Good Monday morning!

Good Monday morning Patriot Woodworkers! What did you get done over the weekend, and what have you planned for the week ahead! Inquiring minds want to know. Please tell us what's happening in your shops, your life, and any events going on with you. Thank you for being here folks!

 

Welcome new members

To view our newest members and welcome them to our digs, please see our Members Page, you can "Sort" by join date and click on their names and be taken to their profile page where you can leave a message of welcome. Thank you for making our newest folks feel welcome.

 

Community news

Our summer fundraiser is back! Please help support your community by donating funds to help offset the costs of running this wonderful little corner of our world. When you donate, you'll be entered into a drawing for a good chance of winning some pretty cool items given to us by our sponsors Easy Wood Tools and Woodcraft.

 

We are a little bit in the hole folks, as many of you know we lost another sponsor this year, and we lost a sponsor a couple years ago as well, so our annual funding is down 50%. I am working on acquiring new sponsors, it's not easy. So if y'all can help just a little bit, anything helps, two dollars is the minimum!

If you are not in a good place to help financially, you can help in other ways, share our fundraiser with your friends, via email, or perhaps copy paste the link to the fundraiser on your social media accounts.

Thank you and have a wonderful week ahead!

 

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I know this is not woodworking related, but sometimes this channel is, the YouTube channel Townsends, is a wonderful place to go see how Americans did it in the 18th and 19th centuries. One of my favorite areas of study Townsends does, is how they prepared and cooked their food back in the day. Enjoy!

 

Doing final check of the Pilot today for the trip to "Three Weeks From Anywhere" tomorrow.

Will be back Friday afternoon, so I'll be a bit late with the "Weekend Agenda".

Monday already?   Time to tear apart the rear of my Ford Transit Connect van to get the the rear light turn signal.  Bulb needs changing out.  Promised the van I'd take care of him this week. 

Might put a chunk of dark walnut on my CNC radial axis and see if I can make a pretty pedestal post out of it.  I have a bit of a bad reaction to walnut dust though.  Might regret that adventure.  

It is Monday...leave it at that...67 rainy degrees outside....had a LOUD Thunderstorm roll through, earlier this morning.

 

Have not been informed by the Boss as to a Schedule for to day.....yet..

Need to accomplish a few mundane household chores. Then, it's back to the scroll saw.  That thing is addictive. The little clock arrived Saturday for the TeeTime piece. No more excuses. Hopefully   I can get some halfway decent cuts on it today.  There's always sand paper , if not.

Couple of doctors to visit this week for yearly stuff but I get the feeling they just like the money.  Get in the shop in between I guess.

Getting oil change right now. Hope to finish a project in shop this afternoon 

Mostly unproductive weekend; generally unsupervised. Multiple evening church business meetings this week. Variety of errands errands throughout the week as well. Grass will need groomed again as long as I get a mower running and assuming we get a day or two without rain. Watching an online auction that ends tomorrow. Working on some plans for upcoming weekend.

42 minutes ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Mostly unproductive weekend; generally unsupervised.

 

 That's when I get the stuff I want to do done. 

Would like to turn some bowls but...

since you are asking for support, what's the annual cost to run this place?  cost for server rental, cost for internet connection, cost for ??????  - i have no idea what costs are associated with running website.  fill in a few blanks so folks can make informed decisions.

Pilot checked over, gas tank filled, time for,...

 

Monday, ah the start of another tropical heat wave here in Georgia.

Going to be a crazy week…doing remote training Mon and Tues…Wed travel to Porter Indiana. Comeback Thursday night. Leave Friday morning to move daughter to Louisville, Ky. Come home Sunday…

1 hour ago, KevTN said:

Wed travel to Porter Indiana

Welcome to the Hoosier State, Kevin. You won't be far from Lake Michigan and the Indiana Dunes.

15 hours ago, DAB said:

since you are asking for support, what's the annual cost to run this place?  cost for server rental, cost for internet connection, cost for ??????  - i have no idea what costs are associated with running website.  fill in a few blanks so folks can make informed decisions.

 

Dab, thanks for asking. I can go into how the funds are used, but I'd rather not go into the costs of running our community for reasons that some may not understand (sponsor funding privacy current and future being one of them), but just know, we were rolling along pretty good with four sponsors and we had funds left over and a good savings built up for the occasional surprise and for R&D for software that is used for our community. We also use(d) our funds that we may have on hand for the infrequent times a veteran reaches out to us and asks for assistance. We used to be more involved with that aspect of our community, several times a year we were contacted by a veteran who is looking for a hand up, not a hand out, and we have obliged in the past, but that is harder and harder to do with the funding we have leftover in our kitty after we take care of paying for annual licensing and software and server fees.

