Turners Anonymous Inc

Chairman's 2024 Summer Report

I hope you all are enjoying the summer and managing to keep cool. I have been using the heat as an excuse to get into the basement shop, mostly because it's the coolest place in the house.  

General Information

Past Demonstrations - On May 18th, club members spent half a day at the Rockler store to help out with their anniversary event. We picked up 3 names there of people who are interested in the club. We also spent 4 days during the July 4th holiday weekend at the Westmorland Arts and Heritage Festival where we picked up another 20 interested people. I would like to thank all of the volunteers who participated in these events.

Fair in the Park - We are again participating in the Craftsman Guild of Pittsburgh's Fair in the Park being held in Mellon Park on September 6th, 7th, and 8th. We were reminded that we are not allowed to sell anything from our booth. We plan on having 2 lathes there demonstrating our craft. We have a number of folks signed up to demo already, but we could use a few more. Let us know if you can participate by contacting me or Rob Martin.

Mid-Atlantic Woodturning Symposium - The organizers of the annual Mid-Atlantic Woodturning Symposium (MAWTS) asked us to announce to our membership that it is coming up soon on Sept. 20-22. It looks like they have some new things and exciting demos scheduled. More information about this event can be found on their website - http://www.mawts.com/ (Keep in mind that this is also our meeting date.) 

Programing

Did all of you attending the May meeting find Dave Betler's presentation as useful as I did? Thank you, Dave, for another great program!

September 21st - Andrew Horowitz will demonstrate inlay techniques. Tired of throwing away partially-completed work because of cracks, voids, or damage from catches? Learn how to use stone and metal inlays to repair and enhance these pieces. Andrew will discuss inlay materials, design considerations, and processes to create stunning inlay work. Topics include procurement and selection of inlay material, carving and burning to prepare the void, gluing methods, and shaping and finishing.

October 19th - At this time, we plan on doing a tour of a local lumber mill. But, if it happens like last year, and we cannot make the tour, we do have a backup plan for a demonstration.

November 16th - Craig Smith will demonstrate his method for making a box in the morning. After a lunch break, we will break into groups for some hands-on instructions. After this demo, there should be one less excuse for not making a box for the Christmas box exchange.

December 21st - Our annual Christmas Ornament and Box exchange get together. The site for this affair still has to be determined. We welcome any of your suggestions for a place to meet.

We received this personal message from Robin McIntyre about the article. She wrote:

I am the AAW WIT Liaison Coordinator and have been working with others on the wig stand initiative since March 2023. Congrats on your article in the recent journal and thank you for participating in this project. I was thrilled that you found information from the 2023 Symposium helpful--we hoped it would go full circle. To date, we have 734 wig stands that have been crafted by entire clubs and/or WIT groups around the country. The benchmark for our count is wig stands that have been delivered. Could we add your stands that went to Creative Hair Solutions to our count?  Many thanks to you and your members,

Robin McIntyre

Cape Cod Woodturners, MA

To date, Turners Anonymous has donated 20 wig stands. Thanks to all of you who have participated by donating blanks and by turning the stands, Let's keep it up!

Survey Results

During our May meeting, we passed out paper surveys, 29 in all and received 28 usable ones back. We then sent out an electronic version of the survey out to the 41 members not attending the meeting in person. We got 12 responses from that email. That gives a 57% response rate, which is not bad compared to other surveys I have been involved with.

The purpose of the survey was to see what you, the club members, wanted from the club, plus get a better idea about the demographics of the club such as experience, likes/dislikes, tools used, and so on.

Here are some of the results of the survey:

• 82% of the members are over 60. (We need to come up with a plan to attract younger members)
• Turning Experience. 26% beginner, 54% Intermediate, 26% advanced
• Turning Tools. 50% of respondents use only traditional tools, 17% use only carbide tools, and 33% use both carbide and traditional tools.
• Most members are satisfied with meeting location, some would prefer closer to their home, a number of people say our meeting place is too small. and one person says "terrible chairs"
• 50% of Turners Anonymous members are also AAW members.
• 42% have attended regional or national turning symposiums.
• Members travel an average of 46 minutes each way to our meetings.
• 58% say they would not attend more meetings if closer to their home.

More survey results will be reported next month.

Club Express Website

We launched our new website in early July and all of the members were notified of new user ID's and temporary passwords. I hope all of you have had a chance to log in and take a look at our new site. The site address (turnersanonymous.org) is the same as our old website in case you had a favorite link set up. The site is still "under construction" and more content is being added routinely. Here are a few of the highlights of the new site:

• The public and members areas look similar but are totally separate. The menus are unique to each area.
• You can update your profile easily from the log in screen.
• Membership renewal notices will be automatically sent out by the software beginning in mid-December. You can check your membership status and payment information. Soon, we will set up an online payment option for your convivence.  Of course, we will still accept cash and checks.
• Think you missed an email? Once logged in, you have the ability to view past emails by clicking on the "Emailing" tab on the menu. All email sent to general membership will be archived there for a period of time.  
• Getting too much email? We have the ability to set up member categories to target only those who want in. For instance, we see from the survey that only a few are interested in consignment or contract work. We can create a separate list to just let those folks know about those opportunities.
• Having trouble seeing the printed info? On the right side of all the website pages is a left facing arrow, click on that and there are several options, one of which lets you increase the font. 
• There is an Event Calander accessible from the main menu.
• There is a link to Volunteering from the members menu where you can sign up for defined activities, like Fair in the Park.

If you have any questions about the new site, drop me a line or call me and I will be happy to help.  Also, if there is additional content you would like to see added to the website, let us know and we will try to add that content in. All constructive comments are welcome.

Thanks for taking the time to read this report.

Hope to see you at the next meeting. Remember, people interested in our club from our recent demonstrations are welcome to attend a meeting to see if we are a right fit for you.

Tom Shortall

Chairman

turnersanon@gmail.com