St Luke's Hospice - Gala Day
12 June 2010
Last year’s Club Challenge was so successful in raising money for our adopted charity that we decided to repeat the idea again this year. A different shaped piece of wood this year, again supplied by Steve Wright from Elston Sawmill, provided inspiration to many participants.
The variety of finished products is amazing - see pictures above - with club members spending many hours to craft something unusual. All these items will be sold for St Luke’s Hospice, Sheffield.
As always Sheffield Woodturning club supports local charities,
and this year’s chosen charity is St Luke’s Hospice. St Luke’s
contacted us and asked if we would take part in their annual gala.
So with the promise of a marquee for us to set up a display and our
lathe, we agreed to join in and help them out.
We arrived early on a breezy but bright Saturday morning to find our
promised marquee was in fact an open sided gazebo pitched on a
severe uneven slope. The troops rallied round and with the help of a
couple of St Luke’s ground staff a couple of sides were found and
attached to
the gazebo. Tables were set up and despite a defective
spirit level, the team of club members put on a varied and visually
stunning display of members’ turnings and a section of the display
was dedicated to items turned by club members and items donated by
visiting professional demonstrators specifically for St Luke’s. This
was our first opportunity to sell the items turned as part of the
club challenge.
With the smell of Hog Roast in the air, the breeze strengthened to
such an extent that it managed to dislodge a few turnings from the
top shelf; it was due only to the lightning fast reactions of a
couple of club members that they managed to catch most of them and a
disaster was averted.
The sun came out and a steady flow of customers passed through and
watched on as members turned light pulls and spinners on the lathe.
Les and Louise manned the sales desk and gave lessons in the art of
spinning tops that resulted in sale after sale of spinning tops and
light pulls, all kindly donated by club members boosting the St
Luke’s takings considerably. Adults reminisced and children of all
ages discovered the joy of spinning a top; “the simple things in
life are often the most enjoyable”
Eventually the time came to pack things away and sweep up the
shavings. And once that was done a minute was taken to compare the
varying degree of sunburn of more than one of our members.
The event lasted from 1 o’clock until 4 and
in just three hours of trading we managed to raise a total of
£145.50 for St Luke’s , of which £56 was from the sales of the
spinning tops and light pulls and has been sent to St Luke’s in
advance of our main fundraising amount, which we will present to
them next year, see photos here.