Our January meeting is probably the most important meeting of the year with the main event being the AGM. Unfortunately we were without our chairman. Bert had been waiting for some time to go in to hospital for some tests and he got the message to go in that Saturday so the finger was pointed at the secretary (yep, me!) to officiate. Everyone was very kind and it all went off without a hitch. The committee was voted in for another term of office. No surprises there then. What is important though is that Paul went through the accounts with us and showed that we had made a small(ish) loss over the year where on a couple of occasions the takings at the door didn’t quite cover the cost of the demonstrator. We had discussed this at the committee meeting and the decision was made to leave the annual subscription the same and the door fee on demo days the same. We will however raise the door fee on club days to £5. This was put to the members present at the AGM and it was unanimously agreed upon.

At the end of the meeting we had the pleasure of presenting the Bill Alston Trophy for the highest number of points won throughout the year for pieces entered in the monthly competition to David Reed. Congratulations David. We also presented Alan Dungey with a post office voucher for all his hard work in preparing the hall for the day’s events.

The AGM closed at 10.50 and at eleven o’clock we had Coral Davis from Axminster Power Tools give us a demonstration on working with a jig saw. I know. I told you she would be demonstrating pyrography. I got it wrong.
Her project was to make an elephant basket out of one piece of wood. She had marked it out with a transfer and drilled one or two essential holes before coming to us so she spent a few minutes describing what she would be doing and then got on with it. An interesting demonstration but she had finished by lunch time and had nothing else prepared so we called the day to a close. I’m sure this is the first time since the club started that this has happened and I am equally sure it won’t happen again. A few photos of the session follow.

Our next meeting is on Saturday 14th February, !!….. and it WILL be all day and we will have Simon Hope with us for the day. Simon has been with us a few times now and is a very good demonstrator. He will no doubt try and flog you a few tools at the same time. Big vases are usually his thing to show which also gives him a chance to demonstrate his deep hollowing tools, and very good they are too. Ask Paul. It will be a good day so let’s see lots of bums on seats. Don’t forget we will be having the annual club dinner on the 21st February and if you are coming don’t forget to bring a really challenging piece of your finest work to enter in to the competition to win the Orchard Memorial Trophy. To put the new members in the picture this is a trophy we decided to create as a memorial to members who have since passed away while still members of the club. It is presented after the dinner to the member whose entry was judged by the wives ,girlfriends, partners of you lot as the best, in their eyes, piece on show. There will also be a raffle so bring along a pocket full of loose change!!

So, that’s it.

See you all on the 14th and again on the 21st.

Graham.