Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Secret Mens Business



FORMER university mathematician Alistair Gray stands beside retired carpenter Ron Locke atop plastic milk crates, lovingly restoring an old wooden sailing craft that's been towed from oblivion to the Hobsons Bay men's shed in Melbourne.
Like a pair of magpies, they’ve cadged teak and brass and bits, even a mast. Paler from his bookish life, Gray, 69, wears leather boat shoes, a navy crew-necked sweater, navy beret, and one gold earring. Locke’s red woollen beanie flattens grey curls tickling his ruddy weathered neck; nothing in the 74-year-old’s outfit matches. Poles apart, curiosity lured them both to the shed in the first place but the boat was the clincher that made them regulars, bound together by the endeavour of making an abandoned ship seaworthy again.
Wintry air barges past them into the brick barn with its drills and saws and gravelly voices. Rugged-up men gather around to clean one of the smaller lathes. They’re not all old and they’re not exclusively male. A lone woman, Phyllis Byrom, is busy lacquering a box she’s made, although she’s prouder of her bookcase with its dovetail joints. “Kerry taught me how to do that,” she nods at the one-time plumber, Kerry Duke. “We all teach the other skills,” he shouts back.
Poke your head inside any one of the 545 men’s sheds sprouting across Australia at the rate of four a week, boasting a combined membership of 50,000, and you’ll breathe in the hum and warmth of creativity and companionship. The benefits of this invention may soon come to rival other homegrown brainwaves such as the Hills Hoist, cervical cancer vaccine and wi-fi. Other countries are watching our shed revolution and we’re exporting the concept to Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where governments are hungry for the demonstrable health gains from fostering resilience and belonging, dampening suicide and depression – literally saving lives.
Add the multiplier effect of things built and repaired for local communities – children’s bikes, toys, nesting boxes, farm machinery, computers, furniture, plus the odd boat – and the inevitable question is posed: where did these community sheds come from? Corrugated outhouses are as native to the Australian landscape as ironbark gums, but who was the Einstein behind the big idea of creating sheds as a hub for men, a place for them to gather, tinker, forage and fix? Was it a theoretician burning the midnight oil or a committee of experts surrounded by graphs, budgets, guidelines and pizza boxes? Community sheds are not like Medicare or MySchool sites: they were not rolled out en masse at a fancy launch.
When an idea takes years to winkle its way into being, the origins can get lost in the fits and starts. Or maybe, just like the insides of a messy old shed, ownership gets buried under layers of stuff. Success has a million fathers. There are plenty of candidates to weed through in the search for paternity. Who is the genius responsible for dreaming up this history-making movement?

A place of refuge
Henry Lawson's short story A Rough Shed defines the shearing shed as a man’s domain. The writer Joseph Furphy’s shed at the back of his brother’s foundry in Shepparton is famous for the literary stirrings within. Most Australians who grew up in the 20th century remember a higgledy hut where an uncle or a father or a brother pottered at a workbench amidst oil cans, spiders’ webs, shovels, lawnmowers, a shadow board silhouetting every spanner and wrench. Bunnings may thrive but the rust-bitten shed is disappearing in this age of disposable appliances, Ikea furniture and backyard makeovers. The modern-day handyman is master of the remote control. My friend’s husband has what she calls his indoor shed with a plasma screen.
In the mid ’80s, singer John Williamson composed an anthem to the shed as a must-have for every Aussie boy. A decade on, Adelaide writer Mark Thomson published a best-selling homage, Blokes and Sheds. His interest was piqued by a friend who’d fossicked inside a couple of beauties while doing gardening and rubbish removal for elderly clients. Thomson’s book hit a nerve and he became something of an expert on these eccentric havens. His name is on the top of a “persons of interest” list compiled by a National Library team collecting an oral history of community sheds. After several initial interviews the project has stalled and so the story of who was present at the birth of the men’s shed movement is yet to be told.
Thomson reckons Williamson’s ditty captured our imagination, but surely it takes much more than a popular song or book to ignite a grassroots movement that last year won federal funding of $3.9 million plus a new Victorian Government grant of $4 million in May. Tim Mathieson, partner of the Prime Minister, is one of three patrons of the Australian Men’s Shed Association. “We’re in his electorate,” says the Hobsons Bay shed co-ordinator, Daniel Kuiper. “His missus lives two and a half kilometres from here.” Proximity to Julia Gillard helps the cause; her former adviser, Andrew Stark, left the PM’s inner circle last year to market the association. Six years after its formation in 2007, it’s now the largest male-focused organisation in the country and a rival men’s sheds group wants to merge.
The sheds attract patchy support from local councils, churches and community groups, but they thrive only because of the involvement of volunteers. From pouring the foundation slab to the chase for funds and the scrounging for tools, groups of men around the country have lobbied and laboured for the love of their brothers, reaching out to fathers and husbands and sons who might need anchoring in a place where they can hammer and yarn or do good works. The sheds they create are like the village square or the post office steps or the local cafĂ©, a “third place” for encounters outside of work and home.
Some shed websites are like bush telegraphs: Brett seeks a fishing mate on the Chelsea Men’s Shed page, where The Plank newsletter farewells “splinters” – members who have died, such as Peter, “a quiet man who was very keen on detail”.
Country sheds are different from city sheds and each shed has a distinct personality, but common to all of them is what Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam defines as “social capital”. His book Bowling Alone mourned the decline of community engagement in an era when membership means paying a membership fee without having to show up.

