So, blink twice and you’ll miss nearly a year of updating your website !
Compounded by broadband and some computer issues we’ve been posting on Facebook and more recently Twitter, whilst gathering followers from around the world including novices and some world class turners.
Things have been moving forward with the Club with new lathes, new members and new opportunities on the horizon. The Clubhouse within the village hall is getting quite cramped but more of that later !
Firstly, we’re now sustaining our formal membership numbers at around 15 and we have more people interested in joining. Every-time someone steps aside from the Club (normally due to work or time constraints) a new member arrives to take their place. So we are maintaining our 0.5% of the entire population of Mull as members !!
We’ve also been been busy turning and selling our wares including at a very rainy and windy Annual Salen Show (Aug’16) and somewhat dryer and more frequent Craignure Producers Markets, when we have also opened up the Clubhouse to demonstrate woodturning to anyone interested. Check out CPM Dates and pop in to say Hello !
Secondly, we are physically growing to the extent we’ve been able to purchase two ‘new to us’ lathes for the Club in the last year. The first is a classic Record Coronet Major with lots of associated bits dating. Dating to around 1974 it came to us from a barn in Dervaig on Mull. The second lathe is a more recent Record Coronet III (the one with the stainless steel bars) and it cam all the way from Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfrieshire !
We now have five full size lathes, including one in need of some TLC to get it working. In true workshop style we have a red, green, blue, ‘the new lathe’ (which is also green); and ‘the wee one’, which is a mini lathe on loan from a member. The one under repair might need a respray to maintain the rainbow colour theme … purple or yellow … but might end up whatever colour of spray can we have at the time !!
Thirdly, we have taken lots and lots of pictures from our Sunday turning sessions and Salen Show, so we’ll add a year in review photo-collection to help everyone catch up with events. We really should try and record ‘the banter’ but one recent panoramic shot is pretty funny in itself !
Fourth, we’ve been invited to demonstrate our turned items at Duart Castle on 24th June, as part of the Clan Maclean Gathering 2017, when 600 MacLeans return ‘home’ to the castle and festivities. So, if you are a Maclean and coming over to Mull for the event, come and say Hello ! We will be back at the Salen Show in August 2017.
Finally, in the next few weeks we will be updating the website (promise) with details of our last AGM, updating our increasing Friends page, and hopefully will be bringing some news on the future of the Clubhouse !
See what I did there, you read the entire update looking for the future Clubhouse info and it’s still under wraps … !
Remember ‘Dinnae Burn It … Turn It !‘
Bye for now from the Isle of Mull !
PS: we are now on Twitter … @IoMWT !
