New Shed Interests

We 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 by a common “spike”.  The spike thrives as the whole plant thrives, so look after the plant and the hands will look after themselves!

Traditionally (well, 35 years ago in Australia) Sheds were cultivated by men with a background in trades connected to agriculture, building and maintenance – manual trades. It was the same in UK 13 years ago but more from a culture of DIY with which the older generation is more familiar than those aged below say 50.

Over the past few decades, digital control has come to the fore in many people’s working lives and it has also dominated “mobile” entertainment. New ways to spend time. It has found it’s way into everyday culture as costs of digital devices  tumbled to be affordable for the home life whether to provide entertainment or to be of “useful” assistance to people. 

In the Shed and at home some engage in designing and making things in plastic through 3D design and 3D printing. So we have two banana plants growing catering for parallel interests. No longer is the Shed all about manual crafts but other forms of creativity and stimulation are included too.

Now Norton Shed is beginning to address digital data as a new interest stream which for some Shedders can be engaging because it was significant in their working lives and, in a different way, creative, Making useful results involving data. Spreadsheets have been a feature of many people’s lives, but now there are Business Tools that can manipulate data to produce some very interesting, creative, useful outputs – for some!  Some is important because the Shed thrives on variety and there are often interesting overlaps between traditional, modern and even new modern creativity. 

So to the stage in Norton Shed comes something done in Whitby and a business “desktop” called Power – BI.  It is an established  Microsoft product where the BI stands for Business Integration. There are other brands!  Business Integration takes separate sources of data in which there are links to be found, and it combines the into often colourful graphical presentations including some with a map base. So, from the postcode of the Shed or our house little flags can be planted on a map. 

Thus the raw materials the Shed works with are wood, plastic and data! 

A Visit to the Doctors!

Norton Men’s Shed was invited by a GP at Norton Medical Centre to share what the Shed is about to a small group at a lunchtime session yesterday (16/7/25). Paul and Graham attended.

We sent ahead of the session a presentation describing the purpose, ethos and activity range of the Shed, and the fact that Sheds exist!

We stressed the importance to us of the Social Prescribing Link Workers since 2022. A trust partnership that we both benefitted from but more importantly that patients did who were at “a bit of a loss”.

Sometimes it is not the main sales point that actually gets picked up in meetings like this (with people unknown to us). It is the unexpected. 

We had included half a dozen slides about Frome’s Compassion Project started around 15 years ago, established/steered by a lady GP there which had had, and still has, a profound effect of the town’s ethos. It is a project that was heavily dependent on the volunteering in small ways ethic. Achievable. Graham had visited Frome and Frome Shed’s Patrick Abrahams about 6 years ago and met Dr. Helen Kingston plus a group of visiting Singaporean health professionals. Impressive.

A key resource that was developed was a Directory of Activities that were available in Frome that the GP practice had on their desktops and that was also available available to Community Connectors (volunteer wanderers in Frome!).

Back in Whitby Graham began the task of replicating what he’d seen in Frome and working with two or three others developed a Power-BI (see above) application for PC’s and mobile phones to allow exploration of just over 200 activities that had been identified in Whitby District. Big and small. Power-BI was the investigative and presentational tool. 

Having information at your fingertips is crucial to any business enterprise, not least to a GP practice.

IT WAS AT THIS POINT in our lunchtime session that Paul and Graham realised gold had been struck in the form of interest. The physical Shed was one thing but the information side was a considerable need and of considerable interest to the meeting lead.

This will be further discussed and demonstrated soon, but it is particularly timely because we are also beginning to help Stockton Borough Council as they too utilise Power-BI. The Shed is beginning to compile information on Norton activities as a contribution. 

Maybe we are all pointing in the same direction although the particular needs of a use sector needs data to be filtered a little for purpose.

Meanwhile, we continue on new tracks

With the model railway (Locomotion is being finished this week and the model railway track beds can soon be laid. We have secured a small layout from Newcastle district which Paul collected after we left Norton Surgery. The person selling was a retired GP! Some interesting stories there.

Plus we are getting moving on the new IT suite for the Shed which will also be the base (or a base) for Gordon, our new blind Shedder who is very digitally literate. We are also awaiting outcomes of two bids (one for Norton and one for Whitby( for work on digital inclusion. It will an online project reaching out to include the frequently housebound. 

A housebound individual is someone who cannot leave their home independently or requires significant assistance to do so due to physical or mental health conditions, according to healthcare providers.

This builds on work done originally done in Whitby during the lockdown period but is a firm part of Shed inclusion now. You can see the common denominator there is with GP service access too. All online pretty much.

The aim is to help people learn rather than mainly be taught taught. It is the Shed principle followed across the board.

Adorning the Shed

Shedder Bob is a man on a mission to improve the Shed environment outside. The photograph shows a bench and a pair of split level planters surmounted by trellis (made by Mick some time ago). Plus, in pride of place, our name board.

It needs moving backwards about 150mm (or 6″ to some Shedders). Then sweeping up under the bench. [it has now been moved but not swept!].

Bob has only been attending for a relatively short while but he is part of the Shed family now.

Into the planters will go potted plants including a couple of climbers.

Activity Database taking shape

Well pleased that the pieces used for the Whitby jigsaw are coming into place for Norton-on-Tees as part of Stockton’s bigger picture