The regional meetings have been great, and have brought more interest to timber framing (and some new members), but they don't make money for the TFG, at least in the short term. As far as I know, everyone in the Guild is pro-regional meetings.
DL, I don't know if the Swiss Holzbau Schweiz runs like the French and German guilds. The French compagnon and German zimmerman programs are paid for by the government, through taxes paid by corporations. As far as I know, the guilds lobby (?) individual companies to have their corporate taxes allocated to their Guild. I can't even begin to imagine that happening in the US.
And Kevin, in your critique of the apprenticeship program, I think that you're talking about joiners and not timber framers. There a lot of guys (and a bunch of girls) cutting timber frame joints every day, but that's certainly not all of timber framing. It's really the easiest part. I can train a monkey to cut a mortise or tenon. You say that timber framers don't need to know scribing or forest management, but I would argue that not knowing either of those subjects (and the many more covered in the app. program) severely limits what you can do. A client asks you to put some round timbers from their property in their house, and you say what? Sorry, I don't know how to do that? Or even better, 'that's ridiculous, timber comes on a truck from Oregon.' A group of the best timber framers in the country came up with that curriculum, and you're opinion is that all you have to do is put in a couple of years in a shop to be a journeryman timber framer?
