Visit to Australian Men's Sheds

Men's Sheds began life in Australia and have spread around the world with about 57 in Hampshire alone. Having visited Australia recently I called in on two Melbourne sheds very close to where I was staying. The first was Beaumaris Men's Shed which is in the district of Beaumaris, an eastern suburb of Melbourne. What an amazing shed! Two huge buildings house a large social meeting space and the second a very large workshop, sub-divided into sections to minimise the noise and separate the storage. The workshop is equiped with a huge range of professional grade machines supported by an industrial dust extraction system. The social space has a good number of comfortable sofas, billiard table, numerous board games, and a few meeting rooms in which they can plan future projects. There is of course a well equiped kitchen with ample stocks of biscuits and refreshments.

The Mordialloc Men's Shed is on a smaller scale, and like our own Alton shed is an old St John's Ambulance Centre building. The workshop is relatively small, but their social area is large and equiped with many tables and chairs that regularly accommodates their membership of some thirty men who spend the bulk of their time dinking tea and coffee while puting the world to rights. Strangely very few of them are interested in the workshop activities.

Both these men's sheds are supported by their local councils and they are treated as wellbeing centres who do not pay a rental on their premises. In addition the local Bunnings DIY store has provided them with many of their consumables and tools. A tradition of Bunnings is to hold a regular sausage sizzle in their car park supported by local charities who run the events and take home the income earned.

We have a way to go here in the UK, but in the case of the Alton Men's Shed we are now off the bottom rung and climing the ladder. If you are interested please do come by the Edgar Hall in Anstey Park any week day morning and find out more about us.