December, 2004

Meeting Information: We have no regular meeting in December and will start again on January 22, 2005 with a Hands-On-Session at Russ Babbitt’s’ home.  Check back in early January for details.

We are having our 4th Annual Holiday Social on Saturday, December 4th for Members and Spouses at 6:00 p.m.

This is a potluck and reservations are required.  Members have already been called but if we have missed you or you have changed your plans and can attend contact the Webmaster ASAP.

Thanks again to Lynn and Barbara for putting this together.

Remember the gift exchange!

The November 7th meeting featured Soren Berger from New Zealand.  This is the third time we have hosted Soren and each time he brings something new to teach us plus reinforce the basics of turning that make his work and teaching style so approachable.

2004 President Jim Rinde has summed up the year:

Miscellaneous year end shavings:

The woodturning year is over, except for the partying, and what a year it has been! We started the year with the Avocado project. What fun, with ten plus members turning about 30 bowls from green avocado wood: Small ones, big ones, warped ones, natural edge, and all unique. Thanks to Tim Albers and Mission Produce for the opportunity, the extra wood and the money. Thanks to Warren Brown, and the other contributors for writing the article, “The $500 Avocado Project”, that appeared in the American Woodturner [Fall 2004 Vol. 19, No. 3 issue] covering this project.

We had two library displays of our woodturnings in Thousand Oaks (June) and Camarillo (July).

One of our biggest events of the year was the Ventura County Fair. We had wonderful participation with most members both showing their work in the fair and also demonstrating woodturning in the booth. This event has gotten better every year with both the quality and number of entries. Next year the wood turning categories will be increased to ten from the current nine.  Natural edge turnings are now a separate category.  Many thanks to Sam Turner for his work coordinating our participation in the fair and for changing the woodturning categories.

What else.  In April we started meeting in Levi Mize’s Woodcraft Shop. For this the club purchased a grinding wheel set up for tool sharpening when we use Levi’s Vicmarc lathe.  Thanks again to Levi for letting us meet in his shop.

Membership: The club has grown from 25 to nearly 40 members during the year.

How do we know what’s going on?  We check our Website www.channelislandswoodturners.org. Thanks to David Frank this is kept up to date and is very helpful for knowing what’s going on and when and where. I checked it today and noticed that the Gallery has only five members showing their work. I know that many more people have some fine turned pieces that could/should be there.  [New member Art Waldinger has volunteered to take photos- see more below.]

Program: We had three Hands-on workshops, three in-club demonstrators and five outside demonstrators this year. We finished the program year with three of the finest wood turners in the world, Stuart and Allan Batty and Soren Berger.  It doesn’t get any better than that.  However, for me it was little too much of a good thing in too short of a time span.  This may have been the feeling of some other people as the attendance for Soren Berger (19) was lower than for Stuart Batty (23) and Allan Batty (30). The club lost money ($556) on these turners and associated expenses, and we may need to increase the fee for future outside demonstrators.  However, the club’s finances remain solvent with our dues making up the difference and providing for an expanding loan library of books and videos.  For next year we have one outside demonstrator scheduled and a tentative commitment for another [with plans for one or two others].  See the Schedule page for the tentative plans for 2005.  Personally, after all the English tradition turners I would like to have a French turner some time in the next year.         —- Jim Rinde

Dues for 2005 of $25 can be mailed to our Treasurer Ron Lindsay (make the check out to him not to CIW) or handed to him at the Dec. 4th Holiday Social.  Our local dues support our loan library program and the expenses of the providing exceptional demonstrators from around the world.  We also encourage our members to join our parent organization the American Association of Woodturners.   A list of membership benefits can be found on their webpage and the quarterly journal American Woodturner is worth the price of membership.

As mentioned in Jim’s letter our gallery section of the web site has not been updated in some time and we now have the benefit of a professional photographer to help us add to the gallery.  Any member who wishes to showcase their work would bring up to 5 pieces to a meeting, Art Waldinger will take them home to photograph and bring them back to the next meeting (or you can arrange to pick them up sooner).  Our members do exceptional work and we would like to increase the gallery.  Please call Art or David Frank to make arrangements.