President’s Message
Happy 2026! What a great year it will be! Our country will be celebrating our 250th birthday this year. Let’s help to make this year “The Year to Celebrate” everything great. The question to all of our great craftsmen and artists is how can our Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen celebrate this most special birthday of our country? It doesn’t just have to be one event! Your Board of Directors and the Show Committee have been pondering this, and we want to hear from you too. Bring your ideas and suggestions to our general meeting on Tuesday, January 6, 2026 at 7:00 PM at the GoggleWorks in Room 238.
To allow more of our craftsmen who live in outlying areas to participate on our board and/or show committees, we have made some changes in our meeting schedules for 2026.
- We have moved our Board of Directors’ meeting to 6:00 PM at the GoggleWorks in Room 325 right before our general meeting at 7:00 PM in room 238.
- All of our show committee meetings will now be through Zoom on the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.
If you have any suggestions on how to get more members, craftsmen, or artists to attend our general meetings, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you. Our Guild of Craftsmen is our members, and you are how and why we are in existence. We want it to work for you, so we are trying to work with you. Let’s get on with it together.
News about our Spring Festival will soon be on our website. Our date for the Spring Festival is May 2, 2026, at Renninger’s Farmers’ Market in Kutztown, PA. Sign up!
The annual Eastern Pennsylvania Homestead Festival, in Kutztown, Pennsylvania pays homage to the Kutztown Folk Festival. Michael Richards is the owner of this event and has sign-ups on the website. This will be year # 2 for the Festival. The four-day event is July 2 through July 5, 2026 with new shorter hours. Let’s help make it a fantastic festival! Reminder: to participate in this show, your Guild membership must be up to date or you will have to re-jury.
INCLEMENT WEATHER ALERT:
Please note: if our general meeting at the GoggleWorks is being cancelled because of bad weather, you will receive an email by approximately 1:00 PM the day of the meeting. Also, the board meeting ahead of the general meeting at 6:00 PM will be conducted through Zoom in the case of general meeting cancellation.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” . Ralph Waldo Emerson
AND REMEMBER THIS:
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing” . George Bernard Shaw
Your President,
Barry L. Bennecoff
Programs
I’m proud to introduce you to one of the newest members of the PA Guild of Craftsmen, my dear friend, Heather McCord. She will be joining us at our. general meeting on January 6th, 2026, at 7 pm to show her craft, ceramics. Her company, Tilly LaMaze, is a great reflection of her love for clay, shape, and color.
According to Heather, she creates playful ceramic jewelry and ornaments designed to bring a little joy to everyday life. Each piece begins with a hand-carved stamp or a fun little illustration, then is layered with creamy satin glazes in bright, cheerful colors. For her, working with clay is about creating light-hearted, wearable art that makes people smile – because every day is better with a little color and whimsy!
I am excited for Heather to join our Guild Chapter and hopefully be juried in soon!
Program Chair,
Amy Langman programs@rbcrafts.org
Spring Festival
On this first week of the New Year, it seems as if winter is here to stay. However, our May spring show is just four short months away. Applications are live on our website. We will also have a new spring show leader who will be announced after the board meeting.
Spring Show Information and Application Sign Up!
Remember, it’s never too late to step up and take your turn making our guild better than ever.
Retiring Spring Show Chair,
Steve Hunter festivals@rbcrafts.org
Website
Help Shape Our Guild Website in 2026
As Website Chairperson for the Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen, I’d love to hear from you.
Our website is an important way we showcase the Guild, support our members, and connect with the wider community. As we plan updates for the coming year, your ideas and feedback will help guide what we focus on next.
We’d really like to know:
- What works well on the website right now?
- What could be clearer, easier to find, or improved?
- Are there new features you’d like to see (for example: member profiles, event information, galleries, resources, or news)?
- Is there anything missing that would better support you as a member?
Please take a few minutes and view the Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen’s website. Whether you have a small suggestion or a big idea, we’d love to hear it. Please share your thoughts by replying via my email link below.
Thank you for helping us keep the Guild’s website useful, welcoming, and reflective of the talented makers in our guild.
Website Chair,
Lisa Short
webmaster@rbcrafts.org
Social Media
As the New Year starts up, Social Media will change significantly.
With AI (Artificial Intelligence) taking hold, I predict that individual handmade products will continue to become even more important and valued as people will seek out personal connections with artists that create those “one of a kind” works. Those relationships will become significant to persons who want to own an important work of their own from an artist who makes something from their imagination instead of a three second, computer generated, cookie cutter, digital piece. The personal contact with the artist enhances the purchase and makes it more important to the owner.
New video generated content will be splashed across the web as the AI tools will continue to evolve and make it easier to create digital movies, making hand created works seem unusual and different. Those artists that can create video content of their works will be able to blend that video need with their art works by showcasing the art and making the connection to it more important.
Along with the new content will be those who try to create something that really isn’t there by making something from nothing using AI. Fake works will show up alongside real ones with no warning of what is real, so again those artist connections will become even more valuable to collectors of authentic works. In-person buying or authenticated web connections will be the only way someone knows if they purchased the real thing.
So . . . buckle up for a wild ride into the future as we take the roller coaster of digital AI verses real crafted art works to the finish line.
Gary Rosborough,
Social Media Chair
social-media@rbcrafts.org
BCTV
Are you feeling like the cold wintery weather is enough already? I can’t do much about the cold weather, but I can encourage you to watch “Your Berks Craftsmen” on BCTV this month where you will experience the warm summer month of July while on a tour of the first annual Eastern Pennsylvania Homestead Festival. You will see Michael Richards, the owner of the Festival, along with many craftsmen from our Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen who participated in this inaugural event in 2025. The Homestead Festival will have its second year on July 2 thru July 5, 2026 and again will be paying homage to The Kutztown Folk Festival.
Thanks for watching and supporting the craftsmen and artists from your Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen.
Find BCTV on air and online:
Comcast Reading Channel 15
Comcast-Southern Berks Channel 965
Service Electric Channel 19
Both channels are streaming online 24-7 at www.bctv.org
BCTV is available on Roku, search for BCTV Berks – HOW TO VIDEO You Tube Channel
Access Your Berks Craftsmen directly.
Your Host of “Your Berks Craftsmen”,
Kay L. Bennecoff
Standards
The next jury session for new members will be on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in room 325 at the Google works. If interested in being juried, you must be a member of the Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen for at least 3 months prior to the jury date. You can apply on-line. You may also reach out to the Standards committee for more information.
Please remember that your work must be original work with no copies of another’s work, commercial kits, assemblages or patterns. Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen standards include excellence in craftsmanship, well resolved design, and a unique voice or style.
Standards Chairperson,
Diane Phalen standards@rbcrafts.org
Events
The Hellertown Historical Society in Hellertown, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, is seeking craftspeople specializing in Pennsylvania German crafts of the 18th and 19th centuries. They invite experienced craftspeople to their annual Heritage Day event on May 16, 2026, at the 1761 Heller-Wagner Grist Mill Complex, a site recently added to America’s National Register of Historic Places. The event is being expanded this year in honor of America’s semiquincentennial celebration. They are interested in craftspeople who demonstrate and interpret their specialty and appear in period attire. They will provide space at no charge; product sales are encouraged with the full sale price retained by the seller. For more information, please contact Dennis Scholl, HHS Education & Research Chair, at dscholl165@gmail.com or 484-379-7974.
Newsletter
If you would like to put something in the Newsletter, please contact us at newsletter@rbcrafts.org
Newsletter Editor, Nancy Vardjan