Let's Get Down to Business!

10 Members of the Water Gap Woodturners braved the cold, icy darkness that is Peters Valley in February. If you remember the 2009 meeting, frozen ground is much easier to drive on than thawed ground, and no one needed their car washed on Thursday.

Our meeting had a very different tone this time, as we realign for 2010. Elections were discussed, and it was communicated to the chapter that every elected official needs to be an AAW member to have the insurance protection at meetings and other WGW Events. Half of the members present at the meeting are AAW members, and the other half committed to signing up before March. We encourage all members to join the AAW, as it is an excellent resource for turners to learn from and grow.

As it stands right now, elections for the executive committee are open for nominations. At this writing, we have

Dan volunteering to act as President
Jim as Treasurer
Steve as Secretary and Program Coordinator.
Vice President (if someone would like to step up to be nominated)

Whether you have a title or not, all members are expected to contribute in some way to the vitality of the chapter. As a small group, it will not require an exhorbitant amount of your time in any role, but likely an hour or two per month.

As an example, and a very good segue into the next topic, the Water Gap Woodturners has been invited to exhibit in the Peters Valley store gallery. The is a tremendous opportunity to put your work out in a public setting, and learn more about "the professional side" of woodturning. Whether you have desires to be the next David Ellsworth or not, it is very good for your development as a woodturner to get feedback from someone who is not a woodturner! We all know too much about the process, the wood, the tools, and such to provide objectivity in evaluating others work. As one turner I know quips, "Besides, woodturner will never buy anything from you."

Everyone at every level is encouraged to bring work to the next meeting for the Show and Tell. I have invited Brienne from the gallery store to come by and start forming the direction for the show. Whether you bring one piece or twenty pieces, I would love to see EVERY MEMBER represented in the exhibit. We will discuss this in some detail in March, but the short version is to be prepared to leave your work for the gallery at the April meeting to minimize the number of people consuming Brienne's time.

Following the lengthy businees meeting (we promise to have it down to 10 minutes next month), we walked through Show and Tell. The good news is that we are starting to see almost everyone bring something to S&T, and discussions around techniques are lively. We had planned to spend some time turning after the business meeting, but we ran out of time because of the participation of the group. Way to go guys!

Here is your call to action for March:

1.) If you are not an AAW member, please join. It will make everything much easier on us. www.woodturner.org

2.) Dues ($20) will be due next month for 2010. Please bring a check or cash to the March meeting.

3.) Bring something for the Show and Tell. (a standing order!) Brienne probably doesn't know about the variety of woodturned object that are even possible, and it will help us organize the Exhibition if we know what you like to make.

4.) Be prepared to cast your ballot for the elections. I would love to see all members ratify our executive committee, not half. Half of winning is just showing up.

5.) Start thinking about any questions you might have for the Exhibition and other business topic. It will be an open forum, but we will try to limit discussions to the first 30 minutes. Show and Tell will follow, and then I promise that we will have a demonstration of one of two topics:

A) Build your own supported hollowing system ( a full dissection of the expensive systems out there and how you can build one for under $20)
B) Turn a sphere

(I will bring stuff for either and we will take a show of hands)

Safe spinning.

Steven