1

2

Editor’s note. In the past I have been producing the newsletter in A5 format, so the

font size will reflect when printed in A5 booklets, and members have

expressed that they are having trouble printing, so now it has been

produced in A4 format so normal printing can be achieved, but in

normal view the fonts will be large.

A new year is upon us and let us see what this one will bring. 2018

was a big year with the building of the second shed, stocking it,

relocating things from shed 1, and starting to line the walls. The

construction of the office was commenced also. Let’s hope that this

year will see the completion of construction of the office, toilets,

entertaining (Dining) area and much more.

Email: rhtew@bigpond.com

Ronald H. Tew.

Presidents Report. Hello Everyone and welcome to 2019.

A very safe, healthy and happy new year to everyone.

We finished 2018 on a high note with a well-attended Christmas party

at the Lakes Sports Club and also a well-attended morning tea for our

final Shed day of the year.

As 2019 gets under way I believe our Shed is in for another great year.

We have plenty of projects on the go and hopefully some of these will

be finished before the year is too far advanced.

3

You would all be aware that there are a lot of community groups in

our area searching for ways to fund raise. They are all vying for a

piece of the ever-decreasing fund-raising pie.

Over the coming months the Shed committee will be discussing some

new ways of fund raising. If you have any ideas, please pass them on.

We are fortunate that we have our regular sausage sizzles fund raisers

booked in for the first six months of the year. These are a good day

out in our community and anyone not having done one yet should

consider giving it a go.

Over the Christmas break I was fortunate to catch up with people

from our community from various walks of life. Not having met them

before I was pleased with the feedback I received on our Men’s Shed

and the role it plays in our community looking after the mental and

physical health needs of men in our area. Not only do we play a role

in building things for our kindergartens, schools and community

groups we also offer some of these groups man power that they

would not normally have.

We also provide the opportunity for all our blokes to have open

discussion on all subjects that they are all so well informed on.

Subjects from world affairs, sports events to hole digging to name a

few. This can be witnessed firsthand on any Shed day.

Rodney Hansen.

President.

The Burpengary and District Men’s Shed Inc.

4

In Sympathy. It is unusual, I suppose, that I should include myself in this section, but

if someone else was writing this newsletter, that would be the case

anyway. I have not been present at the shed or any functions for a

couple of weeks, mid-December, due to the loss of our daughter-in-

law louisa on the 5th December in Melbourne. My wife and I travelled

to Melbourne and spent some time with family until the funeral

service was held on Sunday 16th.

IMPORTANT NOTICE. It has been decided that from now on parking will be banned on the

grass area between the two sheds. All vehicles are to be parked on

the southern end of the grounds, behind the ditch excavated at the

end of the new shed.

Shed Activities (past events). Burpengary Christmas Spectacular. Saturday 1st December.

A very good turnout this year, not only

attendance, but volunteers as well. It was

nice to see so many workers, it made it so

much easier on

everyone. This was

a big day for many of us, some starting as

early as 9:00am, some at midday, and not

finishing until 9:00pm. I know I was pooped

when I got home. The attendance was much higher than last year, this

shot was taken just in front of our stall just before finish time.

5

Shed Christmas dinner, Thursday 6th December.

Unfortunately, I missed the Christmas dinner, but following is a report

from Ken Slater: -Our Men’s Shed Christmas dinner was held at The

Lakes Caboolture Sports Club on Thursday 6th December. 64 members

and partners attended and enjoyed a smorgasbord of roast chicken,

roast pork and vegetables. Sweets were Christmas pud or apple

crumble. 5 lucky door prizes were drawn. Highlights of 2018 shed

progress were shown on the overhead projector. Thanks Ken.

Raffles. Christmas Raffle.

The Christmas raffle draw was held on

Thursday 20th Dec. Winners are as follows: -

First Prize: - No.16 Peter Burton.

Second Prize: - No. 1581 Bob Hansen

Third Prize: - No. 187 Tony

First and second prizes were won by shed members, and all prize

winners have been notified.

Ticket sales were phenomenal this year with a large amount of money

raised, I think it was the bi-plane and the fact that it was on display at

each sale event.

6

Story of the month. My wife said to me the other day, “With

all the practice you have had cutting

onions at the shed, you should be able to

help me with this recipe”. After a while

she returned and said with an astonished

voice, and look, “What on earth do you

think you are doing”. My reply was, “The

recipe said to dice the onions, I went to a

lot of effort, but I am pleased with the result”.

Sausage Sizzles, (Fundraising) Dakabin Tip Shop.

CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Bunnings Sausage sizzles.

These continue on a twice monthly basis for at least the next six

months. Pedro has been organising the rosters for sausage sizzles for

a while now and has asked if somebody else could take over the role

in future. I am sure there would be somebody out there that could

quite easily handle that job.

Market day.

We continue to run a stall at the Caboolture markets occasionally, and

this is turning out to be very good for our Christmas Raffle ticket

selling. The returns on the markets are not great, but thanks to the

persistence of Peter Rocca, Pedro, and I believe new assistant Wesley

Roberson.

7

Thought for the Month.

“Being honest

may not get you a lot of friends,

but it’ll always get you the right ones.”

Shed one Progress Progress with the layout and operational aspect of the shed are

advancing. Now that the shed is almost fully functional, many rules

will now have to be strictly adhered to. This may not have been the

case in the past with some makeshift setups, but for insurance

purposes this is going to be a must.

Shed two Progress Internet options.

