Category: News

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Then just a few weeks later we had the chance to do it all over again at Oakfest, and had a VIP visitor in the shape of our new Mayor Cllr Jonathan Smale. Jonathon was most interested to hear of our plans and the work we have done for the local community – particularly the new “welly waggon” project for Borrow Wood School which is located in his home ward of Spondon.

We are hoping to be able to host the mayor back at our Hub on Racecourse park as we start to move into phase 3 of our project

Oakfest

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After 2 weeks of quite heavy grafting – our new “base camp” Community Craft Hub was ready for us to open up for operations . It’s just a start but now it was time to Celebrate what we’ve achieved so far !

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June 13th – Our Official Opening !

Saturday 13th of June saw an absolutely glorious day for our opening – Catherine Atkinson (MP for Derby North) came along to give us an official start by cutting the ribbon in front of 30 or so shedders and invited guests from our sponsoring organisations. Shedders were on hand to explain our overall objectives and the plans to develop our shed into a more complete offering. The two Gazebos show where the new hubs will be built as part of phase 3 and phase 4 and we had examples on display of our community projects already completed

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Ann Cusick Added to the festivities by producing an absolutely delicious Shed themed giant cake – which our shedders and guests made quick work in eating . Shed members were on hand to explain our plans and ambitions to the general public and we got the chance to show off the various things we had made for community projects

Our New Craft Hub is now open on Wednesday Mornings and Saturday mornings 10-12

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DAY TWO

The guys picked up where we had left off the previous day – today was the day to pour concrete into our shutterings. The weather was kind to the team and by the time the morning was completed our team had mixed and poured enough to fill the containers and smooth the surface off to the appropriate heights – by mid afternoon all that was left was to screw on the lids and secure the site neat and tidy for the final reveal on day three

DAY THREE

After leaving the concrete to set for 5 days it was time for the big reveal – we now have perfectly level solid foundations for our shipping container to be delivered in just over a week’s time . The logos are visible on the sides, we’ve learned a lot for our next concreting project.

The final view of the site with all four plinths in place leaving the site tidy and ready for the “Base Camp” container – We are hoping to see this delivered on May 21st

Day 4 – The Final Day

Jon Berni provided some excellent Drone pics, which really put our Craft hub space into context

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Andrew definitely need to improve on his sausage technique though ! – Although very nice in the end they took FOREVER to cook despite desperately encouraging the barbeque with his blowtorch !

All of this work will be on our stand on 18th March at the community Centre where we hope to be “banging the drum” for our shed group and raising a few quid towards the Racecourse craft hub

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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

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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!