The Hampshire Coppice Craftsmens Group

"Putting Life into your Landscape"

The bodger’s ball is the Association of Pole Lathe Turners and Green Wood Workers annual get together. This year it involved near on 200 members from all over the world.

So why am I writing this article? Well twofold really; one there were at least 6 members of HCCG there over the weekend, and two Pete ‘the Charcoal’ Jameson has asked me to put in my contribution (something to do with dyslexic fingers and me having a spell checker) [A mixture of Publisher and the Editor (Mums have multiple uses)].

One of the younger bodgers roughing out a piece of wood

This years event was held at Horton-Cum-Studely, Oxfordshire, so not far to go then even if Oxford outer ring road is in the way.

On arriving we were directed to the camping area and found Pete and others we knew, so we set up in their general vicinity. Next job; put up the tents and then find out where to set up the lathe etc. After some head scratching it was decided that as Pete was having to head home for the Saturday stint with the kids, I could use his lathe for the price of a new lathe cord (paid after about 2 hours on Saturday as the length of sisal that Pete had left me went twang).

Once settled we found the two important things on any camping holiday; the toilet and the bar (not necessarily in that order) and the barbeques were lit with of course, best Hampshire/Dorset charcoal and the bring your own dinner commenced. We also had to book in (when all the name badges had been sorted).

Saturday morning was bright with a little mist. This lifted about 10 and the sun finally burned the cloud off. After the welcome from the Chairman and a quick show of hand from us newbies (0ver50%) we got down to the job of spending money on tools and turning. Although I didn’t  take part in any of the competitions it was nice to watch the fun and games involved in the free form team chair making competition.  Much fun was had by all and we even managed to learn something.