A Message from Your President

First, thank you to everyone who attended GBACG’s first Virtual Open House in January and our first Virtual Costume Academy last weekend. While going virtual for events has quite a learning curve, we have been grateful for all the feedback, and seeing our members’ lovely faces. Getting to see everyone’s Quarantine Crafts and playing trivia together at the Open House was an absolute highlight for me (even though those trivia questions were hard!). Congratulations to our raffle winners as well! I hope all our Costume Academy attendees learned something new to inspire your future costume creations.

I would like to extend my thanks and gratitude to Frances Lopez for lighting the way as President of the board during one of the most difficult years most all of us have ever had. And I’m thankful that she is remaining a strong voice on our board as Secretary. I’m honored to now serve with a multitude of unique voices in the GBACG Board. Congrats to Nene Kalu on becoming our Treasurer. And thank you to all our board members, I’m excited to work alongside you all this coming year: Kathe Gust, Membership Coordinator; Natasha Borders, Events; Chang Meng, Workshops; Jillian Eittreim, Costume Academy; Natalie Wiener, Finery Editor; AJ Wu, Webmaster; and Sara McKee, Member at Large.

I’m very grateful to accept the position of President of the Board for GBACG. Many of you all may know me but I’ll introduce myself to y’all again. I’m Lauren Moyer, some call me Moyer the Destroyer because my mean rhymes are funny. By day, I’m a User Experience designer working in the mental healthcare field, an avid gardener, X-men comic nerd, tattoo collector, a jack-of-all-trades type, oh and I dabble in some costuming… I’ve been on the GBACG board since 2017, as webmistress, managing our social media, working on events, and organizing the Open House fashion shows during normal times. 

I got started in historical costuming probably because of Tom Tierney paper dolls and American Girl dolls. I was THAT kid. I had four American Girl dolls, two of which I saved my lunch money for over a year each to buy. I loved the stories of strong girls no matter the era and those stories helped shape the independent woman I am today — and made me want to dress like those strong women of the past. My mother was a huge influence on me — she taught me how to sew but most importantly how to play, and she nurtured my creativity. While drawing was my creative outlet for years, sewing has become my creativity in the past 5 years.

Throughout the past few years on the board I’ve looked to the future of the guild: helping structure our policies to create a safer guild and promoting a more open community, where gatekeeping is not allowed and costuming doesn’t have to meet a particular standard or level or style. Any person who is interested — no matter their background, identity, race, or experience — can join in on our make-believe. 

In the next two years, I am excited to take the digital foundation that we’ve started and build upon it, allowing for more access in our community both virtually and in-person (*when safe), and also to expand our work with other like non-profits. This community and guild has given so much to me — it is a beautiful group that allows us all to escape into fantasy and play together while also supporting one another. 

I look forward to serving as GBACG President and hopefully making sure others feel that fun and support. Please reach out if you ever have concerns or ideas, or just want to chat. Can’t wait to see you all again or meet for the first time!