.
THE
POUNDER
Next
Meeting Date - JANUARY 21, 2007
JANUARY 21, 2007 WE WILL BE
STARTING A BELT PROJECT FROM “START TO
FINISH”
WE
WILL BEGIN IN JANUARY, HOW TO MAKE
GEOMETRICAL DESIGNS IN BELTS.
THEN
A FEW MONTHS TO COVER THE VARIOUS ASPECTS OF BELT MAKING.
FEBRUARY 18, 2007 THERE WILL
BE A REGULAR
SCHEDULED MEETING
BUT, THERE WILL NOT
BE A NEWS LETTER FOR FEBRUARY 2007.
KEVIN COHN, THE NEW
PRESIDENT, PITTPOUNDERS
EMAIL
Kevin Cohn
PHONE 412 821
8025
PITTPOUNDERS WEB SITE PittPounders.org
WEBMASTER, JOHANNA SCHROER
- PHONE 419 - 753 – 2612
REGULAR GUILD
MEETINGS; NORMALLY HELD THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EACH MONTH, 1:00 - 4:00 PM
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TANDY LEATHER COMPANY
DELMONT,
PA.
PHONE
724 – 468 – 5148
DEBRA COLLINS – MANAGER
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Greetings Folks, and Happy New Year!
I hope all of you got
to enjoy the Holiday Season with your family and friends. It is a great time of
year, even if it gets a bit hectic and out of focus at times. So now we move
into 2007. Did you make any New Years Resolutions concerning your
leatherworking and/or your involvement with our guild? If not, it’s not to late
to make those Resolutions to: learn more, spend the necessary time practicing,
finish what you start, (my resolution), share what you know, take a more active
role in the guild, participate, participate, participate. Together we can help
one another to grow & improve in our craft while introducing it to others,
and have a good time doing it.
And if I may rephrase
a well-known saying, now is not the time to ask what your guild can do for you,
it’s a time to ask what you can do for your guild. As with any organization of
this type, we can only be as good as you, the membership, make us. It’s your
involvement, your willingness to share, your willingness to take a role as an
officer, it’s your participation that makes the difference between this being a
good guild and us being a great guild.
As we start 2007 we
will be making a few changes in our leadership. After holding one Office or
another since the guild was reorganized in 1990, and serving as President since
1995, I am stepping down as President. Our very enthusiastic and hard working
Vice President, Kevin Cohn, will be stepping up as president. I truly
appreciate Kevin’s willingness to step into a role and give leadership and
vision to our guild. I am excited to see where our guild goes from here! But
this does leave us with a need for a Vice President. (Terry Moore is temporally
acting vice president) And although this isn’t when we normally change our
other officers, it would be great if we could., and a few other changes would
be good as well. Again, now is not
the time to ask what your guild can do for you, it’s a time to ask what you can
do for your guild.
Even though our guild
was originally started back in 1969, Kevin becomes only the third President.
Howard Brock was not only our first President, for a number of years,
initially, he was the ONLY PITTPOUNDER. Attending the shows and keeping an ad
in the Leather Magazines for anyone from this area who might be interested,
Howard kept things going until the guild was started up again in the Spring of
’90. It was only after Howard’s death that I succeeded him as President. (By the way, the original guild members met
WEEKLY. Just think how much we could learn and all of the projects we would
finish if only we had time to do that!)
Although I am
stepping down as President, I am not leaving the guild. The demands of my job
over the last few years have made it difficult to give the effort that I know I
should be, not to mention the fact that I have not had time to actually do much
leather work. In the future I am hoping to take the time that I used to write
the newsletter and prepare for the meetings and use that to actually work on a
few projects and work on my New Years Resolution: Finish what I started!! If I
start bringing items in for show & tell, you know it’s working.
To wrap things up, I want to thank each of you
personally. It has been a privilege and an honor to not only get to know so
many talented & fun people, but to have your trust to be your leader. I
believe that under Kevin’s leadership this guild will continue to grow and do a
better job of reaching out into the community.
And I hope you will all join me in giving Kevin all the help &
support he needs in leading this guild on.
