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Well this week was a wee bit different for me – I went and got my first dose of vaccine as did some other shed members also. So far no side effects so I hope it’s working in other ways! My wife has still not had her letter so is getting a bit anxious but all we are told is ‘don’t worry your letter will be coming this week. Tomorrow is the last day of the week!
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I wrote to Jason at SMSA with comments from the shed as shown below and Jason has responded a few minutes ago with a reply which I have also shown. It seems he has an almost impossible task of trying to keep us all together in one shed!
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Jason,
We in Pentlands Mens's Shed have reviewed your draft documentation and as one of the three Trustees I have put together the following comments based on feedback from the trustees on the document and general discussion with shed members on a Zoom meeting last Friday.
While there is obviously a great deal of work which has gone in to this and it all seems to hang together very well our consensus is that it would just not work for our Shed. We are just going to have to be patient and await for the 'all clear' to get back to having a get together in our shed. Thus we are not able to endorse or otherwise your well intentioned documentation to assist those who wish to get their sheds open, possibly sooner than they should but that is only my opinion and not necessarily that of the other Trustees or members..
Specific comments we would make, and I stress this is based on our shed only:
There is a lot of onerous and proscriptive work to be done by way of registration and monitoring which will undoubtedly stress many members in one way or another, assuming that we could get a responsible person to stand in at each session. From the outset we are a friendly meeting place at which admin and making things are part of the meeting discussion and participation but not the reason for having the shed. The well being of our members, many of who are carers or who just need some time with like minded others is one of our main assets and we do not feel that all the necessary guidance which could (would) immediately be seen as regulations is conducive to a stress free environment in opening the shed early.
I get the impression from yourself and others that there is a great push to use the distancing gizmo as a way to be open and prevent close contact. Again this is possibly useful where there is plenty of space and people do not need instruction on how to use machinery or help with making a cup of tea (which is very different to making a cup of tea and handing it to another member). We do not have space to pass each other at a distance of 500mm in many parts of our premises which are owned and operated by the Scouts. Even if we were able to and agreed to abide by the guidance provided we could not do this until the Scouts agreed that we could operate again in their premises. We have done limited work outside but the weather has put paid to that and in any event it was only ever in groups of two to complete projects already started where that was possible. Holding a pallet while others put some screws in involves closer spacing than that allowed so the distancing apparatus would not be a help to us there either.
Please do not treat this as a critisism of your guidance document. Clearly a lot of work has gone into it and we do see the reasons for that if sheds have to open safely and sensibly. Hopefully I have explained why it will not work for us and we are prepared to be patient until we can get back to a better environment. We will continue to use zoom, what's app, newsletters and and limited get togethers within the government guidelines of the day to keep the shed ticking over in the meantime. With Best Regards Alister Skinner Chair and Trustee of Pentlands Men's Shed
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Hi Alister Thank you for looking over the documents and coming to the conclusion that works for your Shed. It was a challenging document to put together as a national association as there is no 'typical' standard or design in the Men's Sheds across Scotland. We decided to look at all possibilities which you guys might come across, drill down into all of those into a real working on the ground solution if you wanted to open when we go back into the Tier levels. For the men who do not have internet access having the Shed open, for small sessions even if the workshops remain closed and being correctly distanced, bring in their own flask of tea and food could be a life saver after a long and cold winter let alone 10 months of isolation. It would need to be realised that the Shed would not be as they remember it to be but something different and personally I believe that would be better than no Shed at all for them. The guidance is there as guidance for you to use or leave as each Shed feels as its your Shed. We found out late last year that a fair percentage of Sheds had remained open in some fashion through the 10 months which took us by surprise and also quite rightly made their own decisions. So we decided it would be better for them to have some guidance than nothing and they could then have the knowledge pertaining to Sheds rather than so many conflicting pieces of information which we came across when collating this. Thank you again for taking the time to write to me with your thoughts which helps us join the dots of Scottish Sheds and keep supporting you in the way that you require. kind regards Jason Jason Schroeder Chief Executive Officer Scottish Men's Sheds Association
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And now back to the fun parts, I managed to find some wood, tubes and an auger to set up John’s crosses. John and Geoff all the posts are nominal 75mm (3”) and all are at least 4’ long some longer without counting the pointed ends and there are 10 at least of them. So I guess that this is more than enough for you even with splicing. I also have enough pvc pipe to make three ground tubes of 2’ each which should be more than enough. Over to you guys – if you want them I’ll dig them out of the snow that’s coming as they are standing up in my back garden just now. With regards to the board for the sign I have some nice mahogany or teak and some thinner pitch pine so if you can find out a size you want for that I’ll see if I can pass some wood over to Stewart to kick start him on the workshop again!
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I’ve also got my new capacitor for my winch as I showed some of you on zoom last week, not tried to fit it yet as though it is a dual capacitor and has four wires, two yellow and two red there is no circuit diagram to tell me which is which regarding a pair and which pair is then what capacitor – if you see what I mean John? I’ll have to do some more digging on the internet as I don’t know whether the red colours are one pair and the yellow another pair, if that were the case trial and error would give me the correct motor connections.!!
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Looks as though the weather is going to become nasty again this weekend, I went up to Harlaw today as I was late for the monthly greasing of the generator and it was pretty bleak, cold, wet and windy with very slushy but thick snow too. It did however keep a lot of the cars and people out of the way and I was able to park in the car park which was a first this year.
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I finished all my garage and garden trailering yesterday afternoon so now have a very large pile for sorting in the new garden. As I may have mentioned to a few of you already I also experienced a very strange feeling this week when I was putting stuff into a skip instead of taking it out – my wife was most impressed!! The poor guy doing my new driveway is managing a few hours a day on a few days a week with the weather we are having but at least he’s not trying to just forge ahead in the frost and snow which would just give problems farther down the line.
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I’ll leave it at that for this week, hope everyone is still safe and well and making the best of things. I’ve got the cross country skis ready for a social distancing walk if the predicted snows come now that I’ve got everything together in the one area ( I was going to say place but that woukld not be correct!) at our new house.
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