Tells us about your Local Wood Turning Clubs

[Joe Meirhaeghe]

I'd like to see & here about other local Wood turning clubs.
Our Club recently moved into a New Location. We out grew our old one. Last count we had 94 members & seam to still be growing. Here's a couple of pic's. We have 2 main rooms one for the meeting & Demo's then another large room for our equiptment and hands on training & classes.
We will be installing a dust collection system within the next 3 to 4 weeks if everything goes well. with drops to all 8 of our mini lathes.

[Gary Herrmann]

Wish I could tell you, I keep meaning to go and something always gets in the way. Lately, it's been 3rd grade boys basketball. Some day...

[Jon Lanier]

I wish I could... they are all too far away.

[Richard Madison]

Very impressive facilities Joe! Assume that you are recruiting potential gang members into the wood turning "gang". Good work.

[Jeff Nicol]

Well a group just got started here in the Chippewa valley. We meet in Eau Claire WI at the old Uniroyal tire plant which is now called Banbury Place. So far there have been 3 meetings and 12 to 15 members. There will be some ads placed some how and a website is in the works. The board members got all the paperwork for AAW so that will be done. So if you are from west central Wisconsin and are looking to join a turners club we meet the first Wednesday of each month right across from HEARTLAND HARDWOODS in Banbury Place anlong the river. The name of the club is the "CHIPPEWA VALLEY WOODTURNERS GUILD"

Thats my story and I am sticking to it!

Jeff

[George Morris]

Our club is called DelVal Woodturners,We are located in Hadenfield N.J. Just over the bridge from Philadelphia. I belive we have about 40 members we get about 25 or 30 for meetings. We meet in the basement of a church, works O.K. one jet 16x42 lathe. Any one intrested check out our web site DelValTurners.com Always need more members, club is very active with a lot of very good turners who are glad to help anyone that asks. we get a lot of good demos during the year. Thanks George

[Peter Luch]

Our club is the West Hawaii Woodturners.
We have about 20-25 members but do not have a designated meeting place yet. We meet at a members house every 2 months.

No lathe yet but our club is only a year old and we are working on a more permanent location and getting a mini lathe.

Aloha, Pete

[Jason Clark2]

We're the Arizona Woodturners Association. We typically meet on the 3rd Saturday of the month from Noon - 4 PM. Our meeting location is normally at a community center in the City of Tempe which is in the Southeast area of the Phoenix Metro area. This location is provided to us free of charge by the City whenever there is an opening in the schedule. We also have 1 or 2 meetings a year on the Northwest side of the Valley and a joint meeting with the club up in Prescott held at Yavapai College up in Prescott.

If I remember correctly our club lathe is an older shortbed general. It's on a portable stand as we don't have a storage area at our meeting location.

At last count I think we had about 200 members, we had almost exactly 100 at our meeting on Saturday. Attendance varies over the year as about half of our membership consists of Snowbirds who are only in town from Mid September – Late March.
Jason

[Steve Schlumpf]

Our club, Superiorland Woodturners, Inc., was founded in February of 2007 and at this time we have 35 members. Meetings are held the first Tuesday of the month, 7 pm, in the basement of the Bell Forest Products warehouse, located in beautiful downtown Ishpeming, MI. If you check your maps – that is about 15 miles west of the largest city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Marquette, located on the shore of Lake Superior.

We have 3 old, small swing lathes that work but are very limiting in what we can turn. So far we have had a few local folks come in and demo for us but no one with a national reputation. It seems like the club floundered for a long time, even lost some members before we came across a meeting agenda that works. We now split the meetings into club news, small show & tell presentations from the members and then we start up the lathes and demo different turnings/cuts to each other.

The club is in the process of putting together a monthly newsletter for the members. We hope, with the help of the members, that it will turn into something both educational and fun. We are a new club, still going through some growing pains, but we focus on turning and as such, enjoy the meetings and being able to talk with others with the same addiction!

[Tim Thomas]

I'm not a member of the local woodturners club, but they are closely affiliated with my woodworking guild and some of their members have done demonstrations for us. Even though I don't own a lathe, I think I might start going to their meetings. I just find woodturning to be fascinating. They have a good website, check it out:

http://www.alabamawoodturners.com/

They also have a useful page of links to dozens of other woodturning clubs. And of course you can browse through tons of pictures from past meetings and events.

[Jack Mincey]

Our club's called Western N.C. Woodturners. We have some where around 35 to 40 members, most meetings, we have from 15 to 25 members show up. Our meetings are a lot like what Steve talked about. Club business, show and tell by members, and a demo done by one of the members. We had John Jordan for a day demo in the fall and hope to have another pro turner this coming year. We meet in the high school shop that I teach at. The club and a community org. bought a 3520B last year for the school shop so we have one very good lathe now along with two old rockwell school lathes, one donated delta 1440, and a jet mini lathe. Being a member of the club has helped me become a better woodturner in the few years I've been attending the meetings. Here is the link to our web page. http://www.wncwoodturners.com/
Jack

[Chris Huybregts]

I went to the Central Texas Woodturners Association meeting on Tuesday for the first time. All I can say is WOW! there was easily more than 50 people there. The setup was awesome (2 big screen tvs, 2 cameras, a big ol' lathe) everyone could see what was going on.

I'm definitely joining up!

www.ctwa.org

Chris

[TYLER WOOD]

South Plains woodurners. Lubbock Texas. We are relatively new at two years old. 65-70 members. We have about a third of our members in the AAW so we have lots of options for demonstrators. You are actually reading from the newsletter editor right now. If that tells you the quality of the club! No really we have some very fine turners in our club, including a member who will be demonstating at the AAW symposium in Albaquerque or however you spell that town. We have had a couple of out turners also critiwued at the symposium the past couple of years. Some very valuable experience for the new turners. Our club is really the only reason I have stuck aroun and kept goig. When I visited, I was put in touch with someone in my town who would be willing to mentor me, and the rest is history.

Our club is currently looking to be in the market for anew lathe. So if any of you have ideas or bargains, let me know. Robust is probably where we are going, or in that vicinity.

[Dan Henry]

I am a member of two turning clubs the Dallas Area Woodturners with a round 90 members meeting on the 3rd Thursday of the month at a business in Richardson, TX and the Hunt County Woodturners that meets on the 2nd Thursday of the month in a church in Greenville, TX with a round 60 members. Both club meetings are about the same with a short business meeting, show and tell, a raffel with the club providing the prizes, and a demo that usually has chips flying. Both clubs have an open shop on Saturday following the meetings. Both clubs are great for newbies to learn all about turning as they both have several members that are willing to help them.

Dan

[Bob Bergstrom]

I, and 46 others belong to the Windy City Woodturners in the west suburbs of Chicago. We meet on the third Tuesday of the month. at 7 o'clock. The club just upgraded to a Jet 16 x42 lathe. We are working on a second video camera through an A.A.W. grant. The meeting place is a very nice meeting room in the Downers Grove Municipal Building. There two flat screen Tvs. available and vending machine. A very clean and pleasant environment to meet in. A lot of our members also belong to the Chicago Woodturners which meet in Palatine Il. It is farther north and meets in the basement of the Wood Craft Store.