The Centre for Fine Woodworking
New Zealand's premier furniture making, woodworking & design school
Student Blog : Mia Trew details her experiences
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Newsletters
CENTRE FOR FINE WOODWORKING
NEWSLETTER – JULY 2010
Greetings from us all here at the Centre for Fine Woodworking. The view from the workshop window is a feast for the eyes – bright sunshine, the green paddocks below us, snow capped mountains and the glittering water of Tasman Bay. We have been keeping strange hours here recently with the World Cup dominating the day's events, but now normal service has been resumed.
We are delighted to be able to announce the new 2011 course programme on our website – please visit our Home Page where there are full details about the 2011 full time furniture makers course as well as other individual courses.
We are pleased to advise you that the course fees have only altered due to the increase in GST which takes effect from 1st October 2010. For any student that wishes to pay course fees for 2011 before 1st October then we will only charge the existing 12.5% GST. Please take the time to have another look at our website as we have added some new images and given it a bit of a spring clean. If you have any questions regarding the courses or would like to enrol then please contact us at info@cfw.co.nz
We have added two exciting new courses to our programme. Based on student feedback, these courses have been designed and developed as a response to students who have previously attended Beginning Cabinet Making – it was clear that our programme lacked the opportunity for students to return for another two week course with a set project to reinforce and extend their existing skill level.
These two courses will be known as Beginning Cabinet Making 2 – A Wall Cabinet, & Beginning Cabinet Making 3 – A Jewellery Box.
The Wall Cabinet course will run twice as the tutor is our artist in residence, Thorkild Hansen, whereas the Jewellery Box course is available once as it will be taught by our visiting tutor Vic Matthews.
Here is a photo (left) of the prototype cabinet – a work in progress. Studio photos of the completed project will be on the website soon
Both courses are of an equal skill level and therefore don't have to be done in a specific order. Places are limited to six students per course, as these courses are running at the same time as our full time furniture maker's course where the students will be in their final term – another bonus if you want to see some major pieces of work in progress. Get in touch if you are interested as enrolments are already underway.
For more information go to: Beginning Cabinet Making
Our organisation continues to grow and change so we thought we would just give you a brief picture of how it all works here and who is involved at the school on a day to day basis:–
The Centre for Fine Woodworking is a registered charitable trust, with a trust board comprising of three members (coincidentally all are previous students of the school) :–
Larry Spitz – is the Chair of the Trust and responsible for keeping the finances under control. Larry has a beautiful low Japanese style bench which he works at most days on his current project. He has exhibited pieces in all our exhibitions, and refers to himself as “the perpetual student”. Larry is the backbone of the school in many ways.
Chris Feltham – our second Trust member is in his other life a radiologist. Chris has been a loyal supporter of the school for a number of years and brings a wealth of wisdom and expertise to the organisation.
David Thomas – our third Trust member has supported the school since taking part in our first benchmaking class. In his normal life David is a farmer and part time woodworker who has exhibited a number of pieces of his work in our exhibitions.
All three of these guys work hard to support and develop the Centre, sharing the vision and belief that as the only fine woodworking school in New Zealand we will grow and flourish to become an asset to both the Nelson region and New Zealand.
Staff at the school .........
As our website shows we have a number of tutors who visit for specific courses, but the core group of tutors here on an ongoing basis are Principal Tutor John Shaw, along with David Haig, Richard Ash and Thorkild Hansen. John and Thorkild have permanent bench space here so when they aren't teaching they are working on their latest project. Students have commented that they enjoy observing practising furniture makers at work who offer advice, experience and football knowledge to others.
We have a couple of technicians who work part time – Ryo Mogami and Lou Fuller, and a part time administrator Helen Gerry who is the point of contact for all enrolment enquiries. Helen is that wonderwoman type personality that a place like the Centre for Fine Woodworking can't survive without – but you all know that because she's the one who deals with you so wonderfully.
The big news from us here is that we have been successful in our grant application to the Canterbury Community Trust for funding towards creating improved workshop space for our bench renters and students. This came as a big surprise as Larry & Helen were keeping a double figure talley of how many rejections we had received from funding applications over the last few years (enough to make us cynical and depressed anyway).
We are just starting to make some changes to the workshop which will give us better timber storage, more bench space for students and creating options for ex students to have a permanent bench here whilst they set themselves up as furniture makers (now referred to as benchies) We are thrilled to receive this funding from Canterbury Community Trust and their generosity and support is gratefully acknowledged.
Our technician and “benchie” Lou Fuller had a recent article appear in The Shed magazine – following the completion of her wall cabinet Lou was commissioned to create a different version and wrote the article whilst producing this piece. Follow this link to the article.
In the next edition of The Shed (Aug/Sept) there will be an article on steam bending written by David Haig, which explains the process of creating his much admired steam bent stool which students create in our course Bending Solid Wood.
We have built a great relationship with The Shed who have been very supportive and encouraging in increasing our profile in New Zealand. If you go to our website in the “Articles” page – you will see links to all the previous articles written for The Shed by John Shaw.
GROUP WORKSHOP OPPORTUNITY
Former student of the Centre for Fine Woodworking, Nigel Whitton, is currently researching commercial spaces with a goal of creating a group workshop. He is looking for a space that would accommodate himself and up to four others working alongside each other, ideally in a full–time
capacity. At this stage, to assess viability of his idea, Nigel is seeking interest from woodworkers, including wood turners, who think this work environment may suit them. If you wish to read the full document outlining what the rent would cover, a list of supplied machines and what the potential benefits of this group work environment could be, please visit Nigel's website.
If you have any questions about our new courses for next year, or would like to discuss how any of our courses will best suit you then you are most welcome to contact us either by phone on (03) 5452674 or email us at info@cfw.co.nz
Finally don't forget to have another look at our website – some nice new photos of furniture and lots of information about what's on offer here at the Centre for Fine Woodworking.
Kind regards from us all here in the workshop
John Shaw & Crew
Previous Newsletters
July 2010 Newsletter web page
April 2010 Newsletter web page
November 2009 Newsletter web page
September 2009 Newsletter web page
July 2009 Newsletter web page
April 2009 Newsletter web page
January 2009 Newsletter 8.6kb .html document
November 2008 Newsletter 1.4Mb .pdf document
September 2008 Newsletter 272kb .pdf document
August 2008 Newsletter 220kb .pdf document
June 2008 Newsletter 118kb .pdf document
May 2008 Newsletter 260kb .pdf document
March 2008 Newsletter 1.24Mb .pdf document
January 2008 Newsletter 93Kb .pdf document
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