Our meeting on Thursday 12th December 2024 was our last meeting for 2024, it culminated in also being the last Competition for 2024, a stand alone Competition where anyone can enter anything they had made this year.
This meeting also had the Grand Raffle Draw going on as the Competition was being judged. The prizes were wide ranging in variety and well supported being that there were over 100 individual prizes on offer, the draw was handled with a lot of good humour and very entertaining. Here are some pictures of the prizes taken just before the draw began.
An interesting lot I think you will agree, some were donations from the members whilst Dave Line had the task of purchasing arranging for the rest of the prizes.
Now onto the Christmas Competition, firstly a few pictures of the entries.
The number of entries over all was very good, although we would have been pleased to see a larger amount in the Novice category, it had only 5 entries. The Intermediate category had a very good total of 16 entries and the Open category was also well supported by 15 entries. Looking through the 3 categories a wide range of items were produced.
The judging started, this was done by the whole membership present, they were ushered in 3 at a time to do the judging until everyone had had the opportunity to put their opinion forward. Counting the votes then began, this was carried out by Nick Simpson and 2 very able bodied helpers, the results followed shortly after.
The 3 winning entries in the Novice category. 1st Place was Bob Bull with his lidded box, 2nd and 3rd were both by Tom Todd.
The 3 winning entries in the Intermediate category. 1st and 2nd places were by Marco Baglioni and the 3rd place went to Alan Smith.
The 3 winning entries in the Open category. 1st place with his Nativity scene was Dave Line, 2nd place went to John Ruickbie for his candle holder, and 3rd place went to Daniel Stewart with his Burr Elm bowl.
The winner of the MacGregor Shield was the person who got the most votes from all 3 categories for any entry and that person was Bob Bull from the Novice category. He won the Shield with his lidded box. Bob has just recently started to do woodturning, this result proves that you do not need to be a master woodturner to win.
Here is Bob’s Lidded box taking 1st place in the Novice category and 1st overall to win the MacGregor Shield.
Here Bob can be seen with the Macgregor Shield which he will hold onto for the next 12 months.
In addition to the Christmas Competition the Shields for the yearly competitions of which there are 4 were presented, all were presented by the Competitions organizer Nick Simpson.
That concluded the proceedings for this meeting.
Our next meeting will be on the 9th January 2025, I will be organizing that meeting and I will have all 5 lathes working, all will be doing some sort of Natural Edged items.
You will all be aware the annual subscriptions are due on the 1st January, you should all get an email from Geoff with this notification and how to pay, the fee for next year has not been changed so it’s still £50 for the year.
All that remains is for me on behalf of your committee is to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and we will all meet again on the 9th January 2025.
Have a good one and we will see you all next year.