Shoulder to shoulder
“What blokes come to do is the excuse, not the reason,” Lane Cove Men’s Shed founding member Ted Donnelly tells me. “Men want to be on their own to laugh and chat. It leads to other things in their lives, opens the door to the outside community.” What started as somewhere for men to meet has delivered spin-offs that tick every box associated with good health for a gender prone to keeping quiet about problems.
For decades women have hogged the health and social agenda with their campaigns. Men are much more likely than women to commit suicide, particularly as they get older, but men’s battles with depression and prostate cancer are only now getting widespread attention. It’s the networking men have to work on. Women are masters at it, used to being the social lubricant greasing community wheels and school committees, making lifelong contacts, talking intimately with ease. That’s why the shed’s mantra is “shoulder to shoulder, not face to face”.
Donnelly mentions one member at Lane Cove, on Sydney’s lower north shore, who’d been coming to the shed for seven months. “One day he sat down to fill out a form. He was struggling. Finally he looked around and said, ‘I can’t write. I left school when I was 12.’ I’ll guarantee he’d never admitted that to a group before. We felt privileged that he felt confident enough to tell us.”
Such conversational downloading is therapy enough but the sheds are pioneering other health services. “I remember in the early stages people from the North Shore hospital coming and talking about prostate cancer. Everyone was a bit stiff, but about nine months later blokes were going in for tests, and talking to each other about things they’d never dream of revealing outside.” Mobile screening units now travel to sheds; last year doctors visiting Lane Cove detected five men out of 120 who needed immediate treatment. The same occurred in Maitland recently with seven out of 200 men sent straight to hospital.
Donnelly joined the Lane Cove shed because he was interested in carpentry and didn’t have room for a workshop at home, but he quickly became activist and advocate. He authored a 91-page manual on setting up your own shed which he’s distributed all over the world – to Japan, the US, Europe and New Zealand. He once catalogued 71 different activities on offer in sheds across the land: from metalwork to lead lighting to bonsai to cooking to carpentry, you name it.
In shed land, men rattle off the names of those responsible for their own patch of sawdust but they are clueless about the bigger picture. Word of mouth undoubtedly plays its part as momentum builds but surely there’s more here than a happy confluence of events. Lane Cove, which opened in 1997, is a contender for the first men’s shed; a man called Keith Spence was the spearhead but he’s since died. Donnelly says the shed began in a garage under a retirement home with help from Uniting Care and the local council after the North Shore hospital identified “an awful lot of retired people not faring well on their own” in a region with high numbers of older residents in units. Immediately I detect the footprints of a policy, a coordinated response by social agencies.
“Don’t start an argument, please,” begs David Helmers, the AMSA’s executive officer, when I ask him to step me through the genesis of the men’s shed movement. He became involved in sheds while working for CatholicCare in the Hunter Valley region of NSW but sheds soon demanded his full-time attention. “We thought we’d plateaued out some time ago but so many governments are looking at it. It’s history in the making,” he says, too overwhelmed by the present to go poking through the past. “There’s half a dozen that evolved around the same period and we don’t need sheds to start debating who was first.”
AMSA patron Professor Barry Golding, of the University of Ballarat, is so swept up in the role of sheds as mature-age classrooms he’s woolly on their chronology and precisely who deserves the credit. Nevertheless, there’s evidence that sheds work, he says, referring to a suite of studies documenting the way men learn by doing. “Sheds transform the lives of men and communities. I’ve visited over 100 of them now and wherever you go these guys are shaking and moving and making fundamental differences to their lives.”
In the Victorian town of Melton, rouse-about Chris Carlyon, 33, who cares for a sick wife and their three young kids, two of them autistic, was jobless and worn down when he heard about the local men’s shed. “I came here the next day,” he says. That was six months ago. “I’ve been doing up kids’ bikes. It’s good. I come here to work and talk and I go home a much happier person than I was before.”
Another Melton regular, Barry Williamson, 64, believes the shed cured him of the depression that struck when disability ended his days driving trucks. “I love the companionship and the community,” he says. His wife, Lynette, calls herself a “shed widow”, albeit cheerfully. “He’s a leader down there, which makes him feel important, and he really gets excited when he helps people make things. It gets him out of the house. He’s there all the time. He’s never home!”
There’s resistance to the portrayal of sheds as catchments for the down and out, the marginalised, the broken. They’re not. They’re rich with skills and spirit and ingenuity. Mathematicians, carpenters, retired policemen, ex-school teachers, former shearers. Tales of how sheds got going invariably bring up individuals who visited one on their travels or heard of one on the grapevine and returned home convinced of the need in their own paddock.
Professor Golding jokes that sheds are like Aladdin’s genies: rub a lamp somewhere and a shed transpires. When I press him for a lead on the spark that lit this brushfire he points me to others who might know, including Mark Thomson and Adelaide gerontologist Dr Leon Earle. I seek out Rob Willis, leader of the National Library’s oral history project on sheds. His research is on hold while he juggles another research priority, but he sends me his notes, including the list of persons of interest. Dr Earle is second, after Mark Thomson, but he hasn’t been interviewed yet. I track Earle down and hit gold.

