An Apology

Because there is no end of good things to talk about at a typical BAWA meeting, the beginning section of our meetings when we make announcements, etc., has swollen. This culminated in our February meeting in which it took 45 minutes for business, and we didn't have enough time for Yeung Chan to make his excellent presentation. Being the experienced and versatile teacher that he is, Yeung was able to shorten his presentation to the time we had left, but I determined we never wanted that situation to happen again! It was wrong of me to do this to our presenter.

Where's the Beef?

Two years ago in our membership survey you told us you wanted less club business and more meat in our meetings. This is consistent with our mission statement that says our reason for existing as a club is to present and educate on the topic of woodworking. So last month we went back to the way we ran the meetings just after our survey was completed, namely we dispensed with a formal business meeting and have just very brief announcements. (The "business meeting" takes place at the Board meetings.) This maximizes the amount of time we spend on the things that you said were important to you.

So for most regular meetings, we'll focus on just the four core things that you've told us are the most important:

20 Minute Tech Talk (when we have one) --- for basic information about a topic

Show & Tell --- to be able to ask questions and find out all about the piece

Break Time --- for socializing and information exchange among members

Main Presentation --- the main reason we're all there

Everything else is peripheral. So this means that either I will quickly read all announcements, or if I call on you, you should make a brief announcement from your seat. As we did successfully in March, we will try to limit this whole section of the meeting to about 15 minutes.

A Change for Our Newsletter

In order for this to work, we need to change the newsletter slightly. Announcements will need to be sent to Newsletter Editor, Mark Rand by the first of the month to be published in that month's newsletter. Attention all Committee Chairs: this means you! If you don't get it to Mark in time, he can't publicize it. So now if you want to find out about all that's going on with our club during the month, read our newsletter cover to cover.

A Further Change for the Better in Our Meetings

Also in our membership survey, you said you'd like our meetings to start at 6:30, so we've changed the start time to this as often as we can. But sometimes this means we have to be cleaned up and out of the meeting hall by 9:30 (in a couple cases even 9:15!) It's obvious that we need to be more efficient about how we run our meetings. So to have enough time for core items, and end on time, we must start on time. I've been holding our meetings at least 15 minutes from the official start time when I see that only a few have shown up, further contributing to squeezing the time for the presenter. So now we'll start on time. If you arrive late, please enter and find a seat as quietly as possible so as to cause the minimum disruption to the meeting.

The Program Committee has set up some wonderful programs for us and with these changes I look forward to a great year. So far we've had very positive feedback on these improvements. Please let me know what you think of them. See you at the next meeting!