The History of our Shed
Our first ever meeting was in February 2019 whereby we held a meeting, that was advertised in our local Blue Mountains Gazette, at our host’s premises Kihilla Christian Conference Centre & Resort.
This is an excerpt from our inaugural President, Greg Birtles who has recently moved away to Sydney’s North Shore.
“The Central Mountains Men’s Shed has been a surprising success. My initial thoughts and ideas that I expressed to a group of men who used to meet monthly at the Wentworth Falls Pie shop was to set up a space for men to get together more regularly (we were only meeting once a month). Men could be involved in small jobs and projects but more importantly would have time to spend in the company of other men.
The pie shop outings were arranged through the Mid Mountains Neighbourhood Centre (now Belong Blue Mountains) as part of the home visitors program run through the centre and specifically to provide older men with the chance to socialise.
I had been involved with Kihilla Conference Centre as part of a graffiti removal initiative that I set up with the newly formed community group – the Hazelbrook Association some 10 years or more ago. With the initial financial help of one of the members, I and another member commenced removing graffiti in Hazelbrook.
Kihilla at the time was set up as a drug and rehabilitation centre with the requirement for the men to perform community service every Wednesday. The management at the time were keen to assist our efforts and every Wednesday 2 or 3 men would join me to remove graffiti.
In late 2018 I approached Kihilla management (at this time it was no longer a drug and rehabilitation centre but a conference centre) and Board to set up a Men’s Shed.
They willingly agreed to host a shed.
At a gathering of 37 men in January 2019 there was considerable enthusiasm to establish a shed – so Central Mountains Men’s Shed was formed. There was a lot to do as the shed we were offered along with the 1890s coach house required a lot of cleaning out and fixing but the men were enthusiastic. Although the creation of the shed was a team effort, I do wish to acknowledge Jim Watson and Mark Metcalf gave a lot of their time and tools to this fledging venture. Mark was also a power of strength and the late Andrew Jamieson in his cheerful way planned and bossed us all around.
With folk like this and many others the shed did grow at an amazing pace to the point where now it has outgrown the Kihilla venue.
Initially, the shed catered not only for those involved in woodwork and metal work as well as those interested in gardening, it was also a place for a few men whose preference, sometimes dictated by physical limitations, was to spend time in conversation with other men.
Unfortunately, we have lost contact with this group of men following the Covid lock downs.”
Since COVID we have grown at a rapid rate and have become known throughout the Blue Mountains as a place where articles can be designed and made, projects undertaken for community groups such as picnic tables, benches, possum and bird boxes, we even helped out after the bushfires making watering stations to help the native wildlife.
Our membership has grown almost weekly as there is a great need to support, mainly older men, with their mental and physical health and avoid the isolation, loneliness and boredom of living alone or without suitable male support.
Amongst our membership we have one female member, granted membership because of her outstanding skills in furniture restoration and French polishing and one 37-year-old Downs Syndrome man together with his carer who is learning week by week how to use machines of every type, under strict supervision, and making items for his family, friends and work colleagues, a great achievement.
Central Mountains Men’s Shed has our local State member Trish Doyle as our Patron and has supported us since inception which we are very grateful of.
In addition, we partner with belong Blue Mountains in assisting older community members with small tasks that tradesmen would not do such as changing light globes, mowing, trimming and small gardening jobs which can be booked via Belong.
Part of our site at Kihilla is also host to Mid Mountains Community gardens and Blue Mountains beekeepers who have use of our coach house and equipment for morning teas and meetings.
We also support Lawson Bowling Club and Hazelbrook Bowling and Sports Club where we hold our annual Christmas party for members and their partners plus invited guests from within the community including the mayor, deputy mayor of council and our patron.
Blue Mountains Women’s shed has also utilised our facilities over time using our shed and its tools to help build their group, unfortunately they are experiencing internal factions so have temporarily moved away.
Our regular bi-monthly newsletters include items relating to the health and wellbeing of our members and we have covered such topics as prostate health, heart health, anxiety and depression, strokes and seizures using articles taken from established groups. We have also had guest speakers on topics relating to pain management and mental health and in coming months some of our first aid officers will be undertaking mental health courses run by Springwood and Katoomba neighbourhood centres to enhance our skills.
Our shed is powering ahead and trying to meet local expectations by taking on new members, numbers of which now exceed 43, which is straining our current location, and fulfilling the needs of the community. We are hoping to obtain a larger more suitable site in the near future so that we can come together with other likeminded groups.
