The Meeting was heled on Wednesday, September 8th at the Peters Valley Woodshop. Attending were Jim Cera, Rick Wortman, Michael Peacock, Ed Nikles, Mark Wallace, and Steve Ackman. Covid protocols were still in effect. Several attendees brought their work for show and tell.
The treasurer, Rick Wortman reported that the current club account balance is $473.85. Rick noted that we have 12 members who have paid dues for 2021.
Next meeting will be Monday October 4th in the woodshop. Noted turner and Peters Valley instructor Fennis Fuge will demonstrate bowl and platter enhancements.
The focus of the meeting was the waning enthusiasm and shrinking membership and attendance of late. Our discussion centered on what we could do to get more of our current membership to reengage and to attract new members. Several suggestions were made that members will follow up on.
Using the lathes in the woodshop during meetings. Aside from a single lathe for demos, the club is only allowed to use the lathes for our annual “Toys For Tots” event. Jim will contact the Peters Valley director, Kristin Muller to see if that permission can be extended. (As of this writing Jim has met with Kristin and found that at some point “the club’s unlimited access to the tools during their meetings, became problematical, and issues developed which resulted in the withdrawal of permission to use the tools on an open ended basis”).
Improve visibility as an AAW chapter. Several members noted that the old, circa 2011 blog site link was still listed for our chapter on the AAW website. Steve Ackman volunteered to look into having the link replaced with our current. (As of this writing, Steve was successful in this effort).
Improve local awareness of the club and our association with Peters Valley. Several suggestions in this area included:
Improving the signage next to the club’s merchandise in the Peters Valley store to provide information about the club — including email and website links — to potentially attract new members.
Creating a sign, poster or flyer to hang in the PV woodshop that alerts workshop students to our existence, association to Peters Valley — and it’s instructors — and encourage new members. The sigh would include our email and website links.
Further strengthening our association with Peters Valley including our possibly advertising the club through participating in the annual PV sponsored craft fair. (Kristin Muller offered Jim the opportunity for us to have a table at the event where we could display some of the membership’s turnings, provide info about the club and sign up new members. There would also be a lathe available for a [skilled and quick] club member to do demonstrations. Mike has contacted the PV fair organizer to see what could be pulled together in the week+ before the fair and Jim has put out a call for volunteers to “man the table”. Kristin also offered to let us “piggy back” on PV’s social media sites to advertise the club and activities. Mike spoke with Emily Haag at PV who enthusiastically agreed to include our email and website links. Emily also offered to advertise upcoming meetings on the site. We’ll try to advertise the next few meetings at PV but will need to think about public announcements when we switch to member’s homes during the winter).
Better highlight our association with Peters Valley in our website. (Mike is working this).
Water Gap Woodturners 