December 2024 Newsletter

I’m writing this the morning after the 2024 Holiday Party. We had a great time. I didn’t take a count but I think there were about 40 people or so in attendance.

Suzy Hoffman did a great job on preparing the meat (pork and chicken) for the meal. There was plenty of good things to eat. I had never had paw-paw bread before (I didn’t even know it was a thing), but it tasted great!! We had a great gift exchange for those who wished to participate and ended the evening with a door prize drawing.

“After the party” deserves a mention – everybody pitched in and by the time I left, a little after 8 PM, all the chairs were back in place, all the tables were cleaned off, all the things were packed up and we left the area ready for the next meeting. THANK YOU!!

If you weren’t present, there are some important announcements:

• Kevin Seigworth will be stepping into the president’s position. Thanks Kevin.
• DUES are due. I’m going to write a post about this. And probably send an email again in a week or 10 days.
• There will NOT be an in-person meeting at Woodcraft in January. The January 6 meeting will be on-line only. Lyle Jamieson will demonstrate hollowing.
• Thank you to Edwin Santiago who is helping George W. with the treasurer and membership duties.

I did not announce this but with Kevin stepping into the President’s role, we have an opening on the Board for secretary. This is an Officer’s position so comes with the perk of getting your AAW dues paid for the year that you serve. The largest responsibility of this position is recording and publishing the minutes from the board meetings. Also, this shuffle means that we have an opening for a board member.

A few additional points of interest:

• We had a nice attendance at the Workshop day in November 16. SCM Systems demonstrated their 400xs Turbo carver, we drank 1/4 pot full of strong coffee (with cookies and donuts) and we had a good time of fellowship. I think I counted 15 club members in attendance.
• Shortly before I left for the meeting last evening, a tree service deposited some stuff in my driveway – sugar maple. I have recently milled quite a bit of cherry and a limited amount of black walnut. If you are looking for turning blanks in any of these woods, let me know. I would prefer that they go for “Empty Bowls” but I have no control over whether they do or not.

I’ll close this out with a photo of the brilliant little Christmas tree ornament that I received in the gift exchange courtesy of Harold Solberg. Made from osage orange, Harold uses a homemade tool created from a Sawzall blade to make the cuts, and the “trunk” of the tree is perfectly tapered from the bottom to the top.