News
Jondaryan Meeting
We had a big rollup of members for our Jondaryan meeting, which was surprising, for
after so many going to Stanthorpe for our get-together at Easter I did not expect
to see so many also come to this meeting. It is great to see that the enthusiasm of
members continues to grow.
We did not have to spend too much time on the formal part of the meeting, for all the elections and so on had been dealt with at Stanthorpe so all that needed discussion was the amendments to our constitution. Michael Craft, who had put together the first version of the constitution, came out specially from Toowoomba, despite a damaged ankle which made it difficult for him to walk, in order to present some amendments which he thought would improve the model, and these were passed unanimously by the members present. These are listed further on.
Everyone was pleased to hear that we were in a sound financial position for a change, and this was mostly due to donations from members as well as having attracted a number of new members at Stanthorpe.
Barney Belford brought along some interesting new knots for us to look at, and I
thought that he must be Australia’s greatest knotting expert when it came to Turk’s-heads and other complex knots as I watched him tie a whole series of complex
mat pattern knots taking only a minute or so to create each one and almost without
looking at them. He would tie one, explain what was interesting about it, and then
pull it apart just as quickly and tie another.
We had one enthusiastic beginner, Cindy Connelly, who had flown all the way up from
Geelong, in Victoria, in order to learn to make a whip, and under the guidance of
Peter Bondfield she produced her first whip and was cracking it by mid afternoon.
Peter has been a great help in introducing new people into the art of whip making
and we were pleased that he could make it to the meeting as he already had a house
full of guests back at Palgrove.
Chris and Kerri Barr brought along some of their top quality braiding, and we were all impressed with the high standard of their work, which is now attracting attention in the USA. They suggested that we should try and get some discussions going with the USA based Traditional Cowboy Arts Association so that some of our top craftspeople could become at least associate members. As the USA rules stand at present one element of membership is that personal attendance is required at a certain number of meetings, which rules out any chance of our people joining.
It was very stimulating to note that many of our other members also brought along examples of their work, and this provided a lot of material for discussion. Throughout all this Maurice Doohan kept on quietly working and making the whips which he does so well, providing free lessons in high quality plaiting for anyone who wanted to watch.
As usual a lot of members had ideas to exchange, and a couple are given
in the journal (#76, October 2004). There were a lot of other good ideas that would have been well worth
recording, but as it the case at all these meeting there were so many people to talk to that there was almost no time to get anything down on paper.
Geoff Cook said that the description of how to make the traditional workman’s paper cap that I had drawn out for a recent issue of our journal was a great success when he introduced it to his work mates at the printing place where he is employed, and that before long everyone had made one and was wearing it!
Bill Wade also brought along a copy of Dictionary of Woodworking Tools by R.A.Salaman originally published by George Allen & Unwin, England 1975 and reprinted by Astragal Press USA in 1997. This has 10 steps for making the hat on page 245 and a couple of lines of text about it on page 237, though nothing of its history, simply that such hats were made and used in trades that created dust.
Ron Edwards
P.S. There were to be some photos to accompany this
report ... but the computer gremlins got them!
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