News - Feb 2018

Mudeford Club & Christchurch Mayor

Firstly, can I remind everyone that our next Mudeford Club lunch time meeting will be this Friday 23rd February at the usual time of 12.00 noon.Our local Mayor Councillor Nick Geary has promised to come along to meet us and see what Christchurch Men's Shed is all about.Having the Mayor "on-side" could be a big help so can I ask everyone to make a special effort to attend and support our vision for the development of the Shed.

Our work party collected a load of materials from Raymond Brown Buildings - thanks to everyone who came along to assist.

Job was done in record time - Matthew Spiller (site manager) was impressed by our efforts!We picked up some decent 4" x 2" timber, a number of slats reclaimed from pallets and some off-cuts from sheets of 18mm plywood.At present the wood is being stored at various member's houses - let me know if anyone has a use for it and we will arrange to bring it to the workshop. The site will continue to put aside any usable materials for us and we can drop by at any time to check what is available.

The installation of a lift at Greystone's House looks like it will go ahead.Initial work to strengthen the floor is scheduled to take place on the weekend of 9th, 10th and 11th of March. This will entail installing load bearing beams in the area of our workshop directly above the wood working lathe......which means we will have to temporally move the lathe and clear the alcove.We should probably also move our tools etc to the back room or at least cover them in sheeting to protect them from dust.

Greystone's House will be closed for 2-weeks while the lift is installed - this is provisionally scheduled for the week before Easter and Easter week itself. We will not have access to the workshop or Room 11 during this time. I will confirm the workshop closure and any changes to the dates / venues of our meeting once the work schedule is firmed up.

And speaking of the lathe, Nick Mowl turned a new spindle for the chair. He claimed he has not done any wood turning since he was at school - all I can say is that he must have been paying attention on that day!

There is a box of books and magazines in the workshop

Please feel free to read, borrow, pass on, add to the pile or swap anything that takes your fancy.Text books should be returned to the workshop after reading but everything else is up for grabs!

Les Mercer has arranged for Christchurch Men's Shed to be part of the Southern Men's Shed Network which should be a great help in exchanging ideas and developing our workshop and associated activities. More from Les on this at our next meeting!

See you all soon!

John Pegram

PS Let me know if there is anything you would like me to include or highlight in Shed News