January 2024 Newsletter part one

Jan 2024 newsletter.docx WMS

Waterlooville Men’s Shed

January 2024 newsletter

1. Welcome to the January edition of the WMS newsletter. I hope you all were able to enjoy a safe and peaceful Christmas with family and friends. So as we bid farewell 2023 and it passes in to our memories, what does the new invigorated year 2024 offer us? We hope much for members to enjoy. 2024 will be the tenth anniversary of our founding under the guidance of Chris Davage. Am sure he will be looking down on us and be very proud of what his idea has become. Although not a member then, I did spend time helping to clear out rubbish and attended the many tip runs at the time to clear space for the workshops in their infancy and my how they have evolved! We have a Shed that can provide almost anything now, thanks to local business support and of course the hard work and expertise of members, to achieve what we have today. Membership is continuing to grow which is testament to the reputation we earned as a Shed when people want to become members.

2. Over the Christmas period, conversations came round to Christmas’s of our youth. We had no Amazon or Argos in those days so it was good old Woolies, who were a ‘one stop shop’ for Christmas. You could also save up for Christmas with little green stamps collected when you went shopping. After a weeks of shopping and collecting these Green Shield stamps it was someone’s ‘duty’ to stick them in the collecting books, usually me! These stamps were half the size of a postage stamps and tasted ghastly. When we had enough stamps collected in the books we were able to visit the Green Shield Stamp Shop and swap them for a toy or something for the home at Christmas. Green Shield was the predecessor to Argos. Can you imagine turning up there with a book of stamps stuck on with my saliva and asking for the latest gadget or gift in exchange. It’s a different world now, but imagine if Green Shield stamps were around during COVID and you took a book covered in body fluids to pay for an item!!!! YUK !

3. We had a good turn out on our last BBQ of the year. As you can see the magnificent 7 + 1 were enjoying their burgers. Just don’t come between them and their burgers though, they do look rather menacing, but they are really quite a friendly bunch, once they’ve been fed that is! Pete Sanders also seemed to be enjoying himself caught trying to blag a second burger. He’s been told to get a haircut before next year! Thanks as usual to Paul and John for their unstinting provision of this popular monthly get together.

4. Friday 8th December saw our annual Christmas lunch. We all enjoyed an excellent meal provided by the Cowplain Activity Centre who really put on a lunch to remember. Thank you to all the staff, who cooked and served on the day. It’s amazing how they manage to provide such a meal in so a small kitchen. Thanks to Paul Turner for the organisation and to those who provided raffle prizes. Just some memories of the day.

5. We were able to help with our Padnell Infants school year 2 children making Santa wood cookie tree decorations this year, by cutting up branches in to small blocks for the youngsters to decorate. They made a total of 85 Santa’s. Who doesn’t believe in Santa now! We received the following email from Pam McVittie from Padnell Infants:-

Here is a picture of some of the Santa's the Year 2 children have made. Including next week’s class, that's 85 Santa's! Thank you and the Men's Shed for being so helpful in making this happen.

All the very best this Christmas and New Year

6. We also have a request for assistance with bird and bat boxes for Joey’s Field project part of Padnell School for 2024, which we will be looking at later in the year.