I have been working on the method we may have for connection of

internet to the shed. We have two options: - NBN or mobile

broadband. NBN is cabled along the street outside, but we do not

have the block or buildings cabled. We could undertake the cabling

ourselves, but the coordination of working with a service provider, or

NBN, to make the connections in the street joints is proving the

difficult task at this stage. Mobile Broadband: - We have been given a

couple of devices, Routers, even though a little aged, which enables a

USB Broadband Dongle to be connected and then transmit Wi-Fi as a

normal Router. I have done some testing, and all seems as though it

will work, but the other obstacle is not having the office complete, as

this is where the devices will have to be installed, along with the

security camera system. The mobile broadband would be the cheaper

8

alternative given our requirements. I have indicated to the committee

that we will have to put a hold on it until office completion, when I

can setup in a normal working environment to do final tests.

Welders.

Our welders have been working on a

new metal framework for the chainsaw

to work on the portable saw mill. All

they had to go on was some photos I

provided of the original one, and they

have done a very good job of

duplicating it. The old one was stolen from the old shed when we

were broken into early in the year.

Office.

Some of the cladding has been commenced, and let’s hope it will be

completed very early in the new year.

Toilets.

We now have approval for sewage tanks to be installed at the rear of

the shed. These will be pump out tanks, to hopefully be pumped out

by the council. We will soon have a plumber here to dig trenches to

locate the pipes we provided from the toilet rooms, and when

located, the depth of the tank holes can be formulated, and work

commenced. So, we should also be making a start on the toilets soon

as well.

Power.

Power work is progressing as it is required.

9

Shed Keys.

All keys to the shed are in the process of being recalled, numbered,

and reallocated to persons that require access to the sheds. The keys

will be accounted for on a key register. This will further assist when

committee changes occur.

Tips and Tricks. If you have any tips and tricks such as follows, please send them to

me to publish later.

This month’s Tip.

DOOR MOUNTING AID Mounting cabinet doors is often easier said than done. Getting the hinges mounted to the door usually isn’t too difficult. But when it comes time to align the door on the cabinet face frame and screw it in place, the exercise can become awkward and sometimes frustrating. What you really need to make the job easier is a “third hand” to align and hold the door in place while you attach the hinge to the face frame. So that’s exactly what I built: a support beam that clamps to the cabinet face frame and holds the door in position.

10

As you can see, this door mounting aid isn’t too complicated. It consists of two wood arms that are parallel to one another and offset just a bit. They’re connected by a spacer. By clamping one arm to the cabinet bottom, you can use the other arm to support the door as you align it against the cabinet face frame. Of course, not every cabinet door is installed the same way. So, I added a bolt to make it adjustable. You just turn the bolt to finetune the position of the door in the cabinet opening. Then, once you get the door mounting aid all set up, it’s a simple matter to set the door in place and attach the hinge to the cabinet face frame by driving in the screws (photo above). Again, courtesy of ‘Woodsmith’ Tips.

Member Profile. The shed is asking for members to compile a profile of themselves, so we can publish one in each of the following ‘Shed Chatter’ editions. We consider this will give other members a better knowledge of their fellow members. Don’t be shy in coming forward! This Issue Profile.

KEN SLATER

11

I was born in Worcester, England in 1942. I should

have been born a Cockney, but the Government

moved all pregnant women out of London because of

the bombing. We moved back to London after the war

and lived in a house overlooking Brixton Prison – I

remember waving to prisoners in their cells.

Later we moved to Plymouth, so my mother could be closer to her

sister. Dad worked for the Post Office as a Jointer (underground

cables), and mum was a cashier at the local picture theatre (which

meant that I could get in free to see the shows). My first job was a

clerk with the local electricity board with a take home pay of 2 pounds

10 shillings. I then transferred to the drawing office and started night

school to get a certificate in electrical engineering. They taught me to

drive in a ford popular and I was sent out to record the position of

new underground services and plot them on a map.

I bought a Lambretta scooter and went for my driving test shortly

after. The location was a triangular circuit of minor roads around a

park. The testing officer said he would observe me as I rode around

the park, and that at some stage he would leap out from behind a

parked car so that I could perform an emergency stop. Yes, you

guessed it, my front wheel went straight between his legs – I failed!!!

I joined a Sea Rover Crew and learned to sail in a 2-tonne whaling

boat and appeared on stage twice in the local gang show.

Dec 1968 – the month I emigrated to Brisbane. London airport was

snowing, and Brisbane’s temp was 96 deg F!!! Lived in Redcliffe and

worked in Brisbane designing steel towers for SEAQ. I had to learn

12

Australian – for example – one of the office girls asked me one day if I

had seen the Durex. I said no but was confused – Durex in England is a

brand of condom, but in Australia its sticky tape!!!

When Powerlink was created, I moved into materials procurement

which meant that I travelled around Australia and other countries

buying aluminium conductors, steel earth wires, disc insulators, line

hardware, i.e. anything that hangs off transmission towers.

We were members of the Moreton Bay Boat Club and Di & I and the 5

kids spent several holidays at their base at Cowen on Moreton Island.

I was also a member of the Qld Offshore Powerboat Club which

organised the Pacific 1000 (Cairns to Southport) race.

We moved to Burpengary in late 1990 and have lived here ever since.

I retired from Powerlink in 2007.

PROUDLY COMPILED AND PRODUCED

FOR

Burpengary and District Men’s Shed

By

Ronald H. Tew