funny thing happened on the way to the Stadium…

 

The Games That Shall Not Be Named…..

It’s been a crazy week around here for me. Granted…it’s a positive crazy but crazy all the same. Most of you probably don’t know, I created a Ravelry group/event back in 2008 called the Ravelympics. In a nutshell: it was a way for crafters to challenge themselves while watching the Beijing Olympics. I coined the fun name and came up with a list of “events” we could participate in (like Sock Put, Sweater Triathlon, Afghan Marathon, Baby Dressage etc…) Only a few rules: Challenge yourself and have fun. We all had a mass-cast on (literally from people all over the world) during the Opening Ceremonies in Beijing…and complete (totally finish) our projects by the end of the games. 17 days. A whole sweater….or afghan…in 17 days for example. Pretty challenging, right?

Ravelympics struck a cord with Ravelers and quickly became very popular. Much more popular than I ever dreamed. At the end of 2008 Games, I was flooded with requests for a repeat in the 2010….so we did! It was even bigger and think we had over 12,000 finished items at the end of the event; over 200 teams. Lots of amazing fun times had by all.

Que June 21, 2012. Casey, creator with Raverly (with his lovely wife, Jess) let us know what was in his mailbox from the USOC (US Olympic Committee). A cease & desist letter due to our infringement up their trademark of the terms ‘Olympic’, ‘Olympiad’ or any variations…including ‘Ravelympics.’ They also called for removals of any patterns showing the Olympic rings (also trademarked). If the letter had stopped there, no hue and cry would have ensued. But unfortunately the letter included references to how our little event “denigrated” and was “disrespectful” of our USA athletes hard work and life-time pursuit of their sport.

You can imagine how the Ravelry community, a very tech-savvy, passionate, creative community responded. Loud and Very Annoyed. Twitter was enflamed for days (#ravelympics, #USOC, #socks4Colbert). Within 24 hours the USOC spokesman issued 2 public apologies (1st sort of inflamed the situation; 2nd started to address the crux of issue: their insensitive remarks about knitting etc…) News agencies started running articles (Bloomberg, nytimes, npr, yahoo, usatoday) and my many bloggers, including my favorites, Mason-Dixon Knitting, totally chimed in (3 posts…but June 21 are my favorites!).

I was stunned first, overwhelmed then really hurt. I don’t take the term denigrate lightly. Then as last Wed progressed…I was in awe. The passionate defense from the Ravelry community, and then beyond Ravelry was a sight to behold. Now a week later, we have a new name – Ravellenic Games- and are busy prepping for the start of the London games in a month. I knew Ravelry was special. The camaraderie from all over the globe has brought tears to my eyes.  We continue to be excited about our new name, and our continued quest: Enjoy the Olympic Games, Challenge Ourselves and Have Fun! And the USOC…well they’ve learned to never,  never blithely piss off over 2 million people with pointy sticks!

Mission: Small Business contest

While I was engulfed in controversy over my little event…Megan was busy looking at our shop’s future. She discovered this amazing grant contest, Mission Small Business, and signed us up. It’s designed to help small business entrepreneurs expand their business. For all the details head over here, and if you’d like to “vote” for us, we need 250 votes to be considered for the program. Click the blue ‘Log In & Support’ button; then enter ‘maisieblue’ in the search field.

It’s pretty competitive, but if we can get past the first stage…who knows what could happen? This week I’ve learned that “Great oaks from little acorns grow” and you just never know when fate will take you down new avenues of exploration. Megan and I would be honored if you’d vote for us, in our efforts to create a vibrant business where we can continue to grow into a lovely Oak (with lots of lovely things for our customers to enjoy).