Greetings Members,
Some random observations and thoughts. These are my thoughts only and I take responsibility for these statements.
Good meeting Saturday. Good fellowship, coffee, donuts and beautiful turnings to view.
A relatively small number of members were in attendance of the 48+ club members, which has been the norm lately. We know things get in the way!
Tim Kakuska, our club’s insurance agent clarified the CLUB’s insurance program which is detailed through the Insurance menu link on the website. Thank you, Tim.
Note- You must be signed in to view this web insurance information. If you are turning at an event, you must follow the insurance guidelines- should you be injured and request compensation. See the key document, Insurance-brief Instructions, which provides the key information.
John Griffiths led the charge to conduct a brief website tour, covering the key points. The tour prompted many good questions from the attendees. 1 point to expand on for those not in attendance regarding Forums follows next.
If you are not getting Forums information through email, it may be because your Profile is not properly configured. You may have chosen not to receive correspondence from the Forums server. You can always log into the web site and read forum discussions and reply as desired.
Want to receive Forum emails? To configure your Forum settings, Log into the website, hoover your mouse or pointing device over your name, upper right corner of screen, Click on Profile which brings up lots of information. Scroll down to Forums General Preferences. Scroll down the left side of the screen to Email Address.
Ensure your email address is correctly displayed. If not, you can type in a different address.
If you want to allow forum members to be able to send replies directly to yourself (me), via email, Allow Private Replies, Check that box. I’m not sure what the default is.
Scroll down to Message Delivery. Ensure the Send Forum Messages To Me Via Email is checked. If not, you will not receive forum messages.
Scroll down to Email Format.
Select - rich text formatting in the body of the email is probably best.
If you want to add a picture to be automatically sent with each forum message you send, follow the directions as provided under Show Picture.
Thank you, John for a nicely conducted tour.
QR posters were handed out to those interested in posting these around the Coulee Region.
Note, the QR code, when scanned by any mobile device takes the user to the CRW Home page. Suggested places to hang the poster would be libraries, coffee shops, public bulletin boards, some Kwik Trips, other public places, etc.
The challenge table was well supplied with creative letter openers; the winner was John Fuchsel. Congrats John.
The show in tell table had wonderful items brought in by members. It’s always a feast for a woodturner’s eyes. Meeting photos are now on the website, thank you Aaron G and John G.
Several items were collected for the Gundersen Display in June, including 2 wig stands. I believe Bob P would like to have 3 wig stands which will be part of the wig stand portion of the display to showcase the club’s community engagement project.
As such, consider an additional challenge for May to include “wig stand”. The meeting attendees will vote on the best stand presented to be part of the display.
Please see Bob Patros’s message in the Forum, General Questions for additional information. CRW turning display planned for June.
The Event’s page on the website has been populated with additional information about the upcoming presentation and presenter for April. The turning challenge is Flower/Flowers.
The AAW’s Beyond the Bevel web link is updated weekly. Note, even nonmember AAW folks can access much of the information. A rich resource is the wonderful photo albums submitted by turners worldwide. Also, access to the AAW public forums. These forum messages are read only unless you are an AAW member. Lots of answers to many questions are presented.
The AAW will have virtual sessions at the June symposium. If you are interested, check the AAW website.
The tool check out process is in effect. Look at the tool list. See something you’d like to try? Check it out!
I find the next segment difficult to write. But here it goes.
My impression. I believe Aaron expressed some frustration regarding member participation in club functions. Aaron is multitasking/carrying out several roles: president, newsletter editor, program director, meeting coordinator- getting stuff ready for each meeting. There are probably a multitude of reasons for this arrangement. But it seems to me that is a lot to ask of one individual!
Possibly a few folks are placeholders as no one else is willing to take up the slack.
Clubs, indeed, any successful organization requires a strong and committed leadership group. And folks to be wagon Pullers as well as wagon Riders. One Budweiser magnificent Clydesdale cannot pull that beautiful wagon, takes the team, right? Even Rudolph the Red Nose guy can’t do it alone, he needs the team too.
CRW is lacking in wagon Pullers! Please consider stepping out to Pull!
I share a similar frustration as Aaron in a sense.
Please recall, at the November 2025 meeting that those in attendance approved the expenditure to start a club website for the benefit of the membership and others who may be interested in the Club and woodturning. 3 volunteers have offered to take this project on. A lot of time and energy has been expended to develop and maintain the website. The site has been live since early December and has reached some level of maturity, although still a work in progress. An analysis of website usage was conducted through website management software late last week. The data shows only about 1/2 of the membership have even logged in at least 1 time. The question is why?
- Boring site?
- Crappy layout?
- Not addressing member needs?
- Not enough information?
- Too much information?
- Don’t do web stuff?
- Prefer f/FB over websites?
- Prefer blogs?
- Prefer Twitch?
- Prefer X/Twitter?
- Prefer Instagram?
- Too busy to do electronic media, communication?
- Don’t do any electronic media?
- Other?
Based on the analysis it seems questionable to me if the CRW website is worth the cost in dollars and time to maintain, since so few folks have taken advantage of the resource. That said, the site should continue to be maintained for at least 1 more month, at which time we will re-evaluate the benefit vS the cost. If there is little value to the membership, is this effort really worth the time and money involved??
If folks simply wish to correspond with one another or sell stuff with little or no cost, there are other possibilities. FB, or a simple mail server such as Google Groups or Yahoo Groups and others can probably do the job. All these have lots of advertisements to augment cost but may be worth the inconvenience to save costs. Not sure if Newsletter’s can be shared through these technologies, however.
Not all clubs have newsletters or even web sites and are not required by the AAW to maintain affiliate status.
Other turning club’s websites for your perusal.
Badger Woodturners
Atlantic Shore Woodturners
Minnesota Woodturners Association
Space Coast Woodturners
Milwaukee Area Woodturners
Des Moines Woodturners
Quad Cities Woodturners
Mid Minnesota Association of Woodturners
AAW Home Page
Ames Area Wood Turners
Thank you for your time in reading this. Bob Raasch
Bob Raasch