The Wood Shack

Are your kids budding carpenters? Do they love getting messy and making things? Are they aged 3-10? If yes, then bring them along to our workshop for kids where we will be making bug hotels out of reclaimed wood. We have sessions running at 9.30 and 1.30 on 29th August so book online to secure your place... https://lnkd.in/ewUdB29i Can't wait to see you there!

We are looking for a driver’s mate to join our collections team to go out onto building and manufacturing sites to collect waste timber. Find out more and apply here... https://ow.ly/EHYX50SWBGN #jobopening #employment #careeropportunities #hiring #socent

Our The Wood Shack social enterprise was at the Boldmere Summer Festival last weekend displaying their hand-crafted custom signs and decorations. These items are still available from our wood yard by the Sutton Coldfield household recycling centre. Money generated by The Wood Shack helps us to provide supported work opportunities for people facing extreme challenges in getting a job.

We’ve just returned from the residential weekend of the Material Matter[s] Learning Journey, hosted by CIVIC SQUARE. We’re very grateful for the energy, care and collaboration of the CIVIC SQUARE team as we’ve been working together to map the material supply chains around Birmingham and the West Midlands to build a picture of how local, community-led retrofit can happen in practice. The first day of the residential weekend began with visits to Ketley Brick and Dreadnought Tile factory, followed by an introduction to clay plastering using beautiful Etruria Marl Clay from the West Midlands under the guidance of The Roundhouse Company's Annabel Cameron-Duff, who is also part of Earth Building UK and Ireland Ltd (EBUKI). On the second day, we visited Cannock Chase forest, a Forestry England woodland made up mainly of Scots and Corsican pines. We were shown around by ecologist Milly Robinson and discussed woodland management, ecologies and climate change as well as timber supply chains. In the afternoon, we headed to timber re-use centre The Wood Shack, a JERICHO social enterprise, that is also part of the National Community Wood Recycling Project. In a workshop facilitated by Jon Owens, we built prefabricated wall panels made from reclaimed timber. These test panels were an iteration of a design produced by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). We then clad the prefab panels in 3 different materials: reclaimed waste timber, wood wool boards and traditional lathe. This allowed us to explore the relationship between prefabrication and onsite wall cladding and finishes, and to discuss the relative ease of these processes in the context of community build and action. This workshop took place as part of Material Cultures’ participation in the European-wide INBUILT Project. In the UK, Material Cultures are working alongside partners University of Bath, Mykor, Balticfloc, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Greenovate! Europe, to demonstrate the use of bio-based materials to retrofit a building in Ladywood, Birmingham.

Fantastic to welcome YMCA Sutton Coldfield to our ReUsers and The Wood Shack social enterprises today

Job Vacancy We are looking for a driver’s mate to join our collections team to go out onto building and manufacturing sites to collect waste timber. Find out more... https://ow.ly/3htR50RnQIH

✨Voices of Hope in Birmingham ✨ Our Birmingham wood recyclers The Wood Shack are celebrating 30 years of their parent charity JERICHO . The charity was set up in the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham, which in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s was the red light district of the city, and an area of very high unemployment, particularly amongst young men. Job search support developed into a work experience programme supported by social enterprises. The charity faced cuts in funding from 2010 onwards and developed its commercial activities to ensure it could continue to support local people. Today JERICHO is a family of seven social enterprises that provide supported work opportunities for people facing challenges in getting a job including trauma, insufficient work experience, health and wellbeing needs, education barriers and communication difficulties. The primary groups involved are survivors of modern slavery and young people. You can find out more about JERICHO’s story here 👇 https://lnkd.in/ezi8CYTG #Birmingham #modernslavery #community #unemployment

It was fantastic to collect from Nuneaton Signs Ltd and we love the reason that they chose us - waste wood can change lives 😍

It was great to have Andy Street visit yesterday

This year, we have a brilliant range of sustainable Christmas products including reclaimed wooden trees - a fantastic eco-friendly and reusable addition to your home, office or garden 🎄 🎅