To All,
My name is Michael (Mike) Borfitz and I am the president of The Villages Woodworkers Club. I would like to answer some of the questions about the Club and clarify some of the misconceptions.
It was after a great deal of thought and consideration that we made the decision to suspend taking members at the start of 2018. Never before in the fourteen years of the wood shop had we done so. Our Club population had risen to over 900 people, and we had grave concern for the safety and the ability to accommodate those numbers. We created the waiting list with the intention of regularly reviewing the situation and allowing a finite number of people to join as was possible….. Which we did. And in 2018, we did open the enrollment to the first 60 people on the list, thus making the rest of the waiting list sixty people closer to being accommodated.
Since 2017 we have been working very closely with Mr. Morse and The Villages personnel to create a much-needed second shop. We were ecstatic when Mr. Morse announced in May that he had identified land for that purpose. Our time since then has been filled with providing specs and insight as to the best set-up for this new building/site and saving money to equip the new location. Everyone would like it to be ready immediately; but, that’s just not realistic.
In the meantime, we will review the shop population numbers each month to see when we can invite the next group on the waiting list into our existing Club, as we wait for the opening of the second shop which will allow us to bring in everyone on the waiting list. At the present time our list is about 345 people. And, we can't wait for the new shop to be available, so that they too can become members. That's not likely to happen until the beginning of 2020, but as mentioned before we will be inviting some to join as we carefully assess what is going on in the shop and how many we feel we can safely accommodate.
As to the initiation fee, we do charge a $150 initiation fee when a resident first becomes a member plus the dues which are $55 a year. The initiation fee is put towards the full day of initiation activities which focus on the safety aspects of the shop and towards the purchase and/or repair of all the equipment in the shop. As long as the member remains active, he/she never pays that fee again. He/she is responsible for dues which are slightly over $1 per week!
If you are interested in becoming a member of this club, please stop by our site facing Rolling Acres (actual mailing address is 704 Oak St) and fill out the form which enters you in the system on a first-com-first served basis.
If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me at
hborfitz@comcast.net.