February 2018 Newsletter

Our January meeting started off with the AGM and this year we had a good turnout of members. The end result was much as expected. The current committee was voted in for another year and the year’s diary of meetings and social events is complete. Paul went through the accounts for the past year and ended his report with a summary of the funds we have raised for various charities over the past five years. Brace yourselves. We have raised an amazing £11,437. What a result. Congratulations to everyone who donated time and items to sell to make this possible. The last item on the agenda for the AGM was the presentation of the trophies for 2017. Howard Overton won the Bill Alston trophy and as Bill’s son Ian had come along to re-join us after a couple of years of absence Bert invited him to present the trophy.

Then Bert presented the newly introduced Orchard trophy to Keith Leonard. This has been introduced to reward the member who has won the most points on commended certificates only.

You cannot qualify if you have won either a turning of the month certificate or a highly commended certificate in that year. He then presented Alan Dungey with a voucher with thanks for his early starts to set up the hall for our meeting.

Sheila and Chris were to receive boxes of chocolates and a bottle of wine for their taking yer munny at the door but Paul had to dash home after the AGM to collect them from where he had left them on the kitchen table!! After the AGM we set up a couple of lathes including the big lathe. Chris Withall was on that with another chunk of really hard wood that he was turning into another bowl. Geoff Horsfield was busily turning light pulls. Paul was showing us his latest toys in decorating his work. He had a new computer programme and a cutting machine for making gel templates and showed how these were used in conjunction with his air brushing kit. Keith was surrounded by people as he turned a bowl or something. Sorry, I didn’t squeeze in close enough to get a piccy of what he was up to. Our next meeting is on Saturday 10th February and we have Jason Smith with us for the day. Jason is a local man and has been with us for the last couple of years. He likes to demonstrate decorated work but what will he do this year? Come along and find out. It could be the same or maybe he has something totally different to show us. If you are coming to the annual dinner don’t forget to give your choice from the menu to Dawn if you haven’t already done so or it’s bread and pull it for you. At £25 it’s an expensive lump of dry bread!! Finally we have two new members join our happy band of turners. Ian Alston has re-joined after a couple of years away and Tony Osborne. Welcome to you both See you all on the 10th. Graham

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