A confounding puzzle
Like any scientific Eureka moment, Leon Earle’s breakthrough came after years of slog, shoe leather and a confounding puzzle he simply had to solve. The former university professor, 68, had made older Australians his patch since his 1978 doctoral study of what happens to people who relocate in retirement. Not the sexiest topic for a young academic, but the policy challenges of an ageing population meant Earle was on to something as governments worried over housing, planning, infrastructure and health services for this looming demographic bulge.
His PhD research uncovered an emerging problem. It revealed a cohort of unhappy retired men who had scant networks outside of work and home, and who felt isolated and inadequate. Earle’s first shed project was the one he helped his four brothers build for their father, Norm, when ill health forced an early retirement and they decided to encourage his interest in bee-keeping as a hobby and source of income. Friends visited the shed to see what he was up to, glad for a jar of honey.
When Earle was commissioned by the South Australian Department of Recreation and Sport in 1985 to find out what seniors were doing for leisure he experienced a light-bulb flash. He had expected the survey would show men withdrawing from work and turning to other activities such as gardening, reading, watching TV or visiting mates. But once the results were tabulated it seemed men did nothing much at all.
The mystery intrigued Earle. He noticed the word “shed” cropping up in household interviews so he stationed researchers in suburban streets to watch what retired men actually did. Many of them left the house with a packed lunch and went to their sheds. Reinvigorated by this discovery, Earle and his team beavered away to find out why men use their sheds and why what they do there is crucial to men’s identity and fulfilment. He continued his research, refining his idea of community sheds as a lifeline for mature-age men, testing the philosophy at retirement villages, urging policymakers to share his vision of social centres that offer older men purpose: self-expression, activities, identity, intergen¬erational links with sons and grandchildren, territorial pride, personal space, a learning environment, interaction with others. He pitched the concept to whoever would listen.
“It wasn’t always easy,” he tells me. “I recall one newly appointed South Australian minister for ageing who’d called me in for a briefing saying: ‘Don’t you think you’re a bit enthusiastic!’ I thought it was a pity he wasn’t because enthusiasm makes things happen.” Sheds began to appear in retirement complexes from the mid ’80s. Lane Cove was not the first community shed. Victor Harbor on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula claims that honour for opening its doors in 1990. Earle was a consultant.
Awakening people to the power of the shed involved Earle publishing his research, teaching students, and training staff in nursing homes and retirement villages. “Sheds provide blokes with a sense of past, present and future,” he wrote in 1992. “They might house things done in the past, activities of the present, and projects for tomorrow. (See that wood over there? Well I’m going to use that to make…) Sheds also provide men with a sense of respect… a place where they can teach skills to their children, tell stories to their grandchildren, discuss important matters with mates and consider all sorts of issues...
“[But] for many men sheds are centres of isolation... This is partly why we have introduced projects to have men meet in one another’s sheds, to plan community service projects (for schools, service clubs, churches, and neighbours). We are also encouraging retirement complexes to add sheds... to provide blokes with an activity, interest and a base.” In early 1995, Earle released the report Sheds and Male Retirement: A Place To Go... And Come Back From.
Slowly, his efforts gained traction, shed by shed. Modest and quietly spoken, he’s pleased that I’ve rung him to pin down his contribution, and after digging through archived boxes in his own backyard haunt he furnishes me with the paper trail chronicling his tireless campaign for a revolutionary policy.
“I’ve received scores of letters from men and women and community services personnel over the last 30 years thanking me for my research, for promoting sheds,” he says. One of them, dated August 5, 1985, described Earle’s draft leisure strategy for South Australia as “a landmark document that is perhaps 30 years ahead of its time”.
The gratitude is louder still wherever men meet to saw and yack. At the newly opened Lightning Ridge shed in the heart of outback NSW opal mining country, “Fox” answers the phone and suggests I ring Chuck Peters, who’s under a truck fixing brakes but takes my call anyway. “We have a desperate need for it; plenty of lonely men living out of town,” he says. “We’ve got 50 members and we’re growing daily.”
Maitland shed in the Hunter Valley is a year old and 140-strong. Retired policeman Ted Borradil is on the blower singing its merits. “Fellas who have come out of their shells, for want of a better word, their faces open up, they’ve got somewhere to go, someone to talk to, getting things off their chest, not hanging about moping at home.”
AMSA patron Professor John Macdonald, a health policy guru at the University of Western Sydney, points to a growing body of empirical evidence that shows men’s networking in sheds “actually builds immune systems”. One of his PhD students is measuring hormonal changes in men’s urine before and after attendance at a shed to compare cortisone levels, which are associated with anxiety. Macdonald is confident the results will confirm what he already knows to be true. “There is a change, a definite improvement in men as a result of a sense of belonging that builds resilience,” he says. In October he’ll address an international conference on prostate cancer in Vienna to promote the impact of sheds on men’s health. “Australia is giving us an example of how cheaply we can improve men’s wellbeing through social inclusion,” he says.
AMSA executive officer David Helmers says: “It’s hard for us to calculate how many lives have been saved through the sheds once you take into account suicide prevention, particularly in remote and rural areas. We don’t have the figures but we hear all the time of interventions.”

