News - May 2018

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,

Skipping with their fleecy dams.

[Who writes this stuff?]

Lots going on down in the shed this month so I will start with the forthcoming events:

Sammy Miller Museum Visit

Thursday 24th May - meet in the museum car park at 10.00 am.

Mudeford Club Lunch

Friday 25th May at 12.00 noon.

For the benefit of any new members, we will be in the bar on the right as you face the front of the building. No requirement to sign-in but you might need to ring the front door bell to gain access. Our table(s) are usually towards the back of the room.

HCA Summer Fete at Greystone's House

The HCA summer fete will be on Saturday 2nd June

We have been asked to provide some assistance with setting up the stalls in the morning and helping to carry everything back into Greystone's house when the fete closes in the afternoon. (typically folding tables etc). Let me know if you think you could help.

Lesley from HCA asked if any shed members could bring a cake for the homemade cake stall. I explained that nobody would want to eat anything I had produced (not speaking for everyone else of course but my signature dish is cheese on toast with blackened edges) As an easier alternative, it was suggested by one of our members that we could each bring a bottle for the bottle raffle as our contribution from Men's Shed. If you want to donate a bottle, you can bring it to the Mudeford Club on Friday or drop it into the workshop next week.

Note that it is the Highcliffe Food Festival on the 2nd and 3rd of June!

Our next "Room 11" general meeting at Greystone's house will be on Tuesday 5th June starting at the usual time of 2.00 pm and finishing by 4.00 pm.

Workshop News

• We now have a band saw courtesy of Steve Dinley. This is going to be a great addition to our woodworking capability!

• Mike Tizzard provided a 3 metre length of kitchen worktop which we can use to build an extra workbench along the end wall where the wood and tool racks were located. Bob Wood was good enough to pick up and deliver the worktop to Greystone's House. Nick Mowll helped cut the board and get it down the stairs and also to move the wood store and racking to the area where the steel support beams for the lift have have reduced the working head room. (speaking of Nick, I must apologise for spelling his name wrong in the past)

• Barry Atkinson and Chris Waddilove have volunteered to take the lead in building the new work bench. When this is done, I would like to get the kitchen cabinet on the wall over the bench to store some of our more valuable tools and a "clamp rack" to hang our collection of g-clamps etc.

• Barry delivered his hedgehog box to the Knight Brown building site at Bailey Bridge and in return was invited to take as much 3" x 2" timber as we needed to build the workbench. We were amazed to hear that the plan is to demolish the existing Land Rover showroom (which is only 20 years old) and replace it with a new building which better fits JLR's image. There will most likely be some more surplus materials that we can use for our Men's Shed projects before the site work is finished.

• Len has been busy in the workshop cutting up a plank of oak for parts for his boat and last week carving a spatula from a piece of spalted sycamore. He makes it look so easy just using an axe to split the log and rough out the spatula before finishing with a chisel and hand plane

• Bob Wood brought in two buckets of screws and nails for the workshop - should keep us going for a bit. I was pleased to see that a lot of the wood screws are the old slotted type which just look better than cross head screws in traditional woodwork. Along with the screws and nails there was another mystery object to puzzle over - all will be revealed at Mudeford Club on Friday.

• I have reserved a shelf in the back store room for members to store "work in progress" so there is no need to take part finished projects home again each week.

• HCA are still asking us for a new "pigeon hole" cabinet to match the arts and crafts decor in the reception area at Greystone's House. I thought we could get away with cladding the existing cabinet but apparently there is now a need for additional pigeon holes!

• I finished five "little houses" made mostly from off-cuts from our workshop - well my granddaughter likes them anyway!

The Christchurch Electricity Museum visit last week was well worthwhile. There were a lot of exhibits ranging from domestic appliances to electrical instruments and generating equipment plus a transport section including a Sinclair C5 death trap! There was very little information about individual items so we had a lot of fun trying to work out what some of them were. The future of the museum collection is in doubt so if you are interested in seeing what is there, look out for museum open days in the local press.

Men's Shed and HCA Membership

Can I remind everyone who uses the workshop or attends our meetings at Greystone's House that you also need to be a member of the HCA (Highcliffe Community Association) at a cost of £5 per year. I have to submit a list of our members using the Greystone's House facilities to the HCA membership secretary to cross-reference with their list and I will also need to initial your HCA membership cards.

If anyone is planning to join or renew their Men's Shed membership, please let me know as I will be bringing our membership records up to date after the end of May. Also if you do not want to continue receiving e-mails or information from Christchurch Men's Shed, again please let me know

I will be going to the workshop on Tuesday morning as usual but will be at Sammy Miller's on Thursday.

Hope to see everyone at the Mudeford Club on Friday if not before - looking forward to that pint of Doombar already!

John Pegram

Secretary, Christchurch Men's Shed

PS did anyone figure out the clock face with the additional 300 incremental dial yet?