What’s the total opposite of Men’s Sheds?… Lockdown!
One of the things that Nairn Men’s Shed stands for is the tea and banter. On Wednesdays that is all we do – no workshop, no other activity other than we meet in the tea room and we talk. We talk sense, we talk nonsense, we share happy stories, sad stories, local history, local gossip, things the Shed will do or will not do and on and on.
All the Shedders will say that Wednesdays are great; that is why we are bursting at the seams. It was to look like the beginning of a joke –“How many Shedders can you get in a room?”.
We were speaking about the lockdown and how the hell we were going to be able to keep this sense of belonging to the Shed. There was the idea of ringing round members or using Facebook or WhatsApp but that had some difficulties eg people not being on the computer platform or not using social media. Our Chair suggested using Zoom to which the cry from members was ……….. (fill in your own expletives).
We talk sense, we talk nonsense, we share happy stories, sad stories, local history, local gossip, things the Shed will do or will not do and on and on.
So, Nairn Shed stumbled into becoming ‘Zoomers‘. After a couple of weeks, we had 20 of us Zooming on Wednesday morning, the Art Group had a session and we had an open meeting to the world on Thursdays – all chatting and enjoying each other’s company. Through our contacts with Age Scotland, we were interviewed by a reporter from the Press & Journal, Scotland’s daily newspaper and a great article was published on Men’s Sheds, how lockdown was affecting us, and how we used Zoom to maintain relationships. We also were on the front page of the magazine of the newspaper – fame but no fortune. Keep up to date with Nairn Shed by visiting us at www.facebook.com/NairnMensShed/
John Rushforth