Current Chairman's Report - Turners Anonymous, Inc

HomeCurrent Chairman's Report

October 2025 Chairman's Report

Hello everyone,

I hope all is well with you and your families. I have a lot of information to get out to you, so let's just get right into it. How did those of you who attended the September meeting like the new place? Pretty nice, huh? We had a problem with our new A/V setup, but we changed a few things and I believe the bugs are worked out. Keep your fingers crossed no new bugs come to visit.

2025 Summer Challenge

There were several nice pieces entered in this year's challenge. Eric Johnson won (again) this year and for his efforts was awarded a 2026 TA membership. I know you cannot see from this picture, but the inside is finished also!

Programming

Hope everyone at the September meeting enjoyed Kevin Dalton's demonstration about his long-necked hollow forms. It was very nicely done and very informative. Our time constraints prevented him from completing the final project, but he is giving the club the piece he finished at his home, and we will have it for display. Kevin provided us with a very detailed writeup on the steps he uses to make the long stemmed vases. They are in our Documents section of the website, you can find them at this link(you must log into the website to view).

Saturday, October 25th, 2025

Pat Carroll will be in for an all-day demonstration where he will demonstrate 3 of his signature pieces. I think I have said enough about this subject in emails over the last several weeks that I will not bore you with them again. Just the highlights then: The demo will run from 9 am to 5 pm. There will be a $35.00 fee for this all-day demo. Lunch is not being provided. Refer to the club's website home page for more details if needed. Please register for the demo online at this link :October Regular meeting and Demo

Sunday, October 26th, 2025

Pat Carroll will be teaching a class featuring his Pedestal Bowl. The cost is $135 per person; blanks will be provided or bring your own. All slots are filled for this event, but if you are interested there is a waiting list and you will be notified if there are any cancellations. Registration is required. Here is the link for that event:Class with Pat Carroll - Pedestal Bowl

November 15th:

"Bowl Turning and Gouge Grinds with Nick Wolfgang". Nick Wolfgang will be demonstrating the process of turning a bowl, highlighting the different tools and techniques involved. The session will focus on using bowl gouges with various grinds, including the 40/40, Irish, traditional, and bottom bowl/bottom feeder. Along the way, Nick will share valuable tips and tricks to improve your turning skills and achieve the best results. Whether you're new to bowl turning or looking to refine your technique, this is a session you won’t want to miss!

December 13th:

Annual Christmas Ornament and Box exchange. Again, this is not our usual meeting Saturday, but the board decided to try moving the meeting date up to encourage more participation. Our normal date seems to be too close to the holidays, and life, and the weather seems to get in the way the closer to Christmas we get. You do not have to bring an ornament or a box to attend. All are welcome, including your family. Just bring some goodies and plan on having a good time. We will be meeting at Contemporary Craft.

January 17th:

This meeting will start with our (short) annual business meeting where we will nominate and vote on new Board members, present our 2025 financial report, and conduct any other business as necessary. After that, we will have members present "Tips and Tricks". Please let us know if you have anything you wish to share.

Beyond that, we need some suggestions on programming, and perhaps a fresh face or two to demonstrate their favorite project.

Raffle

This from our Raffle coordinator, Andrew Horowitz: We have some great stuff for the raffle this month:
1) a $100 gift card to Bell Forest Products (https://www.bellforestproducts.com/), donated by the vendor. Bell sells some really nice exotic wood blanks--so this may be your opportunity if you want to try turning something special;
2) a nice live center set with multiple interchangeable points, donated by Packard Woodworks and valued at $70;
3) a gift bag donated by the Real Milk Paint Company containing three of their oils and waxes as well as some related supplies, valued at approximately $50;
4) a 3"x9" figured maple bowl blank donated by Rockler, valued at approximately $30;
5) two gift cards for $10 each, donated by Craft Supplies USA.

I also have ten high-quality carbide cutters donated by Arizona Carbide, valued at $8 each. In the past, these have not been popular raffle items since you need to have the right handle to use the cutter. Instead of using them as raffle items, we will sell them for $5 each. I will bring a conversion chart that shows which cutters are compatible with which handles--all you need to do is know which handles you have, and you can support our club while scoring some nice cutters at a substantial discount.

Raffle sales have been low for the past few meetings. Unless sales increase, we will need to re-evaluate how we do the raffle.

Membership

Looks like our move back to the city had an effect on our membership. Seven members who dropped out over the years have rejoined. I sincerely hope that others do not drop out due to this move. We also have one new member who saw us at this year's Fair in the Park. Welcome to you all. The club now has 93 members as follows: 84 regular, 4 family, and 5 lifetime members.

2026 membership cards will be printed soon and will be distributed during our meetings. Those not claimed by the January meeting will be mailed out to you. Please log into the website and make sure your contact info is up to date. There are a number of you that do not list a phone number or address.

Website

This from our webmaster, Stuart Ingram: "Documentation and menus throughout the site have been reviewed with minor updates throughout (map links, new Contemporary Craft location, etc.). All instant gallery and summer challenge photos back to April 2024 have been uploaded. Photo galleries will continue to be uploaded for prior years as time permits. Kevin Dalton put together a great writeup of his long neck hollow form demo from September, this is both available on the main page as well as within the club demo handout notes collection (check out Documents in the main menu when you log in).Moving forward, the forum will see some changes, making it more accessible and simpler for members to interact outside of club meetings. If anyone is interested in personal galleries or has any suggestions for functionality or changes they'd like to see, reach out. Same if you see something you don't like, let me know."

There were 808 website visits with 161 logins from September 1st to date. 34 of our members have never signed into the website. You people do not know what you are missing.

Did you know that there is a membership directory built into our website? There is! You can use this to contact someone to see how they did something or to carpool to the next meeting or just to say Hi. Just log into the website and click on the "Membership Directory" link on the main menu. There is a very easy to use search tool to find someone, even if you don't know how to spell their name.

Other Items of Business

The club has the opportunity to sell their items in the Contemporary Craft store. I do not have the specifics, but you can check with Jim Ebbert, CC's Retail Sales lead. He should be in the CC store Saturday. Let me know if you want me to get the details and post them to the membership.

The club was approached by Penn State Industries (PSI) to supply member's information in exchange for discounts and donations for our club's raffle. PSI is offering to those who sign up a 10% discount on virtually all of their products, including items already discounted. The board will be discussing this proposal at our next meeting and will relay the details to you at a later date. My understanding so far is that you would be able to opt-in or opt-out, as we will absolutely not give out this information without your permission.

It was brought to our attention that one of our members contacted Contemporary Craft to enroll in a class and told them they were due a discount because of TA membership. I do not know where this rumor started, but I want to say that it is totally false. We do not get a discount on any class offered by Contemporary Craft.

At the next meeting, I will need some help with setup of the A/V equipment.

It seems like there is something else that needs to be put on paper, but I guess this is enough for now, so have a good week.

See you Saturday,

Tom Shortall

Chairman

Turners Anonymous Inc﻿

October 2025 Chairman's Report

Turners Anonymous Inc