26 May 2008 - The Draft Programme for the Symposium has been made available for download. See the 'Symposium' page.
26 March 2008 - You can read news of the Kirstenbosch Turnfest at http://dennislaidler.blogspot.com/2008/03/awsa-wcwa-turnfest-2008-day-1.html - we had great fun
21 March 2008 - Anyone who is able to turn 250 mugs in wood similar to the ones in the picture below please contact Joanne Stark at 074 587 4111 or bluelemonjoanne@gmail.com
5 March 2008 - A page has been added with info about the Easter weekend Turnfest at Kirstenbosch National Botanic Garden, Cape Town.
5 March 2008 - The March 2008 editions of 'Crosscut' and 'Tamboeti' has been uploaded. Please visit the 'Clubs' menu item to download your copies.
17 February 2008 - The February 2008 edition of 'Turnaround' has been uploaded. Please visit the 'Clubs' menu item to download your copy.
10 February 2008 - An 'Events' page has been added to the website. Click on the new 'Events' menu item in the left hand sidebar of this page. Details of the AWSA/WCWA Exhibition at Kirstenbosch over the 2008 Easter weekend have been added to the 'Events' page.
See also the 'Collaborative Challenge' section of the 'Symposium' page for detailed info about this new element of the 2008 AWSA symposium and get turning on your regional collaborative entry.
Membership drive: The committee recently discussed the benefits of holding a membership drive to increase the number of woodturners who are members of the AWSA. For example, increasing our membership will place us in a position to bring to South Africa more than a single overseas guest turner per year. We have decided to reward members who enroll five new AWSA members during any AWSA financial year (1 October to 30 September) with free membership for the financial year following the enrollments. So with this in mind all of our AWSA members are encouraged to motivate, cajole, twist arm or if necessary even bribe fellow Woodturners to join the AWSA as soon as possible. You could earn yourself a free membership for next year!
Craft market bowl competition: In the September 2007 edition of Turnaround a competition that involved taking one of the ‘locally’ turned wooden bowls commonly sold in SA at craft markets and curio shops was mooted. It was suggested that participants buy, re-turn and decorate it in their own individual style. After discussion during one of our telephone conferences with the regional reps it has been decided not to pursue this competition because of the environmentally unsustainable practices used in creating these bowls.
See a wonderful woodturning video on YouTube 'Seggy's
Dream'
The story of a cute Red Ivory woodturning segment incorporated in one
of Malcolm Tibbetts'
pieces
20 January 2008 - Dennis Laidler has a client who needs pepper grinders turned. If you are interested to supply pepper grinders e-mail Dennis at dennis at lando.co.za for the client's details.
Especially for newsletter editors a link has been added in the right hand sidebar of the 'Clubs' page which gives a 'Tip for newsletter editors on reducing the size of your MS-Word newsletters and converting them to 'pdf' format'. The link is duplicated on the 'Resources' page.
Our next key association event is the AWSA 2008 National Woodturning Symposium
The most recent AWSA news is available in the latest Turnaround newsletter.
All the club newsletters for which Gigi and Dennis have electronic copies, as well as the AWSA newsletter ‘Turnaround’ have been added to this website. So far Crosscut, East London Woodworkers Guild, Lower Albany Woodturners Guild, Natal Midlands Woodworkers Guild, Port Elizabeth Woodworkers Guild, Turnaround, Turnings , WAD News and Tambotie are loaded.
The ‘club’ newsletters are accessible from the relevant hyperlinked newsletter's name on the ‘clubs’ page of the website. The latest 12 or so club newsletters will be individually hyperlinked from each newsletter page. Please also see the ‘NEWSLETTER_NAME ARCHIVE’ section on each newsletter page that gives you access to all of the relevant club newsletters in possession of the AWSA.
In this regard I would like to request that all previous editors of Turnaround and all other club newsletters, collect together electronic copies of their newsletters THAT ARE NOT ALREADY ON THIS AWSA WEBSITE and post them on a CD to me at PO Box 308, Plumstead, 7801. If you only have a couple of newsletters feel free to e-mail them to me at dennis.laidler at lando.co.za. (Perhaps each club could co-ordinate the collection of past newsletters through their current editor to avoid duplication). For all the newsletters that you send to me on CD or by e-mail please use the file naming convention that has been used in the website archive, namely:
‘yyyy_mm NewsletterName.doc/pdf’
(for example 2007_12 WAD News.doc or 2007_12 WAD News.pdf).
This will help me enormously and expedite loading on to the web site.
I would also like to start building the ‘Members’ page.
The intention is to place names, town, suburb and e-mail address (in camouflaged format i.e. dennis.laidler at lando.co.za). We would also like to add links to the websites of those that have their own sites and details of where members market their turnings. To whom this applies please e-mail the details to Gigi Laidler.
I am often approached by prospective clients wanting ‘commercial’ or specialized turning work undertaken. A valuable service that the AWSA website can provide to members is for those who are willing to receive such referrals to be indicated on the member’s page. This way, prospective clients can be referred to the members page for contact details of turners who are willing to take on such work.
Your assistance with building the AWSA website to be a valuable association resource is much appreciated.
Dennis
A wonderful woodturning video on YouTube
'Seggy's
Dream'
The story of a cute Red Ivory woodturning segment incorporated in one
of Malcolm Tibbetts'
pieces