A ‘Men’s Shed’ in Renfrew has given a local school something to sing about, fixing a number of musical instruments that had fallen into disrepair.
The Renfrew Men’s Shed, a community-led workshop launched in 2023, used their engineering and musical expertise to repair a number of broken guitars belonging to Trinity High School.
John Carty, founder of the Men’s Shed, said that helping out the high school fitted into the shed’s ambition of building community relationships.
“The Men’s Shed has been up and running now for just over a year,” he said. “One of the goals is definitely to encourage community links.”
“We’ve run a number of successful small-scale craft-based projects, building up the skills of participants, and offering a safe place in the community for men to seek friendship and achieve things in a shoulder-to-shoulder fashion.”
John said that he had gotten in touch with the school offering to fix any faulty equipment.
“Some time ago I contacted Graham Ness, music teacher at Trinity High, and asked him if there was any equipment which needed repairing,” John said. “We took in some guitars which were no longer being used due to having major faults and broken parts.
“Fellow shed attendee Ted Mullen and I were both engineers, and also have over 80 years’ experience between us in the local music scene.
“Using our combined skills we have managed to repair and rebuild these guitars, and are now in the position to hand them back to the music students at Trinity High.”
Two Trinity High students accompanied teacher Graham Ness on a trip to the Men’s Shed to collect the repaired guitars.
“What the Men’s Shed have done is tremendous,” Graham said. “These instruments were wasted, no longer in use. They’ve now turned them back into fully functioning quality instruments - saving us valuable resources."
Trinity High head teacher Paul Marshall also visited the shed, adding: “We are extremely grateful for this, and hope to continue our community link with Renfrew Men’s Shed, and rescue some more valuable instruments for repair and reuse.”
Renfrew Men’s Shed is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday every week between 11am and 2pm, at Anderson Business Centre, Renfrew.
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