Ryedale Woodturners
This website is being updated from August 2022. This is an archive page.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Thursday 1 August 2019
at Snainton Village Hall
Brief notes from memory are given below. The Chairman's report more detailed description was emailed by chairman Keith Harte, and Lance emailed provisional minutes of the meeting.
Around 20 members gathered for the AGM. Keith read the minutes of the last meeting, and conducted affairs for the night, as no volunteers to take on the role of chairman were forthcoming. Bob Ingram explained our finances, which due to the commission from successful sales, 11 new members and increase in attendance fees, were once again positive. He announced he would be stepping down as chairman. Steve Fearnley volunteered to take on the role, unless anyone else wished to put themselves forward.
Secretary Lance Garrard commented on his brief tenure of the post, given Malcolm Dayson's recent departure. He had submitted a request to NYCC for funding towards a small portable lathe for the club.
With no new names put forward for the committee, at present it stands at John Whiteley, Lance Garrard (Secretary), Steve Fearnley (Treasurer, Webmaster and Publicity Officer), Ian Temple (Fixtures secretary), Frank Cornforth, Philip Coe. A new chairman would be elected from within this group at a committee meeting before the next club night.
It was agreed that the Club Christmas Competition would have the same categories as last year: Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced. It was agreed that the Club Christmas Party will again take place in Snainton Village Hall this year. There was some discussion as to format and cost, but no firm decisions were made.
It was noted that there would be a stand at Thornton Show once again this year (7 August), and that there was another club sale and exhibition at Goathland on the weekend of 7 - 8 September. John Whiteley mentioned that Reading Room venue would not be available for hire in the future, due to a change of use.
Show and Tell
After a tea break, club members provided an enjoyable show and tell session.
Keith Harte started things off by telling us about plywood rings that he makes to hold small items for finishing. He has a set made for the popular items he makes for the club sales - needle keepers, ring keepers, Christmas trees, and shawl pins. These prevent the chuck jaws biting in to the wood.
He even made a wooden headstock to demonstrate holding items in the chuck!
John Kershaw showed us a bowl he had made from a piece of cupressus macrocarpia, or Monterey Cypress, salvaged from a garden tree cut down by his daughter (I think). He noted the overpowering lemon scent when turning.
John Lund gave us a quick resume of his 70 years as a woodturner, starting as a boy with a (very dangerous) petrol driven home made lathe, and progressing to his current lathes, which include that giant of lathes, a Wadkin with a 72 inch bed.
He brought along some of his recent projects - shallow bowls of large diameter - and described how he holds them on the lathe with a sacrificial spigot glued on, and finishes them with various sanding devices.
Steve Fearnley had a bespoke trophy due to be delivered to a lady in Scarborough, who had commissioned it in memory of her mother, a devout flower arranger. The trophy was made from a cherry log, based on a calla lily shape, with a pau amarillo stamen in the centre. To allow the Danby flower show to mount annual plaques, a stand was made from burr oak, giving plenty of flat surface for the plaques. Inscriptions were pyrographed, along with two calla lily drawings on the side of the vase. The bark and natural edge had been retained as the customer expressed a liking for natural forms.
There is more about this trophy on Steve's oldfern website.
John Whiteley shared some of his experiments, with his regular bidding for club members to "have a go at something different". Inspired by a comment about accidental chatter marks at the last demonstration, he deliberately created some chatter rings on a piece by way of decoration. Noting Richard Findley's article on turning a torus, he brought along a hollowed torus he had made from a cherry blank. A third piece was a hollowed off centre bowl. He offered a free ready-made and marked out blank for someone to try making one of these, but there were no takers on the night.