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Thread: Woodcraft is leaving the Freedom Pens Project

  1. #31
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
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    Monroe, MI
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    Keith, Menards is located in Eau Clare, Wisconsin and is owned by John Menard and his family. I've read some, shall we say "interesting" things about him. However, I believe he is a veteran and might be sympatheic to the cause. I think there is a thread somewhere in the archives here about them. They are in the upper midwest--Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and maybe one or two others.

    I assume you have contacted Rockler? Or another thought that just popped into my head would be Cabelas or Bass Pro. The Cabelas here has events, including fund raiser type events, EVERY weekend. They don't have tons of locations, but move a lot of people through their stores on a daily basis (6 million people per year here.) And I would think their target customer would be very sympathetic to the cause.

  2. #32
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    Aug 2006
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    Johnson City, Tennessee
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    John, make sure your local Woodcraft knows too--I'm sure the store owners have some voice in the operation of the company.
    Matt that was the reply from the local store, I didn't post the letter to corporate because it was exactly the same as to the local store and I did not receive a reply to it.

  3. #33
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    Sorry, I meant John Shuk. If you do get a reply from corporate it will probably be the same one the rest of us got.

  4. #34
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    Caledonia, Ohio USA.
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    70,000 pens made is the sure clincher of the reason 'why' they quit and started their own copycat version. They were not getting enough of that market. People are not buying ALL their supplies from them. Like the red, white and blue Corian. I'm sure others were getting kits else where and Woodcraft can't have that. Thus, they pulled out, it is about their bottom line. I think this will backfire. This move has nothing to do with caring for the troops.
    Have a Nice Day!

  5. #35
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    Feb 2003
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    Hayes, Virginia
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    Jon,

    There is the issue of the huge volume of sales during a Turn-A-Thon. When thousands of pen turners vist Woodcraft on Veterans Day most will purchase somethng during the day. This adds up to a lot of money across all of their stores. The second issue is the excellent publicity they receive for hosting an honorable event, its good for their image.

    During previous Turn-A-Thons Woodcraft has been very generous and has provided free pen kits and blanks to all pen turners. Some stores provided turning supplies and tools for the days event and some didn't, it was up to the local Manager. Of course their donations are a tax write off since Freedom Pens is an IRS certified Non-Profit Organization. Jackie and I paid the $500.00 fee and donated our time over several months to get our IRS certification.

    In the past our Members have scheduled their own TAT's at various locations in their local areas including Rocklers and shopping malls. As the TAT events started becoming a major part of Freedom Pens Woodcraft offered to host them on Veterans Day. There was some competition in the early days between Woodcraft and Rockler and Rockler stopped which left Woodcraft as our sole host for TAT's. This was our biggest mistake, allowing Woodcraft to be our only host.

    For the record the people who make Freedom Pens happen have provided more free pen kits to schools than Woodcraft will ever provide. We are still shipping free pen kits to schools for free, paid by the donations we receive from those who work hard all year round to keep Freedom Pens alive. We have also provided thousands of free pen kits to turners groups and some individuals whenever we had the funds.

    Freedom Pens is a year round project but our Veterans Day Turn-A-Thon usually accounts for 40 to 50% of our annual pen count, and now that has been taken from us based on a corporate decision in West Virginia.

    I have two goals for Freedom Pens next year, to rebuild our Veterans Day Turn-A-Thon by finding a suitable host or multiple hosts...none of which will be Woodcraft and to increase the number of pens we can provide to our Military. I'm going to need lots of help spreading the word to all of our pen turners so they will know when and where we will be gathering in the coming months, there are thousands who are not Members here at The Creek.

    Penn State Industries has provided the bulk of the pen kits for the Freedom Pens Project. PSI has provided us with a rock bottom price for bulk pen kits and they have maintained their price through the years. PSI is the best company we have ever had support us and they haven't asked for anything in return.

    .
    Last edited by Keith Outten; 11-03-2007 at 6:58 AM.

  6. #36
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Martinsville, Indiana
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    81

    Woodcraft Boycott

    I bought most of my pen kits and other merchandise from my local Woodcraft store (including a Unisaw). I also took my first (and only) pen turning class there. The service I received was the best. I've noticed many changes over the past couple of years.

