Tips for starting a woodworking group - any suggestions?

I belong to the Niagara Woodworking Club in Ontario Canada our club is in its 3rd year. Please check out our website which I run at: http://www.niagarawoodworking.blogspot.com Let me know if you have any questions or concerns or ideas for that matter.

-- Kevin -- (http://www.furniturebykevin.com)

Kevin,

That link didn’t work, do you have another one?

Jamie

-- Jamie in Vegas

Sorry Jamie try this again: http://www.niagarawoodworkingclub.blogspot.com .... “I forgot the word club”

-- Kevin -- (http://www.furniturebykevin.com)

Thanks for the corrected link. That group looks like a lot of fun. I especially like the member’s websites, and the videos. Nice touch!

My meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night, and I’m starting to get quite a few people calling or writing to me about it. Seems like this town is hungry for a woodworking community.

Thanks again,
Jamie

-- Jamie in Vegas

do a carving course

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

sorry…..........get a guest speaker to donate a bit of time by offering a carving demonstration

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

A carving class is a great idea, too. I just had someone contact me about giving a hand plane demo. Seems like the excitement is building here.

-- Jamie in Vegas

Glad to hear things are going well for the start up. Let us know how it goes. It is probably harder to keep people excited over the long run than the first few meetings. I think that will be the challenge.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

congrats on starting the group. How did our first meeting go?

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

The attendance at our first meeting went surprisingly well. I expected maybe a dozen, and about 30 attended. There was a ton of enthusiasm, and I’ve already scheduled out second meeting. I now have a (growing) list of about 40 people.

The site for the first meeting was our local library, and that sort of turned into a disaster. We ran late, and apparently that’s “against the law” at the library! So I asked a local lumberyard to host our next meeting and they agreed! I have a couple of interesting things planned for that second meeting, including a router demo, a vote for our group name, and a tour of the lumberyard.

One thing that I think is going to be important is to raise a little cash, so that we can pay for the groups expenses. I’ve signed us up as a Meetup group. Google “Meetup” if you’re not familiar with it, it’s pretty interesting. And it costs a little bit to belong to Meetup, but I think it’s a great way to get members and to keep in touch with them. I’m also thinking of having some refreshments at the next meeting, so maybe I’ll just throw out a donation cup. In the future, I may add a raffle for each meeting, like another group in town has for raising cash.

I blogged about everything here: http://wooditis.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-era-of-woodworking-in-las-vegas.html

-- Jamie in Vegas

excellent.. a great success! Well done

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)