Hands On Woodturners announces spring meeting and club yard sale

Hands On Woodturners turned its April 15 gathering into a practical shop sale, opening the door at 6:00 p.m. for an 6:45 p.m. meeting at the Beverly Hills Lions Club, 72 Civic Circle, where members could also bring unwanted tools and other items to sell.

That mix of club business and equipment turnover fits the way Hands On Woodturners works year-round. The club says it meets on the third Wednesday of each month, welcomes guests at no charge, and typically builds each session around reports from the president and treasurer, an exhibition gallery of member work, and a demonstration by an experienced woodturner willing to share techniques. The club also says it is dedicated to improving and passing on skills as woodturners and introducing new people of all ages and genders to the craft.

The yard sale gave that mission a practical edge. Instead of leaving old chisels, fixtures or other shop items to sit unused, members had a low-friction way to move tools along to another turner who could put them back to work. In a hobby where a working lathe, a better chuck or a specialized gouge can make the difference between tinkering and real progress, that kind of internal circulation matters as much as any formal demo.

Hands On Woodturners also sits inside a much larger network. The club says it was a charter member of the Florida Woodturning Symposium, helping launch the inaugural event in November 2001 with Ken Jackman as chairman. It also says the 2026 Florida Woodturning Symposium was scheduled for February 20-22 in Lakeland, Florida, another sign that the Beverly Hills group is plugged into the wider west central Florida turning scene.

The American Association of Woodturners, which Hands On Woodturners identifies as its parent organization, says it has more than 13,000 members and more than 365 chapters worldwide. In a town like Beverly Hills, a census-designated place in Citrus County with recent population counts around 9,650 to 9,961, that kind of club presence gives woodturners a regular place to meet, learn and keep the craft moving.

The club’s leadership list adds a few more familiar names to the April slate: Jerry Condon as president, Phil Palermo as vice president, Mary Peavy as secretary, David Licastro as treasurer, Hank Norwell as past president, with Ron Imrie, Mike Weirich and Linda Johnson listed as members at large. Even the building itself has staying power, with the Beverly Hills Lions Club incorporated on April 5, 1973, giving the turners a long-established home for a meeting format built around tools, skill-sharing and shop talk.