Another Good Club Night - February 2007

I really don't know where to start, I have in the recent past used comments like, the first of many first's tonight, and Wow Wow Wow etc etc, but tonight was extra special in a number of ways as I will explain:-

After Don had opened the evening and said a few words he handed the evening over to one of the vice chairs as he was demonstrating tonight, the serious things where attended to and the fun began. Our compare as it turned out pulled off his pullover to reveal a white collared shirt underneath, Steve in the wings handed him a bow tie and held open a gold lama jacket for him to put on, the audience by now are totally confused as this is not what they would normally expect to see from this usually quiet unassuming member of the club. ( I may have lied a tad about the last bit).

What had happened was behind the scenes there had been a plan hatched to introduce our four turners with a piece of music, the music related to the person. The turners, Don Smith, Dave Comely, John Davis and Bill Thorne all remembered what they had to do and when to do it and Dave Hayward was spot on with the timing of the music, I think its only fair too say that for an unrehearsed piece it went very well. Based on the amount of feed back from the members Id say it was a success. Whether this is a first for a woodturning club we don't know, perhaps if anybody knows of such an event they would kindly get in touch. More so if you want to know the detail of what we did then by all means ask. It would be nice if this idea swept the nation, nay the world, now don't lets get carried away Boots, settle down now, we know you've had some late nights at work and your beginning to worry us!

The turn-in projects where also a subject of comment, the members did seem to be remarking on the chosen subjects for tonight, this shows that with some thought it is still possible even after many years of club meetings to evolve, if for example you have been a member of a club for 5 years its highly likely that you've seen pretty much everything there is to see, especially if you visit the shows or attend master classes. So in order to be an interesting club and keep your members you have to dig deep and tweak the format once in a while. Having now intrigued you with the subjects the turners did I suppose I should tell you what they did, in order of appearance (I had to get that in somewhere didn't I) Don did Corian inlay, Dave did Pewter inlay work on a beautiful piece of Anjan, John showed how to get the shape you want on the lathe from the idea in your head, and Bill showed an easy way to do Barley twist's, this was demonstrated on a tall thin stemmed goblet.

The evening consisted of the evenings raffle tickets being sold, members sitting in the café area chatting, the four turners turning and some more talking than turning? Eric our judge putting the entries under the microscope, Jim with the library, Colin with tickets for our open weekend members raffle, Dave and Robin with the occasional stand in keeping the tea and coffee flowing, Angy collecting items for the open weekend raffle and Tom bola and Peter with three tables of second hand turning items for sale, Id say a very good mixture of things to wet anybodies appetite wouldn't you?

So as all with all good meetings its over far too quick, it was time to make the last minute announcements and then it was over to Trevor with the raffle. At this point Id like to thank the four turners as I think I forgot on the night. While all this was going on the tables and chairs where put away, Dave and Robin had already cleared away and counted the tea money, the four demonstrators where packed and ready to go and the big heap of shavings produced tonight was tipped into the boot of an unsuspecting member's car. As for me, well I think I recorded what I had to, only time will tell if I haven't, there's so much going on now and a good percentage of members have something to chat to me about, it's a case of write everything down as you get it or its gone. So with a cleaned empty hall Don and I chat for a few minutes and the doors are locked. And there goes another brilliant club night.

Boots- February 2007