A brief history of how we established Northallerton Men's Shed
The first spark of an idea came from another project in the town, A Secret Garden, behind the shops in High St.
The coment that those who didn’t have a desire for outdoor interests, really needed a big shed……
Through the local ‘Churches Together Group’ we invited interested people to come to a meeting, at which about 8 turned up and we had a chat about the Mens Shed’s organisations that had started in Australia and were now spreading to the UK. The consensus was that they are a great idea and there might be a lot of people in our community who would benefit.
Within a few weeks we had brought in a few more potential members organised ourselves a steering committee to investigate bank accounts, funding and premises. North Yorkshire County Council were very helpful through various initiatives which they fund.
- We were able to get pledges of a grant from the Stronger Communities Team
- We also got a lot of advice and help from Community First Yorkshire, who had helped establish a couple of other Men’s Sheds.
- Discussions with our County Councillor brought a pledge to help us establish as she had purview over health and wellbeing, and she felt we were a good fit for her interests.
After much searching for premises we could only find buildings which were quite unsuitable. A three storey house with a myriad of little rooms. Or an ex-commercial garage with a slate roof full of holes and an absentee landlord who was not prepared to do any repairs.
Eventually NYCC came good again and offered us a couple of classrooms in a disused school, but they could only offer a 3 month rolling lease as they had no idea what the future of the premises would be.
Looking for premises
We decided that this could at least get us established, and give us some time to find a longer term home. It also gave us a chance to gauge the popularity and determine how far our funds would go.
Our temporary home
Part of the original art block, and with its own heating and power supplies the move in was fairly easy, but priority 1 was that there was no toilet in the block.
Store room to toilet
One of the ancilliary rooms in the block we leased was a store room which we thought ideal as it seemed to have a drain pipe running through it. Unfortunately this turned out to be a rainwater drain to a soakaway so we had to fit a macerator and pump the waste to a drain in the adjoining workshop.
Somewhat relieved with the result we were happy to get on with fitting out the workshop.
fitting out
We had been collecting equipment for some months before we got the keys in June 2019
The first task was to get the equipment into the workshop and think about a layout.
The CRAFT Room
The craft room still had heavy duty carpeting, so the allocation of rooms was easy.
Priority Chairs and Kettle
We picked up a load of chairs on the local Freecycle and similar, kettle was the most essential item
Kitchen Area
There seemed to have been a sink installed at some time so we decided to reinstate it to become our coffee bar
DIY
Whilst the workshop team were fitting out in there, another team started building a coffee bar out of pallet wood, and painted it up
Official Opening September 2019
Open Day for Local Charities and interested parties
Just 3 months after getting the keys for ouir premises, we held our official opening. The ribbon was cut by Mike Barningham, Vice Chairman of Hambledon District Council. We had more than 30 visitors come to see what we had created.
Crowded Workshop
Great interest in the things we have been doing, but also a chance to network with some of the agencies who would like to signpost clients to us.
We put out a few examples of some of the things our members have made, from Bug Houses to Garden Chairs.
We have since had a number of people come to join us as a result.
A time to Change - March 2020
The Covid 19 Pandemic hit the world and we were forced to close our doors temporarily.
Unfortunately some unkind thieves decided to re-open them and steal a lot of our equipment. A bunch of vandals thought this was a great oportunity and decided to ‘Play’, they trashed the place.
We knew that we only had Allertonshire School as a temporary home and so the events of the break-in hastened our search for a new home – and so we entered a new phase – The move to Northallerton Auction Mart.
