Meeting Minutes – February 3, 2024

Meeting Location: Rural Life Museum, 4560 Essen Ln, Baton Rouge (26 attendees, 23 Members, 3 Guests)

• Fellowship before meeting
• Collection of dues (Rick Albrecht) and selling of shirts and caps (Bill Carter)

Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance – Harold Choate

Welcome and Introduction of Guests– John Schatzle, Lyle Soniat, Doug White

Officer Reports:

• Vice-President – George Campagna- Next month’s meeting is at David Ringuette’s shop in Denham Springs. The Bosch tool representative is going to do a presentation on the Bosch line of tools. Andrew Becnel and Bill Carter have switched the months they are going to do presentations. Bill will do the May meeting, Andrew will do the December meeting. The Behr paint representative had a conflict for June so he’s going to do September, Mark Monistere is going to do a presentation for the June meeting. Richard Robles reminded the members that the time and place of the meetings is posted on the website, also Rick sent an email containing the membership list so if you check those sources you don’t have to call Richard. This is the most current information available.
• Secretary – Harold Choate- 20 members and 4 guests attended the January meeting. Please let me know if you are seeing the posts about the meeting on Facebook if you are following the page. If you have anything you want to post on the page just email the information to me.
• Treasurer – Rick Albrecht- Contact Rick for Details. Rick advised the members to let him know if they weren’t getting an updated membership list from him each month. That would indicate he doesn’t have the correct email address for you.
• Webmaster – Open
• Community Service – Lee Owens- We still don’t have any project to do. O’Brien House has said they can use another 20 chests of drawers so if nothing else comes up we may be doing them. Richard Robles reminded the members that we are still looking for someone to work with Lee as a backup.
• Education Outreach – Open

New and Ongoing Club Business

• Dues- Dues are due by the March meeting. Rick’s address is on the membership list if you want to mail him a check.
• Executive Meeting Update- The Committee decided we didn’t want to engage in making an annual award of the Golden Hammer that was offered to the club by Art Miller. It was decided there were just too many facets to participation with the club to be fair about making an award to a single person. Art advised he had decided to give the hammer to Brian Thibodeaux for supporting the club by donating the wood for the SwampFest birdhouses. It was also decided to reduce the contingency mark up on project estimates in order to help our clients. This is possible because virtually all our projects have come in under the estimate we gave the client. If this causes a problem, we’ll revisit the decision. We also decided to try a different way of making a project. For projects such as making multiple picnic tables, rather than parceling out the work to different shops we would get a group together at one location. There we would provide some food and drinks as we create some team building while fabricating the tables, pre-assembling them and then breaking them down for easier shipping. We also decided the club didn’t want to do repair work. Harold Choate shared his latest experience that reinforced the wisdom of that decision.
• New Woodworkers Teaching Status- The 6 members of the committee are going to use Zoom to have a meeting about this. Harold Choate advised the problem he had with where to start. The ultimate goal is to have material available to use in an annual class to be offered at a place like the main Library. George Campagna suggested coming up with a list of YouTube videos to look at. The list could be organized by the various topics involved in woodwork. Hal Canning asked if we had considered 1 on 1 mentorship? Richard Robles added in the fact that Terry Landry has offered to be involved in this. We need to consider how to do that.
• Zoo- We are going to participate in the Baton Rouge Zoo’s birthday party in April. We have a selection of animal cutouts that the kids can drill holes in for use as crayon or pencil holders. They would take these with them as a gift. Jim Landry has also offered to make small animal cutouts that can be made into a bracelet or necklace. The Zoo contact estimated 1100 kids would come through each day of that weekend. We have committed to be there on Sunday, April 7 from 9:30 to 5:30. We will set up tables with small drill presses to use. Discussion took place about how to make and how many to make. George Campagna passed a signup sheet around with particulars about participation. Richard Robles advised he has to turn in a list 2 weeks prior to the event of the names of those who will attend.
• Banner- Jim Landry has suggested the club purchase a collapsible, self standing banner for use at events like this and the SwampFest. Jim showed some examples of what he was talking about. The banner will have our logo, mission statement, website address and a QR code for contacting us. The club voted to go forward with the purchase.

Members Questions/Concerns

Safety Topic– Richard Robles told of an accident Brian Fitzgerald had while cutting limbs out of a tree. He fell 20 feet and broke his pelvis. He will be unable to do anything for about 3 months. Be careful when working high of the ground!

Skill Topic: Dovetail Joinery – Geoff Michelli

Show-and-Tell

Adjourn

Please bring the following items to the meeting: