The Black Country Woodturners were once again delighted to be invited to take part in the Sedgley Garden Club’s annual Flower Show. Held at the Sedgley Community Centre, the event proved to be another fantastic day for the local community.

Our members set up a display of turned pieces for sale, which attracted plenty of interest from visitors throughout the day. As always, it was a pleasure to share our passion for woodturning with both familiar faces and those discovering the craft for the first time.

The show was a great success, raising an impressive amount of money in support of Mary Stevens Hospice, our chosen charity. We are proud to have played a small part in supporting such a worthy cause.

A big thank-you goes to Sedgley Garden Club for inviting us again this year, and to all of our members who helped make the day so enjoyable.

We were invited to take part in one of the Botanical Gardens’ organised day events. Originally, the plan was for us to be outside, but with the weather turning a little chilly, we were thankful to be set up indoors instead.

Several of our members arrived bright and early at 8:00 a.m. to help prepare the room and move the boxes containing our displays and sales items. A big “Thank You” goes to everyone who pitched in – your help made the setup run smoothly. By the time we were ready to begin, most of the tables and chairs were in place. In total, we had 21 tables and Steve’s lathe set up neatly in the corner.

Nineteen people took part in the display, with some members’ wives also showcasing their own crafts, which added extra variety and colour to the day. Their contributions were very well received and we hope to see them again at future events. The Botanical Gardens kindly kept us supplied with tea, coffee, cakes, and biscuits throughout the day – for which we were most grateful.

A number of members were selling their own pieces, offering a great mix of different items. We also had Nikki’s cross-stitch, Georgie’s felt work, fabric containers made by Bill’s wife, and Kim’s “Krafts” of handmade cards and other creations.

As usual, we had our two charity tables in support of Mary Stevens Hospice.

New for this event was a gallery of members’ work destined for the Wolverhampton Craft Gallery Exhibition, where it will be on show for the next three months.

The event ran from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with a steady stream of visitors passing through. Steve and Brian took turns on the lathe, making spinning tops for the children, who were delighted to choose their own colours for decoration.

The Botanical Gardens were very pleased with how the day went and felt our presence was a welcome addition to the event – a sentiment we are happy to share.

Report by Barrie Fisher & edited by Steve Hackett

We were again invited to attend and take part in this year’s Mary Steven’s Hospice Coffee Morning, the event has a number of tables selling various items of goods for Christmas and a stall selling jigsaw puzzles at a £1 a piece. Along with these they had a couple of tables with tombola gifts, for the correct numbers drawn, The many visitors kept the tea and coffee people busy during the opening in addition they also had a good number of cakes on offer.

We were able to set up three tables, a section for the charity table sales, a section for members selling their own turned items, and a small section for Kim Brown (Ian’s Wife) in attendance with Kim’s Kraft’s selling her hand made cards and gift packages. There was a good turn out from the club with nine members turning up and helping out for the day, we were very pleased to have this additional help.

The charity table had a steady flow of people, although the event had fewer people turn up due to a couple of other events going on in Stourbridge. We had many returning customers whole purchase items from us in previous events. The charity table raised around the £140.00 with the member’s donated items, this also included donations from the members that were selling their own turnings.

Thanks from the club, go out to Paul Whiley for making the very large log snowman, which stands around 3 feet high. It was raffled off on the day and this made £48.00 for Mary Stevens.

The winner was picked out of the hat by a member of Mary Stevens Hospice staff, the winner was Steve from Halesowen.

It was a good day out with members chatting to the public and explaining about various items and different woods.

The club and its members are looking forward to the next event.

This club was asked by Mary Steven’s Hospice, who are our preferred charity, to give a demonstration of our woodturning skills to the gentlemen day unit service users of the hospice, some more of an interest as everything is normally more aimed towards women. This could turn into a regular event for the club. We have already been asked to cover another demo event in December, which more of the women will be going to. For this event we had four members who volunteered for the event, these were Steve, Ian, Brian and Barrie.
Within the event room, we had a display table that showed some of the member’s work as to what could be done with wood. Prior to starting we had nine patients who were driven in by ambulance to Mary Stevens in addition to a number of the nursing staff.
Ian started the event with an explanation of what woodturning was about and how it all started with bodgers. Once again we had Steve who started by explaining the various items of the lathe and what they are used for and also how to use them. On the lathe he demonstrated turning a snowman and after explaining about the health and safety involved for keeping yourself safe, and giving a talk about the process of turning has he worked through the process. Steve also explained how the trees are prepared and cut so that we can have them to turn. Various pieces of wood blanks were shown and the type of tools that we use.
After Steve finished his snowman, Ian took over on the lathe and showed how to make a Christmas tree with carved areas along the length of the tree. Both Steve and Ian gave a running commentary on what they were doing as they progressed through the projects.
Question were asked during the event by patients and staff a like, who also showed an interest. After this first session was completed, we stopped for a bite to eat put on by Mary Stevens.
Whilst we were having a break the other area was set up by the staff so that the painting side of the event was able to start, when this got underway we had a limited number of people taking part in the painting of the items, and also an additional lady asked if she could take part whilst she was waiting for the ambulance.
At the end of the day, everyone who turned up to view the demonstration took either a snowman or Christmas tree home with them
Thankfully, we had a number of donated items from the club members for the event.
We were thanked by Ruth and the nursing staff for the day’s event, and they look forward to the next one. All four of us would like to thank them for looking after us all day with the food and drinks to keep us going.

