20 Dec 2022 – Workshop Night Christmas Social

Having survived the freezing weather of last week, twenty two members opted to attend December’s workshop which was not in fact a workshop at all but rather a pre-Christmas gathering to discuss all things woodturning; Zak, Chris and Mick having been let out of their workshops for the evening.

Some of the usual features were included however, the show and tell section giving us the usual high standard of turning and diversity of items produced as shown in the video below.

The first video of the evening showed Zak producing a Christmas tree decoration that he had first shown us, as a finished item, during a previous workshop. On that occasion he had made it from two pieces of wood but in the video he successfully completed it from a single piece and to round the video off we saw the decoration in place on Zak’s Christmas tree.

The second video, made by Martin, was a very comprehensive guide to turning pens. In it Martin went through all the stages of pen production, talked about the various tools required (from a pure turning perspective really only a roughing gouge); how to achieve a really good finish on the wood and the final assembly. For those that have not done pen turning this was an excellent tutorial on what making pens involves.

Throughout the evening there was the usual banter and entertainment between the members even to the extent that compliments were being paid to Chris about his turning and artistic skills. This was clear evidence that members had entered into the Christmas spirit (some literally looking at the glasses of amber coloured liquid that could be seen), but we have no doubt that normal service will be resumed next month.

Recently I was considering what three words could be used to describe what we require from the demonstrators we commission each month and I came up with interesting, informative and entertaining. Now it would be wishful thinking to assume that all demonstrators would meet all of those criteria but it then occurred to me that if we look in house to the workshop evenings each month all of those criteria have been met, every month, by Alan B, Chris, Zak and more recently Mick, who together have given us interesting evenings, full of information and certainly entertaining. So thank you to Alan, Chris, Zak and Mick for 2022 and we look forward to more of the same for 2023.

We wish all of our members a Merry Christmas and a Happy (Woodturning) New Year.

Thanks to Alan Selden for providing yet another good write up of the evenings activities.

So that’s all folks for another year.  So let me take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support during 2022 and hope you will all renew your membership in 2023.

A big thank you to our resident turners for all their hard work in the hall at the Hands on Nights, Training Days and in their workshops to be able to bring you our online Workshop Nights.

We can’t do the meetings in the Hall without help setting up and clearing away, so a big thank you to all the ‘Humpers & Dumpers’ for your help.  Also thanks to Mick, John and Paul for all the hard work done to provide and run the Club Shop.

Lastly, to all of the Committee, another big thank you for your continued support and as a team for making what has to be the best Woodturning Club around, so well done everyone.

Merry Christmas to you and your families and hope you have a Happy New Year.  See you all on the 10 Jan 2023, at the first Hands on Night of the year.