Community ‘shed’ to sign three-year lease on new HQ

THE Benson Community Shed has successfully raised £5,000 to lease a permanent home.

The organisation is set to sign a three-year lease on the former youth hall in Oxford Road.

It will also have an option to buy the site, if it can raise £55,000 within three years.

Part of the nationwide Men’s Sheds Association, the community shed offers people the chance to socialise, learn new skills or to build, repair and repurpose items of their own.

The group has been searching for a permanent premises to house its shared workshop since it first had the idea for a community shed five years ago.

Chairman Robert Field, 70, of Littleworth Road, said finding premises was made difficult by the lack of unused spaces in the area.

The former youth hall has been unused since the parish council vacated it in May last year.

The site is overseen by a small group of trustees, who were unable to give the shed the property for free for legal reasons.

Benson Community Shed, which gained charitable status earlier this year, was able to raise enough money to lease the building, through donations and grant money from the Soha Community Fund.

Mr Field said: “Members of the shed and supporters of the shed have been fantastically generous and we have raised another £6,500 from donations and advance membership subscriptions.

“We’re now at the very last stage of agreeing a lease and then we will be able to get to work launching the shed, which is very exciting.”

Mr Field said a permanent premises is important for a community shed, which is essentially a “shared workshop” with heavy wood and metal-working equipment, machinery, tools and supplies that need storing. “You can’t simply pack this sort of equipment away to use on another occasion, it has to be set up in a permanent premises,” he said.

He added that the shed is primarily a place for people to come together to socialise and so needs to be equipped with a kitchen area, toilet facilities and space for people to have conversations.

Mr Field said: “We’re also hoping to attract more women into the shed because we want to be as inclusive as possible. We’d like to have sewing equipment and a range of sewing machines.

“That’s why the former youth hall in Benson is so well suited to us because it’s an absolutely fabulous space. It’s huge. When we launch, we will be the biggest shed in the district. 

“The site also includes a garden area, so there is a whole range of outdoor activities that would be possible at our shed.”

When it launches, the shed will be focused once again on raising money. Members will be asked to pay a £100 subscription fee to go towards running costs.

Members of the shed, known as “shedders”, meet monthly to work on projects. Some are highly skilled in a trade or craft, others are beginners or simply there to make friends.

Mr Field said: “The whole idea is about combating loneliness and isolation. One of the reasons this is very important is that men don’t socialise in the same way that women do. The old saying is that women socialise face-to-face but men socialise shoulder-to-shoulder. They won’t sit around and chat.

“But if you throw an old bike in the middle of a group of men, they’ll start talking and making friends because they’re doing something. The main message to people is: come along, have a cup of tea and make some friends.”

The group is planning to host a Christmas concert, a raffle, and a quiz night in the spring. For more information about the project, contact benson
communityshed@gmail.com