Hope floats
Every shed has a story of restoration - restoration of spirit, purpose and hope. And at Hobsons Bay, the restoration of a boat. On Friday mornings Alistair Gray and Ron Locke sweat over their handiwork and map out the next phase of reconstruction. “I don’t know what I’ll do when the boat’s finished,” Gray shrugs. She’s due to launch next summer. When I suggest they christen her Leon Earle, there’s a puzzled silence.
The Adelaide gerontologist has been made a life member of the Diversional Therapy Association for his work on sheds but he’s hardly a household name, and no Australian honour has been pinned to his lapel. A shed is no Opera House. Perhaps the humble nature of its architecture discourages bouquets and plaudits. Linking men and sheds might not seem spectacularly original. But it’s that extra leap of faith required to imagine the possibilities of backyard sheds as community hives. What seems a small step for man goes a great mile more for mankind.
                       



  Kate Legge
 From:
The Australian
June 25, 2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Alison Homestead Men's Shed projects


The old Yarramalong School
nearing completion 
 in it’s New location.
The Alison Homestead provides an ideal location for a Men’s Shed, with plenty of activities to challenge everyone to either learn a new skill, or pass on an existing skill to others.






We are proud of the
produce from
our community garden

Our recent projects have included:

  1. The rebuilding of the Yarramalong School onto a slab on the Western side of our property. Most of our volunteers were involved in some form on this project which continued for approximately 12 months.
  2. The Community garden.
  3. Volunteer Greg
    Cutting down a stump
  4. Alison Homestead being a large property, there are always tree trimming/felling being performed, and the associated turning into firewood. Additional projects such as the laying of the Pioneer walk way will also commence shortly.
Volunteer Wayne shaving
 a Log for use in
 a future project

Friday, June 24, 2011

History Week

The Mobile Mens Shed will attend the History Week celebrations at the Alison Homestead.

Alison Homestead History Week event is on Saturday 3 September 2011


History Week runs between 3-11 September 2001



Gathering of the Clans

The Mobile Men's Shed
will attend the
Gathering of the Clans
27 August 2011Toukley
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The Mobile Men's Shed will attend the Gathering of the Clans
27 August 2011
Toukley
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Thursday, June 23, 2011

San Remo Social Enterprise Bar-B-Que

Manno at Bateau

The Men from Manno gathered at Mannering Park early in the morning and loaded onto the bus for the trip to Bateau Bay.

Arriving with plenty of time the Manno Mens Shedders were given the full tour by experienced guide and president, John Sharples. After some talk about the centre of activity, the meeting room, they took a tour of the metal work shed followed by some well supplied morning tea.

After an extended morning tea with jokes supplied by George, Bruce Wall from Mannering Park thanked John and the Bateau Bay Men's Shed for the hospitality on their visit.

The tour continued in the carpentry workshop while the Bateau Bay shedders resumed work on various projects. The new awning and extensions were discussed and contribution by ADSSI to the development was strongtly acknowldged.

The garden is not much to show yet but Johns description of the potential of the site for a lunch room, disability toilet and extensive commuinity garden make it all very real.

The video from AMSA was show and some general discussion about the way ahead rounded out an extensive visit and was concluded by a visit from Marty Leist.

After a sausage sandwich the Manno Bus headed north and the new shedders were a buzz with ideas and enthusiasm for a shed in Mannering Park.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

NAIDOC week - Mobile Men's Shed

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Kid's Day Out 2011

Central Coast Kids Day Out will run this year between 10 am and 2pm on Sunday, 6 November 2011.


Kids Day Out (KDO) is a major event on the Central Coast, celebrating young children and their families. It is a collaborative effort of a wide variety of organisations that are united in their concern for the health and welfare of our children.
______
The Mobile Men's Shed attended last year and was very popular with young kids and familes engaged in building projects.

Mens Interagency AGM

The Men's Interagency Central Coast Inc will hold its Annual General Meeting at 1.30 pm on 15 August 2011 in the Tuggerah Lakes Community Centre.

For futher information and official notices please see the Mens Interagency Website...click here.

White Ribbon Breakfast

Central Coast Shed Cluster Inc are involved in the planning of the White Ribbon Breakast auspiced by the Men's Interagency Central Coast.

Following the successful event last year at Kooindah Waters the Men's Interagency is keen to promote the local White Ribbon Breakfast coinciding with the international campaign for White Ribbon Day.

White Ribbon Day

The White Ribbon Breakfast this year will be on 25 November 2011
_______________
The Steering Committee for the White Ribbon Breakfast will meet at 1 pm on Thursday  21 July 2011 at the Wesley Dalmar offices Anzac Road, Tuggerah. 

Win some $$ for your shed

The Mobile Men's Shed has now been taking Community Engagement Projects to communty events for a year. This has been a very successful project with kids and parents engaging in the construction of tissue boxes, learning new skills, working as a team in the family and the joy of completing a project.

Decorating the finished project
The engagement projects have built the Central Coast Men's Sheds a strong reputation in community with individuals, funding bodies and service providers. With 120 items built at Dad's Day Out on Sunday, that brings the total count to over 700 tissues boxes now proudly displayed in homes across the Central Coast.

The next stage of this project is to have an alternative to the "tissue box" projects. A simple construction project that will provide an alternative to the current hot seller.

The Central Coast Shed Cluster Inc is offering $100 prize to a member shed that can design a new Community Engagement Project. The successful shed should also take into consideration their ability to produce the items in 100 lot orders and keep the price to a minimum ( pre item under $3.00) inclusive of materials. This competition will be judged by the executive of the Cluster Committee. All designs will become the property of the competition. The decision of the judges will be final. The decision will be announced at the Annual General Meeting.

Criteria for Community Engagement Projects for the Mobile Men's Shed.

