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- Jerry Gardner Teaching Attendees to Blacksmith
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- Blacksmith Instructors
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- Presenting Jerry Gardner with Speaker Award (L-R; Jerry Gardner, Jody Heusman)
The Blacksmith Experience
Jody Heusman, Chairman for the Mobile Section, opened the meeting by welcoming everyone. He provided a brief update on Section news. The Cutting Board catered an excellent dinner for everyone. Small’s Smokehouse catered food for all in attendance.
Jerry Gardner, Owner/Instructor of The Blacksmith Experience, gave a brief introduction on how be became a blacksmith. Jerry gave a brief forging demonstration with all his industrial blacksmithing tools including his forge, power hammer, and hydraulic press. In support of the meeting, Jerry invited four additional local blacksmiths to attend to each share their diverse experiences and talents with regards to blacksmithing. At the end of the meeting Jerry turned on all (3) of his forges and offered anyone interested an opportunity to try blacksmithing. Four attendees elected to participate and each formed a coat hook from square stock material.
Jerry was presented with a speaker plaque in appreciation from the Mobile Section. Each of the four instructors invited received a pair of kevlar gloves in appreciation for them sharing with the group their blacksmith knowledge. As this was our Instructor Night, our local welding instructors were recognized for their dedicated work. The Mobile Section wants to express a sincere “Thank You” to both Jerry Gardner for providing a wonderful opportunity and to ESAB for sponsoring the meeting.
Total attendance for the meeting was 62. All in attendance were included in drawings for door prizes.
All registrations for our meeting were available through Eventbrite. By using Eventbrite for registration and pairing up with The Blacksmith Experience for advertisement, this meeting brought in a few attendees that have never been associated with AWS. This meeting was a great opportunity for the Mobile Section to demonstrate who we are and what we’re about. Additionally, we want to encourage everyone to check out our Facebook page @ www.facebook.com/AwsMobileSection to view some short videos and photos of the meeting, thanks to our Mobile Section Webmaster, Tim DeVargas.