Oregon Woodturning Symposium

[Ralph Lindberg]

All done with the Oregon Wood Turning Symposium. Had a great time, met a few new people, re-met a few "old" people and learned a lot.
This was the wife's first symposium, and she said it was like drinking from a fire-hose.

[Reed Gray]

Yea, that sums it up even for me. Lots of info, lots of networking, and just, well a meeting of Wood-aholice, and Tool-aholics anonymous. Can't believe we had 60 degree plus weather every day at this time of year.

robo hippy

[Thom Sturgill]

If I'm not mistaken, our club secretary was there. I know she was out of state visiting family and was planning on attending a symposium. She felt the same way when she went to her first symposium and is hooked for sure. And it has made quite a difference in her work.

[Ralph Lindberg]

Thom. they asked for the person from Florida to stand at the dinner and no one did, so maybe she missed the dinner

[Thom Sturgill]

Like I said, she was visiting family (daughter and grandchildren?), so that's probably to be expected. We'll get a report when she comes back...

Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I have the Florida and NC symposiums that I have been to.

[Dale Bonertz]

What are the attendance numbers to this event? Roughly

[Reed Gray]

There were about 260 registered attendants. I was very surprised at how well the event was organized and run. I am always cautious of first year shows due to my experience with arts and craft shows. They did an excellent job of getting things together. I never did get to work on the Vicmark lathe though.... I was busy at my booth. I would expect the next one in 2 years to be bigger and better. Now, if we can only get the weather to cooperate as well, temps in the mid 60's and clear and sunny. Very unusual for this time of year here. I may have to go out and water my sunflower forest if we don't get significant rain very soon... Normal snow pack at Crater Lake this time of year 110 inches. Current snow pack, about 23 inches....

robo hippy

[Ralph Lindberg]

I know they ran out of symposium "books", that is all the demonstrators flyers bound together. People that dropped in late Sat didn't get books, flyers, etc.
They also ran out of almost everything else.
Ellen spoke with their treasurer just before we left, her SWAG was they made all expenses and should have the seed money for 2017.

There was very little done "wrong", the only thing I noticed was a couple of the camera operators tended to stand in-front of the screen, or tried to hand-hold the camera (on the tripod) and were not remotely steady.

One of my amusements was the other two "events" at the Fair Grounds, they also had a "Buckskin Horse" event, which appeared to be mostly attended by teenage girls with spurs and a Gun/Knife show, with the usual characters that attend those. Friday, while we were in full swing, the Gun/Knife vendors were setting up and the Turners got lots of glares from some of them, as we walked through the building lobby to the meeting rooms or lavatories. At one point they (Gun/Knife people) put up signs directing the turners around the lobby. I'm guessing the FairGrounds people had words as the signs were gone two hours later. I'm guessing they were not used to sharing the facility.

I also had to laugh at one of the Gun/Knife vendors Sat AM. I was walking in from the RV area and he was getting ready to go inside. Now I can kinda understand the fashion statement of wearing a Camo pants, shirt and jacket. But he got out of his vehicle, took off his jacket, put on a bullet-proof vest, then put his jacket back on. Now, at a show where NOTHING is allowed to be loaded, in fact they were inspecting every weapon to ensure this, why was he wearing a bullet proof vest? Fashion statement I guess.

[Terry Gerros]

Ralph,

Terry Gerros here. Thank you for your kind words regarding the symposium. I will admit, at the time we published the handbook, we had an additional 35 copies made just on the off chance people would register Friday or Saturday. There were quite a surprising number of people who registered both Friday and Saturday. I reckon next time we won't make that same mistake. In case you know someone who didn't get a copy of the handbook, I would be more than happy to email them all the files so they can have all the handouts. My email address is gerrost@yahoo.com Hope to see you in 2017!!