On Wednesday afternoon a party of “Shedders” descended upon the new Orkney Men’s Shed to clear it out and clean it up. As a little example of the width and depth of the collective experience of the shedders there were 2 learning points about sweeping.

1.  “how to train a broom”. This from agriculture, the shedder was shown how to turn the(natural bristle) broom into a curved appearance enabling the broom to function better and importantly last longer.
2. a shedder who was shown how to sweep a factory floor. You have one of these wider brooms with a longer handle stand upright with the broom in front of you. You walk slowly forwards– too quick and you just raise the dust to later resettle.

Sweeping training (N Morrison)

The crew managed to achieve a fair semblance of order in a remarkably  short time.

Before (N Morrison)

Before ( N Morrison)

After ( N Morrison)

On Friday evening The Orkney Mens Shed officially opened for business.

Morgan Harcus said it had been a 2 year long, at times frustrating, struggle to get to this position but it was highly pleasing to see the result. He went on to say that Orkney Mens Shed  is part of the Scottish Mens Shed Association which has 50 or so branches. Further it is International with more than a hundred branches in England and Australia for example. He went on to speak of the improvement in the mental health of shedders particularly the retired by providing a focus with something positive to do.

I counted over 20 folk there some of which were busy filling in membership forms

Our first objective is to make the shed more comfortably habitable for us, build the  workshop at least to house the equipment that has already been donated and attend to the TLC the shed requires like new gutters, well some would be nice , pointing up the stone work, refurbishing the main door.

Orkney Mens Shed will be at the shows so come along and have a chat membership is free.

The next meeting is likely to be in September meanwhile work parties are starting this coming Thursday.

Some of the members of the Orkney Mens Shed (N Morrison)

Reporter: Nick Morrison