Another good Saturday morning.
The hall was set up on the Friday night as usual, I was at the hall soon after the others on the Saturday morning, the idea was to practice what I was about to turn with the under twelve’s, so after a chat about this and that and say hello to 2 new faces it was 9am, time to start. I made sure they all had their news letters and did the “your in a machine shop” chat and told them to go and enjoy them selves. So there I am turning an eggcup for the first time with Emily, not to difficult I hear you thinking, well maybe its not but as always in this sort of situation it was a case of working it out together, we decided you have to do the inside first, then work your way back to the base gradually so the cup has supporting wood. So with Emily and me working on that understanding we were away. The egg cup looked brilliant, Lace Wood, the idea was to paint them and stick bits of coloured felt on so they look like little chicks but they all decided to polish them instead, that’s very encouraging for under 12’s to think that they already appreciate the grain of the timber so much.
I turned a number of egg cups this morning, and as I said none of them wanted to paint them. They all chose pretty much the same shape apart from Jordan, no surprises there. Angy had some stitch work going today, little mats for the egg cup to stand on. Angy had some ready turned eggs that Bill turned so a number of those were nicely decorated. Alex and Thomas took loads of photos and movie clips, they then put them on the computer, and later in the morning they turned egg cups to.
Covers
Timber Merchants, Portsmouth
Covers The Timber Merchants in Norway Road Portsmouth, very enthusiastically donated some timber to the junior club, enough to make 6 complete stools, so many thanks to them. The older lads had a project for the first time, we decided to go for a 3 legged stool, the idea being 3 to a lathe keeps them all busy, while one is turning the others are watching to see how its done for when its there turn. It went very well and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much turning they all did in just three hours. I guess it will be two more mornings before there all completed and we are looking for another interesting project.
Bill and Barbara worked with Dave, I think they did egg cups to, Grant wanted to turn a bowl so Bill came all the way over from East Wittering for that. With that lathe free and we had Mike a senior Forest member who had arrived during the morning, which by the way was his first visit to our Saturday club, was also free so I looked for somebody who wanted to turn, to my delight none of the older lads wanted to break away from watching so Grant made a start on making a tool handle.
John, Mike and Kim kept busy doing what ever was needed and Dave managed the pyrography table, sadly Derek has now gone back to working on Saturdays but fortunately for us Dave has taken over. Don & Ken worked with the older lads today, I said earlier this was a good project, they were still turning after I finished, that’s a first, normally their lathes are heading back to the garage and I’m still turning! Aline very kindly looked after the refreshment side of things, Heather made Banana cake and Nicky sent us half a tin of chocolates to finish, is it any wonder we had 17 turners here?
I think I’ve said this before, there is a real need for a meeting like this, I think perhaps the young people don’t get to make things like we did when we were young; it seems you can give them technology and other what I call “does it for you activity’s” but deep down they still want to fiddle around making things from nothing, I know I speak for every adult that helps on a Saturday morning when I say, the rewards are priceless, these young turners cant get enough of it. What surprised me most was one of them telling me the answer to a problem we had from watching a demo 6 months ago, what’s a 10 year old doing remembering technical stuff like that? Well it’s because somebody took the time to show them something, and more importantly they made it interesting.
We are 17 at a meeting now and my main concern is they are all busy all the time, I know if our first six meetings are anything to go by there will be more wanting to join, I would love to say yes to them all, I have a saying, “If they walk through those doors with a smile on their face and are enthusiastic, then they stay” how can you say no? We have Don, Dave, Ken, Erik, myself and now Mike all turning regularly, and one more lathe on its way. Today was our 7th meeting and its been a real learning curve every meeting, each month we adapted to suit the needs as we thought necessary, but then the next meeting more came and we where back were we started, hopefully with this stool project it will become more settled. If we take on any more we will need more help and that’s down to the other senior members, if they can find the time once a month to give us three and a bit hours on a Saturday morning we would all appreciate it very much. The offer is there, please pop in to see us and see what goes on, have a cup of tea/coffee and take a wander round. Our next meeting is on Saturday 23rd of February 9.am.
So we managed again just, to make sure they all enjoyed their Saturday turning/craft morning, young Blythe and Kayleigh didn’t get to turn this morning, their turner did to much talking and was very slow turning, (that’s me by the way!) but they were fine about it, they came to me and said, let the others go before us and if we don’t turn we will be happy to come to your workshop sometime soon and turn, which as promised they have done already, and same as the others they don’t want to paint over the grain, brilliant.
So to repeat what I said earlier, the juniors are there in numbers, but we can’t take on any more until we have more seniors to help out! And with that thought there goes another brilliant Saturday club meeting.
Mick Jan 2008