Thread: Where are The Tafe's Headed?.

how many members do you have in your club ?????
it might be time to look at trying to get your own building and equipment from fundraising and gov grants
my local club has its own building council gave us some land and we put a $90,000 shed on it half raised by us over a few years just had a extension put on it and inside we have 12 lathes 3 large band saws a dust extraction system just got a table saw and a thicknessor with a spiral cutter
sorry if i hijacked this thread with these comments

Well, previous Fed Govts cut all the apprenticeship incentives back in the 80's or there abouts. So no apprentices and TAFE suffered accordingly many were closed . Courses rationalized, budget cuts and here we are today with TAFE still suffering from these dipstick decsions.
Although theres a increase in students its got a long way to go to get back where it was.

just some comments in respoinse to Issatree

90 to 95 % of all the Members are Woodturners, + some are Woodworkers as well.
There is 1 old Wood Lathe & our Club has 2 Mini Lathes, & not sure if a Lathe was purchased, if there was room to put it, but the Tafe is not interested in Woodturning, & wont be.
as far as I know there is no commercial wood turning "industry" -- think parts for 1000s of Windsor chairs
Yes there are many comercial turners, but they might best be described as "craft" turners.

Most of the Machinery in my opinion, is Industrial ? nothing wrong with that.
They teach a lot of Apprentices.
Can't run the Dust Extraction Equipment at Night of course, as the Buildings are to close to some Residents Homes. Fair enough.
Big 36in.Bandsaw, Blade 5/8 x 4TPI. Not very User Friendly. so once you are "allowed" change the blade to a more appropriate width and tooth
The Table Saw is Monstrous with a big Sliding Table + Computerised. Wish I could fit one in my shed
Radial Arm Saws OK, 4 Tormeks, Small user friendly Sander,
No Scroll Saws, there should be
Monstrous Thicknesser & Planer, Wish I could fit one in my shed
Didn't notice any Heating for the winter nights.
We will have a nice Meeting Room, & there is a Kitchen as well.
So that is that & we will have to make the best of it.
We understand & accept, that we All will have to do, The OH & S Course this is essential whe you use someoneele's machinery
+ The Tafe Course as well, on the workings of The Machinery we will be allowed to use. the positive is taht you should all become safer workers

Yes there are many comercial turners, but they might best be described as "craft" turners.

Hmmm. i don't think so.

Even as far back as the early seventies there was no separate tafe course for wood turnig it had to completed as part of a post trade course, as for having a schroll saw tafe is set up to train tradesmen not hobbiests, you wil lnot find many schroll saws in the industrial world of wood working. Having industrial machinery is not a problem once you master them you will have no trouble operating the back yard stuff

I know you are a very experienced and successful turner, but would you descrbe yourself as an industrial scale turner making 10s or 100s of the same turning?
or would a better description be specialist turner?

Originally Posted by ian

I know you are a very experienced and successful turner, but would you descrbe yourself as an industrial scale turner making 10s or 100s of the same turning?
or would a better description be specialist turner?

I think turning out 100 legs of the same design, or balusters or verandah posts every day would put me in the former but I am more of the latter now.

Originally Posted by China

Even as far back as the early seventies there was no separate tafe course for wood turnig it had to completed as part of a post trade course, as for having a schroll saw tafe is set up to train tradesmen not hobbiests, you wil lnot find many schroll saws in the industrial world of wood working. Having industrial machinery is not a problem once you master them you will have no trouble operating the back yard stuff

Unti last year I think, NSW was the only state that had a dedicated woodturning apprenticeship but I believe that has been absorbed into another course.

Originally Posted by

Unti last year I think, NSW was the only state that had a dedicated woodturning apprenticeship but I believe that has been absorbed into another course.

Further back than that, I think, .

I was with one of the last groups through, and I finished in 2004. At best there might have been one or two more sessions, running out the incumbents.

It was a great pity, as it was a good course, focussing principally on between centres, and architectural turning, but also covering endgrain cup chuck and bowl work. Teachers included John Ewart and George Hatfield.

regards

Originally Posted by Alastair

Further back than that, I think, .

I was with one of the last groups through, and I finished in 2004. At best there might have been one or two more sessions, running out the incumbents.

It was a great pity, as it was a good course, focussing principally on between centres, and architectural turning, but also covering endgrain cup chuck and bowl work. Teachers included John Ewart and George Hatfield.

regards

You could be right Alastair and yes it is a great pity.

Back when I was curriculum manager in TAFE SA, we would regularly survey industry to determine the future demand for apprentices or graduates in an area of employment. If the demand fell below a viable level the course would be phased out as there was always other emerging skill areas with expanding employment that were making bids for training.
(eg computing)

In some low employment areas an arrangement would be made with another state to send the few trainees interstate for the training. For example, SA could send its Saw Doctor trainees to Tasmania where there was a viable training program. Perhaps the SA woodturners went to NSW under a similar arrangement until that folded.