Report by Barrie Fisher & edited by Steve Hackett

The club took up the option of taking a trip out to the Botanical Gardens who we are hoping to develop a relationship with, so that we can acquire any cut down trees and be able to turn some items in return for them to sell.

We were there on Sunday 10th November 2024, to represent the club at the Tremendous Trees Event, to display the works and also sell items from our charity table and other pieces members had for sale.  The event ran from 11.00 till 15.00, but we needed to be there by 9.30 to unload and get all areas of the demonstration and selling areas set up and ready for the public to arrive.

The area that we had been given for use during the day was undercover and out of the elements.  It was also a large area, this area was about 30 feet square.

They also made sure that we had enough tables and chairs for us to use, of which we ended up using eight tables for the three areas that we had taken with us.

Three tables were used for the turned items that were for the gallery and were looked after by Mike and Georgie, Steve’s wife, whilst on the table they were having a good many questions about how the various shapes were produced and the techniques that were needed to produce them.  This was ongoing throughout the day, and it was good to know that the public wanted additional information.

We also had three tables for all the charity items that were donated by club members, who we would like to thank again for their effort in producing them.  On the remaining two tables, we had members selling their own items to the public.

Once again, we had Steve taking his lathe to the event along with the required tools and required wood blanks for the day.  Steve was set up in the corner of the room with plenty of room for the public and kids to see what was being done and also to ask questions during the day.  Steve was producing a number of spinning tops and Christmas trees throughout the day.

The club’s thanks go out to all members who took part in the event.

When the gardens opened we had a steady footfall throughout the day looking, buying and asking questions of everyone.

Having spoken with the people of the botanical gardens, they are hoping that this can turn into an ongoing event for both of us.  We must also take this opportunity to thank the garden staff for the hospitality that we had from them during the day and also keeping us supplied with tea and coffee along with the biscuits  and the additional hot water during the day.

The feedback that we have received was that it went down well with the public, and they enjoyed the additional aspect of having a wood turning club within the confines of the gardens as it gave an additional aspect for the visitors.

Report by Barrie Fisher & edited by Steve Hackett

We had a good day at the Sedgley Flower and Gardening Show on Saturday 17th of August.

We were a bit concerned when the day started quite slowly, but once the flower judging in the main hall was over, there was a good flow of visitors through the community centre.

There was a lot of interest in our work that was for sale on the Charity tables and on the club member’s personnel sales table containing work from Steve, Rob and Andy.

Ian spent the day selling tickets for this year’s club charity raffle, which will be drawn at the Mary Stevens Summer Fayre at the end of August 2024.

Both areas sold many items and we made £203.40 for the Mary Stevens Hospice.

The charity table was manned by Andy & Greg throughout the day, with help from Roger Sherwood.

Many thanks to those members who came along to set up, man the stands and clear up afterwards – it all makes the day pass well and makes it a jolly time for all.

Report by Steve Hackett

Well, it’s that time of year again when we are taking part in Mary Stevens Charity Coffee Morning and Jigsaw Festival, there were tables with various Christmas-themed items and a few tombola tables all for the benefit of Mary Stevens Hospice. Again it was nice to be invited along for this annual event and take part in the fundraising for the benefit of the hospice and the people who rely on it.
The stalls attending the event were showing a varied amount of items and were displayed to the best and people were able to get round the hall easily. In addition to this, a hot drink and cake stand was being used to its fullest by everyone who attended.

The weather for the day was very cold with snow being advised at some point, thankfully we had a stand inside the hall and not outside unlike the jigsaw gazebos. We had to be at the event by 9:00 to set everything up and be ready to start at 10:00 and was open during the hours of 10:00 and 14:00. The event attracted a steady footfall throughout the opening hours, although the weather could have caused a few not to show up.

We had a few of the normal crew to set up the event which included Ian, Rob, Steve and Brian, along with this we had a few members arrive during the day and help and support the event, they were, Arthur Roger S, Roger C, Paul & Barrie
A lot of turnings were as per normal donated by the club members for the charity table and those members who were selling their own pieces, gave a donation at the end of the day, out of their profits.

The club had a three-foot wood block snowman donated for a raffle, Tickets were sold at our last club meeting (Nov) and the Coffee Morning and Jigsaw Festival throughout the day, this was donated by Paul Wiley and it was appreciated by the committee for his generosity with all proceeds going to the hospice.

The ticket for the raffle was drawn at the end of the day by James from Mary Stevens Hospice. The winner was our own Elwyn Jones. The snowman raffle raised £79 for the hospice, Throughout the year the cub has raised a total of £1644.75 for the hospice over the last year, which has been handed over to the hospice.

We can now all look forward to the club’s Christmas Bash on our normal club night at Dudley College as usual.

Report by Barrie Fisher, edited by Steve Hackett