Serving up the works
Virginia Men's Shed are set to cook up a storm this December for their annual Christmas Day Dinner.
The men in the club are set to undergo a six-week cooking course where they will learn how to cook all aspects of the turkey and ham dinner from a delicious creamy mash, to whipping up a perfect batch of sprouts.
“There’s a cookery course going on for the lads in the shed for six weeks,” says chairman of the Men’s Shed, Tommy Grey. “They have a tutor come in, they did it the last year before lockdown and it was very successful.”
“They say it’s a bit of craic. The tutor provides the ingredients and every week they might make something different."
The group will then host an evening in the Virginia Show Centre where they will treat their other halves to a festive Christmas dinner.
“They have Christmas dinner, probably the week before Christmas. They cook the whole nine yards, turkey and ham and puddings and all. They can bring their partners as well. So that will be coming up soon.
"I’m looking forward to it. I was at it before and it was good. There are a couple of guys who are musicians so there was music as well. It was a great day."
The Men’s Shed have been taking part in various other activities throughout the year, which has created friendships and allowed them to develop other personal skills.
“Here in Virginia we have about 40 members, they don’t all come at the one time, they come and go depending what’s on. We have this polytunnel over here, quite a few men like to play in that and they grow veg,” he laughed.
“We have a workshop down here in the judges' box and we have quite a bit in that. They have a good bit of equipment - saws, power saws, a lathe.
“The latest addition before the shutdown was the lathe so we really haven’t had any practice on that yet so we’re really looking forward to getting into that.
“Then up here at the night time we have indoor bowling, our latest addition in pickleball, then some of the lads might play cards and sit around with a cup of tea.”
The Men’s Shed had been extremely successful up until Covid, when like most other groups, their meetings were cancelled. Since then, the men have been working hard to promote the club and encourage others to get involved.
“Of course then Covid came and knocked everything on the head,” says Tommy, deep in thought about the changes he has seen in the shed since 2020. “Definitely Covid put a lot of activities beyond our reach because you couldn’t mix.
"The whole thing of getting people back, some people are a bit reluctant because of their age to get involved. We never have more than 15 people here a night and they would be dispersed between playing cards, bowling, pickleball and the woodwork shop."