June Newsletter

Shed Shavings     

St.Leonards Men’s Shed Newsletter 

June 2016   (1)

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Welcome to the “Shed Shavings” – the newsletter of the St.Leonards Men’s Shed.

As Mal has previously indicated, our aim is to keep our members (and prospective members) up to date with happenings at the shed and also a venue for you to talk to all the members at the same time by submitting articles and opinions (except religion and politics!). We will try to publish on a regular basis but no promises.   There is a lot happening at the moment, so there may be two newsletters coming out in the next couple of weeks, then I hope to have a regular newsletter every two months.

As well as the many projects we undertake, we also consume a fair amount of coffee and tea, where most of the world’s problems are solved around the table. 

New Committee

President                Ray Bowtell  (also Welfare Officer)

Vice President         Russell Bath  (also Grants Officer and School Co-Ordinator)

Secretary               Shane McManus  (doing nothing else)

Treasurer               Bob Evans

Committee Members

Ken Alexander

John Stevens (Maintenance Officer)

Bruce Swain (Maintenance)

Mal Carlson

Dave Chadwick

Mick Morris (Bicycle Program Co-Ordinator)

Anyone wanting to assist with the bicycle program, please contact Mick, whose profile will be in the next newsletter.

New Room

We were hopeful of securing the old change rooms as a smoko/meeting room for the Shed and would have had a connect sheltered walkway between the rooms, and had preliminary architect drawings completed before there was a change of mind at the Council.  We now have approved extension to the room at the rear of the Shed, met the architect who visited to take some detailed measurements, so keep your fingers crossed this effort stays on track.  With this new room we will take the kitchen area, tables and chairs and book shelves/ filing cabinets out of the workshop giving us heaps of room to add new benches etc.

Football Tipping

We are half way through the season, and the early bolter, Bulldog Tom has dropped back to the pack with, the sly old fox, last year’s winner, Bob Evans is making his run and has taken the lead.  The dark horse appears to be Dave Chadwick, who has crept up the ladder, picking 9 winners last week, it is rumored that Dave’s wife is actually the football tipster.

Bendigo Bank Grant

Those members who have been at the Shed for some time will know we received a grant from the Bendigo Bank to “change our Environment”.   This grant paid for the new large dust extractor and its associated housing and plumbing.  We also used the funds for the two Air Filtration systems and the air-conditioner installed in the shed.  With the remaining funds we were going to purchase a large ladder required to change the filtration system filters, fortunately for us, we received a ladder donated by Werner Co and Baileys Ladders.  We plan on purchasing some spare bags for the dust extractor as John and Ray emptied the bags recently and it appears the dust extraction system is working well as the bags were jam packed.  This is one of the activities that the Maintenance team will complete on a regular basis.

Picnic Settings

Member Profile

Each newsletter we will do a member profile, and hope to focus after this one on newer members.   Of course the first to be profiled is The Pres, Ray Bowtell.

•          Name                               Ray Bowtell

•         Partner                            Helen Bowtell

•          Children/Grandchildren      3/7

•          How long have you

lived in St Leonards           12 years       

•          Before St Leonards           Lived in Whittlesea

•          What did you do

before retiring                 Farmed/Cartage Contractor

•          Football Club                    Geelong