Petersfield Men's Shed

Topics discussed;

• Gerry Johnson – Regional Men’s Shed Representative introduced himself and gave an overview of our local Sheds.
• Nick, Trevor, Martin, and I shared their visit to Waterlooville Shed; a very well established Shed with great facilities. We met their chairman and other members who were very helpful in answering our many questions. I will write to thank them.
• I described the opening of Liss Shed and the facilities they have.
• Trevor introduced a very real possibility for our future Shed premises. 16 Heath Road is a 3-bed detached house with substantial grounds and 2 large sheds owned by EHDC located in the Festival Hall car park. Councillors Julie Butler and Robert Mocatta are supporting that the sheds and grounds be licenced to us to develop as our Shed. We may also explore use of the house in the short term. Trevor and I met the councillors on site with the EHDC Estates Manager to review the possibilities which are very favourable. The EHDC Estates team are now drafting a licence to occupy document for the management committee to review and discuss. We shall update the members in due course. All fingers are crossed!
• In discussion with member Martin, I asked if he would consider joining the management committee and becoming a Trustee. I am pleased that he has agreed to be put forward at the next MC meeting. If any member wishes to explore this opportunity, please contact me.
• Next Members Meeting was agreed on Wednesday May 4^th at 2.30pm at the Half Moon Pub.
• Further date for everyone’s diary – We are heading for our second anniversary so have set our AGM for Tuesday 7^th June, 2.00pm again at the Half Moon Pub. This will be followed by the normal Members Meeting. All members are welcome and an Annual Report will be distributed prior to the meeting.

Steven Watts, Chairman

Just a reminder that our next Petersfield Men’s Shed Members’ Meeting is at 14.00pm Wed 30th March at the Half Moon Pub, Sheet.

All members are welcome. Potential members are also welcome to come along and see if our Men’s Shed suits them.

Topics for open discussion;

• Welcome to Gerry Johnson – Regional Men’s Shed Representative
• Visit to Waterlooville Shed – Report (All)
• Opening of Liss Shed – Report (Steven)
• Premises/ Land Survey Update (Chris/Steven/Trevor)
• Member Open Discussion (All)
• Future Meetings Activities/ Location  (All)
• Next meeting date/ time/ location (All)

Steven Watts
Chairman

We started our meeting with a minute’s silence to remember one of our founding members John Ide who sadly passed away. We are very grateful for his input and offer his wife Tricia and family our heartfelt condolences.

Our topics;

• We discussed local premises/ land survey potentials for our future Shed. Our search continues and we urge all members to get involved and pick area squares to walk and scour. Please see web site or ask Chris for details.                     
• Nick gave us the outputs of the recent Member Survey; these will be added to the web site.                    
• We discussed future community projects that we could potentially complete without the need of a Shed. These will be explored further at our next meeting. Phil has a few ideas to share but please can everyone bring their thoughts.
• We also want to put together a program of potential visits, trips, guest speakers, etc for future meetings, so please bring some ideas.          
• We discussed and agreed that to try to accommodate all members, including those working full time, we would alternate the times of our meetings from afternoon to evening. Therefore, the next meeting will be on Wednesday 23^rd February at 6.30pm at the Half Moon pub. Their kitchen is open from 5pm till 9pm, so anyone wishing to have a meal before or after the meeting, can do so.    

I look forward to seeing many of you on the 23^rd.

Steven Watts
Chairman

We wanted to build up a picture of what shed members would be interested in doing when we have a shed, allowing us to plan things so it meets their needs, but also understanding the skills that could help get the shed up and running.

Thanks to all members who completed the survey – the results are now in!

The chart below shows the percentage of respondents who were interested in various activities. There was also an option to suggest other activities, which is covered later in this post.

We also asked what existing skills members had, and it turns out there are a lot, with someone competent in every field. For those novices wanting to learn, there will be plenty of good advice available.

Finally, we asked for suggestions for shed activities and what hobbies / work people did at the moment.

