The President's Corner - October 2011

On September 20th Klingspor hosted the 3rd Annual North Carolina Woodworking Showcase. TWA was a sponsor as in the past. The event was a success, largely due to the support of TWA. We help with workers, competition entries, and we donate $75 for the “Woodworker’s Choice Award.” The event ran like clockwork with our members manning registration, judging, demonstrations and checkout. My thanks to all who helped. The only negative was low participation. We learned this year and plan to do more promotion and advertising in the furture for this event. I suggest that each of us try to build something during the coming year to enter in the next Showcase.

At our last Board meeting elections and appointments were held. Joe Gorman - Secretary, Jeff Leimberger - Vice President & Program Chair, Hugh Fish - Treasurer, Charles Buenzli - Publicity Chair, and Chuck Arnold - Facilities and Refreshment chair.

You may remember that we have been looking for someone to act as webmaster. Roger Philyaw graciously agreed to take over that role. Thanks to Diane Philyaw, we now have a Facebook page. You can find it by going to our website and clicking the link.

Toys for Tots has begun its season, be sure to sign up and help make it a good year for needy kids. Please give a day or ½ day to make it a big success. It is not hard work and the benefit for us is spending time with other members. You get to know some folks you may not have had the opportunity to speak to much. As our economy has made it rough on many families the need for assistance at Christmas has increased tremendously.

Club finances were discussed at the last board meeting. As a club we are in good shape. Last year however, we spent more than we took in. Some of that was intentional and some a bit of a surprise. We intentionally spent some of our reserve funds (about $1100) to celebrate the 25th year of our Toys for Tots participation. The surprise was in the cost of T4T materials. In 2008/2009 we spent $300 on wheels, in 2009/2010 roughly $600 for the same number of wheels, but in 2010/2011 the cost jumped to over $2500. That level of expense is not sustainable on our present income, so something has to be done. We do not intend to take the Federal approach and spend ourselves into oblivion. We also do not plan to cut back on the number of toys we produce. As a result, we are working on ways to cut costs, get more for our dollars and to get a few more dollars. One thing that will be a big help this year is the raffle of the Worksharp 3000 that Pete Bucki has arranged for us. This will generate around $1,000, which is fantastic, but only a onetime thing. Fred Ford has bought wheels that are designated “seconds,” which he reports are perfectly usable. We are also reaching out to various sources for wood donations and/or discounts. Anchor Hardwoods has already donated a pickup load of oak. If you know anyone who may have wood they would be willing to donate please contact Joe Gorman, he handles materials for the Toys for Tots project.

A wonderful thing has happened, we started receiving confidential donations to ensure the continuance of this very important program. Each donation has been for $100.00 so far which is very much appreciated and needed. Our treasurer Hugh Fish is collecting all donations. If you would like to help and make a donation yourself, please contact Hugh or any Board member or Committee Chairman, they will be happy to help you out. One of the folks who donated $100 has put out a challenge to others to match that donation - however - any amount would be greatly appreciated. We will be happy to keep you donation confidential if you wish. Please consider donating what you can for this very good cause.

The October mystery has been solved and a huge Thank You to Any Dowden for saving us. She will be showing us how to use is Sketchup, a free computer aided drafting (CAD) program from Google. She has taught classes on how to use Sketchup and this should be a particularly interesting and helpful program. Please note that our meeting will now be a regular Tuesday meeting.

Also note that the November meeting will be on Friday the 18th, not Tuesday the 15th as previously planned. Chris Gouchnour will be our guest and is providing a workshop on the 19th & 20th at Roy Underhill’s shop in Pittsboro.

My last item for this month is that we are asking members to invite people they think would enjoy our club to visit and join. We aren’t suggesting a hard sell, but if you know someone who might enjoy it, please invite them to a meeting. To that end, we will have flyers available for you to give to your prospective guests.

Hope to see many faces in October!

President: Allan Campbell