Meeting Minutes – July 6, 2024

Meeting Location: West Baton Rouge Museum, 845 Jefferson Ave., Port Allen

• Fellowship before meeting 
• Collection of dues (Rick Albrecht) and selling of shirts and caps (Richard Robles)

Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance – Harold Choate

Welcome and Introduction of Guests Visitors Wesley Smith and Will Hinchliffe

Officer Reports:

• Vice-President – George Campagna- The August meeting will be at PMC, Hammond, LA. The St. Tammany club is going to do the skill topic. It will be restoring and sharpening hand planes.
• Secretary – Harold Choate- We had a good turnout in June 25 people attended. A lady and her son saw our post on Facebook and came. We invited them to come back the following Thursday to help put wooden boxes together with the Rural Life Summer Camp youth, but they didn’t come. There were 4 visitors and 21 members that attended. Facebook has been kind of quiet. That’s the Secretary’s report.
• Treasurer – Rick Albrecht- Contact Rick for details.
• Webmaster – Open
• Community Service – Lee Owens- Lee introduced his “cohort” Bob Pace. Bob is a new member who is eager to help with Community Service, thank you Bob. Lee advised we did a quote to IRIS. They are waiting to get money so who know when or if we’ll hear from them. We heard from O’Brien House. They have 2 requests: 10-foot lockers and 10 chests of drawers to start with a total of 40. They want the foot lockers first. After that we will be looking for volunteers to build chest of drawers. Bob Pace went to a meeting with Louisiana Arts & Science Museum. LASM is redoing the old train station for an exhibit of Egyptian artifacts. They are going to have 2 large sarcophaguses and a number of smaller items. For the smaller items they want 20 floating shelves, 12″ x 12″ x 2″ thick. The shelves will be solid wood and will be painted. LASM will mount them to the wall. They don’t care what wood is used since they’re going to paint them. The sarcophaguses are approximately 97″ long x 30″ wide. Our contact doesn’t know how heavy they are. They also want a cartouche. A cartouche is a likeness of the person entombed in the sarcophagus. Ideally, they would like to have several of these so kids could color them. They would like to start installing these items in September. It was agreed the client needs to make some decisions before we can proceed. Someone suggested we buy pre-made chest of drawers and assemble them assuming O’Brien House has the money to buy them. Lee said, “We’ll see”. Robert Cheramie and his wife introduced the club to LASM. Lee passed out a signup sheet out for the O’Brien House projects. He was asked how soon drawings might be available. He replied to the foot lockers in a day or two, the shelves are already available, and Bob said the sarcophagus stand within a week. LASM said they would like their items by the 1st week in September.
• Education Outreach – Open

New and Ongoing Club Business

• Weyerhaeuser Field Trip- George Campagna said he was amazed by the production of the mill and how automated and mechanized the operation is. Each log is scanned to optimize the boards that can be made with it. 2 x 4’s are produced at a rate of 3 boards per second. Every board regardless of size has its picture taken and has a serial number, so it is completely traceable. The level of detail is mind boggling. Home Depot is their biggest customer. The HD distribution center is close by so the boards go from the mill to be distributed to HD almost immediately. George Campagna was impressed with the 3-story tall pile of sawdust created by the mill. The bark, the drops and sawdust are used as fuel for the drying kiln or is sold to various interested parties so nothing is wasted.
• 2024 Swampfest Bird House Kits- Art Miller reported he has 80 1 x 8 x 8-foot boards. That will make approximately 160 birdhouses. Richard Robles will be distributing the boards. He’ll send a club-wide email out this week per George Campagna. A question about when the bird house kits were due. George said he expected Richard would address that in the email. Art Miller indicated at least 2 weeks before the first weekend in October when Swampfest is held. Art further advised that drill jigs for the bird houses are available, and that Richard has them. He suggested they be marked to use a 5/64″ drill for the holes. That is the proper size whole for the nails we plan to use.

Members Questions/Concerns– Some of the visitors were interested in learning about woodturning. They were informed that a number of our members are experienced wood turners and there is a club, Bayou Wood Turners, here locally.

Safety Topic- Harold Choate talked briefly about being careful when lifting things as we work. Given the average age of people in the club wheels, dollies and helpers are valuable things to keep us from injury.

Skill Topic: Video on BRWC Clients – Ken Brown

Show-and-Tell

Adjourn

Please bring the following items to the meeting: