Meeting Minutes
September 1, 2021
Attendees: 50 members and guests
President’s welcome: Denis Casaubon welcomed members and guests to our monthly meeting and our demonstration by Jim Silva.
Safety tip of the month: Denis shared this tip on band saw safety: Alan Stratton had a bandsaw accident not related to cutting wood. He has a JET bandsaw and there seems to be a safety flaw near the shut off switch. He says that there is a part of the blade that is exposed that caused 3 stitches in his finger while he was shutting the saw off. I'd like to caution our members with a JET saw to be cautious regarding the exposed blade. Also, we should all be cautious when using, not only band saws but, all power equipment. Check out his As Wood Turns website for details.
October meeting and club picnic update: Denis provided the following update from the BOD. Following an update provided by the COVID sub-committee, which included results of the member survey, the Cape Cod Woodturners Club Board of Directors voted unanimously to postpone large in-person Club meetings and functions through the end of this year. The monthly Club meetings will continue being conducted virtually for the remaining three months. While we are all looking forward to socializing together in-person, Boards members felt that given current concerns regarding increases in COVID numbers, unknowns regarding new emerging variants of the disease, uncertainty about the efficacy of the vaccine, and the potential of putting members and their loved ones at risk, simply out weighted our desire to return to large in-person meetings. While the September Club picnic will not be held this year, planning is in progress to offer in-person fall and winter small group wood swaps & supply sales, sawdust sessions, instructional sessions, and mentoring. The October and November monthly meetings will be conducted virtually and an interactive remote demonstration is being explored for December. The COVID sub-committee will continue to gather and review COVID related data monthly and will share their findings with the Board and members. We thank the sub-committee members – Steve Abbott, Dave Arnone, Denis Casaubon, Debbie Chapin, and Robin McIntyre for their continued diligence in keeping us all up to date regarding COVID developments and data. I thank the membership for your continued support and participation, and wish all good health as we move forward. Information from
Dave: • He is placing an order from Woodturners Wonders by the end of the week. If you want any of their products, let him know. • The club has a connection for PowerCaps from Peke. See Dave’s recent email. Although the price has increased, the shipping cost is now less. Let him know if you need any supplies by next Friday. Their CEO, Peter Cooper, will be doing a virtual sawdust session on 9/14 on respiratory and eye protection. He offered this presentation at the AAW 2021 Virtual Symposium and it was helpful and well received. • In follow-up to the email from Dave regarding Record Power chucks and jaws that were on sale in Hyannis, a club member bought the entire table and donated the jaws to the club. Dave will work with Clarke and likely they will be for sale at the wood swap. • Dave will be sending out an email about upcoming fall sawdust sessions.
Update on website statistics: Since going live with our new website, we have had 239 hits from 146 unique individuals. 151 are directly from our web address, 66 from Google, 6 from AAW. 22 hits from other countries including Canada, Netherlands, China, Australia, UK and Vietnam. The remainder of hits were from 24 states including Alaska and Hawaii.
Program Coordinator: Robin McIntyre shared information and upcoming events: • Sue Beardsley has a one woman show, multimedia gallery exhibit in the Siegal Gallery at the Falmouth Art Center, September 1-30. See the newsletter for more details. • At the end of April, the program committee sent out satisfaction surveys to members about the programs that were offered from Jan-April and 41 returned surveys were received, results were published in the June newsletter, and a list of 11 action items were generated. We want to be clear that the responses are a total club effort, not just programs offered— everyone knows about the terrific programs offered by mentoring and sawdust sessions this past summer. Of the 11 action items, 6 have been acted on, 2 partially acted on, and 3 are still in process. • A follow-up survey on the programs from May to the end of September will be sent out at the end of September. Please help the club by making your specific insights, interests, and needs heard. • September 15 Coffee Hour, 9 am, Club Challenge Beautiful, Utilitarian Kitchen Turnings Powerpoint Show and Tell. Send your photos to robinmcintyre@comcast.net. We need suggestions for a topic that we can plan ahead of time. • October 6, Monthly Meeting, Scraper, skew, and gouge techniques on a lighthouse by Don Chase, Richard Wright, and Mike Grady. Don will also be doing our safety segment on fire extinguisher safety.
Featured Demonstration: Robin McIntyre introduced Jim Silva who presented on Good Form. The recording will be available to members and guests after the meeting. Dave will send out the Zoom link.
Technical Support: Thank you Sandy and Dave Arnone and Mike Grady for your behind-the-scenes technical support for our Zoom meeting. Next Meeting via Zoom Video Conference on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.
Robin McIntyre
Interim Secretary, Cape Cod Woodturner