Getting new members

I have a problem the carving club that I belong to is getting older, carving seems to be the hobby of older people, it is hard to find any young people who stick with carving. I started carving when I was 31 at the time that I started carving I was one of the youngest if not the youngest carver in New England Woodcarvers club. I never knew there were clubs where you could learn how to carve. I never knew that woodcarving would be something I was interested in. I knew deep down inside that I wanted to do something creative, but like many other people I talk too I knew I didn't have any artistic abillity.

Right before I started carving I saw this woodcarver on PBS his name is Rick Butz, he had a weekly show and I became addicted. He showed how to carve fairly simple carvings so I grabbed a piece of wood and tried to carve something. I had the wrong tools, I had a folding buck knife that I didn't know how to sharpen, and I grabbed a piece of 2 x 4, with all kinds of knots in it. I came up with something but wasn't real impressed.

My wife saw me trying to carve and she asked around to see if there was any carving shops around. She hooked me up with a bird carver not to far from my house. I never even thought to look and see if there was a carving place around. I knew I didn't want to carve birds I knew I wanted to carve caricatures but there wasn't much else in my area so I got a proper carving knife, a strop, good basswood and started learning. Once I got involved in the carving community everything opened up to me. I bumped into Pete LeClair about 6 months after I started carving and was taught how to do a proper caricature.

I carved a good year or 2 before I was able to make a face that looked alright. Some people thought it came easy to me but I had to really work at being a pretty decent carver. If you saw my old stuff it was bad, nothing comes easy.

But back to the carving club issue, because this is a hobby of the older generation our club is in danger of diappearing. In the last 4 - 5 years we have lost close to half of our members because they passed on, we had as many as 25 members in our little group we were getting worried of running out of room where we meet. Over time we went from to many to not enough. We are trying to figure out how to get more people interested in carving so we can build up our club again. How do you find people that are interested? I'm the only member in my group with a title so everyone expects me to get new people involved with carving.

When I'm out and about I show people some of my carvings and talk about my club to try and get some interest. Most people like the carvings but automatically assume that they can't do it. They say they have no talent so they wouldn't be able to carve, I tell them that I don't have any talent, I just keep working at it until I come up with something halfway decent. I guess a lot of people just give up before they try.

I'm thinking of putting an ad in the newspaper that we are looking for new members, or maybe I should talk to people at our local mall and see if we could carve there for a day. There has to be some wannabe carvers out there and I will find them. We don't want what we have learned to be lost, new people bring new life to a group. If anybody who reads this posting lives in the Fitchburg Massachusetts area and would like to learn how to carve or if you already know how to carve come and join us we would be happy to see you!!