At the very first meeting of the New England Luthiers Group (NEL,) I brought up the fact that there were some members from Western Mass (I am not talking about Worcester, more like the Berkshires) that had been talking/thinking of this sort of guild. With the start of NEL, we postponed the Western Mass get-togethers. In the time that NEL has been up and running, some of us (westerner’s) have been only able to attend a few meetings as it really does take up an entire Sunday for us to attend.
In these days of blogs, forums, facebook and twitter, it seems we are losing (valuable) personal contact. We have decided to “try-out” a Western Mass Group NOT to compete with NEL but as just a way for some of us who cannot make it down to the meetings in the East to be able to “keep-in-touch.”
We are not sure exactly how this will pan-out, the group could be kind of small and it will probably take some tweaking, but for now this is what we are thinking:
~ Meet once a month (or every other month to be determined) but not to conflict with NEL meetings.
~ Meet on a weeknight
~I will be willing to host the meetings at my shop (default location)
~Topics to be determined (that should be easy)
~Have a kick-off meeting in June (Tuesday 6/23 see below)
~Have a weekend get-together to include some of our NY/CT friends in early August (Saturday/Sunday 1st or 2nd maybe)
~ Start a “regularly” scheduled weeknight meeting in the fall
~Offer to host a (Sunday) NEL Meeting out here (my shop?) sometime
Kick-off meeting * Tuesday 6/23 *
7:00 Meeting/Shop Tour
5:30ish Hang-out , Hamburg/Hot Dogs. Nothing Fancy but I will provide dinner for those who want to come out before the meeting.
For some of our friends from further away (NY, CT, etc) we hope you might be able to come out for a get-together that we (I) will host on weekend in August . I would not certainly call it an “OLF get-together” as many of our members do not regularly participate on the forum(s) but it would be good to have a bunch of OLFr's come on out. Date and details of this meeting will be announced after the 6/23 meeting. Of course you that are further away are all invited to any and all meetings out here too.
Thanks,
John Osthoff
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