PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE MARCH 2026
With President’s Day in our rear view mirror and St. Patrick’s Day coming up, we are at a great time of the year to consider planning for the upcoming spring season.We will shortly be doing our booth and demonstrations at the Skagit Wood Expo and Marketplace on April 5 and 6. This is a great opportunity to network with other woodworkers, demonstrate your skills and enjoy the entertainment, food and bargains from numerous vendors. Please sign up for a volunteer position to support our club on the Volunteering Tab on our website Wood Expo
Our upcoming meeting on March 3 at 7pm in the Mount Vernon Library Commons will feature one of our long term members, Stewart Welch, an artistic and accomplished wood artisan with over 50 years of experience. He will be discussing mistakes and screw-ups that he’s make and how to avoid them. I’m told this will be an edge-of-the-seat discussion you won’t want to miss
In an effort to encourage our members to wear their name tags to our meetings, we have been holding a separate free raffle for shop-made tools that come from my shop. This month’s raffle items will be a pair of ergonomic hardwood angled sanding blocks. I made one for myself and it has become the sanding block I reach for first in my shop.
We are experimenting with a new fundraiser for our club. I recently completed the pictured shop utility cabinet. It features a large drawer, a very flat laminate top, castle joint hard wood construction, with poly locking wheels. Finished with Osmo Poly-X, this cabinet will be raffled off at our March meeting for those who wish to buy tickets for $5. This cabinet is made entirely of recycled materials. If you need more storage, a machine surface or just a pretty piece of shop furniture, I encourage you to take a $5 chance.
Our shop talks and education calendar has been expanding at an admirable rate. If you aren’t already signed up for our learning and networking opportunities, please take a look at our website’s calendar and if the one you want to take is waitlisted, please sign up to show your interest in expanding our venues.
Finally, I want to appeal to our members to give a little back to our club in the form of volunteering. Your skill level doesn’t matter. If you wish to help with everything from demonstrating your skill to helping with running the club, we want you. Currently we are looking for an editor for our newsletter, coordinators and helpers for our various events, including Winterfest, Anacortes Art Festival and a club secretary to take meeting minutes and contribute to the Board of Directors meeting. Please contact me and we can discuss a slot that you can help our club run smoothly.
Have a great March and I hope to see you soon.
Earl Kessler