Open Day 2006

The public personal choice display. Conversational pieces.. Bill Thorne shows them how.

It all started way back in 2005, I had only been on the committee since September and I think I came as a bit of a shock to them. In full respect to them they had the meetings all nicely planned ahead and organised to deal with the routine matters and I suppose it was verging on more of a social thing, and a very organised social thing you must understand with tea and biscuits of coarse. So there I am explaining my idea which may help sort a number of our concerns in one go and POW. The ideas where floating across the table like you wouldn't believe, they where away, "how about this", "you could do that". Well it got to about 22.30hrs and it was decided to call it a day and go home.

The following months saw lots of activity with bits of info fed to the members on club nights, each new club night saw more and more members coming forward with offers of help or items. Companies where giving quality prizes for the members open day raffle and so it grew. Despite some mild confusion over what some stalls where called (which did provide some well-received humour) for a first it was organised well. Sadly, despite the hard work from Don and Derek, the local radio and news paper omitted to inform the general public, so on our club night three days before the event the members where asked to do their best and tell the world.

So then it was time, The Friday night before the grand opening, there were people every where, typically Don and Aline had been at the hall long before the due time and had set up a number of tables. In the space of three hours like a military exorcise we where ready. The Day of the opening we arrived an hour early to put the last minute bits and pieces about and the doors where opened. Well I say they where opened, when the last bolt was thrown the doors burst open from sheer weight of people desperate to get in and they all fell in a heap on the floor, to which Aline quietly said, would anybody like a cup of tea or coffee!

Well it wasn't quite like that but we where busy; we had a good enough flow of people all over the weekend. There where people at the stands/tables/lathes pretty much all the time and showed a genuine interest in each one, each was welcomed in with an offer of refreshments and looked after by a member should they need it. Our helpers for the day adapted to their tasks very well and showed plenty of enthusiasm. A plus was that members found time to talk turning amongst themselves and to others they normally wouldn't have and that's got to be a good thing.

So what did we show, well, you should have come along and seen for your selves. Sorry, that was rude of me. We had a big display on 5 tables plus sheets of ply to create a big area with about 60 finished turned items on, it covered pretty much every aspect of turning. The idea was to pick your favourite piece, and along with this it created discussion so people didn't just walk past and say "that's nice" and walk on, they stopped and discussed why they liked one piece more than another.

Another table had a good number of turned items numbered and a matching original blank lettered and you had to match the pieces together, say 7 F and so on. I think out of 20 or so pairs we had some with around 13 correct, I was amazed. I didn't get time to have a go but I don't think I would have got that many right. There was a chance to have a go at Pyrography with a good display of pictures and finished work to look at, and a good number of people spent time trying it.

Then we where into the machine room, I think we had 7 lathes going so it wasn't crowded. There was a good cross section of lathe sizes and types, which made it interesting; a number of people had a go and really enjoyed the chance to do so, the demonstrators really love it when people take an interest in what they are doing. Next in order was a table of interesting bits. These where conversational pieces really, and served as a useful tool to explain various aspects of the hobby accompanied by a small library of books, one of our club judges spent best part of Saturday here and help answer some interesting questions.

The last two tables consisted of gold waxing on a black background, getting the surface prepared was explained, to me this is the difficult bit. There were a number of items on display showing the beautiful effect you can achieve with this finish. And last but not least we had lace work, as in material removed right through a rim of a platter say to create a pattern. Sounded a bit like the dentist's drill but despite this it attracted some attention and a finished item looked very impressive. We decorated the hall with a number of A4 pictures creating an impressive gallery; we also put out leaflets with the club history and club night details.

In order to quell any passing out through lack of refreshments Aline kept a steady flow of tea and coffee going to the members with the aid of John's wife. Towards the end of the Sunday we drew the numbers out for the personal choice table and allotted the prizes to suit, there where 28 donated prizes so well done members.

You will have noticed I haven't mentioned any members by name apart from Aline and a couple of others, as there where so many that either helped set up, donated a prize or turned piece to show, helped on one or both days, turned or demonstrated a craft, backed cakes or some other aspect relating to the weekend, then I thought it best not to mention all their names, as I didn't want to leave anybody out by mistake. It has to be said that it was a good effort by the members. This was probably the best-supported event by the members we have witnessed in all the clubs history.

There were a number of goals we set ourselves and we achieved them, the club pulled on its resources and as I said earlier we had no support from the media but we still managed to have a successful weekend. So from myself a big thank you to the Open day committee for putting up with me, and many thanks to everybody else who so eagerly gave their help and support that helped make it happen.

So who's up for another one next year? ……………..Listens………………….Hears nothing!……………………….. It's gone awfully quiet out their people! Hello!

I know how many of you are reading this, well perhaps Ill ask again later when you've got over this one.

So there goes our first open day weekend, we must get a proper name for this event; it's very confusing.

Boots - March 2006