April 2024

Wow! Where has the month of April gone?

We have had an exciting month here at Shedding and are celebrating the completion of our first Shedding on the Road weekend workshops! This was the first of six weekend workshops within the Northern Rivers area to share our hands-on skills and wellbeing practices to empower local communities to support each other.

There has been so much passion, planning, participation, and preparation involved, so we thought we would take you on a bit of a journey as we share our excitement with you!

Remember that you are welcome to pop into Shedding to have a cuppa! A good time to pop in is on a Friday from 2pm to meet our SpaceMakers or Saturday from 1.30pm to meet our Repairers. We would love to see you!

WELLBEING – Shedding is an all-inclusive space – all people are welcome here.

Our focus is on wellbeing first, as a foundation to learning tools and sharing community spaces. Learning new things can be a challenging and vulnerable place for many of us.

At Shedding we have created a few agreements to help us inclusively support each other in our shared community space. To create a safe environment, it is important that each one of us actively participates in these values and agreements – supporting the wellbeing of ourselves and those around us. Through our participation in Shedding we each make an agreement to actively participate in these values.

Our values include:

Celebrate our mistakes. Mistakes can be one of our greatest teachers. Make mistakes – make lots and lots of mistakes! Welcome the lessons that come with making mistakes, and let’s shed our fears and build with curiosity!

Own your tool. This includes us, our body, our vehicle – the tool we are inside… It also includes the tool you may be using. We want you to hold on to it, feel it, listen to it, get to know it. This means that when we are teaching we will use another tool to teach you. We want your tool to stay in your hands.

Check in with our feelings, and how they may impact ourselves and those around us. When we identify and acknowledge how we are feeling (emotionally and physically) we can respond to our own needs and work to our own ever-changing capacity.

Communicate our needs. Take ownership and responsibility to communicate our feelings and needs with vulnerability and authenticity.

Be kind. Actively treat ourselves and others with compassion and kindness.

Our first Shedding on the Road Workshop kicked off in Wardell on Saturday 20th & Sunday 21st April! What an exciting weekend as Wardell CORE welcomed our Shedding crew into their community space. We truly felt the camaraderie.

Our Saturday morning UPSKILL Workshop (8am-2pm) was full of vibrant new faces full of questions and excitement, keen to delve into our world of tools and practices.

Our Sunday EMPOWER Workshop (8am-5pm) participants shared such passion and inspiration for non-hierarchical teaching and leading that even the rain couldn’t dampen our spirits! We had wonderful and heartfelt feedback from their experience.

As well as our guided workshops, we also hosted a casual TOOLS & TINKER Workshop from 2-4pm on Saturday, with 10 of our empowered mentors volunteering their time to host 8 workstations to give our guests an opportunity to have a play with all our tools (including the pallet puller, circular saw, angle grinder, dropsaw, drills and all our countersink drill bits and screws).

A massive thank you to all of our Shedders. It felt like family, with our empowered mentors supporting all aspects of this project – including set up, pack down and facilitating throughout the day. Our EMPOWER workshop practices and values really shone through, and it was deeply inspiring to see our crew taking our practices into the wider world to support communities further afield.

We received beautiful messages of encouragement following the weekend, from participants expressing how they were able to embrace the tools and experience a different part of themselves in a safe space.

As the first of six workshop locations – it felt like a huge success! We can’t wait for the next one (at South Golden Beach on Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th May) and would love to welcome YOU to be a part of it too… Whether you’d like to book in for a guided workshop, drop in for some casual play time with power tools, or perhaps have a go at learning and practicing a few facilitation skills.

If you’re keen, we would love to hear from you. This 6-part pilot project is something we are hoping to take into the future and seek additional funding to continue to support our communities across the Northern Rivers.

One of the greatest joys of the past month was the creation of five oregon benchtops and ten sawhorses which became a central part of our Shedding on the Road workshops – capturing the essence of our workshop vibe – giving new life to recycled materials and sharing our sustainable practices.

Preparing for Shedding on the Road has provided SpaceMakers an opportunity to practice our skills as leaders, teachers, mentors, and learners. We have taken our EMPOWER workshop practices and created tool checklists that are replicable so that any member of the crew can jump in to a coordination role. We have practiced running the tool stations on multiple occasions, building our skills and confidence.

So what is our next project at SpaceMakers!? We have now jumped into tidying and clearing our back yard space. We are looking forward to creating our garden with the same intention we pour into the inside of our well loved shed.

Do you ever wonder if it is worth fixing some old piece of furniture that’s been hidden out in the shed for years? Well, below are some results of our repairs, along with their owners, repairing some antique items. Isn’t that stool (shown below) beautiful?

It’s lovely to see those who come in needing some sort of repair also get involved. For some it would be the first time using a power drill and having a go at repairing a broken chair or lamp. The smiles of their faces tell the story!

Our passionate crew are eager to assist you in what ever repairs or reconditioning your items may need. And they love doing it and getting your involved in the process!!!

The first Wednesday of every month our Shedders and friends enjoy gathering for a delicious meal and great conversation. Everyone is invited to bring a dish, snack or dessert to be shared or simply invited to make a donation.

WHOO 🎉 we’ve got a PODCAST

and… we have a snazzy YouTube Channel too

Shedding.com.au

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Shedding’s Facebook Page

Regular workshops

UPSKILL
UPSKILL is the place to start your Shedding journey. It’s an introduction to the fundamentals of carpentry and building, and once you’ve done it you can jump into all our other workshops.

Day: 1x Saturday (check the website for dates)
Time: 8.30am-1.00pm
Cost: $50.00 (Can’t afford it? Get in touch)
Book in: Click here

SPACEMAKERS
SPACEMAKERS happens on Fridays and is our free workshop series where you get to collaboratively design and build a range of community projects. It’s such a fun time and a great place to practice your existing tool skills, learn some new ones, and share the joy of supporting each other.

Day: Fridays
Time: 10am-3pm
Cost: By donation
RSVP: To book your spot email us, or just drop by and say hi.

REPAIR CAFE
Join our host of volunteers every Saturday arvo as we passionately share skills to repair all manner of things. You don’t need to be an expert, basically if you can turn a screw driver anti-clockwise you’ve got the skills we need!

Day: Saturdays
Time: 1.30pm-4.30pm
Cost: By donation
RSVP: Just drop by and say hi.

MONTHLY POTLUCK DINNERS
On the first Wednesday of each month our Shedding community comes together to share food, conversation and hands-on skills. We’re currently learning knot tying, it’s so much fun!

Day: First Wednesday of the month
Time: 6pm-9pm
Cost: Bring a dish to share or a donation (recommended $10)
RSVP: Send us an email/facebook message

Can’t wait to get on tools with you!

Book your spot in a workshop here

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