View from a Shed – Update

Posted on by

With the focus on the building of our shed itself, we should remember, this is the view from our Shed.  Nice to sit out and look at, when the weather plays ball:

The last couple of weeks have been busy.

AGM

We held our 2019 AGM last Thursday, where the Chairman confirmed our good financial position and listed a number of achievements over the year:

  • The Lease with the Legion was signed
  • We were able to build up sufficient funds for Phase 1
  • The contract was awarded and we started building work on Phase 1
  • We have already made considerable progress towards Phase 2 funds with grants totalling £35,500 within an estimated budget of around £57,000 – that is, only about £20,000 left to go.  (For more details on how Phases 1 and 2 are defined see here.)
  • Further funding applications are under way
  • Our weekly social meetings continue, some with guest speakers in 2018/2019
  • We have had a number of tool sales coinciding with the Legion’s Book/Car Boot sales
  • We have donated surplus items to Scouts and surplus vouchers to the Food Bank

We had a few changes in Trustees, and the new list can be seen here, and we have also had a number of new members joining us over the last couple of months. Welcome.

Building Update

The fitting-out stage is now in progress, with the Electrical work being started today, Tuesday 18th June.  In a few days’ time we shall have a working electrical feed of our own, plug points and full lighting.  The only work left on the fabric will be to fireproof the steel beams, and complete final painting.  We will then move on and install whatever equipment and facilities we want. And on that point…

What do we want in the Phase 1 Shed?

In last Thursday’s meeting we agreed that although we have not been short on ideas for what we want in the Banchory Men’s Shed, without a building to use it was rather difficult to make these things happen.  Since we are now within weeks of opening, we can again focus on what we want.  An e-mail has gone out to all members asking for their individual ideas. Even if you have not had the email, you can also forward any of your own ideas by e-mail to membership.bms@gmail.com – suggestions are not limited to current members of the Shed; if you are thinking of ever joining you can also let us know what you might like to see.

We will collate these first round responses and then carry out a second round to establish what are the most popular needs, and which of these can be delivered – we need to bear in mind that the Phase 1 room must initially share both social and workshop facilities, and that anything expensive needs to be funded.  The second round will probably take the form of a web questionnaire and we will post details.

Other goings on

We have acquired a trailer.  This was very kindly donated by the family of our late member David Thomson who passed on last year. We will store it at a member’s house and be able to use it for, well, as a trailer.  Huge thanks (again) to the Thomson family.

Visit to Stonehaven Shed.  Several BMS members are visiting the nearly-complete Stonehaven Men’s Shed on Thursday, as both a social visit and to learn anything we can from each other.