Start a Shed

A good way to take your Men’s Shed idea forward is to have a public meeting.

You can organise a meeting in a local community centre or church hall, anywhere with a big enough room to meet in. Try to get somewhere free (your local Third Sector Interface may have a meeting room for the community to use. It could be worth asking your local Citizen’s Advice Bureau for help finding a meeting room too.

You will need a plan of what you want to do and say at the meeting and what you want to get out of it. You will want to tell as may people as possible about your idea but also you will need to recruit people to help you so sign up anyone who is interested and supportive and create a contact list.

If you can get a few other people to “sign up” to your idea it will give you more influence when asking for help from the council or funders.

You could use your meeting to find people willing to form a “steering group” or committee. You just need three or four, or more, people who are willing to meet regularly to take your plans forward.

The SMSA team can also help to present at the meeting and there is also the ‘What is a Men’s Shed?’ animation which could be played at the meeting to inform all attendees of the Men’s Shed model and its wealth of benefits to improve men’s health and wellbeing.

A “Steering Group” is just a group of people who share a goal and are willing to put time into making it happen. You will have more influence and be taken more seriously if your group becomes “constituted”. This means that you have a written constitution (a set of rules, see SMSA constitution template in Member Resources) for your group members to sign up to.

Once you have a handful of people interested, it is then a good time to find out their skills if you haven’t already. You will need to create a Development Plan (no financial projection) or if you are doing a three-year financial projection for your Shed it’s called a Business Plan. Sound scary? Download our example one in the online Members Resource Library (free to join to get access) and tailor it to your needs and/or look at SCVO’s ‘setting-up-a-charity/make-a-plan‘ guidance. Break up the sections between your members and then it’s not so scary. You will need this with the financial bit (Business Plan) for when you want to open a bank account.

If you want to have some protection for your members and attract funding to start your shed, we suggest you go down this route and become a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation or in short as that’s quite a mouthful, a SCIO. Have a look at our Charity Status page for the advantages and disadvantages.

If you have done all the above stages (1-3) and want some support with the application get in touch with us at info@scottishmsa.org.uk and in the subject line of your email call it, SCIO Application Support.

Once you have printed out your charity application, checked all the boxes that you have all the info they require e.g. Development Plan and rush off to catch the post (worth getting it registered or signed for) you will have to wait for a few months for OSCR, the charity regulator to process your application. They will get back to you, to let you know they have received your application quite quickly and have assigned a person to your case. They are a very nice and helpful team at OSCR.

You won’t be able to open a charity bank account until you receive the good news from OSCR and your charity number. So while you are waiting for this, have a chat with your local banks to see which one feels best and would support you the most. In our experience, it has varied considerably between banks. This type of account is a ‘business account’ and usually not done in a branch but in the head office somewhere in Scotland over the phone. Some banks’ branches are really helpful, will give you all the papers to fill in, in the meantime while you are waiting for your charity status. 

Do make sure you shop around and ask the right questions before proceeding. You do want a good banking partner who supports you. Why do we need a Bank account you might be asking? To be able to receive the money from your funders and supporters for your great Shed enterprise.

So finally you say to yourself after all this paperwork, where is the Shed? Well indeed. Hopefully during this time, you have been scoping out your village or city block looking for suitable premises.

If you want to have a Shed which can support 30-50 men with accessible social area, workshop, kitchen, toilets and storage area then we advise a minimum of 250 square meters as your foot print or bigger. Groundfloor with good access somewhere so you can get in long pieces of timber etc. You might also want an outside area for a garden and/or polytunnel to grow your veg and flowers. You might want but it’s just not available, so you might have to change your plans in the short to medium term. Who knows what the future holds in a few years? 

We also think it’s important to have your Shed on a good transport route as in central to the village or town. This way, people can get to you and also the community can see you, get to know you and support you with commissions to do for them. You will have to derive some income to keep your shed open and running.

Importantly, you need to have a building with no rent or a peppercorn rent of no more than £10,000 per year. The majority of 1,500 Sheds in the world run like this. Speak to your local councils for their ‘surplus to requirements’ list of buildings. If you do have your council support they should apply for something called, ‘a community benefit formula’ to the commercial rent. This will reduce the rent to the zero or as in many councils the £100 per annum. Your Shed’s purpose will tick most of the Scottish Councils, Scottish Governments and the World Health Organisation boxes. You are helping them achieve their aims. Have a look at the Social Return on Investment (SRoI) document we did on Scotland’s first Men’s Shed in Westhill, Aberdeenshire. (see Member Resources) It made a 10:1 return on the investment. No wonder the Australian government support their national Shed Association and set up support for Sheds, it saves them millions. The best investment around!

Approach your local agencies to ask for help finding suitable premises for your Men’s Shed, if you haven’t already. e.g. Churches, CVS, Voluntary Action, Third Sector Interface (TSI), Community Planning Dept., Council and Community Development Team.

The Community Asset Transfer (CAT) process  is another way of getting a building or land for your Shed. Community Asset Transfer involves the transfer of management and/or ownership of land and buildings from a public sector body to a community-based organisation, eg: a local charity, community interest company or industrial and provident society.

Many Scottish Sheds have secured premises through this process. The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act created opportunities for communities to do more for themselves and have more say in the decisions that affect them.

CAT Transfer options
A range of agreements can be entered into to facilitate the transfer of an asset to a community-based organisation – but the most common form is long a long term lease (20+ years) rather than straight out ownership.
Often, local authorities (this also includes the Police, Canals, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service etc but not the Military of Defence)  can be approached for buildings in their care.

Checklist for Shedders
Any voluntary or community group interested in Community Asset Transfer should consider a number of things by way of preparation:

• Gather evidence to show how the community and local people will benefit from the transfer
• Gather evidence of community support for the transfer – community consultation
• Check to see if your local authority has an Asset Transfer Strategy or CAT department and if there have been other Community Asset Transfers nearby from which you can learn
• Solicit assistance or develop a business plan that demonstrates the financial viability of your plans – you can get specific assistance from The Community Ownership Support Service – COSS. They have representatives all over Scotland who will guide you through the process for free
• Check that land and buildings in question really are assets and not liabilities – for example, they are liabilities if they cannot generate enough income to fund repairs, maintenance and ongoing operational costs

This process is a perfect fit for Scottish Shedders as they use their existing skills often from their work life to fix the building at a fraction of the cost of using outside contractors. If this interests you give us a call to discuss in further detail. The one key step in this process is once you are a constituted group with charity status and you have found a building you want for your Shed you MUST formally write a note of interest and send it to the ownership body of that particular building.

If it is not in writing and only verbal the whole CAT process can not start. 

See our separate Funding section.

It’s important to find people who have ‘time on their hands’ and who are really willing to stay for the long haul (12-24 months). That’s the honest truth. Look for 5 to 10 people to make up your group and make sure they are all along for the ride. Everyone is important, nobody is the boss. No one is better than anyone else, put the Shed first. Then at the end of the Shed creation journey and the doors open, you can look around and see their smiling faces right next to yours, for many years to come. Nobody got left behind. That’s what it’s all about.

The SMSA are in discussions with funders and the Scottish Government about providing a network of SMSA Shed Development Officers who can help you with your Men’s Shed plans. We hope they get behind us to be able to provide this service for you sooner than later. Speak to your MSPs, MPs and Councilors – each voice can make a huge difference to the Scottish Men’s Sheds Movement . Tell us your challenges you face along the way and we will add our weight to your voice.