  1. Design - safety - skill level - wide tolerances required.
  2. Darren building
    tissue boxes at
    Naidoc Week 2009
  3. Construction techniques need to be suitable for young children and parents with few construction skills helping the kids.
  4. Tools - hammers are a must ( kids like to hammer & make a noise) , clamps, sanding.  NO glue.
  5. Community involvement - kids need to contribute in the making of the project, it is not for parents to take over.
  6. Need to be carried away easily.
  7. Finishing can be done at home.
  8. To be made by a Shed and delivered as a 'flat pack'
  9. Project to be finished in 10 minutes.
  10. Unit price under $3.00 inclusive of materials
  11. Abilty to supply 100 unit orders
 Entry forms available shortly...all enquiries to cluster email.

Monday, June 20, 2011

MISTER

The lastest June edition of MISTER newsletter is now available. .. click here

If you don't receive this magazine through regular channels, you might like to have a look the new MISTER website.

Read back issues and find out current information from the MISTER blog.

Prostate Cancer Support Group - Central Coast

The Central Coast Prostate Support Group meet on the last Friday of the month at 9-30 at the Uniting Church at Terrigal.


Normally have a good guest speaker and morning tea and the librarian has a table full of information..


There are two continance nurses from Northern Area Health in attendance.


George Collie

George is an excellent speaker. He is available to speak to Men's Sheds, community groups or men's groups. Contact George via email.

Manno visits Bateau

Manno Men's Shed are visiting Bateau Bay Men's Shed this Thursday 23 June and everyone is looking forward to a discussion on men's sheds over a sausage sandwich.


Manno Men are meeting up at the Mannering Park Community Hall at 8.30am where car pooling will be organised.
Bruce Wall
President
Manno Men's Shed

Blokes Group


The new Blokes Group met today at the Peninsula Men's Shed. This is a discussion group that lets men have a say and learn about the issues that affect their health. This growing group of men set aside time to listen and talk. They also share some time over lunch with the shedders in the friendly shed dining room atmosphere.


Eric

The Blokes Group meets in the Lounge Area at the Peninsula Men's Shed led by Eric.
Always a chance to share stories and have a laugh.


Sunday, June 19, 2011

Manno Mens Shed getting about

Geoge Wall and Peter Dean discussing Men's Sheds
Peter Dean, Vice President of the Manno Men's Shed was visiting Dad's Day Out on Sunday and spent some time talking with other shedders at the event.


He had a chance to see the Mobile Mens Shed in action and the Community engagement projects in full swing.


Peter also took the opportunity to visit the San Remo Stall and Bar-B-Que.


The Manno Men's Shed are travelling to Bateau Bay Men's Shed on Thursday to meet the shedders and learn some more about the joys of shedding.

San Remo Mens Shed Bar-B-Que

The San Remo Men's Shed provided the Free Bar-B-Que for the Dad's Day Out at Colongra Bay. The set up the new gazebo with three sides and a substantial BBQ plate. With many helpers to set it up, many helpers to cook and kept the drinks on ice, the BBQ was all set to serve up the 250 sausages and drinks request by the organising committee.

The Dad's Day was very popular and the dads and kids feeling the need for food ate out the sausages by noon. The organising committee came to the party with additional funds and a quick dash for more sausages had the queue 20 deep again...
well done
San Remo Community Mens Shed !!

Dads Day Out - Colongra Bay

Dad's Day Out was a great success with a bright sunny day and none of the wind and rain that has been hanging about over the last few weeks.

The Mobile Men's Shed was kept busy supporting up to 17 workstation for the construction of tissue boxes. All the available equipment was fully engaged including
  • 15 lightweight steel handled hammers
  • 5 medium weight wooden hammers
  • 2 full size hammers
  • 9 mitre clamps

Over 120 tissue boxes were constructed by kids with the assistance of dads and mums, siblings and grandpaprents on the day. Given the intense activity, varied levels of skills and mix of young and old there was just good cooperative building going on not a harsh word but many a happy face.

Most of the boxes built had some careful decoration with crayon and tatoos, paint and glitter to finish of a project for kids and families to treasure.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Working with Step Families

Kim, John, Ed, Darren, Eric and Jim
The Central Coast Men's Shed were well represented at the Interrelate Working with Step-Families workshop.

representation of
step-families
on display
 at the workshop
The workshop provided information and experience to those attending from that work Intrrelate do with families in both counselling and conflict resolution. Data was also presented from research in local Out Of School Care centres. This data indicated that 10  percent of children at one cetnre are in step families and almost all in the other centre in the study are in similar blended families.

