Hi I'm Dave Scannell.

I am currently Treasurer of this Men's Shed. I am one of the founding members. I have spent 20 years teaching and over 20 years as an IT Consultant and Data Manager. I had always said that when I retired I wanted to do some woodwork, I had never done any woodwork when I was at school and needed to learn how to cut a piece of wood properly. Since joining the shed I have built planters for myself and my son, a memory box for my granddaughter, refreshed a child's high chair and started to do some wood turning. I have also drunk copious cups of coffee and eaten many homemade ginger biscuits. Shed Day is always a great day with meeting up with the friends I have made, learning new skills and being the IT Nerd of the group

Hi I'm Bob Miles,

I am currently Secretary, Trustee and a founder member of the Shed. All of my working life was spent with the GPO and British Telecom starting as an apprentice and later becoming a Field Maintenance Technical Officer working around the Hull area until early in 1980 when I moved to Leeds to start work as an instructor at the 'Post Office Regional Engineering Training Centre' at Otley. I spent 3 very happy years there teaching apprentices and adults. I left there on promotion and performed a number of roles including Customer Network Consultant, Project Manager, Systems Engineer, and finally Head of Bid Management in the National Sales organisation. At school my favourite subjects were always woodwork and engineering and that has stayed with me throughout my adult life. Early retirement in 2000 and a move to a new abode which needed a lot of work brought the opportunity to indulge my passion for DIY projects. I have a really well equipped home workshop where I have a wood turning lathe, bandsaw, pillar drill, router table and a host of other kit which enables me to make a variety of things, mostly out of wood. Much as I enjoy spending time in my workshop, what is lacking working on my own is the social interaction with others. Being part of the Shed fulfils that lack and gives me the opportunity to pass on some of the skills which I have acquired to others in the Shed who I now count as my friends.

I'm Lorenz

One happy member of WMS Shed.

I've always been a fixer- upper, with a drawer full of batteries, wires, screws etc even before my teens. Since when various bikes, cars and motorbikes have been kept going ( probably way past their 'best before' state )

Marriage and work both over and done with by my 28th birthday so, on with happy retirement!

Just sold my house of 48 years and moved in with the wonderful Les so ain't life good to me!

Cheers

I'm Stuart Gregory,

trustee and presently Chairman of this very creative Men's Shed. I spent my early career in my home town of Sheffield as a building surveyor in the NHS, before moving to Cambridge for 6 years. Great job, great city but geography too flat for a keen fell walker. A job opportunity in Leeds saw me move back north to the hills and join Royal Mail to create a new surveying department. Over the next 20 years, I had various job titles, initially planning & contracting for all maintenance works but then becoming responsible for project management teams on major construction projects. I've always been interested in DIY and as a Yorkshireman 'saving the brass'. Since taking early retirement in 2004 I have relocated twice which created many jobs to put that individual stamp on the 'new' house, however by 2018 I'd reached the end of my projects list and was looking for other options. WMS has allowed me to further develop my acquired skills on more professional & varied equipment as well as meet a group of like minded individuals who have also become good friends.

I am John

I have recently joined WMS. At age 16 my school results fell off a cliff when I discovered beer, motorcycles and the fairer sex. I signed up for an engineering apprenticeship with P&O and then spent eleven years as an Engineer Officer at sea, breaking things and then fixing them. I met my future wife at college whilst taking my Chartered Engineer exams, and subsequently accepted a shore job with P&O in London as an Engineer Superintendent. This involved attending dry-dockings, fires, collisions, strandings etc. around the world, but I also found a niche developing IT systems in my department.

I was then head-hunted to manage an IT project in South East Asia. Two of us went out and five years later, four of us returned! I could not settle back into the daily commute to London, so I left P&O and started an IT Consultancy. In 2000 we moved the family to Leeds, buying a crumbling old house which I am still fixing up to this day, learning many new skills in the process. Tired of government red tape and working crazy hours, I shut the company down in 2015 and then worked in a variety of jobs including HGV Driving, and selling artificial grass, until my retirement in 2018. Joining the Men’s Shed has been great for me. It gives me the kind of camaraderie I have not known since my sea-going days, and having hated Mondays for most of my life, I now greatly look forward to them.