Rochester Woodcarvers

Rochester, MN
Rochester Woodcarvers
February 2007 - March 2007 Newsletter
Meetings: 9am - 11am on the 3rd Saturday of each month (Sept - May)
Redeemer Lutheran Church, 9th Street and 7th Avenue SE, Rochester, MN

Our next meeting is April 21st:
A good presentation is on the docket. Please mark your calendars and be there! Here's what's in store:
Six Steps to a Perfect Finish
by Mitchell Kohanek

Mitch has been an instructor for the Wood Finishing Technology Program at Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount, Minnesota since 1978. His graduates become the best professional finishers, furniture restorers, spot repair artists and pre-finishers this country has to offer. His program is the only certified finishing program in the US, and has been featured in Fine Woodworking and Better Homes and Gardens Wood magazine.

Our President Notes:
Thanks to YOUR help, our 31st woodcarving show was very successful. It was really fun seeing a filled 4-H building with tables of carvings & people. The weather cooperated pretty well (the fog was thick for part of Saturday morning though), so that helped generate a great turnout of show visitors. We received a very generous number of carvings donated for the raffle. Our featured carver, Laverne Schettl, graciously welcomed the crowd to the show.

I will mention a few club members that really helped getting this show to go so well this year. Tom Severson again did an excellent job for the last several months getting the show information to carving magazines, media sources, & many publications to spread the word to folks from a large area. We look forward to seeing Tom's raffle & Peoples Choice carving "glamour shots" photos on the club website in the near future and hopefully in Chip Chats once again.

Bev Stupca kept busy counting the ballots of the wonderful entries for the Peoples Choice table. Randy Kinnick even had a waiting list of people interested in having a display table after our club members had been signed up but the show was full. It always seemed there were many club members willing to help at setting up & clean up time plus helping at the raffle and blank sales tables. Thanks to Lyle Bacon for making the cabinet to hold the wood blanks & instruction sheets. Thanks to all of you that had a table display & for talking and explaining about carving to our visitors to make it interesting for them so they could enjoy the show better.

One couldn't go wrong with all the food choices in the kitchen at the potluck that you brought. The show finished in the black financially once again because of the ticket sales for the record number of donated raffle items. I mentioned to many show visitors to check out the raffle table as these ticket sales pays for our show expense, plus they could have a chance to take home a very nice carving with much better odds than the state lottery.

Our 32nd RWC carving show has been set for March 29 & 30th, 2008, at the 4-H building so carvers & other clubs can make plans to avoid conflicts with other future shows so keep that date in mind.

We have members willing to serve as the new president & secretary plus current board members who will continue for the next club year, but a couple more board members are needed. The Festival of Trees committee, chaired by Laurie Reed, has started working on the 2007 Festival, so we will be hearing about some of these plans at our April meeting.
See you on April 21st.

Wayne

ShowAndTell: Bring some pieces to show off. It's one of the highlights of our meeting, and the more we have the merrier! ?Finished, unfinished, completed, incomplete, sculpture, whittlings, ideas, patterns. Show us what you're doing.

Show-N-Tell contributors for the past 2 meetings:
February:
  • Robert Ricks Shoe horn, Palm pounders, Letter openers
  • Bob Nowicki "Story Book Santa"
  • Steve Kuehn "Babe the Blue Ox," pine wood derby car
  • Kathy Ward Snowman, Hearts, Pumpkins, Harley emblem
March:
  • Nancy Borson Daisies in cedar
  • Wayne Henderson Santa fishing for presents, Christmas ornaments, wood burnings of historical sites
  • Tom Severson Pair of Viking ship ornaments
  • Ken Brown Cowboy bust
  • Sharon Roble Two bark house carvings
  • Jim Walts 7 items, including a plane, an eagle, and other animals
  • Don Buske Photograph of a hand-carved quilt
  • Steve Murray St. Patty's Day pin carved from a golf ball
  • Howie Wilson Hooded merganser drake decoy.
  • Louise Forbes Walnut icicle, icicle necklace, set of earrings
  • Chris Christianson Chip-carved box containing two decks of cards
  • Mike Snyder Foot switch (Mike is willing to help others make one.)