The VWA is delighted to announce the establishment of the annual Vic Wood scholarship. 

The scholarship is open to VWA members to undertake a woodworking program of study that aids the advancement of fine woodworking skills and the sharing of those skills.

The value of the grant is $2,000. 

The award is in honour of Vic Wood, a founding member and inaugural president of the VWA. Vic was a renowned innovator and tireless educator-mentor in the field of woodworking.

For background information and application requirements please follow the link here.

For any inquiries about the scholarship including the conditions, eligibility and the application process please contact the VWA at scholarships@vwa.org.au.

As a benefit of VWA membership, woodworkers can now set up a professional profile and contact details on the VWA website. To set up your profile, log in to your account at: https://vwa.org.au/membership/member-login/ and click the ‘maker profile’ tab. Once you’ve finished, click Save. After it’s been reviewed by us, it will be made public. You can make changes at any time by the same process.

As part of setting up a profile, you can also choose to receive project requests from prospective clients who complete the Custom request form.  It is up to you whether you follow up with the client and the VWA does not charge a commission on this service. To join up to this service, click yes on the ‘Subscribe to Custom Request List’ button at the bottom of your Maker Profile page. 

We will be publicising this service via social media once we have a few more people with profiles set up.

Please note, both of these services are only available to woodworkers.

Want to get involved? We need some help!

We need the help of one or two people to help organise meetings for members. These can be:

• Workshop visits 
• Talks by suppliers, professionals, specialists
• Visits to timber providers/manufacturers
• Demonstrations of particular styles, techniques, or tools

If you are interested, you would be developing ideas for meetings, contacting potential speakers and visits and organising times and venues with the VWA committee.

Please get in touch if you would like to help out by emailing me at: president@vwa.org.au or give me a ring on 0405 668 779.

Stephen Ziguras
President

Brandon Harrison’s chair is a finalist in the VIVID Emerging Designer Awards X Latitude.
Keep an eye out for it!

Curated by Latitude Group’s Daniel Dalla Riva, VIVID Emerging Designer Awards is an important destination for local and international design professionals and enthusiasts. Latitude is an advocate for authentic design and nurturing emerging Australian designers. Latitude has curated the VIVID Emerging Designer Awards for seven years and is proud to have played a part in advancing the careers of some of Australia’s most progressive furniture, object, and lighting designers.

VIVID Emerging Designer Awards has already assisted over 1,000 designers with more than 1,300 products to kick-start their careers. Judged by a panel of prominent and respected industry figures, finalists will exhibit their work at the VIVID Emerging Designer Awards Exhibition at Decor + Design from 13th-16th July 2023.

Awards categories include Furniture Design, Lighting Design, Object Design, Concept Design, the Authentic Design Alliance Award of Merit, the Dulux Award for Colour, the 2023 Judges Choice Award and the 2023 Student Design Award.

To see all the furniture Design Finalists head to VIVID Emerging Designer Awards Finalist Page

Experienced makers might question why they should invest in “another” masterclass. The answer is simple- professional development. Dunstone Design is offering a unique opportunity to focus on every aspect of your craft. Design & Development is our flagship masterclass. Last year we hosted Michael Fortune, this year we host Adam Rogers. Adam is one of America’s leading furniture designers. He was head designer at Thos. Moser and is now one of the principles of Square Manufacturing, Maine. Adam’s taught product development and chair design at the Centre for Furniture Craftsmanship, Maine. He was a visiting professor at the School for American Crafts, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Adam taught the inaugural Design & Development at our workshop in 2019.

“My passion is for both design and craft, an approach that transcends scale, and the belief that
design is the process of deciding what to turn a tree into, and craft is the process of doing so –
whether just once, or several times. This craft thing is one long history of skills and ideas passed
down and evolved through experience. I enjoy trying to distil lessons from the process and sharing
with others” – Adam Rogers.

I’m fresh from my Gottstein Fellowship to Sweden, where I studied the Swedish approach to
teaching woodcraft and design. I visited Stenebyskolan, Malmstens and Capellagården. This trip has
really made me reflect on how we train woodwork in Australia. Assisting Adam and me will be William Bayliss, a multi-award-winning craftsman here at Dunstone Design. Dunstone Design has arguably the best equipped wood workshop in Australia. You will be using Martin machinery and have access to a wide range of traditional woodworking equipment. Dunstone Design Workshop manager Alex Mac Farlane will make a cameo appearance and conduct an in-depth lecture on the safe use and possibilities of the spindle moulder.

I hope you can join us this October.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

A while ago, our current insurer Vero, informed our brokers, City Rural Insurance Brokers (CRIB) that they did not intend to keep our public liability policies going after September this year. All current policies are valid until they expire, which for most of them is the end of August 2023.

We didn’t receive any detailed explanation of why Vero wanted to withdraw. However, we’ve heard from CRIB and other brokers that conditions in the insurance industry are very challenging at the moment. This is due to a large number of claims from fires and floods over the last few years and to some regulatory changes which has now led to some companies restructuring their products or refocussing their business. 

We wanted to let all our VWA members know that we have been working hard alongside CIRB and others, to identify a new insurer who would be a good fit for our policies and VWA members. That’s taking some time. While recognising the challenges in the industry, we have a few insurers expressing interest and we’ll keep you posted. 

Stephen Ziguras
President

Hi everyone! As you know I’ve been working with the VWA to understand what some of the most pressing challenges faced by professional woodworkers across Australia are. Over the last 12 weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to 30 professional woodworkers from different experience levels and learn a bit about themselves as well as the challenges they are facing. From the conversations I’ve had so far, some of the most common challenges include pricing work accurately, understanding of business functions such as accounting, finance etc. to name a few. It’s been a very interesting journey,  brainstorming ideas with everyone I’ve spoken to so far and hope to be able to summarise my findings via a report very soon.

Arbaaz Tareen

‘Hone in – Social Sessions’, at the VWA.

Starting in late Autumn and running into winter, the VWA will host a series of social mini-classes for members. Staggered over several weeks, these interactive sessions will look at the basic principles of four different hand tool groups in a small-group social format. Participants will have the opportunity to see demonstrations, have a go, field questions and come together for a chat about wood stuff. 

Keep an eye out for more information on these sessions.

Follow @vicwoodworkers

Exhibition: 5th April – 21st May at Watson Place gallery.
Link: https://craft.org.au/whats-on/all-events/victorian-craft-awards/

Established in 2015 and now in its fourth iteration, the Victorian Craft Awards is Australia’s only awards event solely dedicated to craft and design. This year’s awards were initially postponed from September 2021 due to ongoing lockdowns, and features 59 finalists from a variety of disciplines. Head across to Craft Victoria’s gallery on Watsons Place to view all the finalists pieces. The Awards showcase exceptional works utilising craft skills, processes and materials, including emerging, mid-career and established craftspeople from across Victoria.

Here are some of the Furniture maker finalists who entered. 

• Adam Markowitz and Oliver Tanner – @olivertannerart / @markowitzdesign
• Anton Gerner – @antongerner
• Alex Pontonio – @alexsandrapontonio

VWA members can book a place to use the machine room for timber machining on the first Sunday of every month from 1.00 – 4.00pm. The cost is $30 per hour.

May’s machine room will be open on May 8th, not the 1st.

Machining is supervised by long standing woodworker and respected teacher Carl Lutz.

Members must have previous experience in using machinery and/or have undertaken at least one term of a Victorian School of Woodwork class or equivalent. Current students can also book the machine room at this time, but the classroom will not be available.

To book a spot, please fill out the form at:  https://vwa.org.au/membership/machine-room-booking/