Wood Filings, Issue #14
Summer 2025
| Presidents Message Welcome to our new members who joined since our last Newsletter! They are: – Wayne Manley – Mark Foreshaw – Patrick Simmons – John Morton – Daniel Bosett As we move into summer our shops tend to be a little less busy as members take time to enjoy the warmer weather. This includes our coordinators who may not be available for their usual shifts. While we attempt to cover any absences, it may not always be possible. Please ensure that you do not proceed if there is no coordinator present. Also be aware of the heat risk, as we have already have a few extreme heat warnings this year. Lets keep the shop doors closed so that we can keep the inside air cool. For anyone who does not have air conditioning at home, the shop can also be a cool spot to spend an afternoon, while making a little sawdust with friends. Happy Summer, Teresa From our Vice President Club T-shirts and Hats Currently we are collecting and starting to process orders for our club T-Shirts and hats. We should start seeing some of the orders filled by 2nd week of July. As that time comes closer, Eric, our club secretary will send out an email giving instructions for payment and picking up the T-shirts and hats. If you haven’t order your T-shirt or hat yet, it’s not too late. Log into our Members’ Portal and you will find the link to our T-shirt and Hat order page. Park Benches The Riverside Park bench refurbishment project overseen by the Allen Reuter Centre Walking Group is nearing completion. Bench#9 is currently underway and is the last bench to complete that project. Shop Summer hours I just want to briefly mention that with summer upon us now, the shop being open at Allan Reuter Centre in July and August can be inconsistent so it would be a good idea to call ahead to make sure the shop is open. If shop coordinators are unable to be there for their normal time slots, please send out an email to see if we can find alternate coverage. Thanks everyone and have a great summer and stay safe! Ed Vice President Beyond the Ledger: Notes and Numbers from the Treasurer As many of you know our Club recently fulfilled a contract for Canada Brick, the Burlington subsidiary of Arriscraft, here in Cambridge. A large part of the thanks goes to Blair Francey for his liaison with the client and Tony Bertoni for his coordination of the pre assembly work. These two individuals and all the volunteers who helped out on tray making days need to be recognized for contributions. Examining our financial position over the last several years I can see that without the Arriscraft/Canada Brick account we would average about a $5 000 deficit each year. I am pleased to announce that while the Arriscraft/Canada Brick orders may decline over the next few years we still have money invested to cover the absence of their revenue. At the last meeting of the Board of Directors it was decided to keep the Club dues at the same level. Without the efforts of the Club volunteers those dues would need to increase by about $50 each. Glen Treasurer Our website’s New Members’ Portal On June 13th we launched our website’s members only site, the Members’ Portal. This, the first phase of the Portal, includes: Learning Resources where you can find resources to help you with your woodworking and have access to Club documents such Club manuals and Board Minutes. As we keep adding to the “Learning Resources” pages so over time, we hope to have a deep pool of articles, videos, and handy tips to help our members with their wood working. Your Profile where you can view and update your Profile. This is the information you provided to the Club when you first registered or renewed. This will allow you to: Ensure Your contact and emergency contact information is current and change it if it isn’t. See your Membership and Storage details and transactions. The Membership details will also show volunteer activity such as Shop Coordinator and Board Member. Volunteer recording is still work in progress. We will add more to this in the future. Change your password. Change your password anytime you please. The first time you log into the Members’ Portal with your temporary password, you are asked to change your password. This is to make sure that our site and the data in it is as secure as possible so we do enforce a certain level of password complexity. You can help by changing your password twice a year. If you haven’t checked out the Members’ Portal already, check it out. An email was sent to every member with their username and temporary password and instructions. If you do have difficulty, email membership@cambridge50pluswoodworkers.ca , and we’ll help you get logged in. Eric Secretary 2025 -26 Membership Renewal On August 15th, our Membership Registration switches to the new membership year (September 1 to August 31) and this year you will be able to renew online through the Members’ Portal or in the shop.When you renew your membership and storage rental online you will be able to choose to pay online with a credit or debit card, or later in the shop using cash or cheque. Renewing your membership and storage in the shop will be made easier with pre-printed forms. We will provide all the details prior to August 15th. Tray Making Update On Tuesday, June 17 we completed the last 100 trays to complete Canada Brick PO # 21991. This order completes the largest and most profitable tray order our Club has undertaken to dateOur Club is in great financial shape as a result. Thank you to every volunteer for helping complete this order over the past 15 months. As we ease into summer holidays, I take this opportunity to thank you for your volunteerism making trays. Have a great and safe summer and see you in the shop! Blair Francey Tray Production Manager Outstanding Volunteer Appreciation Award The board recently made the decision to initiate an “Outstanding Volunteer Appreciation Award”. Our club is completely run by volunteers. The shop coordinators, the buyers, our maintenance teams, and executive team are the formal roles but we also have many additional volunteers who help assemble trays or work on other external projects. These are the roles that we rely on our membership for, and there are so many of you who contribute to one or more in one or more of these functions. We appreciate all of you, but once in a while we realize that a single member may go above and beyond anything we could expect. For the purpose of recognizing these exceptional contributions, we have initiated this award. This award has no defined interval for awarding but will be presented when we see exceptional efforts from a member. We are pleased to present this award, for the first time, to Tony Bertoni. Tony not only serves as a coordinator, he is our tray manufacturing manager. He receives the materials, and coordinates all the rail and base prep, doing much of the work himself. He then schedules and sets up our tray assembly days and makes sure they run smoothly. His planning allows us to get back to our personal projects well before noon. Please join me in thanking Tony for his efforts and congratulating him on his award. Teresa President |