By RUSSELL BENNETT
THE Hills Men’s Shed is finally up and running, more than six months after its official opening.
Recent battles against vandals spraying graffiti at the shed site at Cockatoo’s Alma Treloar Reserve caused a great deal of distress for the shed’s members after seemingly endless hours of hard work to get it operational.
But the men’s shed members recently held their first annual general meeting at their new base – signifying the dawn of a new era for the group.
“They finally got the funds for the shed to be built, and it was officially opened about November last year, but they’ve only received the occupancy maybe a month ago,” said Jenny Hoskins, who is now involved in the Hills Men’s Shed after previously helping to set up another shed at Yarra Junction.
She has a background in counselling and community health, with her last two roles coming in the community development field.
She estimated that there were 27 current members of the Hills Men’s Shed, but less than half of those were “really active”.
If more decided to come along to the new shed, there could be the potential for it to be open seven days a week.
Men’s sheds are non-profit organisations that play a key role in the improvement of both the mental and physical health of local blokes. They provide an avenue for men of all ages to come along and join a friendly, welcoming community – which often acts as a support network when times get tough.
“Men can get quite depressed – particularly after they’ve retired or if they have an illness that stops them from working anymore,” Ms Hoskins said.
“Because the older generation are in their 70s or 80s, their wives have perhaps not worked all their lives so they sometimes find it really hard because they’ve got this bloke around the house and they don’t know what to do with him,” she said.
Men’s sheds have long played a vital role in creating and maintaining community-oriented programs in the local areas in which they are based, with the Yarra Junction shed welcoming in local youngsters as a way of stamping out its own graffiti problem.
Hills Men’s Shed co-ordinator Gavin Harrison said the simple reason he joined up was that “the shed can help blokes”.
“Men don’t talk about their health, and I’ve been the same,” he said.
“A few of us have gone through cancer here and another fella who’s spoken to us has said what’s been happening with him. We’ve told him to go and see his doctor – blokes do listen to other blokes.”
Mr Harrison said his group realised it had a lot of work ahead with unpacking and sorting through all the donations they’ve received from the local community.
“Some of it will be no good – it will go to trash eventually – but some of it we’ll be able to mix and match and make something decent out of, and maybe sell it at a garage sale here to make funds like Emerald does because we need to be able to produce around $11,000 a year to stay open – that’s with insurance and power and everything else.
They’re a great bunch of blokes, these guys, so I thoroughly enjoy being a part of it.”
The Hills Men’s Shed welcomes members from Cockatoo and its surrounding towns, including Gembrook, Avonsleigh and Macclesfield. Its current opening hours are 10am to 4pm each Tuesday and Wednesday. For information on how to get involved, call Gavin Harrison on 5968 1873 or send an email to lizgavinharrison@bigpond.com.
