Report on our OPEN DAY held on the 10th August 2024.
We arranged an OPEN DAY on the 10th August 2024 to be held in the main arena of the Munlochy Village hall. The purpose of the OPEN DAY was to try to raise enough money to help purchase a Defibrillator for our club in the Hall’s basement where we meet.
We had asked all our members to make items that could be sold at the OPEN DAY, we had a very good response from our members with a wide range of items being donated. We also arranged for 2 lathes to be in operation during the day demonstrating the art of woodturning, this was meant to encourage new members to join our club, and it proved to be very effective in doing so with quite a few asking to join our club.
In order to get as many people to attend the OPEN DAY we had a few other attractions for the people to see. The local school had a Model Railway exhibit and the Inverness Model Railway Club also set up a most impressive Model Railway with lights and sound effects. There were 10 craft tables selling their wares along with the Black Isle Men’s Shed. A competition was arranged by John Ruickbie to guess the number of pieces he needed to make a polychromatic wooden bowl, which also proved to be very interesting, a guess at the number of pieces cost £1 and the person with the correct or nearest answer was to win the bowl.
Our own club put on a display of turned items that were not for sale but as promotion to encourage those interested in woodturning to take up the craft. We also had 2 tables of items that were donated for sale and that proved to be very lucrative indeed with lots of sales.
Tea Coffee and biscuits were on sale handled by Susan Drew and 2 of the members wives.
Here are a few pictures taken at the OPEN DAY.
Some views from inside the Hall including the stall holders who were there, near the far wall was the Local School model railway exhibit, the Black Isle Men’s Shed and the Inverness model railway.
Here are some of the items that were made and donated by our members, as you will see there is a very wide range of items that can be made on a lathe.
Some more of the items donated by our members for sale, on reflection by the end of the day we had probably sold half the stock that was donated, a very good response.
These were the 2 lathes used for the demonstrations, here are 2 of the 12 turners we had working the lathes, each pair did 1 hour of turning during the whole day from 10am to 4pm.
Here is the Inverness Model Railway exhibition, it had all the trains fully operational some with sound effects, the buildings too had lighting, a most impressive set up, it certainly took a trick with lots of viewers.
In this picture we have Lisa Stewart and Errol Levings with the Competition Bowl, they had both guessed the same number of pieces that the bowl was made from, they had also agreed on how it was to be handled if they won, as it happened they did guess the nearest number of 658 which was 18 short of the actual number of 676, there was another quite close guess of 695 which was over by 19. This picture was supplied by Geoff Potter.
It appeared that all of the stall holders were content with their day as were we, our takings for the day came to just short of £700 raised from our sales table, the Competition and the Tea’s and Coffee, there were several cash donations also included in this figure and for these we are truly grateful. This is almost half the cost of a Defibrillator and we thank all those who supported our cause or took part in any way to make the day a great success.
THANK YOU ALL from HWC.