Thanks
for everything. Your Friend,
Christopher
Hello Good Friends of the PITTPOUNDERS,
I just want to take this time and thank
everybody who helped and make our 2006 IFoLG Show the best it could be!
With out your HELP---- surely it could not have been, what it was, with out
your help. I also want to take this time and thank Chris Kearns for being
a great President and a good friend. As
new president, I would like to tell you a little about myself, especially the
people in are Guild who only see or talk with me on special occasions like
shows and at meetings.
I got started in Leather some 14 yrs ago, It started with my son,
Brandon, who was in the Cub Scouts, working on his Merit Badges, (and by the
way, he got 34 of them and also became an Eagle Scout. Did you know that only 2 out of every 100 Boy
Scouts, ever become a Eagle Scout?
One of the Merit Badges was a Leather Merit Badge in carving and
so I looked up Tandy Leather Store which was up at Murraysville, Pa.
I went to the Tandy Leather store and we met up with Mr. Jimmy Waldrep, who
took us both under his wing. While I was there at the Tandy Leather Store, Jim
told me about The PITTPOUNDERS Leather Guild, and that they would help me grow
in the leather craft and I have been going to it ever since. I am married to a beautiful woman
named Sandy, I
have a daughter, Valerie, and my son, Brandon. My daughter is a school teacher
and my son is in Veterinary School at St. Kitts, located in the Virgin
Islands. I think what has
made my stay in the PITTPOUNDERS Leather Guild is the people, and the
friendliness and the warmth that they given to me and my family. If you need to
learn something, all you have to do is ASK and some one will help you. Most
will even open up their home to you, like my good friend Gary Draper who has
let me spend many hours at his home learning the craft I love. The PITTPOUNDERS are like a second family to
me. I’ve met some very nice people since I’ve joined the PITTPOUNDERS, and I do
hope that our Guild will continue to grow in the years to come.
I’ve been Your Vice-President for the past year. The Guild has asked me to take over as your
new President and I said that I would.
I will try to do the very best for our GUILD. I hope that we
remain one of the top guilds in the world. I will be 57 yrs old at the end of
March and am a TWIN to boot. I work for a local Hospital here in the Pittsburgh area, and have
been there for 22 yrs. I think that everybody should have a hobby like the one
we have, don’t you? Again what makes a GUILD? It is the people who show up every month at
our meeting to show you what they have done with their craft. I want to take this time and thank Chris
Kearns for all of his hard work, that he has given of himself, to the
GUILD. And thanks to all of you that make it a lot of FUN to be a PITTPOUNDER.
Your Friend
Kevin Cohn
Hello Good Friends of the PITTPOUNDERS.
I hope all of You had a real nice Christmas, and a very Happy New
Year!
Chris Kearns has asked me to give a demonstration on Geometric
Stamping on Belts from “start to finish”, starting this January continuing the project thru February and
March. This January meeting project, we
will be talking about how to cut a belt strip, from a side of leather. If You
would like to bring in your own strip of leather to the meeting that will be
ok. I will be bringing in some belt
blanks to the meeting, in case you do not have a leather strap to work
with. I use a thick piece of 9 -12oz leather, so give me a call if you
need a strap, 412-821-8025. By the way, Tandy sells a very high quality
belt blanks. I suggest you use a 1 ½ inch strap.
Tools needed are:
Marble, wing divider, small ruler, mallet, utility-knife, (or a razor)
cutting board, straight-edge, a small steel square, and your favorite geometric
stamping tools plus a few border tools
to finish off your belt, and any other tools you feel you might want to
use to start your project.
I think we will have a lot of fun working on your Belt Project
the next couple of months.
See
you at the meeting, Kevin
Note
from Johanna
I
would really appreciate some content to liven up the website. Send me pictures of your work, yourself, your
favorite patterns, and I’ll get them published online. Write down special memories or goals for the
Guild. Tell the world about your
interests and successes! This is a dynamic
Guild, filled with special people and many talents, and I’d like to represent
the Guild better to the world on the Internet.
I NEED YOUR HELP!
Johanna@nktelco.net All contributions and suggestions
welcome! Thank you!
