Well it’s been quite a week for us. On 25thSeptember 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.