On behalf of everyone in The Carpentry Store we want to sincerely thank you for your support and custom during the year and take the opportunity to wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year in 2020.
To say we had a magical year in the store is a bit of an understatement. When RTÉ Nationwide came in to film what we do, it was a great honour. The support and good wishes we received afterwards was humbling and again we want to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts. It definitely was a great way to start a wonderful year.
We had the great privilege to welcome President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina onto our stand at Ireland Skills Live. He took a great interest into what we were doing and wished us the best. Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development John Halligan TD tried his hand at planing some timber with the Lie-Nielsen No. 62 low angle jack plane as hundred of students watched on.
In January we started our demonstration series and were delighted to welcome back Andrew Hall who had two visits to the store this year. Fr. Jim Cogley gave a very insightful talk on Easter Saturday and Joe Laird dazzled us with his three sided bowl. In our classroom we had more successful courses with The Rocking Horse Shop, Sam Abernathy (Routing) and Seamus Cassidy (Woodturning). Our course range will expand during 2020 and we hope to inspire more people to find the joy of woodworking.
May was another memorable month when our Woodworking Open Day was well supported and we got great advice from Glenn Lucas, Clive Day and the Team from Festool. Later in the month we were delighted to continue our support of Naas Racecourse Business Club and there was great laughter when the aptly named Woody Creek won the race and not one of us had backed it when we presented the prize to the winning trainer Fozzy Stack. Once again we were proud to sponsor the Cornerstone Project in Bolton Street and want to congratulate this years winner Paul Warren.
Our Woodwork, Hobby & Craft Fair was another great success and saw the launch of many new products. We had more demonstrators than ever before. This year was really special as we were treated to a Masterclass from Deneb Puchalski and Kaitlin from the Lie-Nielsen Factory. Deneb spoke passionately about sharpening, tool care and gave practical tips on how to get the most out of your tools. Deneb also spent a couple of days with us after the fair travelling to various colleges and to Benchspace in Cork. We want to thank all our dedicated staff, volunteers and demonstrators who shared their skills over the two days. We are already looking forward to next year… Friday 6th & Saturday 7th November 2020.
We hope you will join us again in-store in 2020 for some of the demonstrations or classes, which will be shown on our events page. Keep an eye out for one of our Pop-up displays as we travel around the country. Finally, just a quick reminder that we’re open until 4pm on Monday 23rd December. We close for our annual holidays and reopen on Thursday 2nd of January. All in all it was a pretty amazing year in The Carpentry Store and once again thank you for your support and custom.
