“I’m originally from South Australia. I was living up in the Adelaide Hills with my sister and a bushfire came through. We were surrounded by fire. I saved my sisters house and lost the cabin I was living in with 70 years worth of stuff. I came out with my car and my dog. I’m 74 now.
I came up here when I retired and I needed something to do. I was told about the Lismore Men’s Shed and have been here almost 7 years. At that stage we were just moving into this space here at the Lismore show ground. There was a lot of work to be done. There were concrete tables and seats reinforced into the floor. We had to remove all those. At that time we had a membership of 8 people. In 2017 we became incorporated as our own entity. Since we’ve been incorporated our membership has grown to about 40. It’s called the Men’s Shed but it’s men and community shed, men, women, people with disabilities, people who have mental health issues. We are here to provide a safe, supportive, friendly environment for all people of all ages to be able to learn new skills and seek fellowship with other like minded people.
I’ve had a fair bit of life experience. I do quite a bit of counselling in here for people with black dog syndrome and try to help them sort shit out. If I ask someone I can see is struggling if they’re ok and and they tell me they are I say, ‘Don’t bullshit me, answer me, talk to me.’ I know blokes don’t like to talk. I’m a qualified youth worker and I’ve been in the security game for a very long time. I’ve become very community orientated since I’ve been involved with The Men Shed. We have people that come here who hardly speak a word and within a few months they are interacting like they’ve been here forever. That’s what we want, an integrated group of people.
We have taken on community projects for people who can’t afford to get trades people in to do jobs for them like repairing stairs and that sort of thing.
Our major project for this particular shed which is a working shed is we do up caravans, battered old caravans for homeless Veterans, not necessarily Vietnam vets, just Vet’s. We’ve completed one so far. We turned a 20 foot caravan into 2 rooms. The windows were out and there was no cladding in it whatsoever. We insulated it thanks to The Woolmen in Alstonville who gave us bits and pieces they kept for us. The Alstonville Caravan Repairs started keeping stuff they were taking off their vans so we could use them. We furnished, carpeted and waterproofed it and it was very well received. We are hoping to get 2 done this year.
Unfortunately we are at loggerheads with some people from the show society and they have asked us to remove our caravans from the area. We have permission to park them over at the Palms Caravan Park in a high spot. The problem is we have no shed to work on them in, no electricity. We’d love to have somewhere to work on them, even just an awning where we have cover and power.
We’ve just an inspection done on this shed by the Crown Lands Department and they are also not happy about the amount of timber we have stored here because it is a fire hazard. There is a shed over there in Engine St which is an old engine repair shed. It’s 100 feet long. It’s heritage listed but we know what we could do with it. The roof leaks but it’s all stuff that we can fix. The problem is they only want to sell it. We are looking at hiring a shed which we don’t really want to do but we need to store stuff so the inspectors from the Lands department don’t shut us down.
We had 1.7 metres of water go through here with the last big flood. It didn’t do us any good. There was a lot of damage done. Most of the machines we did salvage had to have new bearings.
We have guys come in from Red Inc come in. We had a lady come in with a photo of a wheelbarrow and we have a young guy here who is great at that stuff. Another young bloke with disabilities made this beautiful garden setting. (shows photos). Another guy came in wanting a roof for his bee hive. Everybody showed him what and how to do it and he walked out with a roof for his beehive. We make a lot of stuff out of pallets we pull apart and we waste nothing.
I’m not an educated type of person, I never even got to high school but I did 9 years of learning the stuff I wanted to do after I left school. None of them set me up for this. I’m doing what I consider to be the best that I can and I know damn well everyone here is doing the best that they can. There is not a day that you come in here where we’re not working. Some of us are working harder now than before we retired.
This community is the best. We got about 20 trailer loads of stuff donated to us after the flood. One lady donated 5 trailer loads of tools and equipment. We lost $100,000 worth of stuff The problem is we can’t put in for the grants that are available because we don’t have a block or a shed. If we find an old shed that needs fixing up we can put in for a grant but they won’t help us with a new shed. We have people out in our community that will put a new shed up for us at a reasonable price but first we need the land. I’m happy and sad at the same time. We’re going OK people wise but we need new premises.”
Footnote – ‘The thing I love about doing HOL is the people who come forward and help each other out in situations such as this. Maybe you know someone who has some land that’s not being utilised. You never know if you don’t ask.’ Denise.