Virtual Demonstrations Poll #2

We have held virtual demonstrations for our last two membership meetings – Lyle Jamieson in April and Emiliano Achaval in May. Both of these went well and we have received very good feedback from our members that were able to attend. However, we have been limited to demonstrators that are providing virtual demos that live West of the Central time zone. There are several great demonstrators doing virtual demos that live East of the Central time zone but joining our 7:00 p.m. meeting is not viable for them in their time zone. Demonstrators such as Rudy Lopez from Florida, Glenn Lucas from Ireland or Paul Hannaby from the UK. We would be able to schedule these demonstrators on a Saturday which would enable us to get world class turners to demonstrate with the added benefit to the club of not incurring travel costs.

Would you attend a demonstration on Saturday rather than Thursday for an East Coast or overseas demonstrator?

View Results

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Featured demonstrator / Membership Meeting / virtual / woodturning events

Welcome

Founded

Founded on April 21st, 1994 the South Puget Sound Woodturners is in the top 10 clubs in the American Association of Woodturners (AAW).

Members

Our members range from beginner to internationally acclaimed professionals. Our interests range from penmaking to bowls, turned ornaments to hollow vessels, spindles to platters.

Demonstrations

Attend our monthly membership meetings and you will find demonstrations on material selection, tool usage, segmenting, wood coloring, ebonizing, and lots of turning techniques.

Mini-Symposium

Twice a year we have a mini-symposium where members demonstrate anything you could imagine.

Sawdust Session

Another great benefit for our members is our “Sawdust Sessions”. This is a hands on session with mentors from the club. This is an amazing one-on-one opportunity to improve your turning skills.

Visit

There are so many more benefits and learning opportunities to membership in the South Puget Sound Woodturners. Come and visit our next meeting and see what turning is all about!

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Featured welcome

PRESS RELEASE: AAW Announces Virtual Woodturning Event July 10-12

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AAW Announces Virtual Woodturning Event July 10-12

(St. Paul – June 4) – The American Association of Woodturners (AAW), a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the art and craft of woodturning worldwide, will launch its first-ever three-day online “Virtual Symposium” July 10-12, 2020.

The all-online event will feature live educational woodturning demonstrations, special interest sessions, panel discussions, live auctions, Instant Gallery, prizes drawings for attendees, a virtual trade show, and more.

  • Demonstrators for the event will include woodturning pros Trent Bosch, Cindy Drozda, Rudy Lopez, Glenn Lucas, Mike Mahoney, and Craig Timmerman. Topics will be announced.
  • Panel discussions will include social media/business, artistic practice, and an Instant Gallery critique.
  • Special Interest Sessions will include Gizmos and Gadgets, a presentation of “best of the best” woodturning tips, and a Women in Turning (WIT) presentation.
  • Each registered attendee may send an image to include in the Virtual Instant Gallery.
  • The cost for all three days of programming is $20.20 (nonrefundable), which includes access to a replay of recorded Virtual Symposium content for up to two weeks following the event.

The official schedule and additional details will be available soon. Registration opens June 5 and closes July 3. Visit http://tiny.cc/2020AAWVirtual for more information and to register.

AAW / symposiums / woodturning events

May Demonstrator

Maui Koa Crotch Calabash
Emiliano Acheval
Our May meeting will be another Zoom-based remote demonstration; this time featuring Emiliano Achaval from Maui. Emiliano has demonstrated at the AAW Symposium and is a contributing writer for Woodturning Magazine. During this virtual meeting he will demonstrate how to turn a historically accurate “Hawaiian Calabash”, which is a round bottomed bowl with a pleasing curved form
that is slightly narrower at the top. When Captain Cook first sailed to Hawaii he found the people there already making these magnificent bowls at a level that was probably beyond what was being done in Europe at the time. In addition to turning the calabash, Emiliano will demonstrate how to make repairs and stabilize cracks in the side of a bowl using a butterfly-shaped inlay. This will be useful to many of us since the woods that we use here in the Pacific Northwest can often crack. The ability to use what Emiliano calls a “pewa” patch to repair such a crack can turn a disaster into a design opportunity that enhances the beauty of the bowl.

demonstrator / Membership Meeting / techniques / woodturner profile / woodturning events

Virtual Demonstrations Poll

We held our first Virtual woodturning demonstration with featuring Lyle Jamieson on April 16th. We held this with an online conferencing tool called Zoom. Out of our 125 members there were 32 logged into the demo. One thought is that many of our members may not be comfortable with this technology yet. The Olympic Peninsula Chapter has been conducting “practice” Zoom sessions for members to become more familiar with the tool. Our chapter’s Board of Directors will consider this option at our next meeting. If practice Zoom sessions were available for members would you be interested in them and would it make you more likely to join our next virtual demonstration?

Would you be interested in practice Zoom sessions?

  • Yes (88%, 7 Votes)
  • No (13%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 8

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If yes, would you be more likely to join our next virtual demonstration?

  • Yes (100%, 9 Votes)
  • No (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 9

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demonstrator / Membership / poll / woodturning events

April Meeting Demonstrator

Two weeks ago I listened in on the AAW’s webinar discussion addressing the advantages of doing “remote demonstrations” at chapter meetings. For the past 2 years several AAW Chapters have been using internet technology that allows a person in their own shop to beam 2-way audio/visual feed to a regular chapter meeting. All the chapters that have used this method report great success! Members like it, world class demonstrators are available, and the club avoids the high cost of travel expenses. Importantly, this technology also allows people to view the demonstration from their home! This additional benefit makes this seem like a viable solution in this time of mandatory social distancing.

Our April 16th Meeting: We held a board meeting using the Zoom program just to test the ease of using this program. It worked very well! The board voted to try presenting a remote demonstration at our next meeting. So I called Lyle Jamieson, who is well known for his hollowing system, and invited him to present on hollowing at the upcoming April 16th SPSW Meeting. Lyle has accepted and will be our speaker at this month’s meeting. Lyle will be demonstrating from his own shop in Michigan and each of us can see it from our own homes!

We will be sending directions by e-mail to all current members, for whom we have email addresses, on how to log into the meeting from your house. This e-mail will answer a lot of the questions I know you will have about how to download the app and participate in the meeting. All you need is a computer, tablet, or smartphone. You can fully participate with any of them. It helps if the device you use to view the demo has both video and audio capability. This is exciting!

demonstrator / Membership Meeting / techniques / tools / woodturner profile / woodturning events

SPSW’s response to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Today, Thursday March 12th I got word that the Fife Community Center is closing, and will not be available for our meeting this month. Although we have been monitoring the coronavirus situation closely, and were planning to make our own decision about whether or not to run our monthly meetings, the Community Center’s decision makes this decision for this month for us. Therefore, we will not be having our mini-symposium this month. Further, even though it is a much smaller meeting, we also need to cancel the Sawdust Session on the 21st.

The SPSW’s Board of Directors is closely monitoring updates and recommendations concerning the coronavirus pandemic. Things seem especially difficult for our friends in King and Snohomish Counties, and our thoughts and good wishes go out to them!

We encourage all of our members to continue to check themselves, and follow recommendations from reliable sources to avoid this disease.

I will be discussing this subject with the full Board of Directors later this month. If the worst comes to pass, and we need to cancel more of our monthly membership meetings, we may be able to tape the entire meeting and make the demonstration available on the SPSW website.

I will do my best to keep everyone informed as we go forward.

John Howard
SPSW President

chapter profile / Message