The program for our Dec 2 meeting will be our second annual Christmas Dinner at Hillcrest Lodge. All members are invited to bring a guest for what will be a good time. We will again have a raffle to benefit Toys 4 Tots. Club elves (Jim Bucknell, Ed Pysher, and Al Ashley) have been busy collecting some great raffle items. We’ll have tools, wood, gift certificates and some neat things for the spouses in attendance who might not be woodworkers. The evening will also feature our 2×4 Woodworking Challenge and presentation of our annual Spirit Award.

Our evening will begin at 6:00 with a social hour that will give everyone a chance to view the raffle items and buy tickets. We’ll follow with a potluck dinner that begins at 7:00 with the club providing the main course (ham and rolls). All members are asked to bring a side-dish, entree, salad, or dessert. If you are unable to bring an item for the potluck, please still come to the meeting. We’ll have a donation bucket for Toys 4 Tots if you want to put in a few dollars as your contribution to the evening.

As a help to those preparing dinner we would ask that all members and guests please use the main entrance on the west side of Hillcrest Lodge. Your potluck items and 2×4 projects will be taken care of at the main door and you’ll be able to pick up a name tag for you and your guest. The sidewalk leading to the main entrance is off the west side of the parking lot about 75 feet south of the lodge. We look forward to seeing all of you there.

Stuart Welch’s woodworking resume is almost too long to list. It includes winning furniture design competitions as a teenager, a formal education at the Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Craftsmen, the Gunlocke Chair Company, his own woodworking business and teaching woodworking for the Baulines Craft Guild and UC Berkeley. Currently living in Skagit County, Stuart owns and operates the Rexville Grocery on Best Road and still has fun with woodworking building zany cuckoo clocks. In decades of designing furniture and teaching college-level woodworking, Stuart has learned that a chair’s comfort is all about ergonomics: the angles have to be just so, the chair has to be light but also strong enough to support a 300-pound person, and it all has to look good, too. Stuart invites you to bring examples of chairs you have made to this meeting and he will compare styles, materials, joinery, ergonomics and talk about the history of chairs in general.

Greg Klassen made a definite career path change several years ago when he switched from theology to fine woodworking. When he did, he went all out by studying at the School of the Redwoods and with two furniture masters in Sweden. He now creates one of a kind pieces under commission from his shop in Lynden. His work has won awards, been featured in several national magazines including Fine Woodworking, and was included at the 2013 Smithsonian Craft Show where he was interviewed and praised by Martha Stewart on national TV. Greg will demonstrate one of his techniques for inlaying custom non-uniform butterfly keys using a router and chisels. He will also bring several of his recent pieces to show and talk about. His website is gregklassen.com

NCWA member Rick Anderson, who is also a member of the Northwest Washington Woodturners, will present a woodturning demonstration on two kinds of turning related to furniture building. He recently made several spindles for a repair project and he will show us how to make multiple like items. He also plans to demonstrate making Shaker style knobs. Rick has been in NCWA for a number of years and has served as President for both NCWA and NWWWT. Don’t be surprised if he tries to convince you to become a member of the turners! Many of our members already are.