This was the first time the canal trust had held a summer fayre from this particular venue,  and what a lovely place it is too,  The Blackcountry Woodturning club were very happy to accept the invite to put on a stall and demonstrate the art of woodturning throughout the day for the attending public.

The day started off by arriving at the venue for 8.30am, we were greeted by Sarah the organiser who showed us our pitch in the main hall for the day.

We had a great turnout of members early morning, with lots of good natured  banter and laughter as we all got stuck in to unload the van , and set up our stall and lathe presentation area.

When complete the stall looked great with all our members work proudly displayed on show to the attending public, a great credit to the club which brought some very favourable comments from neighbouring craft presenters dotted around the hall.

The public attendance started a little slow but picked up as the day went by, many interesting conversations were struck up with visitors who were genuinely interested in how we made such a variety of items.

                     Thanks go to Mell Adams, Bob Mercer, Andrew DORE , Roger Cheshire and Paul Brown who all took turns on the lathe during the day to entertain the public, with Bob very kindly giving away his demonstration  bowl to a visitor who watched him make the whole thing from start to finish.

I’m sure the club made a few friends along the way, the event came to a close about 4.30pm, with us all having had a very enjoyable day.

The Blackcountry woodturners club took part in the Cradley Heath Arts festival programme on Saturday 9^th June 2018, this was the first visit by the club to the event, we along with Cradley Heath  Model Railway club were located at the Cradley Heath Community Centre Reddal Hill Road.

The club was well supported by members who put on an impressive craft and lathe display, including the clubs charity table displaying for sale items donated by members in support of the clubs charity

Visitors were few but those that came were very impressed with the craft work, purchased a few items and enjoyed watching members working on the lathe.

The highlight of the day was the visit to the club by local conservative member of parliament  Rt Hon James Morris who stayed for quite some time chatting to all involved and seemed genuinely interested in the history of the club wishing us well for the future…, he even had ago on the lathe skillfully instructed by club chairman Roger Cheshire.