CRAFTY TURNERS FIRST MEETING
After a lot of hard work behind the scenes Crafty Turners became official this morning, for the past 3 years we went under the name of Forest of Bere Junior Woodturners, but it was time to move on, with 3 years experience it was decided to create Crafty Turners.
My personal feeling is the club belongs to the members; ideas are put to them and it’s their choice whether they go with it or not…simple as that…if they decide to go with it then we guide them but its there passion that produces the end product.
As usual we had the willing helpers plus some juniors setting up the lathes, the craft table and the computer, everybody had to officially become members of Crafty Turners this morning so there were forms to fill in and membership cards to hand out, I asked young Sarah, Amber, Kirsten and Zoe to place the forms and cards out on the table…….they immediately decided between them who would do what and how it would work best….between them they managed the filling in of the forms and handing out the membership cards and take the money, I was very impressed, thank you girls…….I fully expected an adult to step forward and say “do you want me to manage that” these juniors never cease to amaze me.
This is the very reason Crafty Turners was born…to give the juniors the opportunity to be creative and get involved, who would have thought they would take advantage of that opportunity within seconds of starting? At 9.05am we opened our first AGM, a Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer (all adults) were voted in, then came the post of Vice Chair, Young Kieran and Sarah both got nominated, wow I wasn’t expecting that, I knew Kieran was interested but I didn’t know about Sarah, again I’m impressed with the juniors enthusiasm, I’m also very proud as I’m sure all the senior helpers are that we’ve given these juniors this opportunity, and they’ve jumped at the chance, Sarah and Kieran were asked to leave the room while the voting was done…now I’m getting excited, the voting is done and Sarah won, 4 other committee members are voted on, Kieran, Thomas, Kayleigh and Kirsten were nominated and voted for, other matters were decided on and the meeting closed at 9.25, that’s the best AGM I ever attended, at this point Id like to thank those senior helpers that guided me through my first meeting as Chairman.
So what did all these excited people get up to for the rest of the morning….Thomas created the Crafty Turners heading for the website with Kieran & Jordan but the priority was to finish Humpty for the Hayling Island Scarecrow festival, Grant made some parts on the lathe, James split turned the boots, others sewed things, Sam made the frame for the air bags and safety net, Emily and others did the painting and just like last year with Pinocchio we finished with minutes to spare, it looked brilliant, lots of enthusiasm and ideas bouncing of the walls.
The lathes were kept busy as was the computer and other craft things; we had the usual mid morning break….bit of a surprise for me was the appearance of a birthday cake and a celebratory cake for Crafty Turners. Big apology to Jordan…it was his birthday but with so much going on leading up to this historic meeting I completely forgot, we’ll make it up to him somehow….watch this space… one thing we are good at here is ideas an inventiveness, we thrive on any chance to be creative.
Well what a morning, all over in a flash….new member James enjoyed himself, joined in like he’d been here before, I think he’s going to be a useful source of inspiration and ideas. Everybody helped tidy up and Vac, and with my van and several cars loaded it was time to lock the doors and say thank you and goodbye.
And there goes our first Crafty Turners meeting.
Mick July 2010
PS
This last month for me has been very busy, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who supported and assisted me with the setting up of Crafty Turners, and I feel very privileged to be in such good company.
Mick