What's In The Newsletter?

• Presidents Report
• Elections
• Guild Woodworking Projects
• Editor's Notes
• Guild Input And Questions
• Who Reads The Guild Newsletters?

Presidents Report ...

It has been almost two years since we first started hearing of the virus in the news.  It was something that was far away and we really did not think it would affect us, but it did.  The guild was meeting every month with a room full of members and life was good.  Then it hit everyone like a ton of bricks.  Life as we knew it had changed and the guild, just like all other organizations, went into hibernation.  We eventually met virtually, then a combination of virtual and in-person, but it was not the same.  Our numbers of members attending was less than half of what would attend in the past, but we did start the process of coming back.  We have had several excellent presentations and have more planned for the future.  With more people being vaccinated and the delta variant slowing down, the future is looking brighter.  We have an outstanding organization of woodworkers with different levels of expertise and experience and everyone is willing to share their knowledge, tricks, plans and tips.  All we can hope for is that things continue to change for the better and we can resume our gatherings as in the past.  Everyone is welcome to come to our meetings and we even made it better this year by waiving the dues for 2021.  If you are a regular member or “new” member and feel comfortable returning, join us and help keep the guild strong.

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Fran Foster

President TWWWG

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TWWWG Elections

According to the by-laws to the Tidewater Woodworkers Guild, the current president of the guild will in September appoint a nominating committee to select potential candidates for offices in the guild for the following year.  This year president Fran Foster selected Jim Francis, Andy Steinberg and Bret Lancaster to lead the nominating committee.  Per the rules of the guild listed below they selected candidates for the 2022 leadership.

Nominating Committee By-Laws

The President shall annually in September appoint a nominating committee consisting of three members of the TWWWG. The names, addresses, and phone numbers of the members of the Nominating committee will be announced by the Secretary and published in the TWWWG newsletter, together with a printed proxy form, and placed in the mail to the membership in the October Newsletter. Whereupon, any member may submit to the nominating committee the name(s) of members deemed to be desirable candidates for the respective offices, such submission of names shall be advisory to the nominating committee in the making of its list of nominees. At the time of the regular October meeting, the Secretary shall, in addition to the nominees recommended and submitted by the nominating committee, ask for further nominations from the floor. Nominations shall be closed at the conclusion of the regular October meeting of the membership. Candidates accepting the nomination shall submit a short biography to the President/Newsletter Editor for publishing in the November Newsletter prior to the elections. Proxy votes from absentee members shall be provided to the Secretary no later than the date and time of the November election meeting.  Announcement of newly elected officers shall be immediate, when known, with their positions effective for the following calendar year. In cases where more than one candidate is running for an office, ballots will be counted and verified at the earliest possible time. The President will notify each candidate of the election results. 

2022 Nominations List

President – Fran Foster

Vice President – Greg Guertin

Treasurer – Chris Zuchristian

Secretary – Larry Larue

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Guild Woodworking Projects

Karl has posted two projects on Facebook.  Both are cheese slicers with inlay designs.

Project 13 measures 5 ¾” x 8”. The base is black walnut. The star inlay is red wood (not redwood) and maple. 

Project 14 is an original inlay design. The base is black walnut measuring 5 ¾” x 9 ½”. The inlay pieces are all Yellowheart. The center hole is poplar. 

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Editor's Note:

 My apologizes for the lateness of the October newsletter.  Back on September 17, 38 days ago, I volunteered to work with the City of Chesapeake Registers Office for the November election.  I have been running the polling operations inside of the registrar’s office from 7:45 AM till about 5:15 PM Monday - Friday.  The nine and a half hour days, lots of them with no breaks, take a toll on my body and there is nothing left in the tank when I get home to go to the shop or work on the newsletter.  Through Saturday, October 23, 2021 there have been more than 4,400 persons deposit their ballots in the ballot scanner that I supervise.  

In the state of Virginia early voting started on September 17, 2021, 45 days before the election.  There is still one week of early voting to go, finishing up this Saturday on October 30, 2021.  I hear many remarks like “if my vote gets counted at all”, "whose voting machines are you using?", “we need an audit of these voting machines right now”, “if I was a Democrat I would go out the door and come back in and vote again (said by a Republican).  The list goes on and on.  I worked as a voter technician for the City of Chesapeake, VA for 6 or 7 years, worked the 45 day early voting for the last general election and now this election.  No matter what you hear or say on social media or from one party or another or from one PAC to another PAC, our elections are safe and secure.  There are so many safe guards in place to prevent fraud that the trashing of our elections is all a complete lie story made up!  If in doubt about election security volunteer to work the polls at Election Day and you will see how secure our system is in Virginia.

That brings me to the TWWWG elections to be held in the month of November.  Your vote counts!  The direction of the guild is in your vote.

Editor

Guild Input & Questions

 Greg Guertin is looking for more input into potential programs and questions from the guild members.  If you have any suggestions for programs please submit them to Greg.  Also, if you have questions that you would like discussed by the guild members such as “what is the best wood filler”, “how do I keep stain from looking blotchy on woods like Cherry”, “what are the different types of Shellac and how do you use them?” send them to Greg at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Who Reads The Guild Newsletters?

 Whenever I make an announcement to the guild such as “the October meeting is now on our web site”, it is currently sent out to 111 members. While you cannot see how many “hits” each newsletter or article gets, as editor I am privileged to see this info.  For example, the August newsletter is up to 238 hits, the April newsletter has 541 hits, the March newsletter 1,073 hits.  Those are just some of the examples for 2021.  

Going back to 2020 we have 8 newsletters with over 1,000 hits, topping out with the January 2020 edition of 1,422 hits.  In 2019 there are 7 newsletters with over 2,000 hits with the March 2019 letter having 5,735 hits!

An article I wrote on the Incra TS-LS Fence System way back in 2014 has more than 7,700 hits.  The list goes on and on.

Our newsletters and web site are being used by just more than guild members.  Perhaps we need to look further into the web site to draw in more guild members.  What about guild members writing more educational articles?  What about publishing our meetings on the web site after a live Zoom meeting?  Do you have any tips you would like published on the web page?  Any other ideas to promote the guild on-line?  We need to take advantage of this web traffic.

If you have any ideas you would like to have placed on the web site or researched but feel reluctant to get your feet wet writing an article, please reach out to me, your editor, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  I will be happy to work with you and even write the article if necessary.  Your input helps me be creative.

Thanks

Gary