Drink Up, Last Call!

I can hardly believe it, but this will be my last column as president of BAWA! After 4 years as President, I'm stepping down to allow time to get back to woodworking. It's been a lot of fun and I thank all of you for supporting me during these years! We've accomplished a lot over this time, but I want to be clear that all of these improvements didn't happen because of me, but because of the great group of people at the helm of this club. The Board and Committee Chairs have made new innovations and created new programs.

Here are some of the things we've accomplished as a team to align ourselves even more to our mission statement, which says we are a group dedicated to educating ourselves about woodworking:

We;ve grown from 60+ members to 110+ members.

We've instituted many new programs, such as Periodic Educational Seminars - we now have an Education Chair, and Mentor Program. We have 2 additional members who've just signed on to be Mentors in '06, and

We've reinstituted the 20 minute Tech Talks, usually done by one of our members. These are a look at basics of tools or techniques that everybody loves. Some of these have been published on our website.

Our Community Outreach has started branching out from just the annual "Rebuilding Together" event to also include other events or wood construction services to assist various community groups in the area.

We've instituted a highly successful and fun September Kick-off Dinner that helps us get organized for running and staffing our booth at the Woodworking Show. Formerly the Show was our primary source of new members. So if the Show doesn't happen this coming year, or if there are multiple shows as there were in '05, our Shows Co-Chairs have some innovative ideas in mind to let the Bay area know who we are.

We have a much expanded website with a lot of technical info, a Gallery of some of our member's work, and many other goodies including the monthly newsletter. Each month's news keeps us all aware of what's going on. Many new members are finding us first on the web, so the hard work of our webmaster (and newsletter people) is paying off.

We've also expanded our library. In fact just this week we added 19 new books, another CD and a DVD, all paid for by your library rentals. So check out the new list when it comes out in January and make use of this resource!

We changed our meeting time back to 6:30, reduced the announcements to the bare essentials (as they're all in the newsletter now), and increased our break time to allow for more socializing. With this new program we are attempting each month to allow enough time for our featured speaker, so we don't have to rush at the end.

Lastly, we now have a Silent Auction at every meeting, to help you get rid of your unwanted tools, etc. and provide a little income to the club.

So thank you to all of the Board and Committees who have made these innovations happen! If you check the Contacts page on our website, then look at the list of upcoming nominees for '06, you'll see that many of these same people are continuing on for this next year! While some are switching hats to try a different job, BAWA will benefit from this continuity of approach to how our meetings are run and the programs we have in place.

As your President, I also want to acknowledge some things that I have set out to do, but have been unable to complete due to the time pressure of that other thing called "work" that many of us are forced to do --- it keeps getting in the way of fun with BAWA. Some of these that I hope can be completed in the next year are:

Full status as a non-profit with the IRS: We have an IRS number, and full status at the state level, but we're only 36 pages of application away from achieving this with the IRS.

Written job descriptions of exactly what each Board member and committee chair does to be given to the new person in each position. This would go a long way toward further development of the continuity that I talked about fostering (above.)

Finding a permanent home. We've identified a couple of places, but each has its drawbacks. A new committee needs to take this on this task next year with renewed vigor.

Resurvey the members as to what they want our club to be. We did an extensive survey in 2003, with a very high return rate, and we've instituted many of the changes that were suggested in this survey. But we have many new members since then, so its time to ask again.

To the many members who have helped BAWA in the past year, I give a hearty "Thank You!" And to the many that may be new or have not volunteered for anything yet, please remember that our club exists ONLY because of our volunteers -- it's what makes BAWA what it is. Please donate your time this year to help, whether on a committee, at the Show, or whatever it is that you want to see happen. I'm sure you'll find as I have, that you get back much more than the time you put in! You'll get to know other members and what their woodworking interests are, and you'll have a say in how the club operates, to make it better for you --- our members.

So raise your glasses to a great club, the Bay Area Woodworkers Association!