From Tin Shed to Men's Shed

2 min read

Men's Sheds are not for profit organisation that were opened in the early 1990s to provide a place for men to interact socially and use their manual skills if they wanted to.

Studies were showing that there was a decline in the physical and mental health of men who had retired and were not keeping an interest. William McInnes wrote a book titled " A Man’s Gotta Have a Shed”, It’s a great read and most of the baby boomer generation will remember that Australian homes had a space for “Dad” to wind down. Either a shed or a garage, not always for building and fixing, sometimes the space was for the man of the house to relax. Maybe it was somewhere for him to have a beer, listen to the radio, or yarn with his mates.

Currently, the trend in suburbia is smaller block sizes which often don’t allow room for a shed as well as the obligatory two-car garage. Together with today's hectic pace of living for families, the shed is often not an inclusion to the family home. Those of you who live in Mundaring are lucky to live on larger blocks and have room for sheds and outbuildings. While this is a bonus while young and healthy, however, when the block gets too much to keep up with the maintenance, fire breaks and other work involved in maintaining a larger piece of land, the move to a smaller house or unit takes away the option to potter in the shed. This is where the wonderful work of the Men’s Shed comes into play.