Woodturners team up with 4-H club on project

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on April 19, 2024.

Herald photo by Justin Seward 4-H member Cody Daniels receives guidance from guild member Terry Barton on his top wood project in the woodturning studio at Casa.

The Chinook Woodturning Guild of Lethbridge and TNT 4-H Multi Club recently began a new partnership to allow for 4-H members to be mentored along through their woodturning projects.

Guild members were helping with introductory products such as tops and beads to start on the lathes last weekend at Casa in what will be one of many sessions staged jointly by the organizations.

“The members will get to choose about three or four different projects that they want to turn and each of the members have a wood turning guild mentor, and so they’ll work individually with the members to support them in getting their projects completed,” said Melanie Daniels, general leader for the 4-H Club.

Members have chosen anything from carving out a pen to making a trivet for hot plates and bowls and wooden mallets.

“So for me, 4-H is all about learn to do by doing and my goal as a 4-H leader is to make sure that all the members have their interests to explore and so woodturning has been an interest of some of our members,” said Daniels.

“As a leader it’s just really important that I find someone to help support that, and the Chinook Woodturning Guild has been so supportive and accommodating to help these members explore their interest in this wood turning, so that they can develop skills that they may not have been able to get otherwise.”

“This here is just the introduction,” said Terry Beaton, the guild’s treasurer.

“We want to make sure that they can use the three main tools and then they will go on to more advanced projects. But if they can’t properly use the tools, there’s more of a chance that they could get hurt. So we want to instill the safety aspect, the ability to use those tools to turn and it’s just an exercise and then they’ll move on.”

A focus of the guild is to teach things that will go on to the next generation.

“So that as they mature, they can fall in love with it like we have and progress further and further and they’ll be our new members 30 years from now,” said Beaton.

4-H members Cody Daniels wanted to improve upon his skills and help out the younger members.

“It’s definitely nice having a mentor and we each have our own separate mentor, which makes it easier (in) that you don’t have to be scrambling through all five kids at one time, said Cody.

“It makes it a lot easier and you get lots of one-on-one work.”

Once the wooden projects are done, the 4-H members will display them at an Achievement Day and Daniels is hoping Guild members will come and judge the projects.

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