Author: Andrew Cusick

.

Fortunately the weather held out for us, and In just a few hours we managed to create a new style bat-box, a luxurious squirrel box, made progress on our new display sign and made “A” style signs for the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust for use at their events. Most importantly we all had a good time, drinking tea, eating flapjacks and sausages while working together to make our various projects.

Below you can see some of the work we produced on the day

Soon we had shrugged off the ice and snow as the sawdust really started to fly ! by the end of the day we had created 168 nature blocks for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s Nature Tots group , built 2 huge owl boxes for friends of Chaddesden wood and chopped up a huge heap of plywood for bird boxes etc.

Of course we still found time for coffee, some banter and couldn’t resist playing with our newly made blocks – we hope that the kids of “Nature Tots” will enjoy their new all natural and nature friendly building blocks as much as we did !

https://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/nature-tots

27 Dec 2025

Thanks to our friends at AGE UK Derby, We got an invite to take part in this year’s British Senior Snooker at the Vaillant stadium . We set up our stand and got quite a few enquiries, we even got the chance to explain what shedding was all about to the producer of the event  – but without doubt the best bit was that we got seats in the second row for the semi finals

---

---

October 25th was Derby Assemble day down at the Museum of Making. The team set up a stall, along with several dozen others, to showcase some of our ‘makes’ and get the word out to any interested visitors about our Shed project. 

There were a number of items for sale on the stall; Halloween ‘Lanterns’ – ingenious cubes with a small ‘candle’ light inside, Christmas decorations, coasters and bird boxes. There was also an opportunity for visitors – particularly the children – to get ‘hands on’ and put together lanterns or ‘spider’ models. Once again, we made some cash to supplement the Shed funds!

It was interesting too, to see what other stalls had to offer. A well attended day, with lost of families, as it was also half term. Below is the ‘team’ all set up and ready to go!
  

Our second participation in a community event was a big success. Oakfest has run for several years now and on the back of a successful attendance at Chaddesden Big 1 in June, Oakwood Neighbours Shed decided to set up a stall again at Oakfest. We also got involved in producing some signage for the organisers to add to the event.

Our team of Shedders got together to cut a signpost and finger signs and then laser cut templates for the lettering. Good job all round.

For our stall itself, Andrew brought along birdboxes and laser cut coasters to sell – profits contributing to the Shed fund – plus a laser engraved sign featuring our reworked logo design by Pete Gill. Pete also quickly put together some foldable display panels and A3 posters to show off the new ‘corporate’ look he is developing. The stall setup is coming together event by event.

Although the weather wasn’t brilliant on the day, the event was well attended and we got plenty of interested visitors to the stand and bird box and coaster sales. In fact we nearly sold out!

10th of May saw the Group’s first Pop up shed, an important landmark in our development of the shed. This gave us the opportunity to meet, connect, converse, and create. Group members met at the Oakwood Community Centre in glorious weather to work together assembling bird boxes, bat boxes, and bug hotels from materials which we had prefabricated. The day had three key goals:

Enjoy working together as a maker community
To publicise the activities of our group and attract new members
To produce craft items we can sell on our stall

Our handiwork will be available on the group stall at this year’s “Big 1” and “Oakfest”. Shedders rolled up at 10am to set up and as the weather was so good – most of our activities were carried out on the terrace in front of the building and soon we were attracting the attentions of passers by – we spent as much time talking to interested member of the public and hopefully have encouraged several potential new members to join us.

Our local Councillors Matt and Freya dropped in to see how we were progressing, which gave us an opportunity to discuss our plans for a permanent home and further funding opportunities to support our activities.

Coffee and bacon sandwiches (Thanks to our Hosts Geoff and Sharon for loan of their frying pan!) added to the sense of community and our shedders all came away that evening with a sense that we had had a good day out and made a positive effort for the shed. Plans are already afoot to have another similar activity for this summer – so watch our forthcoming events page for information!

It was a fantastic night at our launch meeting. Thank you to everyone who came along to support us and join up. It was great to see how quickly a room full of strangers turned into a relaxed bunch chatting and sharing their ideas about shedding. A big thanks to our steering group – Chris, Andy, Ian, and Tim for helping arrange things.

A big high point was Matthew, Jamie and Freya, our Oakwood Councillors announcing their practical, support for the shed -more details to follow ! this will go a long way to making our plans a reality. not just financially but in terms of our credibility in dealing with other organisations.

The search for a shed venue is progressing well with several alternatives being explored. Loraine Dryden and Matt Jensen have been a huge support and source of help.

Plans for future social activities, trips to events etc. will be discussed at the next meeting.

The group has now established itself with a committee and the necessary admin to allow us to create a bank account. The additional credibility and funds which will come from the excellent support we received from Matthew, Freya, and Jamie will also allow us to approach other funding sources much more successfully .