Knit In @ UTS Library

Yesterday we had our first Knit In at our Library. It was very well attended and enjoyed by all participants.

Why did we do it?

Well it resulted from our Earth Hour competition. The winner, Ben Schuman, suggested that we could turn down our heating by asking people to wear their outside gear inside the library. (And you can see Ben knitting towards the rear of the image, just to the right of centre.)

So what?

It is a small step, but it signals more "greening" of our Library and our intent for the future. It also brought new people to the Library and we welcomed them well enough that some asked for us to make this a more regular venue for knitters at UTS.

Part II

So when we did this, some of the knitting participants suggested that the Library was a better place to do this than their usual venue (a traffic island in Harris St). I indicated to them my tentative support, given my well known belief that knitters in conferences are just terrorists in disguise. And then I went even further than this suggesting that we could certainly allocate them a space of approximately 1.37 sq m on a regular basis as long as we account for the following simple risk factors and corporate governance requirements:

• development of a full risk register (accounting for all OHS hazards - needle injuries, woolen trip wires, people knitting disguises for terrorists, sheep dogs, excess knitting noise, etc.);
• development & printing of new permissions forms (Entry to Library with Needles; Permission to Knit; Intellectual Property; Public Liability; No Fault Disclosure; Damage to Third Party; Personal Insurance Declaration; etc.);
• appointment of a fully certified Quantity Surveyor and independent auditor for the club's budget;
• cleaning of knitting areas (for lost needles, dye stains, stray shearers, wool, fur balls, patterns, wounded knitters, etc.);
• a security plan for the knitting area (I believe these cost at least US$90 million); and
• quality control & assurance (we do not want to ruin our reputation by having people wandering around in garments that do not fit well or are not stylish).

That should be easy enough.