The first meeting of the year and we started off with AGM.
A very peaceful event this year with no questions on any of the subjects.
Paul has done a good job of picking up where Roger left off with the accounts and his account sheet for the year was clear and concise.
Steve went into some detail explaining the PAT system we have had to carry out.
The existing committee was voted in for another year with the addition of Dawn Royall joining the committee as Library and Social Events Manager.
Bert presented Howard Overton with the Bill Alston Trophy and Alan Dungey with a gift voucher as appreciation for his work each month in preparing the hall for us.
We also have a voucher for Roger Martin but he was not present to receive it. It will be posted to him.

After all this we had Coral Davis from Axminster Power Tools join us for the rest of the day to give a demonstration on pyrography.
She started with a short talk on the equipment and the types of wood that she likes to use. She had brought two kits with her, both sold by Axminster. One was the Amtex Fire Writer and costs in the region of £150 and the other was Burny Star, I hope that’s right, I can’t read my own notes on this one. ( I did warn you all that this is the start of my thirteenth year doing this!!) that costs around £90.
One small advantage of this one is that the wire tips are a little thicker and get a lot hotter for when you want a really black area.
Both kits have a variable heat control.

Coral’s demonstration piece was a pair of otters burnt on to a natural edged piece of lime.
She started off by tracing a picture of the otters from a book. Next she covered the reverse of the tracing with a soft pencil, in this case a 2B but you can get graphite pencils also.
Next she taped the tracing right side up on to the wood and went over the outline with a pencil.
This caused the graphite on the back to leave the outline on the wood.
Now you start with the pyrography tool, using it like a pen to burn in the outline.
Using softer and sweeping or circular movements you can achieve the light and dark shading to bring the picture to life.

Our next meeting is on Saturday 8th February and we will have Andy Coates with us for the day.
Looking at his web site it looks as though he also likes pyrography. Three pieces on display all show finely turned vessels that have been both coloured and textured using pyrography. Andy was with us last in July 2012. To see what he did then have a look at the Orchard web site. Very interesting so I imagine he will be equally good this time round.
Come along and find out.
Which brings me on to events. Because of errors in the first events calendar I put out (that 13 year thing again!) I have printed a corrected one I think!!
I‘m going to end there before I dig any more holes for me to fall in to.
See you all on Satruday.

Graham

Diary of events 2014

January 11th. AGM
February 8th Andy Coates
March 7th & 8th S.E Show at Detling (No meeting at Milstead)
April 12th Trip to Yandles (No meeting at Milstead)
May 10th Sue Harker
June 14th Garry Rance
July 12th John Berkley
August 9th Club day. No agenda
September 13th Gerry Marlow
October 11th Tony Handford
November 8th Phil Jones
December 13th Club day. No agenda


Notice board

Quality items for raffle prizes.
We usually have a couple of items made by demonstrators to raffle at our charity venues such as the S E County Show in March but we don’t have anything at the moment. Sooo has any one got something a bit special that we can put up for raffle that you are willing to donate?
Any item that you think you wouldn’t mind winning if you were buying a ticket!!
No. Put that lump back in the firewood box. Yes, that other piece you are trying to hide from me, that’ll do nicely. Thank you.