It’s official, I’m old enough that when typing this I had to make the words bigger so I could see them properly. Time does indeed move on and things change. A friend and customer reminded me we hadn’t added to the news section on the website in literally years. The last entry was when we purchased the new building, over 2 years ago. If I were to go on about all the changes here, you’d be reading a novel! We’ve been doing this now long enough that we’ve redone the business model about 8 times. Every time we try something and it fails or doesn’t work as well as projected it’s a humbling experience. Every time we change or modify something and see happy faces and success, it reinvigorates us. Every quarter we see more happy faces than humbling experiences and that’s what’s driving us. I say us because it’s not just Mark doing it all every day now. We have an amazing support group who I (Mark) have finally been smart enough to accept help from. That’s not easy for me, but it’s not about me, it’s about what we bring to the community and our customers/clients. If we do that, focus on that, build classes based on that, we’ll build a school that truly is what we started out trying to build. In a nutshell, that’s what’s changed, opening things up to accept help, input, and just the occasional boost of appreciation.

For 2024 we’ve eliminated some classes, we’ve added new and exciting classes, and we’ve added amazing instructors. At this time we’re wanting to keep things as local as we can, yet looking towards bringing in nationally known instructors but mostly for demonstration purposes. Keep tuned for some summer demonstrators. One of the biggest things we’ve added was turning classes. Currently pen making, and wood bowls are on the schedule. We’re currently working on an introduction to wood turning class where we get more in depth with tools, materials, and all the details of what someone would need to get started on their own. We’ll also be adding an advanced turning class where people who’ve taken the intro or basic class can take their turning to the next level. Other classes we’re offering is the next step after taking a cutting board class, the end grain cutting board class. End grain is easier on knives, and a lot of fun because of the unique designs we have. For beginner classes we had previously focused on the introduction to woodworking class, but this year we added the Beginning woodworking weekend. This has been very popular because it’s a hands on class where we build a beautiful side table in a single weekend for customers to take home. They learn how to actually build real furniture they can use every day! They also learn techniques that are used in almost all furniture building for future projects, either here or at home. It’s a lot of fun to see people start with raw lumber and leave the next day with something they built with their own hands, and everyone has enjoyed building along side other people. I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to do what I have a sincere passion for, with like minded people every day. It’s truly inspiring.

Thank you thank you thank you to all the wonderful people that stop in every day, that come and build with us, to the people who come in and support the school, and to our new instructors helping us to build, grown, and inspire.

Highlights:
Having multiple scout troops come in and build pine wood derby cars. That’s so much fun! Thanks to Jim and Donette for helping!
Having private groups start signing up to build projects together.
The addition of new classes like end grain boards, wood bowl turning, pen making, beginning woodworking weekend and more.
Handworks 2023. Absolutely a blast, put on by amazing people, and attended by even more amazing people. Huge shout out to my buddy Wade who stuck it out with me when we had two days of no lunch or potty breaks because we had so many people to talk with.
Seeing items we’ve donated help causes and real people.
Making Christmas ornaments with customers and for customers.
Craft show at expo center where we had machinery, tools, demos, and classes at the show. Great turn out!
Remodel and addition of a bathroom close to the school. It took forever but it’s done!
Additional machines and tools this last year have shown to be a huge time saver.
Addition of many new instructors! I love having a different perspective come into the shop, and definitely enjoy seeing different teaching styles and their focus. Keeps things fresh!
The loyalty of our customers, clients, students, and instructors. Absolutely wonderful people to work and be with every day.