The following are the notes form the January 7th Board Meeting: (I am sending this, as the Board Secretary John Thompson left for a trip for a month on the 8th).
The 2018 Financial Balance Sheet was reviewed and approved by the Board and as soon as the audit is completed, it will be sent out to the Membership. Also, a Proposed Budget for 2019 is being completed and will be presented at the February General Meeting (date to be announced) .
The Majority of the Board voted to make a change to #5 of the Operations Manuel that reads as follows: “The woodshop cannot be used to carry on any commercial endeavors. This is not to thwart the incidental personal sale of hand crafted wood items made in the Shop. However, any member who makes items for sale (whether or not placed in the display cabinet at the Shop) using wood shop equipment will reimburse the wood shop for 10% of the amount of the items sold. This includes individual sales, craft sales, hobby shows, etc. The purpose of this rule is to cover the use of the wood shop materials and shop equipment maintenance.” Currently the Board has been letting members use the Shop for a commercial endeavor if that member donates 10% of the amount that he/she makes on that endeavor. The majority of the Board moved to change #5 of the Operations Manual to “the 10% fee will apply to only those items sold in the display case. Items built (all or part) in the shop and sold will not be charged a flat 10% fee, but rather there will be an expectation of a donation to the shop from the seller based on the proportion of shop use content in the item determined by the member/seller.”
Our policy for working alone in the shop was discussed. Currently only Monitors can work alone in the Shop but the work is restricted to glue-ups, hand tools, small electrical tools (ie. random orbital sanders and small drills, etc.) and use of the Masterspace computers for the new CNC machine. The majority of the Board plans to expand this to include the following large tools: These include the CNC machine, floor mounted sanders and the drill press. If this works out ok, we may expand in the future to include band saws, jointer and planer, but do not ever expect to allow the use of table saws, router table, lathes or chop saw while working alone. Again this applies to Monitors Only. This is expected to help in recruitment of new Monitors, which we need!
John Thompson will be gone until February but gave an update on machine repairs. The General Drum Sander has been fixed and is now in operation. A complete new conveyor control was installed by Mike Downes and John Thompson last week and all seems well. John reminded everyone to “take small bites”. The Drum Sanders are the most abused machines we have. A new gas spring was ordered for the Saw Stop table saw and will be installed as soon as it arrives. We expect this to alleviate the difficulty of raising the blade that we have been experiencing. The meeting adjourned at 6:30 P.M.
On an additional note: If you have not paid your dues, please pay this as soon as possible. We need the money in our checking account. Also, in the past, General Meetings have had a good turnout from our membership. However, in the last few General Meetings, we have had as few as 15 members which included the 7 Board Members. These meetings give updates to what is happening in the Shop and when there is voting for changes in the By-Laws and or Operations Manual, we have currently 144 Members and I am sure you don’t want a Majority of the 15 Members to decide on what happens in the Shop! Just a thought!
On a personal basis, I have been in charge of organizing the building and producing toys for the Annual Marine Corps “Toys For Tots”. In 2017, our Shop built and produced over 70 various toys that I delivered to the Marine Corps. Last year, I delivered only 50 toys to the Marine Corps. There is always a need that is greater than what the Corps collected! If you are willing to help in this great need, please let me know and I will gladly purchase the necessary wood needed to produce these toys! Looking forward to hearing from you!
Semper Fi.
Harry L. Pell
Quail Creek Woodcrafters Club 