Alexandra Palace 2008
This year, the weather on setting up day was great, not like last year when we had to overcome a 4 inch layer of snow on top of ice in the sloping car park! There were no queues to get in and it was much easier to unpack the equipment and start on the setting up.
We had been given a 12 metre stand with a framework this year, which made it much easier to set up. It was shared with Cheam Woodturning Association who set up two lathes at one end, while we set up the new club Wivamac and Paul’s small lathe at our end.
We had a shared exhibition area with Cheam, backed by the big blue display stand.
The only downside to the exhibition was how few members had given us exhibition pieces to display.
The show was never overcrowded – in fact, it was not really busy for much of the time – which was a great shame for the organisers. It meant however that people seemed more 
willing to stay and watch and talk for longer – which was a good thing. We were all kept busy and were able to enjoy demonstrating and stewarding. We met people who lived close to Mytchett who had never heard of the club (a need to look at local advertising!) and have hopefully gained new members and friends over the weekend.
Basil Gridley had given us several of his beautifully crafted pieces in the style of Hans Weislogg. They proved to be very popular with the visitors – and even more so with the competition judges. He had been persuaded to enter one of them in the ‘Enthusiast’ section of the turning competition and he was awarded 1st prize. Well done Basil!
Awards for All Lottery Grant
In November 2006, the committee agreed that SAW should put together a bid for money from the Lottery Fund - Awards for All. The aim was to get money to buy a new club lathe and to improve the audio and video systems.
The forms looked straightforward, so a small sub-committee was formed and the epic process began...
Although we knew in principle what we hoped to achieve if we were awarded a grant, the actual process made us look more closely at the needs of the club and gave us an opportunity to ask members their views on presentation at club nights when we have professional demonstrators.
We knew that we wanted a more powerful lathe – but it had to be possible to take it apart so that it could be transported more easily than the Poolewood to events like Rural Life Centre weekends and Alexandra Palace. We wanted to get the 2 HP WivaMac, but at over £2000, without a grant it would take most of the SAW contingency fund .
We wanted to be able to improve the quality of both the sound and the images shown on our big screen, and had been experimenting with borrowed and second hand equipment.
We got a professional company to give us advice about the sound and video systems and eventually decided that we had enough information to make the bid - by this time it was October 2007!
Every organisation applying for a grant has to have a sponsor. The sponsor has to be someone who knows the organisation and can validate that it serves the community in the way it describes on its application.
We are very grateful to Chris Shepheard, the Director of the Rural Life Centre at Tilford for being our sponsor. We have close links with the Rural Life Centre and appreciate the time he gave in supporting our application.
The sub-committee was delighted when we found that the bid had been successful – and we wanted to tell everyone immediately, but there is always an announcement date before which no information can be given out – and unfortunately, ours was after the Christmas meeting – hence the letter to members from Colin Spain, sent out on December 18th.
SAW has been awarded a lottery grant of £6329. With this money we will be buying a new lathe, which should be available for the AGM in January, new video cameras with stands and lights, a video mixer, an induction loop system for members using hearing aids and improved microphones for the sound system.
We are grateful to the sub committee for their hard work and especially to Colin, who pulled it all together. The other members were Peter Stent (Treasurer), Jennie Starbuck (Vice President) and David Bracken (co-opted member).