Registered Charity Number 1212037
A 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 wheels are almost finished and soon they will be painted. Things are really converging (not the railway track of course!. Paul is creating the letters for the name plate and soon attention will turn to the gubbins on top. The gear that would have driven the original engine. Ours are likely to be plumbing pipes in black!
This has been a fabulous project to do, with many of our Shedders involved as forced labour!
Some Shedders want to move on to the WW1 tank to be constructed. Work on the steering gear has already started. Other Shedders are keen to begin work on the model railway which requires the room where some of the cutting for Locomotion 1 has taken place. Week after next will be clear up, clear out and start the track layout.
Meanwhile Norton Shed is working with the new Thursday Tech Shed at Whitby Town Shed
Together we are focusing on a new project development to be implemented at Whitby with (hopefully) funding from a Digital Inclusion Programme launched two weeks ago in North Yorkshire and closin at the end of June. Aidan Richards of Whitby Shed will lead the project with technical support also being provided by Norton Shed and which Norton Shed will mirror to our benefit. Collaborative working that from the project point of view doubles its reach. We will not have access to any funding from North Yorkshire of course.
What Paul and Graham feel is that there is a lot of “leverage” for both Whitby and ourselves pooling experience and brainpower!
The project working title is Being As One. It deals with the digital infrastructure (the stuff needed!) to incorporate “incomers” online who may be temporarily or permanently housebound but want to feel (in fact be) part of an activity that brings people together (like a Shed!). The term for this is hybrid (a mix of approaches). AI summarises “A hybrid meeting is a meeting format where some participants join in person while others participate remotely via video conferencing or other digital tools. This allows for a blend of in-person and virtual interaction, accommodating diverse attendance needs and fostering collaboration among both remote and local team members.”
During the lockdown era, Zoom came into its own from seemingly nowhere, allowing people to meet virtually. Group activities turned to it for (some) members to stay in touch. What had been perhaps something for professionals to use became the tool of the amateur. We could do it! The Whitby Sheds did some online curry preparation once.
Why did it take off so quiickly and become so widespread? First, because of the absolute need to socialise somehow. Second it required no additional hardware than (many) people had and the software was free to use 24/7. The principle was established and it has moved on to embrace wider opportunities aimed at Shedder involvement amongst those who cannot attend a group. The trick is to do it in a way that both those at the group and those coming in online benefit (where benefit was a wide interpretation, not financial but richness of relationships.
Our scenario for the project is the collaboration possible digital technologies. With 3D printing bit can be controlled with a mobile phone anywhere. Starting, stopping, seeing progress (a camera), monitoring quality and more. The only things that is manual is the removal of a completed workpiece. We need a Wallace invention for that!
We will not say more for the present about Whitby’s project other than to say a first draft of the application is nearing completion.
Two or three Shedders from Norton have visited Whitby Town Shed and they know the problem there of noise and dust. We have the same problem but we do have two workplaces and most of the dirty work is not done in the Portakabin. Whitby only has a single large room. The problem of woodworking noise impacting conversation and concentration is being solved by having the Woodwork Shed and the Tech Shed on different mornings. The dust problem is being solved by constructing an internal cabin that can keep out ther dust and, in winter, contain some heat.
A specification for this is prepared.
There’s lots of interest in this for Shedders.
The aim is to try out and test various scenarios for activities other than done at the Shed.
The final episode of the loneliness story (published also on our Facebook page and on Norton Village’s.
Episode 6 of the loneliness story is the last, but also the start of something. This episode is about the part that individual citizens can (must!) play in building community and community resilience (it’s strength).
We are governed top down, but community builds bottom up. Citizens (us) make community by working together in a host of different ways at different periods in their lifetime.
Government (national and local) facilitates and oils the wheels through taxation to pay for community infrastructure to be put in place and maintained. The infrastructure may be services arranged by governments to benefit citizens (e.g. defence, education, health and welfare services, police and garbage collection) or staff resources to co-ordinate such services (e.g. civil servants, MPs, council officers and councillors).
Governing bodies need to understand the population. They cannot know every citizen so data is gathered from various sources and by exercises to create profiles of the population and the needs they have. How? By the national census, by forum groups, from citizens’ voting actions at elections, and following press and social media reactions to issues. It is a composite picture of society and community that can be broken down into types of people with types of need. However they are averages and are not down to individuals.
Citizens are individuals and from bottom up at the local community level of Norton similar things to those governments do happens. Citizens build pictures of Norton grassroots life through families, friends, groups they attend, new, and these days social media of which Norton Village Facebook page is an example that is well monitored (must say that!). Local residents though have a great advantage over governments in that they have very local knowledge (Duck Pond end, Norton Road end, new estates) and of often quite small but impactful community influences and influencers (hidden community leaders in roles rather than by public appointment).
Norton Men’s Shed is not well known. That was remarked upon by a visiting lady today. She could not see why that should be.
The reason is simple. The Shed does not advertise for people to join because it is there to help people who need it. It is not a club. We work informally but effectively and efficiently with social prescribing link workers as a main referral route because they have knowledge of patients passed to them by GPs. The Shed is, of course, a limited resource. Norton Men’s Shed cannot tackle the whole of Stockton and certainly not Teesside. There need to be more Sheds (there is already a Billingham Community Shed, a Stockton Men’s Shed in Hartburn and more than 1400 in UK).
