.  Built in the 1590's for Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury, it sits on top of a hill overlooking the Derbyshire countryside, and is visible for miles around.  Remembered in the phrase: Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall, it is a conspicuous symbol of Bess's wealth and power.

The six upper rooms have balustrades with Bess's initials ES, for Elizabeth Shrewsbury, clearly visible.

Ostentatious is a word that might come to mind.  Certainly Bess didn't lack ambition.  Her wealth grew not just through her 4 marriages, but through her careful management of her estates.  Five of her six surviving children she managed to marry into noble families, and the sixth into Royalty.

This is a painting of Bess as a young woman

  
Here as an older woman, now the richest woman in the country after Elizabeth I.

My impression, as I looked at both paintings during a visit to Hardwick Hall yesterday, is that Bess's experiences have hardened her.  It wasn't an easy task for her to achieve what she did.  She survived an attempted poisoning and charges of embezzlement.   She held positions at Court and some of her children had Royal Godmothers.  She skilfully negotiated her way through and around the Elizabethan laws of succession and inheritance at a time when women had few property rights.

In many ways an admirable woman with a remarkable grasp of the minutia of law and financial affairs, who succeeded in ventures where other lesser women or those with less care and attention would have failed spectacularly.

This illustrates her position in Elizabethan society

Bess also enjoyed gambling, as illustrated by this beautiful inlaid table at Hardwick Hall.  Unlike many gamblers who take too many risks and end up losing everything, Bess's accounts of 1593 show that her expenditure of £8,500 was significantly less than her income of £9,500.

Ambitions sometimes bear a cost, even for someone of the stature and ability of Bess.  In spite of Bess's intelligence, skills and accomplishments, a level of attributes shared by few other women, these costs affected other people.  Not all of her children's marriages were happy and the story of her granddaughter Arabella Stuart, a possible contender for the throne of England,  is tragic.  

Arabella Stuart as a teenager.

Arabella did marry Sir William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, although both led tragic lives.  Below is the Somerset Coat of Arms, complete with unicorn.