Petersfield Men's Shed

Following the excellent news that we have now signed the licence with EHDC for our new premises, 16 Heath Road, I wanted to update everyone what happens now.

What are we doing?

• We have formed various working groups to complete the early development needs for each area of the premises. This includes,
  • deciding what activity each area will initially be used for,
  • securing the whole site and buildings,
  • replacing missing windows and doors,
  • clearing the grounds,
  • sorting the electrics,
  • preparing budgets for future expenditure.
• We are developing a site management team for key holding, security, and safety in order to schedule when the shed can be open to membership.
• We have created a team to seek out and sort any future tool and equipment donations and grants.

Future membership

Through the recent articles in the Petersfield Post and Shine Radio and via our Facebook page, we have received many new expressions of interest to join us, which is excellent. We aim to complete the initial development of the site by the end of November/ beginning of December and then will be in a position to accept new members and at least offer the social aspects of the Shed. So please bear with us. You can register interest and find a membership form here.

Tools/ equipment donations

We have also received many offers of donations for which we are very grateful. Please keep them coming and we shall arrange to look at any offers once the site is secure and as space for storing is completed. Email any offers to [email protected].

Management Committee

The existing management committee mostly consists of members who have served now since the Shed’s inception. As we evolve, grow and for succession planning, we are interested to hear from members who would like to join the team. Current specific roles that we are looking to replace is Secretary, Membership, and IT. If you are interested, please contact me directly at [email protected].

Open Day

In November, we plan to have an Open Day at the Shed, 16 Heath Road, where anyone interested in joining our membership can come and look at the premises, see what activities we plan, and to meet existing members and members of the management committee. Date to be advised.

We are very excited about the prospects offered by the new site to our Shed and we will all work hard to finalise the initial developments as soon as possible in order to start Shed activities and welcome many new members.

Steven Watts
Chairman

The Petersfield Men’s Shed, a local charity for men (and women) of Petersfield to socialise together whilst fulfilling practical projects to benefit the local community, has signed a licence with the East Hampshire District Council to occupy its first premises at 16 Heath Road, Petersfield.

Consisting of a house, two large sheds and grounds, located in the Festival Hall car park in the town centre, 16 Heath Road provides the perfect mix of accommodation to enable a good range of projects such as woodworking, metal working, IT skills, gardening, bike maintenance and cookery as well as being a perfectly located drop-in centre for simply socialising.

Currently the 27 strong membership is forming working groups to prepare the site for occupation which we hope will be ready to accept more members by December; if you are interested in joining please look here. Membership is just £50 per year.

The Shed will be named The John Ide Shed in memory of one of our founders, John Ide, who sadly passed before seeing his passion for a men’s shed in Petersfield come to fruition.

Our thanks go to the Councillors at East Hampshire District Council who also financially supported this development through local grants. However, from now on we must support ourselves through increased membership, local projects, local business sponsorship and donations.

After over two years of formulating plans for a Petersfield Men’s Shed, we are delighted to now have purpose premises from which The Shed can start to fulfil its charitable objectives to benefit both men and women of Petersfield and the local community.

Steven Watts
Chairman

It’s been a while since the Men’s Shed last met, but the management team have simply been busy trying to sort premises and it is taking longer than we hoped. However, now we have news and think/ hope it’s very good news!

As you are aware, we have been negotiating with East Hampshire District Council regarding the possibility of us taking on 16 Heath Road, Petersfield as our first Shed. The good news is we have a draft licence from the Council which the management team has reviewed, discussed and with a few minor amendments is happy to agree. The licence offers us the whole premises including the two sheds, all the gardens and grounds and the house itself.

In connection with the licence negotiations, the management team has also progressed a grant application to the Council for funds to make the sheds, grounds, and house secure with new locks, door, and windows, and safely powered with electrics.

On the assumption that a licence is signed, and we gain the necessary grant funding, the hard work to become operational begins now which will involve every member. This will include;

• Identify a team of member key holders and safety officers to “manage” the site whist members are on-site.
• Identify a tools manager.
• Agreeing the designation of all areas/ buildings/ rooms for our various activities, this may be in stages and change over time.
• Establishing what work needs doing and its priorities.
• Creating working parties to carry out the work based on everyone’s individual skills.
• Establish, agree, and purchase the initial tools/ equipment/ benching to get started.
• Agree our “Shed Open” annual membership fee.
• Investigate commercial sponsorship and local donations for on-going funds/ tools/ equipment/ wood/ anything useful.
• Promote the Shed membership to increase numbers.
• Finalise the operational budget.

Knowing how long final negotiations can take, we propose a whole Membership Meeting on Wednesday 5^th October at 2pm either at 16 Heath Road or either the Townhouse on the High Street or the Half Moon pub in Sheet (to be confirmed later). The purpose of this meeting will be to provide further updates and to discuss, agree and confirm volunteers to work on and complete the elements above. I urge you to make every effort to attend this meeting and also start to consider how you can best support some of the actions above.

We have been working for this for over two years and finally, it may well happen. This is our Shed, jointly we can make it the best Shed.

Thank you.

Steven Watts
Chairman

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

On Thursday 14th October, we held our first physical Petersfield Men’s Shed members’ meeting. 17 members attended and 3 non-members also came along and promptly joined. We were delighted by the attendance and proves that there is a need for a Men’s Shed in Petersfield.

Discussions included:

• Updating on our premises situation
• What the ideal premises would look like
• What members want from the Shed
• What members can bring to the Shed
• Format, style, regularity, and location of meetings before we get premises
• Type of projects we can work on now (without premises)
• Offer to discuss/ join the management committee

We agreed to hold a regular monthly meeting, the next being Thursday 18th November, again at the Half Moon pub in Sheet, at 2.30pm. The purpose of the meeting is to further update on the premises situation and socialise. It was also suggested that (for this next and future meetings) members would:

• Look out for and bring possibilities for any premises or land to investigate
• Bring ideas for practical local projects we could engage in without premises
• Bring along small personal projects that we could perhaps help with

A suggestion for future meetings was that we could also meet at members own personal sheds in rotation. Whilst everyone appreciated not every member will have a shed and of those that have, these will inevitably be small, it will be interesting to visit the range we do have amongst us and again, members could further support personal practical projects in that member’s “back yard”.

We should also include discussions regarding funding opportunities (when we get premises), ideal equipment and tools, scavenging and organised trips to engineering, electronic, carpentry, plastic moulding, construction, etc companies, dock yards and the like.

I think we all agreed, this was a great start for Petersfield Men’s Shed, but the onus will be on all of us to keep the positive momentum going. If we all do a small bit towards the Shed, it will thrive. Thank you to everyone.

Steven Watts
Chairman

We are delighted to announce that membership to the newly formed Petersfield Men’s Shed is now open. Membership forms can be found here. These can be either completed online, or printed off and posted to the Membership Secretary.

Membership initially costs just £10 for a year, increasing to £50 when we secure a permanent home shed and workshop. Until then, we shall meet socially on a regular basis, starting at the Half Moon Pub, Sheet. Our first social meeting will be on Thursday 14th October, starting at 2.30pm in the afternoon.

These are not formal meetings and are more social. However, as well as introductions and starting to get to know each other we should also discuss:

• Possible local sites/ unused buildings for our permanent shed/ workshop,
• Opportunities to use member’s existing sheds for small projects,
• Local community support and project ideas, not requiring a workshop,
• What you want from the Shed and what you can contribute,
• Joining and supporting the management committee.

If you have any great ideas, please bring them and share.

Members of the existing management committee will be there, and we welcome all new members to come and say hello. Do please join us if you can.

Steven Watts, Chairman