December 2025: A Themed Gift from Reuben

For the last several years, our speaker appreciation volunteer, David Ives, has lovingly created thank you plaques out of reclaimed wood, featuring that month's theme. At the end of each talk, these plaques are given to our speakers as a gift.

Well for the last several months (since October 2025), David has not been making these plaques. His apprentice has been.

Meet Rueben. 

David met Reuben during some summer workshops and when they ended, they both agreed, "we're not ready to stop!"

Having concocted a plan, David reached out to Mark at CMVan (our lead Chapter Host), who was able to secure some funding for Reuben to take over the privileged responsibility of making the CMVan Thank You plaques; he’s really good at it too!

There's more: thanks to some recently acquired funding Reuben is eligible for as someone with autism, Rueben will start working with David at Made to Fly Designs two days a week starting in January. 

Thank you Rueben for your beautiful work! We're excited to see how your skills develop and where you go next.

Thank you for being part of our CMVan Community.