A lot of things have happened in the past 8 months. We went from meeting at the school to meeting online. We now have 3 meetings every month instead of 2 since we teamed up with West Bay. Most of you know the format of our online meetings. For those of you who are not aware, here is what we do. We meet on the first Wednesday of the month as usual. Then we meet on the second Monday of the month, since that is the day West Bay meets normally. Then we have the 3rd Wednesday Sawdust sessions.

We have the president’s challenge and show-n-tell during one meeting and a demo during the other meeting. Our board has decided to set aside more money for professional demos for the coming year. Each professional turner brings in so much knowledge and new techniques that they share.  So, if you are not attending our regular meetings online you are missing out a lot. Every month we alternate which day we have the demo. If one month we have it on the first Wednesday, then the next month we have it during the second Monday meeting. Our hosts for the regular meetings are Greg Peck and Bob Bley, and Mike Lanahan for the Sawdust sessions.

During our regular November meeting we had our election for the office bearers for 2021. It is quite surprising that all the incumbents were elected to serve another term and the voting was unanimous. So, whether you like it or not, you are stuck with the following people for one more year.

• Ray Hari – President

• Don Bonnett – Vice President

• Jim Loney – Treasurer

• Greg Peck – Secretary

• Mike Lanahan – Member at Large (this is an appointed position rather than an elected position)

Greg Peck will be our membership chair (as per bylaws).

We have also made some changes to our bylaws and it has been sent out to our members for consideration. During our December meeting, we will have the members vote on approving (or not) of the proposed changes.

We will announce a new set of President’s Challenges for 2021 during our December meeting. If you have ideas about what you would like to see in the list, please send me an email. So far, I have received no recommendations. I will have to recycle old ideas (from 2004 to 2020) if I do not hear from anyone. For those of you who participated in the president’s challenges this year, please look at the ironman status in our latest (October) newsletter. If you see any discrepancies, please let Mark Koenig know. You have a couple of months to do makeups of the ones you missed. We will have our Ironman award ceremony in February as usual.

In lieu of our holiday banquet we decided to have a secret Santa gift exchange. The gifts must be either from (made in) your shop or for the shop of the recipient. We have setup a database file in our svw.groups.io where you can enter your name to participate. Please contact me if you have any questions regarding the same.

Our December demo is gong to be from our own Don Bonnett. Please do not miss his demo. He will be demonstrating techniques he uses to make his elegant thin stemmed goblets.

Wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.

~ Hari ~