St Just in Penwith Men’s Shed

We now have a base for the St Just Community Workshop Group..
Edward Bolitho has kindly organised the offer of space in a farm outbuilding, ground floor near Morvah.

The building has level access, and lots of potential for a community workshop, particularly for isolated and vulnerable members of our community. To meet and enjoy company in a safe environment, and to pass on or learn craftsmanship skills.
We have some funding already to help with the initial refurbishment of the building, installing a new electrical ring main, new flooring, lighting, benches, and purchasing power tools etc.
We definitely would appreciate assistance from any willing helpers during the initial refurbishment and then as possible subsequent members of our group.
Please help us to finally get this community workshop up and running and help us to support the isolated and vulnerable members of our community.

Please note we’ve delayed our forthcoming AGM Meeting until after the summer holiday period - a new date and time to be circulated.

Mike King
Secretary for St Just in Penwith Men’s Shed

Please contact
Andy Holliday, our Treasurer, for more information
Mob Tel. 07836 681100
Email: [email protected]

The Community Shed Group are having their Annual General Meeting AGM on Monday 14th August at 2.30pm in the Fountain Inn, Newbridge TR20 8QH.

If you are a member or interested in joining the group please come along.

We have recently managed to agree the use of a suitable building to house our Community Workshop.

We are looking to review our Group positions of Chairperson, Treasurer and Secretary, as part of our constitution process.
Please let us know relevant details before the meeting if you wish to nominate yourself or others for these positions.

We are also looking for additional charity trustees for our Group, if you are interested please provide relevant details before the meeting.

Hope to see you at the AGM
email [email protected]

We’ve got an expanding group membership, funding, tool and material donations, a local farm outbuilding generously provided to temporarily store our tools and materials, but we still need a building to base our community workshop and provide a safe friendly environment for vulnerable members of our community.

We’re a registered charity, so we can’t afford commercial level rent but we can pay a modest rent, pay for our running costs, and pay for electrical installation and general refurbishment.

We need at least 40 sq metres of workshop space, level access for members with mobility issues, and require nearby toilet and kitchen facilities.

We have power tools such as drills and saws which need to securely and permanently bolted to our workbenches, so we need a dedicated workshop space.

Please help us help the vulnerable members of our community.

Mike King
Secretary for St Just in Penwith Men’s Shed
[email protected]

Two new planters delivered to St Just in Bloom and Bank House

Wooden planter for St Just in Bloom, work in progress.

We now have use of a temporary secure and dry storage facility in one of Boslow Farm outbuildings.

We have transferred the bulk of our equipment and materials from Geevor.

Agreement is currently only for storage, not as a workshop, so we’re still on the hunt for a community workshop building

Shed members meet up at the Fountain Inn for a drink with Patrick, UK Men’s Shed ambassador who was on route to promote ’Sheds’ on the Isles of Scilly

Happy New Year
Very exciting 2023 on its way………….

Happy Christmas and a Very Good New Year to all,
From the St Just Shed Team

Brilliant breakfast meeting today at the Fountain Inn in Newbridge for the St Just Men’s Shed Group, including two new lady members.
Many thanks to Tracey and Ian for the friendly hospitality

Amazing workshop opportunity, community workspaces inside a barn - Massive thanks to Ian Jelbert & family, Fountain Inn Newbridge TR20 8QH

Help now needed to set up the workshop in the coming weeks, contact Mike King +44 7712 763769

Work table built and supplied to local customer, ironically consisting of two back to back workbenches originally built for the ‘community workshop’
We’re still chipping away, and a workshop with benches is on the horizon

This could be it !
The site for the long sought after Community Workshop

Apologies for the late news, but we’re giving a talk about the St Just in Penwith Men’s Shed at the Miners Chapel meeting room in St Just at 2.00pm today Wednesday 26th October.
The St Just U3A Group have kindly invited us to give a talk to their members and all others interested.

We’re still alive and kicking!
- Done some woodwork and painting at the Bosavern Community Farm
- Built a few planters
- we’ve got a growing list of prospective new members wanting to get involved in a friendly workshop environment.
Continuing to contact local building agents in the hope that we’ll find someone who’d like to help our charity group establish a social workshop for the local community.

