Registered Charity Number 1212037Two Birds, One Stone February 2025 marks the end of the Tesco Community award period and when an end of period online report is required in order to release the final 25% retention sum (£250). There is the opportunity to submit a link to a video about…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The Shed is not so easy to find. Many people know its general location as Norton Cricket Club or The Moline Cross. However, these are but staging posts because we are tucked in the central area of the complex. Follow the route on the map down Station…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Please spend time browsing these and raise any issues (particularly anything that is not understood!) with a Shed supervisor or other experienced senior. We are each responsible for our personal safety and for that of fellow Shedders. If you see dangerous/careless practice please speak up! Much of…
Registered Charity Number 1212037 The opportunity/challenge made in late December 2024 was for Norton Shedders, their friends and families to register what the Shed, or aspects of it, means to them. It can be using a first name, anonymously as far as the public audience is concerned or even with…
Registered Charity Number 1212037There are more than 160 blogs that trace our path since December 2021. One a week! Why so many? Because the Shed is a dynamic place. No two days are the same and it is a story of organic growth by those who benefit. Every Shedder is…
Registered Charity Number 1212037We were offered the opportunity to provide a blog on our cancer doings by Cancer Care Map and it has landed on their site: Jessica Bailey wrote today . . . . Great news – your blog is now live on our site! You can view it…
Registered Charity Number 1212037On the Cancer Cancer Map One of the valuers of partnership is that there are others looking out to support and help. Deb, a local NHS Link Worker covering cancer patients recommended we put Norton Shed on the Cancer Care Map. We did as you will see…
Registered Charity Number 1212037When buses had conductors with ticket machines, “Hold very tight, please”, “Move further down the bus, please” and, at the end of the route, “All change, please” were familiar messages. Ding, ding. Do you remember the nickname of conductors? Clippies. Memories. Now it is “Tap your plastic…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Why don’t we get some Lego and see what we can build? This was a suggestion for an activity for those who are less agile these days. So today some was brought back from Whitby Shed. They are some Technical Lego sets with many specialist pieces. What…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Life is what you make of it! As individuals, a Shed or a community like Norton Sports Charity or Norton itself. That sets the theme for this blog possibly . . . . . See our new veranda lawn. Norton Cricket Club on the Sports complex has…
Registered Charity Number 1212037First, here are our objects as a charity as a reminder of what we have said we aim to do. Tony needs a spindle for his staircase Here’s an invitation to Newcastle Men’s Shed, but in Australia! A draft of a one pager for Catalyst telling the…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The first phase of the model railway is underway The first phase is an 8′ x 4′ layout that will be on 4 baseboard sections. It will be an urban setting based on a design concept Dennis has identified in a Pico portfolio. The photograph shows Dennis…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The back has been broken on the task of renovating the room to house Gordon and to undertake the digital inclusion projects planned. Same thing is being done in Whitby. Some snagging needed (Dennis says it will make a change to nagging!!). We have started to purchase…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Making Tracks is the title of an application for funding made to LNER for a new project phase that would, if successful, start in April 2026. They call that a long haul. It is certainly quite a long wait. If it is not successful will it have…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Take a look at this news item from BBC. Just skim it maybe to see the gist. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd3ep76g3go Unemployed young people paying to attend a simulated office environment to be with others like themselves. Trying to find a way forward. Does it ring the bell of Sheds! …
Registered Charity Number 1212037The first surprise was precisely 1 minute ago when opening the website to add a post. Up came a summary showing daily visitor numbers to this website for yesterday (Friday). It was 64. This is at least a 10-fold increase on the norm! Digging deeper, a world…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Almost 6 months of mental and manual graft has seen the Billingham International Folk Festival stage backdrop puff out of Norton Shed. Well, on the back of a flatbed truck. It’s been a challenge but one in which most of the Shedders had a hand – even…
Registered Charity Number 1212037An opportunity for Shedders (or others!) to comment on a new postcard intended for promoting Shedding Light Into Cancer. Hands to the mop cleaning the floor and walls in the IT Room to-be Jacko (spot the difference between the mop and Jacko!) puts in a lot of…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Good news, as well as bad (!) travels fast. Today we welcomed a film crew and a PR company representative on behalf of The Teesside. Charity who awarded us a grant a few months ago in the Pitch for Purpose event. They interviewed 5 Shedders as part…
Registered Charity Number 1212037We are all going bananas! Norton Shed has a diverse bunch of Shedders. Bunch is a good way to describe them and the Shed, because a bunch or hand of bananas is a good illustration! Better explain that! Bananas are joined in hands/bunches that are fed and watered…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Celebrating what small, local organisations (not just Norton Men’s Shed) can do for our community – the people! We begin with the same reminder we often provide that we are part of a community jigsaw, already connected but with need to deepen connections. Fit for the Future…
Registered Charity Number 1212037My generation by The Who https://youtu.be/qN5zw04WxCc Some of the oddities going on Not Just Filling Time but Filling with Purpose This is a draft of a presentation/discussion by Graham and Paul to a small (??) gathering at Norton Medical Centre next week. Shedders comments welcomed. Not…
