8 Feb 2022 – Hands On Night

On Tues 8th February 2022, saw us finally opening up the Village Hall doors again for the very popular ‘Hands On Night’.  We hope now that restrictions are decreasing we will be able to run these nights monthly going forward, so it will be great to see you all at the next one on the 8 March.

Our requests for volunteers to help and to set up a ‘Working Group’ has worked a treat and it was fantastic to see, Glynn, Dai, Chris, Dave and Rob help with the setting up and clearing away at the end of the night.  Unfortunately, Darren, also apart of the new group, could not make it, but he has agreed to be the Group lead and will be setting up a WhatsApp Group with all concerned to keep in touch.  If there are any other willing members that can help, more hands make light work, which would enable a rota to be drawn up to ensure we have enough helpers available for each month.  Please get in touch if you are able to help.  So a big thank you to our new Working Group who had the Hall set up and cleared away in record time.

We had two of our regular turners, Chris and John on the lathes in the main hall and Mick was set up with a lathe in the bar area for any new turners for a new One-to-One tuition away from the crowds of onlookers.  Unfortunately, due to the poor lighting in the bar area and the need to have the fire escape open all night for the fresh air, we will be moving this into the main hall next month.  It was great to see those members that have not been able to join us online again and to catch up and meet online members face to face.

Chris was turning some thin platters with the input from those watching, plus a very spalted piece of timber that ‘turned’ out to be to far gone to stay on the lathe, a picture says a thousand words, and that picture is attached.

John was trying to replicate a female figurine that was featured in Revolutions magazine without complete success on the night, with certain features not being quite in the right place, if you know what I mean.  He assures us that he had successfully completed several during his practices at home.  This project gained great interest from the onlookers on how to master off centre turning and Skew work, of which John is the master of.

Thank you to John R, our shop keeper, who was kept busy during the evening manning the Club Shop.  We have now got an excellent range of timbers for sale so please come and have a look next time the shop is open which will be on Sat 26 Feb 22, 10am to midday.  Please support this as both John and Mick give up their time to open up, so please make it worth their while.  If there is insufficient interest, we will revert to only being open on the Hands on Night, once a month.

A good night was had by all and lets hope this is the start of us getting back to some normality. We still have our online Workshop Night next week on the 15th, so any Show and Tell items you have to share please send them in plenty of time.