Aside from good vs bad teaching tricks, you need to look at this from the
potential body of students instead of individual experiences. Here in San

I'll take it all. g This is a from-the-ground-up type of thing and I can
use advice from all corners and perspectives.


Diego, the San Diego Woodturning Centre offers a "Beginners" weekend class
(about 14 hours of instruction) and a 2-day evening "Beginners" class
offered on two consecutive evenings. They also have a project class on a
weekend (14 hours) and an intermediate class (14 hours). Their experince
is
that they have a pretty steady stream of beginners with 1-3 students in
the
evening and weekend beginners classes. They offer these about 4 time per
month. The project and intermediate classes are only offered once a month
each and have less attendance.


We will have a much smaller population pool to draw from as well. We're
going to be developing a community college non-credits course running
anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks. Probably once a week for 3 to 4 hour sessions.
The woodturning club (there's only one within several hours) is just
offering the instructors. We're starting with only one class and I'm sure
it'll be a beginners class. Depending on response, we might add a more
advanced class down the road a bit. I can see where the more advanced
classes will have less demand and the really advanced classes probably
wouldn't draw much interest in a case like this.


As an ongoing class offer, you may want to consider that you will have new
students many time over that feed into the local club(s), etc. Higher end

I'm not sure I follow you here. Are you saying that putting on these
classes will increase our club membership or at least interest in the club?
If so, then that's a good thing g and one of the clubs' motivators in
partnering with the community college on this.


Also, I find that the more experienced people seem to get what they want
from the turning club interactions and from "pro demonstrators/classes".
The problem with pro classes is cost. How many people can afford two or
three $300-$400 3-day classes each year? Not many.


Yeah, that makes sense. I don't see this as being an issue for our
situation. We're not going to offer those kinds of classes anyway just for
those reasons. There seems to be plenty of these "pro classes/instruction"
and traveling demonstrators around the country.

You've given us some different things to consider. Part of what we were
wondering about was what people that might take a community college course
would be interested in. Such things as just doing a "general introduction
to woodturning" thing or should it be geared more toward developing a crafts
career (ie architectural or furniture woodturning). Not that it has to be
one or the other but whether there needed to be a distinction in the first
place. We have a lot of thinking to do.

Thanks, Joe!

- Andrew