We’d love to set up a friendly meeting place and workshop particularly for vulnerable socially excluded members of our community.

We are a registered charity 1185741, we have funding and have a growing list of prospective members.

We started up and have been active as a Group for about 3 and a half years.

We’ve had a number of possible workshop options which have not been successful - we can’t afford to pay commercial level rent, and we need space to install fixed workbenches and workshop equipment.

We are part of the UK Men’s Shed Association with over 550 Shed Groups across the UK, with only one open Cornish Shed located in Newquay.

We will be able to generate a modest income from making and repairing household/garden items to cover our day to day costs, electricity etc.

We are searching for a suitable workshop building or portakabin site in the St Just / Pendeen area.

Many thanks to all our supporters

Pendeen_Outreach_Magazine_online_July_2022.pdf

Parish of Pendeen with Morvah
Dear friends,
Cornwall is such a beautiful place, especially in the time of summer, and millions of visitors are coming each year to enjoy the sea and rugged coast, gorgeous gardens and many of our iconic attractions. I have lived in many places, both in Germany and the UK, but without a doubt Corn- wall has been the most stunning place I’ve ever called home.
However, there is a dark side to Cornwall, a darkness that exits everywhere, but strangely even more so in Cornwall: Su***de. It’s not a pleasant topic to talk about, but it’s important that we don’t shy away from it. Tragically just last month a man took his life driving off the cliff by the lighthouse. He is joining the sad statistics of Cornwall’s su***de rate that with one su***de every 5.5 days is the highest in the UK, with men in the county being 4 times more likely to take their own lives than women. It’s the other epidemic besides Covid that is stalking the land!
Last year I attended a su***de prevention course and I’d like to share with you some of the things I have learned:
Most people thinking of su***de do not want their lives to end, but just want the pain to stop. If you spot any warning signs (even subtle ones as especially men often try to hide them) give them permission to talk about su***de or their biggest secret. It’s an highly awkward question and the temptation is to water it down, but our trainers taught us to ask a direct question: are you thinking about su***de/ killing yourself/ ending your life? People who have felt suicidal will often say what a huge relief it was to be able to talk about what they were experiencing.
It’s not an easy conversation at all, so as part of the course we practised it:
"I know when people are going through (whatever you think it is they are struggling with) they some- times think about su***de. I'm a bit worried about you. Can I ask you if you are thinking about ending your life?"
"Yes, I have been thinking about su***de."
"Thank you for telling me. This is important. Tell me what's been happening."
" (it’s more important to understand than to be understood at this point)
"Let me check I understand ... From what you've just told me, you're feeling overwhelmed and things seem hopeless, like there's nothing left to live for at the moment.”
Acknowledge that su***de is one option they have, but it's not their only choice. Often it's the sense of loss of control over life that leads to suicidal thoughts, that's why it's important to resist the urge to give them solutions but offer to think what options they have while thinking stuff through:
"Do you need to choose between life and death today? It seems like now is not a good time to make such a major decision. Maybe together we could hit the pause button for a moment and start looking at what options you do have. Take the pressure off yourself. No need to make any decision now. What do you think?"
What needs to be done then to help them cope:
- Do they have support? How alone do they feel?
- How prepared are they to take their life? Have they got a plan?
- What or who has helped before when they felt in a dark place?
- How much alcohol / drugs is /’normal’ for them and has their intake increased?
- In your presence let them make phone calls to their closest contacts, book a GP appointment
and save helpline numbers in their phone.
Mental health problems are very common, in fact, 1 in 5 of us experience suicidal thoughts at some point in our lives. There’s no shame in admitting when you feel suicidal, because it could save your life. And no one has to go through such crippling and disturbing mental torment alone.
As your priest I’m here to help you and so is your GP and helplines such as the Samaritans. Let’s all have a safe time in beautiful Cornwall, with every blessing,
Rev Karsten Tel: 788829 Email: [email protected]
OUTREACH CLOSING DATE FOR AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER WEDNESDAY 13TH JULY 3PM

Pendeen Outreach Magazine Pendeen Outreach Magazine is a monthly publication produced by members of the local community. It contains information about forthcoming events, including farmers' market dates, and the times of church services, updates from local organisations, pastoral letters from Rev Karsten Wedgewood, puzzles,....

