In the absence of our President, Program Director Per Madsen began the meeting by welcoming everyone. He called for guests to introduce themselves and we welcomed Tracy Hartzler and John Seybold. Subsequently, Tracy did join.

Stan Booker, our Door Prize and guru then described the goodies that he had in store for us. There was a tool bag, a compartmentalized box for screws and such and some other goodies for the door prizes. The White Oak boards would probably be raffled off that evening according to Stan.

For Show and Tell, Arnie Champagne showed a mock-up of an information kiosk he is developing for the Colma Historical Society. A number of meetings ago at the Colma Historical Society, he showed us a railroad waiting bench that he had built for them and described the very interesting way he had put it together.

Per then listed our upcoming meetings and classes as follows:

Lumber mill tour in Martinez, Sat October 10, 10:30am, 4901 Pacheco Blvd., Martinez

Hand Plane seminar Thursday October 15 Meeting with Neal White with Harold Patterson and Don Naples Foster City

Special Hand-cut Dovetail class, Sat Sun October 31 November 1 with John McCormack at Woodcraft, San Carlos

Annual Jigs & Fixtures and Box Contest, Thursday, Nov 19 meeting

Hors D'oeuvre/Dessert Potluck, Thursday Dec 10 meeting. Note- this is one week earlier that our usual 3rd Thursday of the month meeting schedule.

There will be a Board meeting on Monday, October 12th at 7 pm at Frank Ramsay's at 88 King St. San Francisco. Everyone is welcome.

Per also mentioned that our Librarian has resigned. We need a volunteer to take the position. If no one comes forward, there will be a good chance that the library will be scrapped.

At this point, a break was called. Members enjoyed the coffee and the "wooden" cookies baked by Fred Reicher.

The main presentation organized and chaired by our Vice President Jay Perrine was a Panel Discussion on Improving & Expanding Your Shop.

Panel was composed of Jay, Carl Johnson and Linda Salter and Ken Holder (author of 3 woodworking books).

In preparation for the meeting, Jay had visited two shops and his own and had a 11x14 color collage of each shop to pass around. He also had a binder with at least a dozen color 4x6 photos of each shop. In addition, a thicker binder with color copies of articles from woodworking magazines with 25 articles of things like: 27 books every woodworker must have, 6 planes you can't do without and other items of interest.

The panelists were asked to speak to the following:

1. What was your goal before improving or building your shop?

2. Did you use paper sketches/scale modeled drawings or CAD?

3. Did you achieve what you set out to do? If not why not?

4. What would you advise BAWA folks contemplating some improvements?

5. What are the most important tools; and is the table saw THE core tool?

Carl started and had 13 objectives and he discussed those. Folks were very interested. Photos were circulated while he spoke. Then Jay showed slides of Carl's shop and he answered questions. Linda was next and Ken expanded from his seat in the audience - she spoke to the objectives and added commentary to the slides of her shop. Then Jay was last with similar comments and slides. Carl made the strongest point that those "starting out" should allow room in their shop for assembly - most people plan for the tools and forget to leave space to assemble. Also several mentioned that they lacked room for wood storage. Table saw was the clear winner for the key & central tool in the shop - although people thought that the FESTOOL plunge saw was excellent and accurate and useful more away from the shop (like John Blackmore did for Rebuilding Together). Bandsaw was seen as important but not doable as the central tool. People requested this panel again next year with more focus on the typical two car garage AND show floor plans and how it is all worked out.

The meeting ended with the grand give away of the door prizes and Bob Young hauling away the White Oak won with the raffle.