Ed,
I assume most of our chapter leaders recent past and brand new current are just busy in the many areas of their lives and haven't caught your requests. And a couple of our new officers are still pretty new to the IAP site and might not have a good feel for posting here as yet. I heard from our former chapter leader, Ron (Reg19), that he'd replied to one of your inquiries, probably the one I posted a link to in our Indianapolis chapter forum. :wink:
Anyway, I thought I'd say a few things about our Indianapolis chapter to offer up as food for thought to everyone. The chapter has some history from before I joined and I don't know much about what they did then, but from stories I've gathered it was just a small group getting together and talking about pen making and showing off some of their creations.
I joined up some time in 2010 or 2011 I believe and have seen our chapter grow from a dozen of us gathering in a local Rockler store (about 30 miles away from me and over 100 for some) to slightly larger group meeting in the back of Woodturningz's facility to a record breaking meeting of somewhere over 70 at our current meeting place. The current meetings are held at a fairly large gathering room in a church that has been appropriated by one of our chapter officers, Dan (not sure of is IAP name). The church has been very accommodating and we've been very grateful for their generosity and use of the facility. We don't know, but we have tossed around the idea that we might be one of the largest IAP chapters currently going.
I serve the role of photographer and have covered each meeting with lots of photos which I've posted out to my Flickr account to share with everyone by the end of meeting day. Here's a link to one of our larger meetings last April, where we had a few rooms set up for different demos, plus the big room for the main meeting & gathering:
Penturners - I.A.P. Indianapolis April 2012 Meeting - a set on Flickr
There's a set for each meeting, and everyone's welcome to check any of them out if you wish.
Our meetings usually run around 2 hours and have been adorned with coffee & snacks, door prizes, pen in the hat drawing, show off your pens table, meeting held by the officers, demos and vendor tables including Mike & Linda from Indy Pen Dance as regular participants as well as Logs to Lumber on a couple occasions, Johnny CNC has made a couple and some others selling their goods at different times.
Former Chapter leader Rej19 has led the meetings and done demos on
affixing stamps and photo to pens,
showed various tools and their uses and showed us
how he organizes tools, bushings and more. And many other things that I haven't thought about yet for this reply.
Former Secretary WoodButcher does wonderful
beginner demos and has also done a
sharpening demo, makes
casting molds and MUCH MUCH more. Most recently he showed of the
Cigar pens he's started making which is documented now in the IAP library.
EBorraga has demoed how he does
wood dying, CA finishes, blending acrylics, segmenting and several other things I'm sure I've forgotten about. He also serves as a chapter officer at large since we're in Indy and he's in KY.
IPD_Mr has demoed
turning acrylic (between centers if I recall corretly) and assisted Ernie on the
segmenting demo. Plus he and IPD_Mrs has had tables of goodies for sale at every meeting.
Joefyffe gave us all a great
demo on photography at one of the meetings, covering composition, depth of field, photographing pens and more.
rkimery demoed how he does
production turning to keep up with the larger quantity of pens he sells.
Another member who's name I don't remember demoed
mixing, blending and casting acrylics.
Last fall we hooked up with the local Rockler and held an event in an adjoining empty building where people were invited in to learn out to turn and turn
pens for troops. We collected about 80 pens at that even, it was really a great time of fellowship with members and meeting new people. Rockler donated a lot of material for it, and Wooodbutcher put a TON of time in getting the blanks all cut and glued up for the event.
The stuff our chapter has done has come from the efforts of some great leaders, doing a lot of work to bring it all together. I applaud them for the time and effort they put into all our gatherings. I just record the events in photos and am honored to have had the privilege to be in association with them.
Going forward, we've got a new group of exited folks with a lot of new ideas to try out so we're looking forward to a great future.
Here is the new chapter leadership (I don't yet have everyone's IAP names):
Director - Matthew Heithoff (redneckmedic)
Treasurer - Dan Mechuta (???)
Demo Coordinators - Stephen Sommers and Dennis Wydau (???)
Door Prize and Vendor Coordinator - Janet Henry (???)
Email and correspondence Coordinator - Larry Pierce (lpierce)
Photographer - Dave Herrmann (76Winger)
Hopefully some of these activities I've observed with our chapter over the past few years will give others some ideas to ponder.