Still searching for workshop space in the St Just in Penwith area

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Men in sheds: improving the health and wellbeing of older men through gender-based activity interventions: a systematic review and scoping for an evaluation - NIHR School for Public Health Research One in five of the UK population is an older man (aged over 65 years), and although men report better health than women, their mortality rates are higher. Loneliness and social isolation are also common in this age group, and are known to be associated with poorer health outcomes. Older men find it....

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Busy painting the new extended Bosavern Community Farm Shop, and other farm projects.

All we need is a suitable vacant available building

We are part of the UK Men’s Shed Association https://menssheds.org.uk, we’re about social connections and friendship building, sharing skills and knowledge , for the benefit of the local community.

To promote social inclusion for the public benefit by preventing adults within St Just in Penwith and the surrounding area, from becoming socially excluded, relieving the needs of those people who are socially excluded and assisting them to integrate into society through the provision of facilities in which they can meet jointly or individually to undertake creative, physical or recreational activities, learn or pass on skills and knowledge and support each other socially.

Whether our members want to meet up in a friendly environment for a cup of tea and a chat, or pass on or learn new skills making or repairing household or garden items, our aim is to provide a friendly safe workshop environment.

We’re still looking for suitable local building to house the workshop, we’re a noisy bunch with powered saws and drills on fixed workbenches, so we don’t share well in the same building with more refined activities such as dancing, yoga, table tennis etc.

Home - We support Men's Sheds in the UK. Men's Sheds are community workshops where men can create converse and connect.

Well after 12 months of been told that we could use a disused storage room as a community workshop, it’s been confirmed we aren’t a suitable occupant, apparently we’d be too disruptive to the primary role of the facility.

On the positive side we’ve just received more donations of engineering tools, we have funding, and we only need a local empty available facility or available land to set up a workshop for the benefit of the local community.

There’s a clear unarguable need for a workshop and friendly meeting place to support our socially vulnerable members of the community.

If you know of any available building or land suitable for a community workshop , please contact us.

We’re still looking for somewhere to set up a friendly meeting place and workshop for the local community.
We need a building, ideally with adjacent parking, wheelchair access, toilets, kitchen and an open space that can be converted into a workshop to accommodate fixed workbenches.
Thanks again to all our supporters.

We’ve had lots of positive support from Jack Roberts at Geevor Tin Mine, who last December organised for an old storeroom at Geevor to be cleared for our use as a Community Workshop. The room was cleared quickly in January by Geevor volunteers who did a great job.
We recently managed to get our workbenches and materials into the room, and start to clear space and organise the workspace.
We’ve still got a few hurdles - we need official agreement to use the room from the Cornwall Council, and then agree and install electrical supply, lighting and heating.
We’ve got limited funding available to help pay for the electrical work and for workshop equipment and materials.
We’re hoping to be up and running early 2022
Thanks to all who are supporting us

New home - fingers crossed, workshop in progress, courtesy of Geevor Tin Mine facility

Prospects are looking up
Nearly/almost/imminently got an agreement with Cornwall Council to use a room within the Geevor Tin Mine at Pendeen.
Our workbenches and materials are already in the room waiting patiently for lift-off.
Lots of local interest and support, just need to get on with it.

Well after two and a half years of lots of local interest, gaining council and National Lottery funding we’re no further forward on finding an available building to set up our Community Workshop.
The St Just Recreation Centre made it clear that we weren’t a suitable resident for their ex-storeroom, unfortunately after we installed a new floor and decorated using Community Workshop funding.
We’re now waiting for agreement on a short term lease on a Council property, with as yet no clear long term prospects.
All we want to do is set up a local Community Workshop, so local socially vunerable residents can come along for a chat and a cup of tea, and/or pass on or learn new skills.

Does anyone know of a local building we can convert into a workshop for the local community?