December 2022 Newsletter

Happy Holidays!!

I hope every one of you have an opportunity to spend time with friends and family during the upcoming holiday season. I hope you have a heated shop and get to spend some time in it at during any breaks from work that you may have coming up.

Here we are near the end of the year. The last twelve months have flown by and we have held our last chapter meeting and are beginning to look forward to 2023. Here are a few things we see on the horizon:

January 2023 Meeting – There will be no demonstrator but there will be an extended show-and-tell. The challenge for January is to make something you have never made before, and then bring your first efforts and tell us what you have learned (so far). Bring up to three items of your latest work. We will try to make plenty of time for relationship-building and give everyone an opportunity to get their questions answered.

Woodworking Show – The Woodworking Shows website has a show scheduled in the Milwaukee area for February 17-19. Details have been added to their website since our meeting last Monday. In the past they have reached out to us to see if want a (free) booth space and if we will assist with their turning pens for Wounded Warriors. We have not heard from them at this writing. If any member hears from the Woodworking Show people, please let me know.

Demonstrators – We have demonstrators for February and March. We have another member who has volunteered for later in the year but who is unscheduled to this date. We still need chapter members to demonstrate for a number of the remaining months. In addition to demos by chapter members, we are planning to add some remote demos by professional demonstrators and are considering a hands-on workshop by a professional demonstrator as well. Your thoughts and comments on any of these are welcome.

AV Upgrades – there have been upgrades to the Audio Visual equipment. We have also discovered that the speakers we use for the meeting are nearing their end-of-life. The AV team is researching the best plan for replacement.

Website – Just a heads up – I will be working on the chapter website early in 2023 in an effort to improve it’s appearance. There are some issues with font size that I occasionally need to tweak behind the scenes. I can resolve this by switching to an updated theme. The end result should be transparent, but while I am updating to the new theme there may be times when the web site is down for maintenance or when the appearance of the site is a little wonky (that’s a technical term 😉 ). Please be patient as I work through the issues.

Thank You – Thanks to each of you for your support throughout the past year. Your continued support and attendance at our monthly meetings is highly appreciated. Thank you to those who grab a broom at the end of the demo to sweep up, and to those who stick around and straighten up the meeting room. I can’t remember everyone who pitches in, but thank you for what you do.