Registered Charity Number 1212037A thought that came to mind in the cool of the early morning on what is forecast to be another hot day in Norton. It’s not a Shed day (it’s the weekend) and inevitably the thought came – what’s to do today? It was very quickly followed…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The Shed is not a homogeneous project on the ground. It has layers of activity, like skins on mobile phones, as it continues to evolve. So, let us look at some of the skins that continue to develop, starting with fridges. Very useful in the hot weather…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Nothing to do with trains, though, unless it is trains of thought! We are pleased to announce plans for a new Shed. The Norton Plastic Shed! It will be part of Norton Men’s Shed and have a place to call home there, but most of the action…
Registered Charity Number 1212037 Express Fun Delivery from Norton Shed Many Shedders and Nortonians of a certain age will remember how fast trains were. London to Brighton in a tad over 3 minutes. Courtesy of BBC in 1953 (and time lapse photography). While we are in the past (and…
Registered Charity Number 1212037A major push is on to move Locomotion on to its final stages With the engine and the tender well on with being painted (awaiting some ochre paint) the two passenger carriages will be built in the original style. They should be ready by next weekend. The…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The desgn for the candleabra for the Big Ball 20 needed. 20 bases, 20 top bosses, 80 bends, 80 bolts and (not shown) 20 base trays. 4.5 hours compressed into 12 seconds 22.5 Elbow 4 off Print time 2 Hrs Top 5…
Registered Charity Number 1212037 Locomotion 1 continues its progress through the carriage works where some is ready for painting and the wheels are being forged. Upcycling for the Orchard Community Garden The allotment project spoke a couple of months ago about needing a toolshed. It has evolved but into something that…
Registered Charity Number 1212037There are some brilliantly memorable sketches from TV past, including the Two Ronnies show. Someone else did the dead parrot! Here is 3D Paul’s take on it for consideration by Daisy Chain next door. They want candelabra, one per table with twenty tables. Do the maths. Each…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Mental Health Awareness Week 12th – 18th May 2025 Since 2001, the Mental Health Foundation has been leading Mental Health Awareness Week – bringing the UK together to focus on getting good mental health. This year, the week takes place from 12 to 18 May 2025 and the theme…
Registered Charity Number 1212037 Shed on a Page Norton Men’s Shed (Normens) A personal perspective by Graham Storer drafted for UK Men’s Sheds Association magazine “Shoulder to Shoulder” and approved by Shed Trustees! In the beginning there were 4 Sheds in Whitby, North Yorkshire. The first was a very rural…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Wheelchair Steve is always on the roll. We have immortalised him in plastic and shrunk him to appear on our model railway, at several locations probably. Perhaps to be realistic, we ought to have a broken down lift accessed by three steps with no model staff around…
Registered Charity Number 1212037That’s the number of steps Tom Judge will take (at least!) with his fridge on his back as he walks from Teesside to Benidorm drawing attentionon to men’s mental health on Teesside and in Spain. Norton Men’s Shed met Tom Judge at the North East Ladies Day…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Locomotion is getting somewhere. The main components of the engine body are built and the boiler top cladding is being routed to give a curved effect. The wheels are now beginning to be prepared. There are twelve segments to each wheel perimeter and we are using some…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Stockton Borough Council holds an annual Community Conversation. It was an open invitation to organisations working in the Borough to help people. Powering Our Future Communities was a strategy theme chosen by the Council in the autumn of 2024. It was introduced on 8th April with a…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The UK Men’s Sheds Association has a very useful tool on it’s website that enables a person to put in their postcode and have a map show up the closest Sheds (or similar projects) to that postcode. We are just dusting off the descriptions for the 3…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Today we received a visit from Chris McDonald, MP. It follows a similar visit by Matt Vickers, MP a month ago. We had invited them and others to the Shed to discover for themselves what Norton Men’s Shed (and others locally, in UK and worldwide can do…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The Teesside Charity – Pitching for Purpose Put your hands together for our pitches Thanks to the audience’s votes, each organisation left our Pitching for Purpose event with an impressive share of £5,000, which will significantly impact their cause.The highest number of votes went to Postpartum Matters CIC, who,…
Registered Charity Number 1212037A potentially very worthwhile few minutes if you can spare the time Shedders Dear Men’s Sheds Leaders, I hope you are well. I am working with UK Men’s Sheds Association (UKMSA) to do an online survey (10 mins now and 10 mins in 3 months) and some optional interviews to help…
Registered Charity Number 1212037What you see may not be the most important thing about the Shed. There’s more than one way of seeing. Let’s see then the possible meanings of the word “seeing”. Synonyms and related words for “seeing” in the context of Roget’s Thesaurus, consider words like “perceiving” –…
Registered Charity Number 1212037Jigsaws can tell us a lot about community. Revealing techniques that can be used to build a resilient community. Jigsaw resilience comes from there being irregularly interlocking pieces. In the plane of the jigsaw as the pieces come together, the jigsaw grows stronger and holds together without…
Registered Charity Number 1212037We start with the NHS! Two surprising things concerning Sheds often become apparent and as Shedders we have an opportunity/responsibility to play our part in remedying matters. Here they are: How little some healthcare professionals know about Men’s Sheds. About their association to wellbeing and ameliorating feelings…
Registered Charity Number 1212037The next couple of weeks is only a little less fraught than last week’s onslaught! Go back a blog to see The Skills Shop, Gift Aid, NELD and a Golden Egg Cup!! Have a look at the kind of things Shedders in UK say about the Shed experience….
Registered Charity Number 1212037 Diversity is a feature of Norton Men’s Shed. Diverse people with diverse interests, diverse personalities, diverse reasons for needing a Shed and diverse skills levels. To meet these diversities we already have 3 different styles of Shed. Two days for a general Shed with a mix…
