As we head towards the next Jacaranda Festival Exhibition (Saturday 29 October through Sunday 6 November), our members are hard at work. The Jacaranda display and sales is the Clarence Valley Woodworkers Association’s major event of the year. All members are encouraged to participate. Members can display and sell made items or choose to just display only.
Here are some new pieces by Bob Aitken and Roy Ellery
Apologies – this article was written back in April, but someone forgot to press the ‘publish’ button!
The CVWA General Meeting of 30-April, 2022 was followed by a demonstration by President Roy Ellery. Roy brought in the range of tools he uses to carve and texture his turned and sculpted pieces. Roy’s demo generated a lot of interest, with questions from the floor. Some of Roy’s tools have a reverse switch option, apparently, that feature can be used to correct mistakes…
As usual, the meeting featured the traditional Show and Tell section, with numerous items and plenty of discussion.
The meeting concluded with a sausage sizzle and good conversation – thanks to Colin Lang.
The Clarence Valley Woodies website has been upgraded. We now have our very own domain – clarencevalleywoodies.com. This does a few things for us – including the ability to add more features, like videos! Update your links now. (By the way, the old address will also continue to work)
Colin Lang, aided and abetted by Roy Ellery, have produced a couple of videos. One is a video tour of our Ulmarra Shed, the other is a brief description and history of the CVWA by Colin.
The videos have now been incorporated into the CVWA website.
Enjoy!
Bob Aitken has contributed these photos and story regarding the CVWA Jacaranda Festival display.
A major event each year for the Clarence Valley Woodworkers Association is the Jacaranda woodwork display and competition held in conjunction with the Grafton Jacaranda Festival.
The club started Jacaranda Festival woodwork displays in the late 1980’s and, in these early years, may have had only two or three members displaying work. The event has grown steadily since that time and in recent years around 25 to 30 members have participated in the display with over 2000 items listed for display/sale each year. Most participating members display items and offer them for sale. A few members choose to display only. The display is open for nine days incorporating the first week of November.
The competition section has also grown with eight woodwork classes ranging from furniture to toys and puzzles to a novice section thereby catering for all types of woodwork. The competition is open to both CVWA members and the public with a small entry fee for non-members. There are typically over 50 entries for the open competition each year.
The display and the competition sections serve to encourage members to produce high quality woodwork.
There is a separate High School Student’s competition section that has expanded markedly in recent years. This section now receives around 60 to 120 entries from up to 6 high schools in the area. Entries in the open competition are assessed by experienced woodwork identities from outside the club while school student entries are judged by a panel of club members.
Demonstrations of woodwork activities such as carving, turning, scroll saw work, pyrography and texturing are given by members on most days during the display.
During the display woodwork donated by members is raffled and the proceeds donated to local community appeals (eg. Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service).
For many years the display has been held in the upstairs auditorium of the South Grafton Ex-Services Club, Wharf Street, South Grafton. This is a great venue overlooking the Clarence River with dining and refreshment facilities available. Come and visit us during Jacaranda and see a great display with a large variety of woodwork items.
Welcome to the website of the Clarence Valley Woodworkers Association Inc.
This web site has been put together using WordPress and the WordPress Website builder. WordPress offers a free plan, so we can see if it works at no cost to the club. However, the free plan has a hidden cost – you may see some advertisements!
If all goes well, the club may upgrade to a Plan which has some small cost to the club. WordPress offers a number of plans – some suited to small business. These plans offer more features and flexibility, including e-commerce. However, that is some distance down the track!
Finally, the disclaimer… I have no professional expertise in creating websites. I have no formal training, and I’ve only made a couple of websites for private use. While I welcome any constructive advice or criticism, please be gentle with me and forgive my inadequacies.
What to expect for the future?
The one factor that makes some websites and social media sites more successful others is regular and fresh new content. That means regular updates, blog pages, and new content. For that, we will depend on you, the club members… So please send photos, stories, items for sale, news and views. I will try to provide regular updates that incorporate your contributions.
The site will hold copies of Chip Chat and the Bulletin. It will have a calendar of sorts (if I can figure out how it’s done), or at least a list of coming events. There will be a list of workshops available. There will be a list of timber for sale. There will be a place where new members can contact us about joining. These may take a little time, but they can be added once the site goes live to air!
Welcome!
Clarence Valley Woodworkers Association 