[crw-talk] Club Activities

[John & Donna Griffiths]

Members,

Well, here we are seven months into the pandemic and the numbers just 
are not getting better.  So what do we as a club do to keep it going?  
Now it is becoming a bit cold to meet under Adrian's or Clyde's tree, 
and I personally do not feel as safe doing that now as I did in June 
when the numbers were actually improving.

One activity has been for us to post photos and descriptions of the 
things we have made, and I think it is about time for another round of 
that.  I have a couple of pieces I have created that I intend to 
photograph and post.  And I am sure there are others out there who have 
things too.  The instant gallery has always been an important part of 
our meetings and sending photos and commenting is a worthwhile activity 
during these times.  We do not have to be professional photographers 
with $3,000.00 cameras or fancy layouts to place the piece in for 
shooting.  Just shoot with a simple digital camera or smartphone and 
send the photos to CRW.   I just use an elderly iPhone that Apple no 
doubt wishes I would give up for the latest bells and whistles and it 
works well enough.  (Just decent lighting and sharp focus is adequate.)  
And your projects do not have to be David Ellsworth or Cindy Drozda 
quality to send around CRW Land.  A bit of tearout or not the best 
possible design is not a deal breaker.

Bottom line, please send some instant gallery photos out to the club.  
Simple ones.  Small ones.  Large ones.  Complex ones. Christmas 
ornaments, pens, vases and bowls.  Weed pots, you name it.

Another activity that is less then perfect but perhaps enjoyable is a 
Zoom meeting.  Zoom is an interesting and somewhat idiot proof 
technology. (Even I can do it but I have not tried to figure out to just 
how to set up a meeting yet.)  In case you are wondering, here is how it 
works:  someone sets up a meeting ahead of time and send out an email 
message to attendees with a code. You go to Zoom.com on your device that 
has a camera and type in the  code, click a thing or two to give it 
permission to access your camera and microphone and bingo, you are on 
camera and watching/listening to what is going on.  We could have a 
discussion or perhaps a demo.  The board members could talk about club 
business.  We could have an instant gallery.  The Badger Woodturners 
have shop tours.

What do we Zoom on?  We can do it with a smart phone, but the picture is 
small.  They use the front camera on the phone.  I also used my tablet, 
with the front camera but mine was not very satisfactory, it is kinda of 
a cheap one.  Laptops often have a camera built into the screen at the 
top.  I ended up buying a cheap web camera (webcam) online from Target 
which perches on top of the monitor and it has good picture quality and 
a microphone. I attended a Shop tour from Badger Woodturners this past 
Saturday and it worked very well.  AAW will have a David Ellsworth demo 
this Saturday, $10.00 for members, and I think I will sign up for it.

So to repeat, the first Bottom Line is to send pictures of you work 
around on CRWTalk and others to look and comment.

Second Bottom Line is for the Board and members to think about doing a 
Zoom meeting.  Board members, what do we address? Members, what do you 
want to watch and participate in?  I will continue as acting Program 
Director and put something together if there is direction from the 
members and board and I can find volunteers to help with a Demo if that 
is part of the deal.

We as a club need to keep ourclub going.  Let's get 'er done.

John