Working with these families and understanding the complexitiy of familial relationships is a difficult and increasingly mainstream area in the community sector.

Kooindah Waters is a well presented and relaxed environment for discussion about what can be a difficult and challenging working role.

Interrelate offer a range of services specific to men including being a dad, conflict resolution and anger management for workshops and course please visit the Mens Service page of the Interrelate website.... here

Cluster presenting at AMHF Perth conference

Kim Hopkins is presenting a paper on Male Health Initiatives on the Central Coast. Below is the abstract accepted for the Conference.
_______________________
Title
Community Engagement - Central Coast Initiatives for building male role models
Abstract
     The Central Coast Shed Cluster Inc and the Central Coast Men's Interagency Inc have created, implemented and operated a wide range of initiatives that address the role or men in the lives of men in their children, families and the community. The Central Coast is a defined region that has a range of social issues. Some of these are gender specific. These range from high rates of male suicide to the lack of male role models in single parent families. 
     The initiatives are practical, sustainable and focussed on enriching positive role models of men. Initiatives that range from building simple construction projects at community events, to structured progammes with foster carer and respite workers with single parent families. The programs have also developed initiates that address family and community violence and children that use violence at home. Engaging with Aboriginal communities, diverse cultures, socially isolated males and men with disabilities ensures a wide level of engagement for all Central Coast males
    
Initiatives also include boys, with activities at community events, programs at sheds and mentor opportunities with community minded men.
    A strong core of community minded males have built Men's Sheds as a core initiative. These have a normalising effect on the local community that allow the development of a broader range of initiatives. Males accepted in the community of men are accepted in the broader community. Men are then able to address broader social issues that concern themselves and their community. Partnerships with other service providers, social welfare networks and community groups enable a broad reach across the community.  Men are able to address issues to do with their own health, the happiness of their families and with the strength of their community.

Billy cart Derby

A reminder to all those building high quality vehicles for the Ginger Meggs Billy Cart Derby that there are only ten days till race day....

26 June 2011

 start time 9 am

Georgiana Tce, Gosford

have a look at the one Bateau Bay built ..click here

Grants Writing Workshop

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DIY Male Health Toolboxes

14 June 2011

The Australian Government is funding DIY Male Health Toolboxes to be sent to men’s sheds around the country.

The announcement by the Minister for Indigenous Health, Warren Snowdon, was made as he launched Men’s Health Week with Australian Men’s Shed Association Patron Tim Mathieson in Canberra today.
“These are actual metal toolbox that will contain a combination of health promotion materials
featuring resources suitable to a shed environment.

“We know that men don’t always feel comfortable picking up a brochure in public – so these promotion materials such as carpenter’s pencils, tape measures, and magnetic clips will be more subtle and hopefully infiltrate sheds with positive health-related messages.”

Mr Mathieson and Mr Snowdon today joined Brumbies players for free health checks provided by ACT Divisions of General Practice at the Sea Scout’s Men’s Shed in Tuggeranong.

Mr Snowdon said he was also pleased to launch a new report funded by the Australian Government and conducted by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) which suggest many males remain at risk of poor health.

“These toolboxes are a timely reminder for men to address some of the very serious issues raised in AIHW’s The Health of Australian Males report.

“This report shows some disturbing data, including that less than five per cent of males eat sufficient fruit and vegetables and two-thirds of adult males are overweight or obese.

“Men need to make a difference to their own health by taking positive health action – now.
“Eat more fruit and vegetables, lose weight, exercise more, think about your mental health and see your GP regularly – this is the call to action for Australian men as part of this year’s Men’s Health Week,” he said.

The AIHW report also found: [see further statistics attached]
nearly one-third have a chronic health condition such as cancer or diabeties; and
Australian men make fewer GP visits than women and only 40% of men discuss healthy lifestyle issues with health professionals

Mr Snowdon said the statistical bulletin provided by AIHW, was the first in a series being funded by the Australian Government.

To improve male health, Mr Snowdon said the Australian Government is providing:
  • $10,000 grants to 20 Men’s Sheds for purchasing tools, renovations and support
  • $2.2m to support the Australian Men’s Sheds Association to employ staff and develop new opportunities to engage men and their communities
  • $6.9 m for Australia’s first national longitudinal study
  • $6.8 m to support 13 organisations across Australia to promote the role of Indigenous fatherhood and encourage men to become more active in the lives of their children
  • the nation’s first ever National Male Health Policy, aimed at promoting the importance of Australian men looking after their health and wellbeing
“All the work the Australian Government is undertaking is to support men to change their behaviour, both in terms of increasing their willingness to access health care and reducing the risks they take with their health,” Mr Snowdon said.