    First, a number of the teachers for the classes got lower and lower in qualifications and many times was listed as "Woodcraft Employee". They did secure a couple of locally well known crafters, but they taught very few classes (I guess it cost Woodcraft too much for their services - less profit).

    The second thing I noticed, is that most of the Woodcraft employees moved to Rockler. Once this happened, I did not get the friendly service I had become accustomed to....but I continue to get that when I visit Rockler.

    With all this being said, I think Woodcraft has a lot more problems. It wouldn't surprise me that corporate greed is at the root of them all!

    I stopped shopping at Woodcraft over a year ago. This incident just reaffirms that I made the right decision.

    Jean


  7. #37
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    Huntsville, AL (The Sun and Fun Capital of The South)
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    The more I read this thread the xxxxxxxer I get. I have been heavily involved in the project since its very inception when we started with less people than it takes to have a pick-up basketball game and a total of $54 dollars in donations. I have spent 1000's and 1000's of hours on the project and I know what the intent was.

    Mr Garret must be smoking some wacky backy when he says Woodcraft sees no benefit from the project. It is apparent he has never been in one of the stores during a turn-a-thon as I have (Nashville & Knoxville) and seen the number of customers the activity draws and the impact it has on sales for that day. In addition local radio and television coverage at their stores is super, dubber FREE advertisement. His comments are nothing more than marketing B.S.

    When one of the troops receive a pen from the Freedom Pen Project it is usually accompanied with a short note to show it comes from and ordinary citizen to show their support not from a commericial enterprise. I don't know what accompanies the pens that Woodcraft sends, but you can bet your sweet xxx it has a Woodcraft logo on it, which is promoting Woodcaft instead of promoting troop support.

    I have a lot more to say on the subject and will be doing so in a direct letter to the President of Woodcraft. I want to be polite in that endeavor so I will have to wait for a day or two to calm down.

    I suggest all our members either email or snail mail their views on the matter to Woodcraft.

    One pee ode Old Rebel.
    "If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride - and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high - but so are the rewards" - - Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant
    Ken Salisbury Passed away on May 1st, 2008 and will forever be in our hearts.

  8. #38
    I don't understand what the ruckus is about? Let Woodcraft do their thing for the troops, and this organization can do their thing. In the end, all combined efforts benefit the troops in theater. If it provides a measure of promotion for Woodcraft, so be it. It is not as if Sawmill Creek hasn't received a measure of promotional success with this pen project.

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leo Pashea View Post
    I don't understand what the ruckus is about? Let Woodcraft do their thing for the troops, and this organization can do their thing. In the end, all combined efforts benefit the troops in theater. If it provides a measure of promotion for Woodcraft, so be it. It is not as if Sawmill Creek hasn't received a measure of promotional success with this pen project.
    There is a big difference in the personal, grass roots touch of SMC FPP and Woodcraft's commercial version.
    Last edited by Ken Salisbury; 11-05-2007 at 7:04 AM.
    "If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride - and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high - but so are the rewards" - - Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant
    Ken Salisbury Passed away on May 1st, 2008 and will forever be in our hearts.

  10. #40
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    AMEN Ken! Big difference!

  11. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Salisbury View Post
    There is a big difference in the personal, grass roots touch of SMC FPP and Woodcraft's commercial version.
    I don't believe I stated there was a difference, only that both efforts supported the troops abroad.

  12. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Leo Pashea View Post
    I don't believe I stated there was a difference, only that both efforts supported the troops abroad.
    Ok, shame on me for agreeing, but many other things out there are copycat versions and it is nothing to get upset about. As long as the troops get the benifit, I don't see a huge problem. Yes, Woodcraft may profit from it, but if they supported the Freedom Project, they benifited from that too with advertisement of suporting the troops. I don't see this as a compitition but a way for more support given to a good cause. Maybe I don't understand the problem and if so, forgive me but no matter, support the troops one way or another.

