Our club, Lancaster Area Woodturners (lancasterareawoodturners.org), holds weekly coffee hours, Thursday mornings from 10am to 11am Eastern time, on Zoom. Wow, big thanks to all of the club members and coffee-hour turners who have participated, it’s been great fun, highly educational, and a social lifeline to our 40+ members.

Our coffee hour began in mid-April 2020 during the Northeast COVID lockdown as an informal way of helping more of our members get onto Zoom and get comfortable with the virtual meeting format, it looked like we would be meeting this way for a while. It became a social check-in and chat during May and June. Then we began taking phones and laptops into our workshops, sharing  photos of our setups and current projects, and discussing woodturning problems, tool and jig ideas, finishing tips… we’ve even made and posted many videos. It’s all member-generated content and chat, it’s informal, it’s free, and it’s fun. 

We now have a coffee regulars clicking in from Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Germany, England, and the list grows as participants invite their fellow woodturning friends.

There doesn’t seem to be any problem generating content either, now that everybody can shoot and share phone photos and videos. Recent topics have included lathe and chainsaw safety, power sanding, blank preparation and storage, spiral turning, coring systems, chucking methods, finishing routines, gentle design critiques, and wood hoarding.

OK so now what? We’re continuing to hold weekly coffee hour on line, for as long as it’s interesting and draws a full screen. Maybe hybrid monthly meetings are next, with some members continuing on Zoom, while others resume socially-distant but in-person meetings and demos. Turning demonstrators are installing home video setups for live remote demos and classes, there’ve been two virtual symposiums.

Here is the information for our next Coffee Hour:

Lancaster Area Woodturners Thursday Coffee Hour, New Zoom Logon

Please join us for our usual Thursday morning 10am Eastern time (currently GMT -05:00) for the LAW Coffee Hour. We promise another stimulating and entertaining hour of woodturning camaraderie as we move forward towards the end of this challenging 2020. If you’d like to share photos or videos, you can do it from your own computer or you can email them to Doug, morebitstoturn@verizon.net, he’ll manage the share so all you have to do is talk.

For more information on how to join our weekly Coffee Hour, please send us your request through the “Comments” page under “Guest Book”.

You can catch up on past coffee hours on YouTube through this link: Past Coffee Hours.

Please note: The moderator and host reserves the right to reject any participant who does not conduct themselves in a proper manner. This is designed to be fun, educational and rewarding, so enjoy yourself. If you’re new to the meeting, please identify yourself to the host via private chat so we can keep a log of attendees and their home bases. We love to see your work, so practice with your camera beforehand so you can ascertain focal distances, width of coverage, etc.