Australia’s best men’s shed is in the Adelaide Hills
A South Australian Men’s Shed has won the title of Shed of the Year, one of more than 1200 sheds nationwide aimed at improving men’s wellbeing.
The Macclesfield Men’s Shed nwas recognised as Shed of the Year at the Australian Men’s Shed Association’s 10th national gathering in Murray Bridge.
Maccelsfield Men’s Shed chairman Ken Smith told InDaily the group of around 20 men was “very excited” about the win.
“We were a bit taken aback with it all, we’re only a relatively small shed,” Smith said.
“We started in about 2016, and our first project was we bought a shed off a farmer he didn’t want, and we pulled that down, moved it, and put it up basically at our expense. We got it started on our own.
“The shed has just grown from there.”
Now a global movement, the first Men’s Shed was established in 1993 in Goolwa, followed in 2007 by the establishment of AMSA by a group of sheds to represent and support the movement.
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There are now more than 1200 sheds nationwide serving 50,000 participants, and over 2500 sheds across 12 countries.
The Macclesfield Men’s Shed has around 20 members. Photo: Facebook
“The most basic part of a Men’s Shed is for the health and wellbeing of men, that’s what it was aimed at originally,” Smith said.
“Probably the first machine we bought was a coffee machine, so we could sit around and chat about things that are important.”
Smith said the a variety of woodworking equipment had been bought since then, with members working on everything from bird boxes to shades and seats for local parks.
The Macclesfield Men’s Shed has worked with the community in other ways too, with Smith saying the shed had previously worked with the local school.
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“We’ve also mentored a young 16-year-old lad who was struggling at school and needed some help. He took work experience from school and came in on Thursdays to interact with the blokes, he just joined in as a member of the shed and he benefitted from that and has now got a full-time job.
“We’ve also mentored children at the local school; they had designed a project and the teacher came along with them, and the men in the shed helped them build the projects that they had designed.
“The kids enjoyed it, and so did the men.”
The AMSA awards recognise sheds around the country which go “above and beyond for members and their communities”.
A project the members of Macclesfield Men’s Shed worked on. Photo: supplied
Smith said one of the Macclesfield shed’s projects which he thought had contributed to its win was a collaboration with the local RSL and its president Dennis Oldenhove.
Smith said Oldenhove had started a project called Reach Out Posts, where recycled plastic bollards are placed next to community seats, including those built by the Men’s Shed, with plaques directing people to services such as Beyond Blue and domestic violence support lines.
“The objective is that the people who might be sitting in the chair pondering about where they’re going or what they’re doing, they hopefully might see these numbers and make contact with them,” Smith said.
Smith said he was confident in the future of Men’s Sheds.
“Men really enjoy them, and it actually is a very good thing. Particularly for blokes who have retired, because they sort of become at a loose end I suppose,” he said.
“They’ve been working all their lives, and maybe 50 years working in the job and all of a sudden they don’t have anything to do. The Men’s Shed helps to take the place of what they used to do in the workplace. And it gets men out, interacting with each other, and it’s just good fun for blokes.
“Any men who are not sure what to do would be well advised to go to a Men’s Shed nearby them and see how it works for them. I find that people are sometimes reluctant to go to those sorts of places because they don’t think they’d fit in, or whatever it may be.”
