Saturday 1 March saw huge crowds enjoying the glorious weather at the annual Knox Festival. For the local Knox and District Woodworkers Club it was a great opportunity to share the satisfaction of creating small wooden toys and gifts with the younger members of the community.
This club initiative allows children, with the help of club members, to glue, nail, sand and screw the various pieces of a kit toy or gift to completion. When assembled these toys, which are finished in plain wood, can be taken home for painting and decoration.
Up to fifteen different items were available including a robot, dinosaur, helicopter, semi-trailer, pencil case, teddy bear and toolbox.
The event was very successful as members were flat out all day helping over two hundred children produce their selected toy.
One participant who was certainly much older than most of our young woodworkers admitted that he had been coming annually for over ten years and felt he had to continue the tradition. We’ll expect to see him again next year, though he doesn’t seem to need much help these days.
As well as offering this Festival opportunity, the club can also accommodate local groups such as cubs and primary school groups, and library holiday programs. These can be run at the club rooms or at the organisation’s premises.
An alternative to our regular sessions might see the child take a kit home and make the toy with the help of mum or dad, as a pre-mothers’ day activity (trinket box, or pencil case, or toolbox), or fathers’ day activity (a model toy for his mantelpiece, or toolbox for the shed or garden). Maybe a mother and cub night could make use of this type of activity. The options are probably only limited by your group’s imagination.
The Knox and District Woodworkers Club has operated in the area for well over 30 years and is permanently based in Glenfern Road, Ferntree Gully adjacent to the Wally Tew Reserve. Information for anyone interested in the club which caters for both men and women can be found at www.knoxwoodies.org.au or email secretary@knoxwoodies.org.au.