Following our second members meeting on Thursday 18^th November at the Half Moon Pub I attach below a few notes on the discussions raised and decisions made. A total of 16 members attended, including 5 management committee members.

• Premises
  • Trevor Nichols updated the members on the current position with the old Swan Surgery building in the Festival Hall car park. Whilst we have been informed that the Swan Medical Group now wish to sell the building: as we believe this would be almost impossible due to the shortish lease length with EHDC and its current poor state of repair, we continue our interest and investigations through EHDC and the Land Registry. The building maybe too big for us to start with but better than too small and it’s in a perfect location.
  • Trevor and Nick Broom updated the members on the Buriton changing rooms building opportunity. Our discussions with Buriton Parish Council have progressed well and very amicably; the next stage is a presentation to the Parish Council with our outline plans.

However, it was felt that many members do not favour progressing with this building due to its location and small size. Therefore, Trevor and Nick revisited the building to gain a clearer understanding of what would be required to make the building work for us and the likely costs for this. The conclusion was that it would need a substantial structural extension (at least half again), a significant steel beam to remove the centre wall (this may also incur having to raise the roof line) and significant improvements to the services. An estimate for work this was between £35K and £50K.

• With this additional information, there was much open debate and questions among the members, encompassing location, should we plan to spend that level on a building in Buriton, what do we really/ ideally want to do in our shed, where the current membership lives (overwhelmingly in Petersfield town), are we missing better opportunities?
  • As it was felt, we could not keep Buriton waiting for our 100% commitment, it was agreed that following on from our discussion topics below (which are obviously related) I would ask each member in turn – are they for or against continuation of our discussions.

• Building/ Land Search
  • To help ensure we are not missing any possibilities for our future shed building, we agreed that using Google Maps, Petersfield and the local area would be divided in to search zones. One, two or more members will take one or more zones to complete a walk/ cycle search for any possible buildings, land, and storage opportunities. Any found should be reported back to Chris Jeffrey (via our [email protected] email), who is taking the lead on this project and the prospect will be investigated further. Once an area is fully searched, it can be crossed of. Please look out for Chris’ communication and please sign up for at least one area. With all current 23 members searching, this will make the task easier and quicker.

• Equipment Donations Storage
  • We are receiving a steady flow of equipment and tools donation offers which is great, but we have no shed and no storage! A recent donation that we are trying to sort was a real find, so we do not want to miss out on these if we can possibly avoid it. Hence, linking this search with the building/land search above; so if you come across an empty and lonely container or reasonable storage shed that you think we could secure, please also bring this to Chris’ attention.

• Member Questionnaire
  • To help us better identify a consensus among members of what do we really/ ideally want to do in our shed, Nick developed a brief member questionnaire which all 16 attendees completed. If you could not attend this meeting but would like to still complete a questionnaire, please contact Nick via our [email protected] email. Nick will assimilate your responses and report back to us at our next meeting.

• Are you for or against continuing our discussions with Buriton?
  • At the end of the meeting, having fully debated the Buriton building, we returned to the question above. Each member voted either “for” or “against”; the result was 4 “for” and 12 “against”. With a 75% majority it was agreed to stop our further discussions. I have now spoken to the Chair of Buriton Parish Council to confirm our discission and share some of our discussions regarding the pros and cons. Naturally, he was very disappointed but understood our reasonings.
  • Dave Grant introduced an interesting concept of the possibility of making Buriton a PMS annex with space for a single activity and social kitchen, which would not require anything like the level of investment. Although, finding our main shed premises remains our priority, Dave will try to establish the local level of interest.

• Future Projects
  • As the content above, quite rightly took over all the meeting, we decided to defer this topic to our next meeting. Please bring your ideas and thoughts for projects we can still undertake without a premises.

• Date/ Time of next meeting
  • Agreed Thursday 20^th January at 2.30pm at the Half Moon Pub. We shall discuss the possibility of holding later meetings as well to help those members still working.

Steven Watts
Chairman