Money, memberships, masks and musings...

Hi sheddies, how are you?

It's been a busy few weeks for everyone as we adjust to these changes. We want you to know that we are committed to keeping our little community together, and making sure that we can help keep at least some sense of normality and routine in our daily lives (what day is it again?)

It's been great to see so many of you via zoom this week - we've had our regular fitness classes and  the first meeting of the 'Women who run with the Wolves'  book club. Some of our members have joined the Make for Victory task force making facemasks and shields for the Sunshine Coast. If you would like to help, you can find out more at Facebook group 'Make for Victory' . In other news, our gardening group, 

the Sheddie Villagers, are currently trying to outwit a  bush turkey that has taken a fancy to their seedlings.  They are using a rota and visiting individually (the gardeners, not the bush turkeys. ​

We had some great news this week - we have been awarded nearly $35k for facility upgrades to the community centre - including fencing, mossie screens and security lighting. Thank you to the grants team that completed the application back in October.  And thank you to the Gambling Community Benefit Fund. One of our members has volunteered to take on project managing the work and acquittals process. 

*MYTHBUSTERS* - we have had a few people that think that the Sunshine Coast Council gave us the community centre at Research Street. This is not true - the community centre belongs to the Coolum Men's shed and we hire it from them by the hour.  We are grateful to the Coolum Men's Shed for giving us access to the building, and the space works very well for some of our activities. However it is not suitable for some of our activities for example sewing, DIY or ceramics, nor for the proper storage of these tools, materials and projects. We are actively seeking our own home for our workshop space, and continue to try and work our way through the requirements.

Coming up this week - click on the pictures to be taken to the bookings page.

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 ​Coming up this week, more online fun - all our weekly offerings plus the first of our  monthly 'Introduction to Journalling' with Hannah Hempenstall. Hannah is a journalist and meditation guide, as well as offering personal coaching. She will be taking us through the basics of using writing as a tool for reflection, stress relief and growth. The course consists of a monthly session for four months.

Tuesday evening has 'drawing for beginners' with Nell. It's the first class where we introduce the course, and we will meet monthly. We are working through a course designed to take you from through the very basics of drawing - all you really need to get started is an A3 pad, a pencil and an eraser. You may want to add other tools along the way.

On Thursday you can book in online for Zoom training (really just a chance to play with our online platform in a non pressured environment) and Thursday night it's our online vocal group - which was a roaring success for the newbies last time - especially for those of us that like to be able to sing along, but enjoy the option to press mute on the computer so no-one else can hear you ;-).

When you book online for any of our activities you are sent the joining instructions for Zoom - if you create an account with the booking system you can save your details and book multiple classes. We were all new at Zoom about two weeks ago, and we are ready to help you get connected.

Nell was interviewed by  ABC radio this week to find out how we have adapted to the new restrictions. The whole show covered a variety of ways that community groups are carrying on - you can listen to the show here: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/sunshine/programs/weekends/weekends/12100330. You can also hear a snippet of one of the socials we are trialing - look out for a trivia night soon!

The ABC interviewer was impressed that we are still attracting new members, if you are one of our new members - welcome!

The management committee agreed this week that we would start offering renewal to members. We will be contacting you individually soon, but if you know your renewal is due and you want to get it sorted, you can sign up for our annual membership here. 

We have listened to our member feedback that they want to keep membership low so that it doesn't stop people form joining. However, we have added optional donations, so if you feel like you want to contribute more, then you can. We understand that for some people now may not be a good time to renew membership, so please don't feel pressured. Our aim is to keep going so that when our real shed opens again we are ready for all the fun and friendship :-) 

That's about it for this week - see you at the virtual shed!