Spring Fling 2025 After Action Report

On 23 – 28 March 2025 the IWCS Spring Fling was held at the Shocco Springs convention center in Talladega, Alabama.  The meeting was hosted by Rick and Rhonda Long with help from Elaine Hunt.  A special thanks to Violet Oman for taking some great photos during the event. Twenty-seven (27) IWCS members with a total of sixteen (16) guests attended the meeting, bringing the total to forty-three (43) attendees to the meeting.  Three excellent meals were provided each day during the meeting by the Shocco Springs dining facility.  The dining room was conveniently located on the floor right below the meeting hall.

The first day of the meeting, Monday was spent setting up the meeting hall, demonstration room, auction & meeting room and the classroom. The three rooms were used all day, each day of the meeting and into the evenings.  

There was a demonstration room, Figure 2, set up with two lathes and several rows of chairs for members watching each of the demonstrations.  Plastic was taped to the carpet below the lathes to catch the sawdust created during each of the turning demonstrations.

There was a classroom which was used as its name implies, for classes given by IWCS members to the Spring Flings attendees. The Thursday afternoon Bingo session was held in the room and you could hear members yelling BINGO down the hall as they won a game.

The wood mill area shown in Figure 4, was set up on day two as one of the two brothers running the mill, whose wife gave birth to the newest addition to their family several weeks early, right before the meetings start which caused the delay in the mill’s arrival.  Am happy to report that mother, child and father are all doing well.

After dinner each day all the meeting participants gathered in the craft auction room for announcements and door prizes.  Would like to thank past IWCS President Elaine Hunt for coordinating with the vendors who donated door prizes.  The items were a big hit for those who won the bid for items during the silent auctions or won as a door prize during the end of the day meeting.  The IWCS would like to thank the following companies for their donations that were part of the silent auctions and given away as door prizes each night:

During the first night’s announcements, IWCS President Rick Long presented a wood plaque to several individuals as a thank you for their contributions above & beyond to the IWCS.  Several of the thank you plaques recipients were unable to attend the Spring Fling at the last minute and their plaques were mailed to them after the meeting.  Figure 5 shows the plaque recipients after President Rick Long presented the plaques.

On Tuesday, day two of the meeting, several classes and demonstrations were provided.  The first scheduled class was to be given by Violet & Eric Oman, but due to some vehicle challenges the couple did not arrive till late that day.  Causing a minor change in the schedule.

After lunch on Tuesday, John Ferreira, Figure 8, gave a session outside on, “How to make a slab w/o a planer”.  The presentation was outside as John created a lot of sawdust with his power tools while flattening the demonstration slabs.

Brenda Stumpf gave a demonstration in the main meeting hall, on making “Adult aprons and bibs”, at the same time as the John’s outside slab demonstration.  Both sessions were well attended.

On Wednesday morning, the third day of the Spring Fling, Violet (IWCS Vice President) and Eric Oman taught both parts of their Checker Board session.  Around lunch time you could see members carrying a plastic bag containing the wood checker board and checker pieces.  One of the checker boards and pieces was auctioned off during the crafts auction.

Also, on Wednesday morning member, Eric L. Krum gave a session on Turning a Wooden Goblet.  Eric first gave a slide show about the factors needed to be considered when making a wooden goblet and the step-by-step instructions required to turn a goblet.  The intent of the slide show was to help IWCS members who decide months after the session, to turn a wooden goblet.  The slideshow can be viewed here and can be used as a refresher on turning a wooden goblet.  Figures 10 & 11 show Eric giving the slideshow and then demonstrating turning a wooden goblet.

The members attending Eric’s demonstration got to choose from Japanese Plum-Yew (Cephalotaxus harringtonia) or Zelkova (Zelkova serrata) the species of wood the goblet would be turned from during the demonstration.  The audience unanimously selected the goblet should be turned from the Zelkova so that the Plum-Yew could be auctioned off during that evening’s silent auction.  The Zelkova goblet was auctioned off during the craft auction.

All day long on Wednesday the wood mill was busy cutting up the over twenty (20) logs provided by the mill’s operators; Ben Trickett and Casey Pearson.  The two not only provided the logs but did an outstanding job moving and milling the resulting lumber.  Members got to purchase some or all of a log and to have it sliced up to their specifications.  Gary Green did a great job squeezing the most money out of members who wanted some of the milled wood species.

Members brought to the meeting so many items for the silent auction that three silent auctions had to be run each day.  Garry Roux & Jim Dominick with the assistance of a multitude of helpers set up the silent auction items (Figure 14), completed the auction sheets and then, after the appointed hour for the auction, they collected the funds from each of the items won during the auction.

