Meeting Minutes – January 7, 2023

Meeting Location: Hays Town’s Shop, 1544 Stanford Avenue, Baton Rouge

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

Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance – Harold Choate

Welcome and Introduction of Guests Richard found a taker on the 59 1/2″ bandsaw blades! We had 5 guests who introduced themselves. Bill Wilson, Clarence Freeman, Robert Ponvelle, Andrew Becnel, Reid Morgan. They each gave us a summary of their history with woodworking and the tools they have.

Officer Reports:

• Vice-President – George Campagna- There is a revised meeting schedule. Next month’s meeting will be at PMC instead of Rural Life, George Cenac will do a presentation on using SketchUp instead of George doing Shop Videos. George will do a followup seminar if there is enough interest. That’s the only change, the Shop Videos are moved to November. George Lewis contacted a millworks company in Walker about giving us a shop tour. George and Richard are going to firm up a time. 22 people indicated they were interested in attending. Friday is the preferred day of the week. After reading the Greenville Woodworkers Guild history, George thinks we should ask the people we do Community Service Projects for to advertise our club on their social media outlets.
• Secretary – Harold Choate- Harold endorsed George’s idea and mentioned there are a number of projects listed on our website that could be used to get this started. December attendance was 16 members, 3 visitors. FaceBook we had 486 likes and 527 people following our page. Harold will put a reminder on the page for members to bring items for show and tell.
• Treasurer – Rick Albrecht- contact Rick for details
• Webmaster – Open
• Community Service – Lee Owens- We did 2 benches for Joseph’s House which provides transitional housing for men released from incarceration. Help is needed to install them after the men at Joseph’s House paint them. Lee Soileau and Bob Bewick built one of the benches, Jack Cremona and Lee Owens built the other one. The next project is 20 foot lockers for One Stop Ministries. We have an approved project for O’Brien House. It is a drug and alcohol recovery facility for men and women. They want 20 new chest of drawers for the women’s side. There is no set deadline. George Cenac will do the drawings for the project. They will be 36″ wide, approx. 4 ft. tall, 4 drawers, full extension drawer guides. Nothing fancy. I will pass a sign up sheet around. Please signup we need a lot of help. They will be stained and finished. We’ve chosen to use some red oak lumber and some plywood for the materials.
• Education Outreach – Open

New and Ongoing Club Business

• Donation for Community Service Projects- Jack Carmena’s daughter, Sarah, made a donation to the club in honor of her father’s birthday. She wrote a note that Lee read to the meeting. She asked that the donation be used for the community service.
• Dues for 2023- annual dues are due today. We will collect dues through March.
• Birdhouse Pattern- Richard would like to organize this effort so we don’t have a last minute rush. He asked the club to settle on 1 style that all people build. Discussion took place about the details of changing. Richard wants the kits turned in far enough in advance to be checked for accuracy. Comments were made about improving the set up for assembling the birdhouses. It was pointed out that the club should buy the nails and specify the size hole to be drilled for them. It was discussed about installing the doughnut as part of making the kit. The vote to stay with the current design and call it a “Bluebird House” was unanimous in favor of these details.
• Rural Life Arbor Day- The club was invited to participate in this event. If so it is up to us to decide what to do. The date is 2 weeks from this meeting.
• West Baton Rouge Museum- The museum has a monthly presentation that we’ve been invited to participate in at our preference.

Members Questions/Concerns

Safety Topic Jim Landry reported about a death in New Orleans involving a person using a lathe to do wood work. Richard Robles asked everyone to remember to disconnect their power tools from power when working on them to change bits or blades.

Skill Topic: Geoff Michelli – Tool Review, Nickel Electroplating

Show-and-Tell

Adjourn

Please bring the following items to the meeting: