Hi Gill,
I am in the UK, South Glos.I have been doing classes in my workshop
for a few years now. I have 3-4 people at a time, about once a month,
to start with it was a bit impromptu, but now I am more organised and
have insurance for them. I did it through the FSB for about 150/yr. I
am gradually moving on to more specialised courses, Wax carving,
Casting, etc.
I don’t know if you have done any teaching before, my experience is
that you will find they quite slow, and probably of quite mixed
ability.
I found that they DO like to have a finished item to take home at
the end of the day. This can involve your input at times. It really
depends if they want to learn to become jewellers or if it is
entertainment for the day. What you expect they want may not be what
they want. They all need to be pushed/helped to different amounts.
I cant think of any rules or regulations that apply, making them
aware of potential dangers is good, they are all frightened of the
torch, I wouldn’t let them use my polisher for quite a time until I
was sure that they respected it.If you get Health and Safety involved
I am sure that they will veto all hand tools and machinery out of
hand ! You have to judge what they are capable of concentrating on.
Hope this helps,
Tim Blades