Another Good Club Night - December 2004

Good turn out and a dry evening again. Pretty much all set up apart from the odd bit of tweaking, and a good number of members accompanied by their wives were busy chatting, its good to see them as this is an important part of our annual social evening. We had the usual chairman's opening few words followed by an apology from Derek who is the club magazine editor. His computer has been got at and had crashed causing the delay of this quarters issue, he has possible lost vital programmes and data along with the deadline, I know from personal experience what its like to have computer problems so lets hope it gets sorted ASAP. Then it was over to Don to explain the evening proceedings. They're where four lathes in the hall, unfortunately one was minus a chuck so it spent the evening propping up guys, it seemed that every time I looked up there was two different guys leaning on it in deep conversation, perhaps we should set one up every club night!

Well with teams sorted and project explained they were of, I say they because last year I entered and the time went so quick my feet didn't touch the ground. This year I wanted to spend time casually mingling around so I could write most of this article on site as it were, so I blended in with my surroundings and was passed over, how has to remain a secret as I may need to use it again. As the lathes started to produce shavings the chatting got louder so as to be heard.

Our chairman had produced a very good paper quiz so everybody was busy doing something, I have to admit I looked at it and couldn't work out what I was supposed to do. This gave me a chance to say hello to some new faces. I asked about the quiz and well, this is easy, I'll have some of that so I took a copy back to my seat and filled in my first answer. That's when it got difficult, more on that one later.

Back to the turning, there was 21 guys split into three teams with each person producing a spinning top. Ken managed to get a couple of guys who had never turned before to have a go, well done ken. No sooner had it started and it was over and time for our refreshments, nice spread as usual from Don and his good lady wife and this break gave me a chance to chat to a couple of lads about our last Master Class and other turning related issues. It was nice to be going at a slow enough pace to take it all in and be social.

Don announced the winners of the turning competition and the prizes were handed out. Now to our surprise it was announced that there was a prize for the best turned spinning top of the evening, and would you believe it, it was a new member who has never turned before in his life. Looks like another competitor for the monthly competition has arrived. This coincidentally led onto the results for this month. We have had novices enter every month this year so our efforts are paying of.

The long awaited paper quiz results was next, I was eager to see if anybody got more than my four right, John read out the answers and when you heard them it was painfully obvious. Well your be surprised to learn I didn't come first, the team up the other end of the hall did with I think 43 out of the 45. I was close but not close enough but it's given me inspiration for next time. Thanks go to John our chairman who thoughtfully put it together.

There was a round of applause for the caterers followed by the raffle draw, I had a number come up this time Derek when you read this, there was a good number of quality prizes to choose from and I always find it difficult deciding what to have. There were the usual Christmas greetings and bits of info, then its chairs away, vacuuming, sweep up and the goodnights. And there goes another good club night.

Boots - December 2004