Joseph of the many hats, or better known as Joe O’Neill was our guest demonstrator for our Christmas meeting and what a rapid-fire demo it was. (This year’s hat was green and I think it was a leprechaun hat with an advert for a well-known German store.) At the start, he announced he was going to show us ten simple, but mostly useful pieces, beginning with a spinning top a dibber, a lidded box, bottle stopper and a few more, no cuddly toy I’m afraid. I have to admire the speed at which he worked and his patter, interspersed with jokes keeping us entertained. He also made a case for using steb centres as opposed to two or four pronged centres maintaining they were safer with a better grip when working between centres. As it was our Christmas meet we stopped for a longish break, Tom Gibson laying on the tea and coffee, cocktail sausages, mince pies, etc, this was followed by a raffle with some great prizes. All this meant Joe had to put the boot down in the second half and fair play he achieved his target with a little bit of overtime, thank you, Joe you never disappoint.
The other matter delt with during the break was the presentation of the trophy to the woodturner of the year and this year the prize went to Tom Gibson, congratulations Tom you set the bar high for us.
The subject for the December competition was a Christmas theme and the runaway winner was a piece by Jim Hynes, a Christmas carousel. This was made up of a base with a tealight holder on each corner, two pillars topped with an arch and above this a set of rotary blades (as in a helicopter) a turned shaft dropped from this to support a second smaller circular base on which were a Christmas tree a Santa Claus and some other figures. When the tealights on each corner were lit the rising heat rotated the blades which turned the carousel, a very clever idea but it was workmanship that took the prize, well done Jim. When I looked at the photos I had taken I realised I hadn’t done it justice, I will try and correct this if I can.
I will finish by wishing us all a happy and peaceful Christmas and look forward to seeing you all in the new year.
Pat Gannon