Our meeting on Thursday 3rd October 2024 was the last of our Shield Competitions for this year, it was organized by Nick Simpson and Rocking Bowls was the theme for this Competition. The Novice and Intermediate groups were required to make just one Rocking Bowl, the Open group had to make a matching pair of Rocking Bowls.
In addition to the Competition Dave Line had the task of manning all the lathes, this he did very well having all the lathes working, each turner was working on their own project, all were making bowls of one description or another.
I will start with the Competition. The number of entries was a little better than had been in recent Competitions and that was very pleasing to see, there were 2 entries in the Novice group, 5 entries in the intermediate group and 3 entries in the Open group. This was a good improvement but we would still like to see more exhibits.
These were the entries in the Novice group. For beginners to woodturning these were very well made, so well done to both entrants.
These were the entries in the Intermediate group, another group of high quality entries that would make the judging difficult, some of these would be moving up to the Open group very soon such was the standard of their work.
These were the entries in the Open group, again difficult to judge, getting matching pair’s was the challenge here. We would have liked to see more entries from this group as they far outweigh the numbers in the other 2 groups.
Now for the winning Bowls in each group.
These were the winning and placed Rocking Bowls in each group, you will notice that in the Intermediate group there are two 3rd placed bowls. one from Susan Drew and one from Geoff Potter, the judges could not separate them so they were both awarded 3rd places.
Here we have Nick Simpson our competitions organizes informing and showing the meeting the winning items and who the winners were. All the winners were given a well deserved round of applause, and thanks were given to the judges and those involved in the competition.
Now for some pictures and information about the other part of this meeting, the turners that Dave Line had working during the judging.
All the turners chose to make bowls of varying descriptions.
Here we have Dave Line on lathe 1, he organized the rest of the turners. He made a Natural Edged Bowl from a piece of Beech.
On lathe 2 was Barry Cumming, he also made a bowl, Barry’s bowl was made from a piece of Spalted Beech.
On Lathe 3 was Keith Hodgson, he arrived with a large piece of Elm to make a plate that would also house a glass dome, however the thread on his face plate was not compatible with our lathes so he had to quickly change the face plate to a face plate ring supplied by the club, this all took it’s toll on the time and he ended up working on one side only of his Elm blank.
On Lathe 4 was Geoff Potter, he arrived with a “Y” piece of Laburnum wood to make a Natural Edged Bowl, although not very appealing to start with, the final result was simply stunning.
On Lathe 5 was Alan Geddes, Alan was also making a bowl made from a piece of Ash wood, he worked the bowl leaving a small area of bark on the outer rim to give it a semi Natural Edged Look, Ash is one of the timbers that the bark or parts of the bark can stay on, it has the ability to remain after treatment.
In the top picture we have Chris Lycett with a bowl that went wrong, Chris worked most of this bowl in one day leaving it overnight to be finished the next day, when he saw it the next day it had split into several pieces. What went wrong I hear you ask, well the wood was still very wet and he didn’t finish it in one go so the inevitable happened it tore itself apart, had he finished it completely and made it very thin he may have got away with it. Bottom picture shows some examples of items brought in to our show table by the members.
That concluded the evenings proceedings and we were very pleased with the attendance for this meeting in addition to the increase in the Competition entries.
Our next meeting is on the 17th October 2024 and it’s a very important meeting this is an EGM (Extra General Meeting) to discuss and vote on our club changing to a Charity. We want to see the biggest ever turn out for this meeting, it’s important so do please be there, it starts a little later at 7pm and will last as long as it takes. There will be the usual raffle including the Christmas Raffle, tea & coffee available for a donation of 50p and you will all get a seat.