News about the club, its members and events.
The 2022 Jacaranda Festival Woodwork Display is on again.
The Competition Section is open to all woodworkers. Members of other woodworking clubs are especially welcome. Categories include Furniture, Turned Articles, Small articles, Free Expression and more.
The entry form can be downloaded here or at the link below.
If you are in town and running errands instead of getting out to the shed, drop into your newsagents and get the latest issue of Australian Woodworker magazine. The magazine features an article by CVWA member and Jacaranda festival stalwart Bob Aitken on his adventures in making clocks with poured resin decorations.
Congratulations to Bob!
Coldstream Gallery in Ulmarra have announced that they have reopened to visitors – although with reduced hours. Meanwhile, check the video that Coldstream Gallery posted earlier this month…
While we are here, check out Coldstream Gallery’s new website, with some of our members work in their on-line store – click here.
Meanwhile, Ferry Park Gallery at Maclean has also reopened for business. Ferry Park is open from 9:00am to 3:00pm daily. Although business is quiet, partly due to the Covid, but also the dislocation of the new highway, but numbers are reasonable and should pick up once travel to Queensland resumes.
Bellingen Woodcraft Gallery is also set to reopen soon. The new owner, Ian Horncastle is set to reopen on July 1 – more on the Woodcraft Gallery later….
Our hard working Secretary, Lyn Roberts, got a phone call – did the CVWA want some timber?
Turns out that Valley Tree Services had been engaged to remove a large Jacaranda from the Grafton High School. Adam, from Valley Tree Services, called Lyn and asked if we would like some timber…
So Saturday morning, a team of members turned up with trailers in tow.
Adam helped load the trailers, and the timber was taken to the Ulmarra Shed, where there was a definite struggle to unload the trailers. Then back to Grafton for another load. In all, two trips were made – and Adam was kind enough to drop off a truck load of more billets of Jacaranda on his way home to Coffs Harbour.
The tired but satisfied club members rewarded themselves with a good cup of tea and biscuits before they headed home.
Many thanks to Adam from Valley Tree Services of Coffs Harbour.
And how did he find us? He found our website!
Thanks to Lyn Roberts for the story, and Rob Chesworth for the photos! And thanks to the club members who helped out.
Each time I edited a page as I put this website together, the WordPress editor would ask me if I wanted to ‘launch’ the website. This begs the question – just how do you ‘launch’ a website -brand new, freshly constructed, and still a bit rough around the edges. I mean, pressing a button on the screen lacks a little something.
Should we have have some sort of ceremony, like launching a ship? Perhaps a bottle of inexpensive champagne, and one of the ladies swinging a mallet to smash the bottle over the computer? Or perhaps like launching a rocket, with a countdown followed by lots of smoke and noise, or perhaps just a big bang?
Anyhow – it has been a long while coming, and for better or worse, it is here. Enjoy, and check in regularly. When the corona virus fades, we will begin to resume normal club activities. The shed will open, sawdust will be made, and wonderful new works come out into the sun. We will have meetings, slabbing days and morning coffee gatherings. There will be plans to make, projects to kick off, stories to tell, and perhaps a small fib or two.
At this stage, the Jacaranda show is still scheduled. After all of the uninterrupted workshop time, we look forward to a bumper crop of new pieces for display or sale.
Until we get back to normal, we will still communicate on the interweb – either this website or our Facebook page (Clarence Valley Woodies). Check it out, and show us your latest work. We would love to put your photos on this website.
Stay calm, stay safe and make sawdust!
PS – Bob Chesworth’s strip plank kayak pictured above has already been launched, possibly with champagne!
Clarence Valley Woodworkers Association 