 

Here are just a few of the ways we use the Summer Fundraiser funds together with our sponsor funds now, and in the past.

• Pay Bi-Annual hosting fees
• Pay Bi-Annual and Annual licensing fees for our community software and various custom developed software we have acquired
• Monthly fees associated with sponsoring our MWTCA Club Memberships for our community members
• Past and hopefully present, support of veterans in need through direct contact and assistance (some past examples: a disabled man who was not a veteran needed assistance to purchase a lathe, we/you purchased the lathe entirely for him. A disabled veteran fell short on his rent for a few months and was facing eviction, we/you helped him. A disabled man non veteran required a three wheel bandsaw for his tiny apartment use, we/you helped him.) These are just a few of the ways we have helped folks, behind the scenes, they can post here and issue a public thank you, but we'll never disclose their information. As well, in my heart, I don't even like talking about ways we/you have helped folks, something about the left hand not knowing what the right does, that's pretty important to me, and I know it is for many of the faithful here.

I hope that suffices for now, just know that the funding we have now through our sponsors does not cover the above. I am trying to locate a couple more sponsors to help us be where we were at but it's proving a challenge, I'll get er done, but it's just going to take more time on my end.

 

Now for the rambling part

All that being said above, I'll tell you all up front, and I've said it before, someday, after I retire me and the missus are going to need extra income, and quite possibly we'll have to monetize this community "for profit". And I just hope you all don't hold it against me. I've volunteered a few thousand hours at least here keeping this community running, software maintenance, research, billing, out reach, and much more. I know my family has sacrificed and given Dad and Husband over to The Patriot Woodworker Community since our beginning in 2010 and I believe I've maintained a healthy balance between the two, although the occasional sandal has landed firmly on the back of my head as I sit here troubleshooting an issue till 1am, but so far I have been able to volunteer all my hours and so have our wonderful forum hosts and our Admin Ron Dudelston.

But in a couple years, God willing I am still above sod, you all may start to see some commercialization around here, but we'll try to keep it away from our members.

But till then, it's full steam ahead, volunteers in all of us!

 

Please, lets not forget either, all the wonderful members who have handed over hard earned money for our Christmas Project families, and our Summer Fundraisers in the past, without you all, we could not exist, we have our sponsors, but we also need you all!

So sorry for the rambling, but sometimes the same question gets asked, and each time I answer it the same way. I hope it's good enough.

This summer, I have no fundraising goal posted, like I usually do, I just thought I'd change it up a little, and let you all decide what to give, from your heart, without a big fat goal looming.

This long winded reply is for the entire community, thanks to Dab for the prompt.

 

Forever your faithful Patriot Woodworker servant,

John Morris

Oh ya, we are looking for our fees to be covered for this year, but hey, if anyone wants to donate a few thousand dollars or more to our community, It wouldn't hurt my feelings, I can think of a lot of wonderful things we could do with that money!

well, that somewhat answers my questions.

 

this is your sandbox, and you can run it as you see fit;  and others can play in it if the rules fit their style.  fair enough.

 

giving to veterans, while noble, is not why i post here, nor why i enjoy woodworking.  i'm not a veteran of military service, so i don't understand/know their end of things as well as others.  all i know is that we have a DOD and a VA for their benefit, as well as numerous other charities that say they help.  if that isn't enough, then I don't know what would be enough.

 

without some idea of the annual nut to run this place, I cannot gauge what impact a given donation would have towards keeping the lights on.  if it's 10k/year, then $2 isn't going to make much impact, even if 100 folks sent in that amount.

 

as for monetizing this place, i also post on another forum that is member supported, and they are fairly open about the costs and set the membership levels accordingly, and the costs are covered and there are no ads.  other places are nothing but ads, and the posting members are secondary.

 

good luck.

53 minutes ago, DAB said:

good luck

Thanks Dab ☺️

Hey, don't worry about what it costs, just give what you can. 2 dollars is just as wonderful as 20. All donations are greatly appreciated, and respected. 

made two dump boxes for the range today:

 

honest, sweat producing work feels good some days.

 

then we got about 1/4" of rain.  more water for the tanks.