History of Robson Ranch Woodworkers Club

 

Starting in 2007 and continuing through 2008, the room in which the Woodshop currently resides was originally used as a woodburning/carving room.

Frank Hunter and Mike Dickens were talking and decided to see if other Robson Ranch residents would like to get together and share woodworking ideas and projects.

Mike sent an email to all Robson Ranch residents and asked if anyone wanted to get together and “smell sawdust.”  Frank Hunter, Andy Noble, Jack Callaway, Fred Henderson, Tom Holland, George Kosmak, Bob Loyd, and I (Joey Misiaszek) attended that first meeting. We became the “Founding Fathers” of the Woodshop.

Andy Noble was our point man with Robson Ranch. He, more than anyone, was responsible for us getting the woodshop.  We sold Robson Ranch on the premise that all who joined would go through a training program that we would put together
with the help of Fred Henderson (Dr. in Adult Education), and that there would always be a shop foreman on duty to oversee safety in the shop.

We began to lobby Robson for a woodshop right away.  We had probably four or five months’ worth of meetings before we began the woodshop planning in earnest.  We met to share our projects with each other and even visited each other’s garage woodshops to keep up interest in woodworking.

We then gave Robson a list of the basic equipment we thought we needed to begin and lo and behold they bought it for us.  Later, Mark Musgrove donated some machinery for the shop.

We did fund raising through the annual craft fair at the ranch that allowed us to buy more equipment.

I think the first year of the shop we had 25 members, then 50 the next year then 100 the year after and we never looked back.

Executive Board and Leadership for these first years were:

• President – Mike Dickens
• Vice President – Frank Hunter
• Treasurer – George Kosmak
• Shop Manager – Andy Noble

Provided by Joey Misiaszek based on article originally written by Mike Dickens