  13. #43
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    Aug 2006
    Location
    Johnson City, Tennessee
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    To be fair I sent my local store the link so that they could see how we feel about this change. It didn't seem to me that the local management understood our concerns in their initial reply

    This is the reply;

    Hi,
    The reason that Woodcraft has decided to deliver turned ink pens to our troops is that for some reason Sawmill Creek was taking 4 to 6 months to deliver the pens to the troops. The corporate staff at Woodcraft felt that was unacceptable and wanted our troops to have the pens in hand by Christmas. So in order to expedite the process and get our pens to the troops in a more timely manner, Woodcraft decided to send the pens provided by Woodcraft stores directly to the troops instead of going through Sawmill Creek for distribution.

    Hope this helps to clear up the matter.
    Beverly Lovegrove

    Keep in mind this is the local stores response but it appears they now have contacted corporate for more information.

  14. #44
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    Feb 2003
    Location
    Hayes, Virginia
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    Last year about this time all of the people we had been sending pens to in the Middle East rotated home so we had to reestablish connections with new people which took about 4 weeks not 4 months. This has happened to us before but not right before the holidays so this was the first time we experienced a problem delivering pens produced during our Veterans Day Turn-A-Thon.

    This year we have eliminated this problem as we are delivering pens to the Medical Groups who will deliver pens to hospitals and the Morale and Training Centers. This is in conjunction with the normal delivery directly to individual units requesting pens directly.

    The real problem was based on Woodcraft not accounting for the pens they shipped last year. Woodcraft requested permission to ship pens directly, which I agreed was fine as long as they provided the metrics so we could both keep our Master List of Pen Turners up to date and have the necessary information we need to file our annual report with the Internal Revenue Service. Understand this is a huge job, someone has to count every pen, write down every pen turners name and the totals then transfer that information to our Master List here at The Creek. The Woodcraft Store Managers failed to provide an accounting at their stores and Woodcraft Corporate failed to do it themselves so it wasn't done.

    The fact that so many pens seemed to be unaccounted for caused concern with some of the people who coordinate large groups of Freedom Pen turners. Because I was unable to provide an accurate total last year due to pens that were not accounted for I decided we would return to what was working...all pens would be shipped to us here in Virginia and we would provide the necessary accounting and ship to the Middle East.

    Nothing that happened last year should have had an affect on our relationship with Woodcraft. As Woodcraft obviously did have a problem they could have made their change of heart known early in the year instead of just a few weeks before our scheduled TAT and given us time to make the necessary plans for our Veterans Day Turn-A-Thon. It appears that they waited to notify us of the changes, then did a minimal advertisement in their sales flyer so that few would know of the changes and their stores would fill with Freedom Pen Turners on Veterans Day. The final impact of their actions are yet to be known but it is possible it may end the Freedom Pens Project.

    .
    Last edited by Keith Outten; 11-06-2007 at 8:03 AM.

  15. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leo Pashea View Post
    I don't understand what the ruckus is about? Let Woodcraft do their thing for the troops, and this organization can do their thing. In the end, all combined efforts benefit the troops in theater. If it provides a measure of promotion for Woodcraft, so be it. It is not as if Sawmill Creek hasn't received a measure of promotional success with this pen project.
    Leo,

    There is a considerable difference in what a commercial business is willing to do for a project like ours and what Jackie and I have done to keep the project going year round. Of particular concern is our involvement with many schools that we support throughout the school year with free pen kits. Shop Teachers rarely have the means to provide free pen kits for their students, consider that the number of pens students will turn is based on the number of pen kits we can provide. A Freedom Pen made by an American child is as good as it gets. When a Soldier, Sailor or Marine receives such a gift from a student it is more precious than any other gift they could receive.

    Children don't generally go to Woodcraft for Turn-A-Thons or visit their stores to purchase or exchange pen kits. Children don't purchase expensive tools and turning supplies, they aren't customers.

    No matter what the final outcome I hope that Woodcraft will continue what they have now started and not just quit. I have spent hours and hours on the phone with various Woodcraft representatives trying to explain our side of the issues. My efforts failed to convince them to reverse their decision so I closed the door on the entire Woodcraft organization...on a personal level at least I'm done with them.

    .
    Last edited by Keith Outten; 11-06-2007 at 8:46 AM.

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