President’s Turn 26-01: Happy 2026
NMWT members,
Another new year is upon us, and I think we have a lot to look forward to in the coming year. Hopefully, the coming year allows us to settle into new routines that allow us to take advantage of the changes that we implemented in 2025. Of course, we are likely to continue to make improvements and to flesh out and fine tune the new website and turning event schedule. But I think we have taken care of the “big stuff”, at least for the immediate future. Anyone interested in helping with any of the programs we have in place should contact me or another board member. We have a lot of things that I need to hand over to other people (at least in part).
The first turning event at JCH was well attended with 17 members participating in one way or another. We had a minor delay in getting into the building, but when we did, we found that the staff at JCH had unloaded the lathes from the trailer for us, which was a huge surprise and more than offset the delay in gaining access. A HUGE thank you to Mike and his group at JCH, including Chuck, Tom McLarty’s son in law and the VP at JCH who came in from Virginia!!!
The January meeting will mark the return to “normal” meeting structure. The instant gallery will be back, as will the raffle. And, we will have another demonstration by Scott Kershaw, this time on basic turning skills. We also hope to have a turning event or “class” to allow practice of the techniques demonstrated by Scott, but the date has not yet been set. I will send out an email as soon as the date is finalized. For those new turners who need a bit of help or direction, please send your request for your most pressing need (e.g., I need help maintaining bevel contact when using a bowl gouge on the interior of a bowl) to Scott, Alex, and Me (email addresses are available on the new website).
A meeting of the executive committee will be held in January, but the date is not yet set. This meeting is a long-term planning meeting at which we will also set the 2026 budget. Anyone who would like to offer suggestions are free to attend, but you will need to let Alex know that you want to participate so she can include you in setting the date/time/location of the meeting. You can also send your suggestions in leu of attending to me or just give me a call so I can be certain I understand your suggestion/concert/proposal. My phone number is 505 350-8584.
Please check out the new club website: NMWoodturners.com (yes, that is COM). The old website is still the “active” one, NMWoodturners.org, but we will be transferring that domain to the new site vers soon. We ask for your help in pointing out what needs attention. Look for uniformity and uncompleted content specifically. The “store” is still in test mode, so nothing is actually billed. If you want to test that out, you can use credit card number 4242 4242 4242 4242 and any future date for the expiry and CSV.
And last but not least, we also need to welcome a new treasurer, Bert Tate, and extend our sincerest gratitude to Woody Stone, who served the club as treasurer for the last four years. We may not see a lot of Woody for the next couple of months as he will be taking advantage of his newly found freedom to do some traveling. Thank you, Woody!!!
Sorry for the length of this month’s entry and hopefully I will see you on January 3rd.
Mark
