January Meeting: Elections, and Chest of Drawers by Matt Greco

The January meeting will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 9. Since it is the beginning of the calendar year, it’s time for membership renewals, so please bring your membership dues. Also, we will be holding elections for the 2013 slate of officers. All positions are up for election, and if you were interested in becoming more involved with the club, this is a great way to do so. We will also be voting on changes to the bylaws to bring them in line with our efforts to become a not-for-profit organization.

Matt Greco will be presenting a chest of drawers that he recently made, and Marc Gaertner will be discussing a small table that he made that unbelieveably does not have a veneered front to the drawer. We look forward to starting off the new year with an exciting meeting.

Matt Prusik

CJWA is very sad to note the passing of Matt Prusik, former president of our club. Matt always brought an energy towards his efforts towards the club that will be hard for anyone to match. He was also a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge of all things woodworking, metalworking, and tools, and he was always eager to help others with their projects.

In lieu of flowers the family has requested that donations in Matthew’s name be made to Saint Jude’s Children Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105. Letters of condolence may be sent to the family at www.maliszewskimemorialhome.com

More information can be found here.

December Meeting: Annual CJWA Holiday Potluck Dinner and Toy Drive for Hurricane Sandy relief

It’s time for the annual CJWA Holiday potluck dinner, where we gather together to talk about woodworking in the presence of entirely too much food. The December meeting will be held on Wednesday, December 12 at 7:00 pm sharp. Because of the set up time and wanting to get dinner underway, please come early.

As we have done in the past, everyone is asked to bring a main course, a side dish or a dessert. If you bring enough for 6 to 8 people we should have more then enough for everyone. The club will provide soda, water, paper plates and plasticware. Spouses are certainly welcome to come, and we will have a meeting following the feast.

To keep the menu balanced please e-mail Marc Gaertner at marcleslieg@gmail.com to indicate what food you are bringing to avoid a situation where we have all desserts. Not that there’s a problem with all desserts, of course. If anyone wants to volunteer to bring coffee in lieu of a food item, that would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: In addition to the potluck dinner,  Old Brick Reformed Church is coordinating a project to collect unwrapped toys that will be distributed to shelters and centers for Hurricane Sandy victims. Pastor Huyck has asked if we can help. Please consider bringing an unwrapped toy to the December meeting so it can be wrapped by the church volunteers and distributed to a child for the holidays.

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to partner with the church and do something meaningful for the community.

Hurricane Sandy Relief: at last month’s meeting we started taking cash contributions for Hurricane Sandy Relief. Donations will be accepted at December’s meeting, too. Please drop something in the box if you can spare it.

November meeting: Chuck Bender demystifies secret compartments

Here at CJWA, we hope you all survived Hurricane Sandy intact. The November meeting is on for this month for Wednesday, Nov. 14. Our featured speaker will be Chuck Bender of the Acanthus Workshop, who will be talking about secret compartments and how you can incorporate them into your projects. David Dorey will be giving us a presentation on his entertainment center (which was rescheduled from the October meeting, and our apologies to David), and there may be reports from CJWA members that attended this year’s Woodworking in America meetings.

Hope to see you there!

Fall Forestry Festival

CJWA was able to participate in the Fall Forestry Festival at the Forest Resource Education Center in Jackson again this year, with many of our members helping kids build birdhouses throughout the day. Close to 90 kids got to build their own birdhouse. Bill Woodard was instrumental in organizing and leading the event, and our thanks go to Bill for an excellent job.

There are pictures of CJWA members and the kids that participated on our website in the picture gallery.