How can people find out what exists locally that might benefit them – from leisure to health care and all stations in between? The social prescribing link workers have knowledge but if citizens don’t meet them (GP referred) and are informed, how would they find out (word of mouth can be very effective though!)? There are directories of activities compiled and held by organisations but they are not comprehensive and are often very targeted to the organisations’ operational needs. In particular, small organisations are often missing.
Jump back 15 years plus to Frome in Somerset. A local lady GP foresaw the problems we now have with increasing numbers of older people living longer but then accumulating more ailments. She realised that something had to be done, without vast expenditure, and she believed residents of Frome could play an important part as lightly trained Community Connectors acting as human signposts to community help, often delivered by the community itself. It was nicknamed the Compassion Project and was a forerunner of today’s social prescribing. It embraced the community, organisations and groups as a resource to work (not just talk) together.
One pre-Norton Shedder visited Frome over 3 days in 2019 years to see the project and was fortunate to meet the GP herself, tagged on to a group of healthcare workers from Singapore. Frome Shed is one of a number of founding organisations. Such a “health” project can change people’s circumstances.
Community Connectors are not problem solvers. Using their local knowledge they point people to next steps of help often accessed through informal Talking Cafes where fuller, more informed, guidance is given.
Volunteer Community Connectors bumping into people is key, but the most important and enabling tool was a comprehensive database of services, projects, groups, leisure, educational and other activities available in Frome. The GP needed it for Practice purposes, but it was also to be an information tool available at the Talking Cafes and for Community Connectors to have access to.
It works because, whilst there is respected leadership of the project “high level” by the GP still, there is a distributed infrastructure for communication and collaboration by many groups. It is a voluntary movement where everyone is acknowledged for their consistent contributions and for helping each other. That is where resilience lies and the community benefits.
Fast forward to Whitby 4 years ago and the similar data collection of activities and services there yielded 200 groups/clubs/initiatives categorised and made accessible to search on a mobile phone using interactive maps. It was another grass roots exercise that was only achievable through people.
A comprehensive database including, in particular, small or specialist activities is what Stockton Borough Council has set its mind to achieving. This was one of the unexpected discoveries from the meeting Norton Shed had with the Council Officers described in episode 4.
The task is not small but is achievable by biting parts off by locality and welcoming locality involvement (two volunteers did it for Whitby over 3 months). To assist the overall Stockton exercise, Norton Shed has offered to co-ordinate the work, with Nortonians, of identifying what is on offer in Norton.
Could/would you join an exercise to gather activity details locally? To facilitate there should be a small core team, but citizens can suggest individually with what they are involved with.
n Whitby a lot was harvested from newsletters, the internet, noticeboards. If you want to join the focused “hit squad” to help with the task please make contact.
You would be welcome, because success depends on there being a strong grass roots involvement, along with Stockton Borough Council’s higher level coordination and existing information they and others (such as Catalyst) hold. For now, for us, it is though about Norton.
There is an online form attached to fill out for each activity that requests just a few details for now. Basically: Title of activity, where and when it happens, organiser details and , if known, a method to contact them (by phone or email). This will get the ball rolling.
Thank you if you able to help and thank you if you have read some of the lead up episodes to this. They sought to emphasise that citizens can make valuable contributions to community building and overall a better quality of life in Norton, within Stockton.
Someone commented recently that any of the posted episodes had not many likes (or hearts).
True. However, the statistics reveal there are 108 followers. People who have said they want to have posts from Norton Men’s Shed.
That number was aurprise.
I had not realised before that a person can like but not follow and can follow without liking!
The aim was to draw attention to a serious issue, the balance between supplied services (needing to be paid for through taxes) and services that citizens provide for free on the basis of giving and receiving. That’s the Shed but not only the Shed. Many other activities that people appreciate.
This very week is Volunteers’ Week.
Our AI friend summarises it like this:
“Volunteers’ Week 2025 in the UK will take place from Monday, June 2nd to Sunday, June 8th. This annual celebration is a time to thank and recognize the invaluable contributions of volunteers in communities across the UK. It’s an opportunity to inspire others to get involved in volunteering and celebrate the diverse range of ways volunteers support various causes.”
That’s tomorrow as this is written. Do you feel inspirational!
It has indeed been a busy week
The 3D printing brigade have been busy printing candalabra components. They are not quick to do when there are 20 candalabra each with a base, a base extension, 4 base bolts, a 5-way top hub and 4 elbows.
A base takes 4.5 hours, a base extension 1.25 hours, a top hub 1.75 hours, 4 nuts 1 hour and 4 elbows 2 hours. The best part of 12 hours solid. That’s 10 days solid time for 20 candalabra.
Well, we outsourced manufacture to 4 home printers and 4 volunteers. The furthest was Whitby Town Shed who went nuts and washers with silver filamen t.
The older Shedders will remember the London to Brighton one minute time lapsed train journey that featured regularly on early TV (when there was just one channel). Here is our equivalent.
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