Founded as a woodcarving class/interest group in 1997 by Malcolm Clark and Art Tourville, the free classes were hosted by the Kirkland Art Center (Clinton, NY). Class participation mushroomed to about 10 members, and in the spring of 1998 a club name was adopted as well as a loose definition of offices, and club dues. Recently we're at 25+ members, and enjoying a growth spurt. Most of our members are from the Oneida county area. Our name is derived from the first canal project in the U.S. which was begun in this county (Rome, NY/Oneida County) and extended east and west from there to cover nearly the entire length of New York State.

We're kind of loosely organized, so there are no 'official' objectives (yet). In a nutshell it would be: To share the woodcarving knowlege we all have, and have a good time doing it.

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• Formal meetings are at 7:00pm on the last Thursday of the month.  Meetings are hosted by Fran Clonan at Wayside Woodworking, on Rt5 in Kirkland, NY.  That location is approx 2min south of the Westmoreland NYS Thruway exit on Rt233.

• Informal carving sessions are held on all other Thursday of the month, same location, 6:30pm.

• We have a club booth at the annual Kirkland Art Festival. Members bring .

• This spring we started a Noahs Ark project to raffel along with some other contributions. We started of with 12 pairs of animals, but as the project got going some members signed up for another pair, and new members came in. The latest count is 16+ pairs. 
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• In September we're having our first annual club picnic. 
• Instead of a meeting last December, we gather at Wayside Woodworking for a covered dish dinner. At our 1998 event Charlie Miller surprised us all with carved name tags. Each was individualized for the recipient. 

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