Church Crookham and Fleet Men’s Shed has gone from strength to strength since being formed back in 2017.
In 2023 we had:
- 2600 shedders enter the shed over the year.
- We cut up timber to make 264 bird box kits and drilled 3,432 holes, local Cubs, Brownies, and Guides assembled these.
- Consumed over eight thousand cups of tea and coffee. There was an unknown quantity of biscuits, cakes, donuts, yum yums and sausage rolls consumed. How did we ever make anything?
- Hosted 16 Experience Days together with the Southern Fellowship of Woodworkers.
- Opened Building 505.
- Installed new doors to the shed.
- Bought a new chop saw, band saw and lathe.
- Applied for planning permission and built our outdoor covered walkway.
Since COVID we have had to operate a waiting list for new memberships, such is the demand within the local community for spaces. Whilst we have one of the larger men’s sheds within the local area, we still have limited bench space, and this means we must limit the number of members within the workshop area to a maximum of fifteen at any one time. This does not prevent members from coming along for a chat and cuppa in our social area or using the equipment like the 3D printers within our clean workshop area or if the weather permits the outdoor areas. The limit in the main workshop is to ensure the safety of all members within the shed. At Church Crookham and Fleet Men’s Shed a waiting list is not something that we want to have, so we have therefore been looking at ways of creating space for new members.
So, some exciting news
Starting in January this year we now open the shed on Fridays, so we are open five days per week. We are currently monitoring the attendance and hope to be able to offer some spaces to those on the waiting list in the next few weeks.
At the beginning of 2023, we entered an agreement via Berkeley Homes to use their Training Hub Building 505 at Hartland Village as an additional space. During 2023 this has been equipped with the help of donations from the local community and a grant from Hampshire County Council. Initially, the plan was for Church Crookham and Fleet Men’s Shed to operate the two sites as one shed, but the reality has been that this has resulted in Building 505 not being used as best as it could be. During this time, the waiting list has grown, not what we want, so the Trustees and Committee have decided that the best way forward of using the facility better and to combat the need for Men’s Shed places is to create a second Men’s Shed within the local area.
On Wednesday 17th January we held a meeting of all those on the waiting list, (incidentally 7 years to the day from when we held the first meeting to form Church Crookham and Fleet Men’s Shed) which was attended by twenty-nine people. The outcome of that meeting was that there is a desire to have a second men’s shed within the local area, ideally to the north of the area. We are pleased to announce that we are currently in the process of forming a committee to establish the setup. It is hoped that we will be able to achieve this by the end of 2024. This is just the start though.
Building 505 is one of the Pystock site buildings and will eventually be knocked down for housing as part of the Hartland Village development, so we must find alternative accommodation. Potentially we have approximately 4 years to do this which sounds like a long time, but the reality is that that will go very quickly. Our chairman Allan Walker is currently having discussions with Hart Council as to locations. If you know of anywhere then please let us know.