News October 2021 -Part 1

There is finally some progress on the lease for the lower hall and maybe an early Christmas present.........hope everyone has been good this year!

• After costs, Jerry's Skittles Fundraiser Event brought in a total of £242.96 from ticket sales, the raffle, donations and the sale of CDs and DVDs.

Many thanks to Jerry for organising the event and to Margaret and Janet for running the raffle

We had a lot of fun demonstrating just how bad we were at skittles but without the Vaughans attending, the rest of us stood some chance of winning. At the end of the day, Chris Blakeman had the highest individual score. Well done Chris! The other good news was that the Waterford had purchased a set of new skittles which actually stood up after a couple of pints!

• A £30 donation came from the restoration of a child's chair
• Membership fees this year have generated £500 (25 members x £20)
• The Co-op has generously connfirmed a donation of £1900 to be handed over in mid-November which will significantly boost our shed funds and have also agreed to continue to support Christchurch Men's Shed for another 6-months. Please ask all your friends to sign up for a Co-op card and to select CMS as their cause to support. Every time they shop at the Co-op in Highcliffe, a percentage of their purchase cost will go to CMS.
• Highcliffe & Walkford Parish Council provided us with funds to purchase a DeWalt compound mitre saw
• And finally, those nice people at HMRC sent us a cheque for £660 against our claim for gift aid so it was worth signing those membership and donation forms after all. All thanks due to Les Mercer for getting this through the labyrinthine tax system!!!

Please join me in welcoming the following new members (some not so new by now but just as welcome)

Peter Wickham

Peter Thomas

Mark Shipway

Chris Biggs

Bill horwood

Neil Brodie

We will need to hold our much delayed AGM in the near future and there will be some decisions to be made (amongst other things) about the move to the School.

Please note that anyone wishing to attend and enjoy voting rights will need to be a paid up member of CMS.

Invitations will go out to CMS members in advance of the AGM in accordance with charity commission rules, so if you haven't already renewed your membership....... need I say more?

There were seven of us in the workshop at Greystone's this morning.

We made a good start on clearing up the back room and separating everything into items to keep and stuff to dispose off (Jeff hid round the corner and pretended to be working on the blue lathe)

It is now possible to get the door open and walk in without risking personal injury!

The rest of our regulars were down at the School getting on with the renovation work or at least as far as we can go without having the lease in place and getting some additional funding for the big ticket items.

Keith Vinycomb has loaned his humungus access tower which has made the high level work a whole lot safer.

What do we think about a member who can't afford a winter coat and has been reduced to stealing one from another member?

Peter's coat went missing at the School but when challenged everyone denied ever having seen it and it was not for a couple of days and Peter shivering with cold that xxxxx finally admitted to having found it on the back seat of his car.

What should we do - have a whip round? expel the member concerned? or just put it down to an honest age related mistake?

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