Burcot Woodturners promote the craft at Coombeswood open weekend

Burcot Woodturners turned the Coombeswood Canal Trust Open Weekend into a proper recruiting pitch, with visitors stopping at the stand to talk about what can be made on a lathe and several showing interest in taking up woodturning as a hobby. The club’s craft-shop area also gave the weekend a practical edge, letting members display and sell their work instead of simply demonstrating in the abstract.

The appearance ran on June 6 and 7, 2026, at Hawne Basin in Halesowen, where Burcot had been invited back to demonstrate throughout the weekend. The club said it set up a gazebo with one lathe, while its own history notes that it has two club lathes, a gazebo, a generator and other equipment for outside events. Burcot also expanded its outdoor-events stand in 2023 to create a larger demonstration area for two lathes and an additional craft shop, a sign that it has been building this outreach format for some time.

That matters for a club like Burcot, which started in 1997 and affiliated with the Association of Woodturners of Great Britain a year later. The club said the Charity Commission granted it charitable status on May 26, 2026, a step it described as a major milestone as it looks to promote the heritage craft and secure its future. Put alongside the canal weekend, that points to a club thinking carefully about visibility, continuity and where new turners will come from.

The Coombeswood event itself gave Burcot a busy public stage. Towpath Talk described the 2026 Open Weekend and Boat Gathering as a family event celebrating the Dudley No. 2 Canal, with boat trips, live music, hot food, real ale, ice cream, children’s activities, ponies and stalls, and it listed admission and parking as free. Coombeswood Canal Trust describes Hawne Basin as a member-owned site and says regular work parties are held there, which makes it a natural place for heritage craft and waterways groups to meet the public.

For Burcot, the value was in the conversations as much as the turning. A single weekend at Hawne Basin put finished pieces, live demonstrations and club members in front of non-turners who might otherwise never wander into Burcot Village Hall, and that is how a craft club stays visible, relevant and ready for the next recruit.