The Eurobodalla Woodcraft Guild Inc. was formed in July 1987 when a group of enthusiastic woodworkers held a meeting in Mogo organised by local furniture restorer Peter Walsh.
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Twelve potential members attended the first meeting with their numbers growing to 33 within the first year.
Today the Guild has 55 members of whom 10 are women.
The early days of the club showed great interest in furniture making and many demonstrations were given by various local and overseas experts.
These included turning, carving and Japanese joinery.
The group continued with furniture and also made toys, many of which were donated to various charities.
Meetings were held at various members homes over the years with a main workshop eventually being held at George Donnelly’s, at South Durras until about 2004.
From there we moved to another member, Tony Whelan’s garage and then in 2008 we shared a small garage with the greenkeeper of the Batemans Bay Bowling Club.
This required that all machines and benches were mobile as storage was severely limited.
It was a nice place for lunch overlooking the greens and we picked up work from the bowling club members but we could not survive there for long as the club was to combine with the Catalina Country Club and we needed new premises.
We were rescued by Maureen Nathan proprietor or The Original Gold Rush Colony, a replica gold rush village, at Mogo just south of Batemans Bay.
Here we were allowed a space of about 14m x 4.5m.
We had to level the floor, place a concrete slab and build and line stud walls inside the existing pole and horizontal slab construction.
The remainder of the building is used by the Moruya Antique Tractor and Machinery Assoc.
Since then we have constructed two covered verandah type extensions and a store room extension for our compactus for small tools.
We are also planning another deck area and still have many machines on mobile bases.
A shed can never be big enough!
We now have four lathes in a dedicated space, four band saws, two drill press, two drum sanders and two linishers, a table saw, jointer, 20” thicknesser and two router tables.
In addition there is a large variety of small hand tools.
To obtain wood we now harvest our own locally and have a Stihl chain saw mill.
Timber is slabbed and stored in our air drying shed, and from there either sold to members for a nominal figure or used for club projects.
We also receive donations from various sources.
To raise funds the Guild produces many small items for sale at various local venues throughout the year.
We also do commission work, mostly for community groups but not for commercial organisations.
Recent projects include a pair of Maple doors for the Moruya Masonic Temple, a small boat for the children’s section of the Narooma library, trophies for various sporting groups and a trophy cabinet for the golf club.
This year we will be rebuilding a vintage telephone box for the Moruya and District Historical Society and finishing a sign-in desk for the Aboriginal preschool.
We make a lot of toys and donate a large collection to charity each Christmas.
Our committee, apart from the usual office bearers, includes first aid, welfare, O H and S and catering officers.
We have workshop days on Monday and Wednesday from 9.30am to about 2pm with monthly meetings held on the first Saturday of the month.
The first and third Wednesdays of the month are for making projects for the club and on the second and fourth Wednesdays we have a short refresher course demonstration on a different machine run by an expert member.
At each workshop day we roster a senior committee to act as shop supervisor to ensure smooth and safe running of a busy area.
All other times the workshop is available for members to pursue their own projects.
As required special interest groups (SIG)s are arranged to suit the members’ needs.
Currently we are conducting Basic woodworking , with the end result of the student constructing their own saw horse.
Other recent courses include tool sharpening and basic wood turning.
When it can be arranged we partake in tours with the local Forestry staff into the State forest and tours of local saw mills.
Much of our local timber is sourced from eucalypt forests with some casuarina, banksia and grevillea (silky oak) being available.
Occasionally we are offered exotic species and members are always off travelling and bringing back rarer species.
We now have our own website www.eurobodallawoodies.org.au which highlights the range of our works. Membership applications forms are available on the website.
