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January’s meeting started with the AGM which was opened by Bill Burden who thanked all those present for turning up and also thanked the members of the committee for the hard work they had done to make 2007 a successful year. He also reminded everyone that this year celebrates the tenth anniversary of the club. The minutes of the last AGM had been sent to everyone with the January newsletter and were accepted by all present. Peter Branchett answered a few questions from the floor re the accounts after which everyone present agreed they were in order. Bert Lanham brought up the subject of trips out and said that he had cancelled the trip to Alexander Palace due to lack of support. Hopefully the proposed trip to Yandles will happen. He also wondered if a visit to a different venue would be welcomed. Dave Reeks suggested that the furniture makers at Wickham is an excellent place to visit. Also the Bentley Wildlife Park near Lewes has a craft centre that is well worth a visit. Bert asked if he could have some feed back on these ideas. He also asked for more people to help clear up after meetings. We also need more volunteers to man outside venues such as Farming World. Currently it is always the same four or five people that partake. A suggestion was made that we should have a “Join Here” sign displayed wherever we have a show. Bill Burden advised us that Badgers Hill is no longer available to us as a venue. At this point we also brought up the matter of fund raising. At present we give everything we make to Demelza House and keep nothing back for the club. The committee decided at the last committee meeting that this should change and up to 50% of the money raised should go to the club to build up a bank balance of around £2000 for emergencies. After some very noisy discussion that went round in circles several times it was agreed to, with the exception that the money raised at the Christmas dinner raffle should still go in full to Demelza House. When it came to the election of the committee for 2008 Smith Adams proposed that the current committee was voted back in for another year and was quickly agreed to by everyone!! Finally, in the absence of Ian Alston the Bill Alston Trophy was presented to Howard Overton by Peter Fuller who had been a close friend of Bill. Howard had won the most certificates for turning of the month in 2007. By eleven o’clock we were ready to get on with the rest of the day. New member Brian Pattison had brought in several samples of love spoons that he was going to talk about. Mike Windsor set up a disc sander to use when he talked about setting up for segmented turning, Tony Handford was set up to give another demonstration on turning big bowls and yours truly had promised to make some pens and a couple of other things that can be made on a mandrel during the rest of the day. Paul Hunt kindly went around with my camera taking pictures as I was otherwise engaged so I have a good selection to put in this newsletter. Many thanks Paul. I can’t comment on the demonstrations because I didn’t get to see them but I am sure they were all interesting. My own demo went reasonably well except when one of the blanks came unglued from the tube and on another pen I went close to being too thin. The pen torch and the perfume atomiser both came out fine. That was January and our next meeting is on Saturday 9th February (Yep, it really is the 9th this time so no ripped open envelopes to make last minute corrections!!!) and Chris Eagles is back with us. He was with us last May and gave us a really interesting day. So let’s see lots of bums on seats at the next meeting. I will be there so I hope to see you all on the 9th Graham Due to lack of support the trip to Alexander Palace has been cancelled. Ath the request of members who attended the AGM Bert has agreed to write to other clubs to try and fill seats on the coach to the Yandles show. This means that the seats will have to be allocated on a first come first served basis. If you want to go please let Bert know by the February meeting at the latest. He will delay writing to the other clubs until then to give our membes first bookings.
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