At the event a new program called “Spanner in the Works’ was launched. It will promote free health checks and guest speakers for Australian Men’s Sheds, through the Australian Men’s Shed Association.
This year’s National Men’s Health Week runs from 13 June - 19 June, with activities planned around the nation to raise the profile of men’s health.

The toolkits will be available from September 2011.

The AIHW report is available to download at:

http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/phe/141/aihw_20110614_12928.pdf

For more information, contact Mr Snowdon’s office (02) 6277 7820

Male Health Statistics

Male Health Statistics (General)

In 2010, there were
  • 11.1 million males living in Australia (49.8 per cent of the population).
  • The median age is 36 years.
  • Life expectancy for males is 79 years compared with women at almost 84 years. Australian Social Trends, released in June 2010 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, revealed that life expectancy for Australian males has increased to over 79 years and that the gap between Australian men and women has narrowed by one year over the past decade.
  • Four per cent of males rate their health as poor and nearly half have had a mental health condition, nearly one-quarter have had a disability and nearly one-third have a chronic health condition.
The leading causes of death (2007) for Australian males are:
  • Coronary heart disease (17.2%)
  • Lung cancer (6.7%)
  • Cerebrovascular diseases (6.4%)
  • Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (4.2%)
  • Prostate cancer (4.2%)
  • Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease (3.4%)
  • Colorectal cancer (3.1%)
  • While males make up a smaller proportion of GP visits, they make up a greater proportion of emergency department presentations.
  • Approximately two-thirds of males participate in sport or physical activity (2009-10)
  • Males overall are more likely than females to engage in risky behaviours such as smoking and illicit drug use and are more likely to be overweight or obese.
  • Males experience higher mortality rates than women across all ages. Reasons for the mortality differences between men and women are complex and involve the interaction of biological, social and environmental factors.
  • Much of this mortality and morbidity is related to disease and injuries that are preventable.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Mental Health Telephone Access Line NSW

NSW Health has introduced a new Mental Health Telephone Access Line across NSW. 

It is being promoted as the Mental Health Line and the number is 1800 011 511.  

Anyone in NSW with a mental health issue can use the Mental Health Line to be directed to the right care for them. 

For example, people on the Central Coast who ring the Mental Health Line will be directed to the local Mental Health Line service (previously known as Central Intake).

FYI - the new Mental Health Line number (1800 011 511) that replaces the old Central Intake number (4320 3500).

PLEASE NOTE:  For a period of time during the transition from the old number to the new number, people calling the old Central Intake number will be automatically diverted to the new Mental Health Line.

Vice-President Darren Maxwell to present at National Gathering in Perth

Darren Maxwell, Vice-President of the Central Coast Shed Cluster Inc has prepared an abstract of a paper for presentation to the National Men's Health Gathering in Perth later this year. Below is the abstract submitted for consideration. 
National Men's
 Heatlh Gathering
2011

The World Federation for Mental Health supports the premise that individuals, in a social and cultural context, are the centre of the caring process.


Care-seeking and care-providing are complimentary activities that provide cohesion between individuals their families and communities. Social and systemic values embody the provision for, and delivery of, community health care quality and sustainability.


The mental and emotional health care need of an individual begins to rely less on family, particularly the mother, as a child approaches teenage years. For young males the requirement that they experience an interactive level of social inclusion with other healthy males is of paramount importance in the development of healthy moral, ethical and social behavioural patterns.

 
Social inclusion begins to play a role in healthy male attitudes as the change from boy to man begins to occur. The years of transitioning from a world of co-dependant child like wonder and imagination to the reality of self determination and survival make the teenage years a dangerous combination of trial and error for many young men.


The Mens Shed movement is ideally positioned to endorse, embrace and promote as a core component of its social inclusion and community engagement strategy, the positive mental health aspects of mentoring and role modelling for young men.


This paper explores how Australian mens sheds can play a key role in the early strengthening of healthy masculine creativity and the development of positive mental health outcomes for young Australian males.

__________________________________________

Abstract: