Notes from latest meeting held on Thursday 24th Jan 2019.

As usual a good turnout of 12 members began with a look at the very comprehensive notes taken by Yolanda. Major news on the land given over to the project Brian (Sec) advised that formal agreement had been reached with the Church and that we will enjoy a rolling 7 year lease arrangement at a nominal cost, many thanks to Brian! We will now work to sign the agreement in writing. Lots of members updated us with their sponsorship efforts, Malcolm Kirk securing a %10 discount off anything we want for the duration of the project with Wickes, Peter Hill has an offer from B&Q to request items in the Store month by month, each request being granted on a random ballot basis each month, and most encouragingly Brian Hooper has submitted a request via Councillor Dave Shields for £2500 news of which any day now. Ian, Hugh and ‘Loffty’ reported on numerous pending requests that have yet to bare fruit! Colin Lockwood had come up against a planning dead end and Ian and Malcolm have agreed to take this on to see what can be done. Hugh to open the Bank Account with Metro bank and signaturees were agreed. Ian gave an update on our Web presence with various numbers of likes and tweets etc on each platform. Other business discussed included other jobs to be undertaken, including quotes to be sought for the installation of various services, ie Water, Electricity, and drainage. Peter Hill to do this.

The meeting finished as usual with the group feeling optimistic about what has be achieved and what needs to be done.

Date of next meeting – 4th April @ 7.30 pm

We have posted our first pictures on our gallery page. These are related to some of the groundwork that has started on site.

Our next open meeting will be held at 19:30 on Thursday 24th January at St James Road Methodist Church.

If you are interested it our progress please come along and just listen, or get involved.

We are now on the map of Men’s Sheds in the UK. The UK Men’s Shed Association allows you to find a Men’s Shed in your local area and we are now shown on their map.

Find out more here:  https://menssheds.org.uk/find-a-shed/

Well it’s been quite a week for us. On 25^thSeptember the Church council for St James Road Methodist church met and after a successful presentation from Ian Tyas, chairman of the Men’s Shed organising committee, agreed in principle to let Shirley Men’s Shed build its Shed on land owned by the church in St James Road. So we have a site for the shed!

We are extremely grateful to the church for this offer.

Then on 01 Oct we held our first public meeting. Over 25 people attended the meeting and heard about our journey so far and what we are planning next in our quest to build our Man’s Shed.

Ian Tyas said “ Very pleased with the great turnout, lots of men from Shirley with ideas and excitement for this new venture, I’m sure we can turn this level of interest into something very worthwhile!”

There were many questions, discussion and observations ranging from how much is it going to cost and where will the money come from? to what hours will the shed be open and what will members be doing? It was very encouraging to see a good level of interest from our local community.

As Brian Purchase, the Deacon of St James Road Methodist church said at our public meeting “This is a Men’s Shed venture supported by the church” and we look forward to working closely with the church organisation to achieve our goal.

What happens next?

Well, we need to get ourselves incorporated into a legal entity so that we can progress things on a strong and legal footing. We will continue our discussions with the church to reach a legal agreement to use the land offered. We will start our fund raising activities to raise money and also look for sponsors. We will also start looking at options for what and how we build as our shed and start the detailed planning. We are hopeful that we can get or shed built by 01 October 2019 (but don’t hold us to that!).

We have a lot of hard work ahead of us but are encouraged by the interest shown so far.

If you would like to get involved, or just keep in touch with our progress, then our next open meeting is on Thursday 22 November at 19:30 at St James Road Methodist church, please come along.