Only at an IWCS event would you find someone carrying a viewer’s loupe and then use it to examine end grain on a piece of wood to discuss what the species of wood is.

On Wednesday morning Eric and Violet Oman hosted a Chessboard Workshop.  The basic chessboards were pre-made by Garry Roux (Figure 16) and Eric Oman.

Garry and Eric spent a weekend creating the boards at Garry’s shop in Collinsville, Illinois.  During the workshop, participants picked out a chessboard from the table, gathered up the appropriate grits of sandpaper and sanding block.  Once all the materials were obtained, the participant commenced sanding the Chessboard through the grits until all the scratches were gone and the board was as smooth as desired, then a finish was applied.  There were three different types of finishes available to choose from, wipe on poly, tung oil finish and a wax oil finish.

Once they completed the project, they picked out a chess or checker set and were issued a nice bag to transport the finished product home.

On Wednesday afternoon members got to choose to attend a wide variety of activities.  A group favorite was the Pizza Board finishing session run by Jim Dominick.   According to Jim, the idea for the pizza boards was Rick Long’s. He called Jim mid-January and asked if he could make 25 of them before the Spring fling. It was short notice with all he had on his plate at the time to include heart surgery in February. But he couldn’t say no.  So, Jim made a sketch of what he thought the board should look like. He knew he could not get them all done by himself in time for the meeting, so he started calling around and asked if folks were willing to help. Garry Roux, Dennis Wilson, and Gary Green stepped up and agreed to do five (5) each. Jim made ten of the boards and provided the supplies, sandpaper, oil, and wax used in the session to finish them.  Each of the three board contributors did them a bit different than the sketch Jim provided which Jim thought was is fine, as they gave some variation to the product. Each participant in the session got to pick out the board they wanted to finish and the variety of shapes made it more interesting to watch as members made up their minds on the board they wanted.  Jim thinks the end result of the session shows the unselfish, team-oriented members we have in the society, especially when some of these guys do mostly trading and collecting these days and not too much woodworking.  The twenty-five (25) members not only got to pick out a board and then to finish the board, and they got to take it home.

While the one group was finishing the pizza boards, Mark Duff took another group of members for A walk in the woods to identify the many species of trees in the woods surrounding the Shocco Springs facility.  Figure 19 shows the IWCS members on their walk to identify different species of local trees.

Judy Chastain presented a great session on how to make Jar Openers to a group of members and guests.

On Wednesday evening after dinner the Craft Auction was held.  Garry Roux with the help of several other IWCS members auctioned off the craft items donated by members and companies.  The auctioning for most of the items was brisk and very competitive as there were some really nicely crafted items like the quilt being held up in Figure 20.

On Thursday morning the outdoor wood auction was held.  The Northeast Trustee, Dr. Mark Hauser performed the duty of auctioneer and with the help of Dr. Art Lee and Gary Green as they auctioned off the wood pieces brought to the meeting by participating members.  There was a wide variety of wood species from all over, like Holly (Ilex opaca) from Maryland to Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) and Texas Ebony (Ebenopsis ebano) from Texas.

After the outdoor wood auction, member Eric L. Krum gave a class on turning Lidded Boxes like the ones on his display table in the meeting and shown in Figure 24.  Eric first gave a slideshow about the characteristics of a lidded box when used for display or to be used to store items in.  The slideshow can be downloaded here, and the handout illustrating the steps in making a box can be downloaded here.  After the slideshow Eric presented a video detailing the turning and finishing of a lidded box.  The video includes a slow-motion scene where Eric gets a violent catch, and the piece of Honduras Rosewood (Dalbergia stevensonii) goes flying from the lathe.  The lidded box video can be downloaded here. Due to the size of the video file, the video is only viewable on YouTube.

Without exception the comments from participating members in the meeting, were that the Spring Fling this year was a great success.   The IWCS owes a great thanks to Rick and Rhonda Long for organizing the meeting and making sure that the meeting came off without a hitch. 

Also scheduled this year is an IWCS meeting, 19 to 24 October, hosted by the Australian chapter in beautiful Aldinga Beach.  Meeting details are available for viewing here and the registration form can be downloaded here.

There will be a regional EuroAfrica meeting, 3 to 6 September in Porto, Portugal.  Attendees will visit a botanical park, a sawmill, veneer company and a marquetry company. Sounds like it will be another great meeting to attend.  For more information click here.