Women’s Shed secures location

THE Bendigo Women’s Shed is one step closer to becoming a reality after the group secured a location for the community space last week.

Co-founders Jo Haynes and Prue Clarke revealed the news to unsuspecting members last Wednesday at Connect Church Bendigo and Ms Haynes said she was happy to finally make the announcement after other offers fell through.

“Until I actually walked in there, I was like ‘yeah okay we’ll see’,” she said.

“We’ve gone and checked out a few places, we were chasing places up and then when [Ms Clarke] turned around and said ‘I think I’ve got a place’ I was like ‘oh yeah okay’ and then when it all started happening real quick I’m like ‘oh wow, we’ve got a place’.”

Connect Church has supplied their old location to the group free of charge with access to a kitchen, toilets and even an auditorium.

“The fact that they’re donating that to us, it’s just unbelievable,” Ms Haynes said.

She said members were “relieved” to hear the news as it means the group can now start planning for the future of the shed.

“Nothing could move forward until we actually had a place so by obtaining a place now, we can concentrate on ‘what are we going to do?’, ‘what are we going to do with the space?’, ‘when can we start offering classes?’”.

“We’ve got ideas floating around,” she said.