8 years of the Shed

From a newsletter article by David Westlake

In 2011, I had been going to meetings in Wynnum each month, when one of the members of this organisation who also attended, asked me where there was a men’s shed in Wynnum.

This bloke was Barry Mair. Barry had just been told that he had only 12 months to live at the most and he wanted to leave a legacy, he thought if he could get a Men’s Shed going down here that it would give him a goal to work towards.

After 4 months, I asked him what a men’s shed was as I had never heard of them. Barry explained to me the concept, it came alive and I asked him if he would like me to give him a hand at starting one up, as Barry was not a local and didn’t know people and the area. I thought about this concept and I had a few ideas. I called four of my friends that I could trust and asked them if they  would be interested to start up this shed. I called Wayne Holmes, Ron Haslet, Leon Warren and Paul Forrester, who were all enthusiastic, and they all thought it would be a great thing for our area.

On 5th July 2011, I called Barry and told him “We now have a men’s shed” Our first meeting was at my home on the 6th July 2011, and this was the venue for the next 6 weeks of meetings, working out what we would have to do to get this organisation off the ground, and how to go about finding a shed or area to start our men’s shed. Barry and myself had a good friend, Gillian Mason Johnson. She had started the Free Wynnum Manly Community Legal Service in E Block of the old Wynnum Central State School. She offered us her office one morning per week to have our meetings and tea and coffee, and we decided that Wednesday mornings, 9am to 1pm would suit us fine.

Our executive was elected, I was elected President, Wayne Holmes Secretary/Treasurer, Vice Presidents were Paul Forrester and Leon Warren, Leon was also shed Auditor (as he was an accountant), Ron Haslet was Safety/First Aid Officer, and Barry Mair was Co-ordinator. These were the six of the men who started this organisation.

The Wynnum Central School had been closed and unused and the State Government owned it. A good friend, Daniel Cheverton asked me if we were interested in getting a room under the big red brick school building to set up. He went to the government department and applied for us to use the area and was successful. We received the keys to the room on the 6th December 2011 and the area under the school that was all open area. When we opened the doors to our room, all the alarms went off and that got us running. The lady who gave us the keys took us upstairs and showed us how to disarm the alarm and we had to put in a code to do disarm and re-arm it when we left the building.

The walls of the rooms and the floor were so dirty, the paint on the walls was peeling and there was a lot of graffiti. Also there was only one fluro light in the large room. We had a few more members by this stage, one was Jon Embleton, an electrician and he put 6 double fluro lights up and 12 power points in so we could work. Paul, Ronnie, Barry, Jon, David Miles, our first member John O’Donahue and I scrubbed the graffiti and painted the whole room. Bob Service made our Men’s Shed sign and proudly hung it on the door. The graffiti vandals were rife on the outside of the red building, and we would call the council re this and they would come down and paint over it each week. When they had paint left over, they would give it to us so we could paint the walls in our work areas. Our membership grew rapidly to 50 by January 2012 There was a lot of interest in our Men’s Shed, all by word of mouth in the local area. We had all our work benches on castors so that we could push them out of the room on the concrete so that the boys could have a work area. 

Our first sausage sizzle fund raiser, was January 2012, when George Hartnett Funeral Directors had an open day and asked us to do a sausage sizzle for them., We did, and made a big $32, and since then they have donated $1000 to us each year. When we did that sausage sizzle, a local man came along on that day and donated his tools etc. to us as he had terminal cancer and didn’t have long to live. This was the first of hundreds of tool donations that we have gratefully received over the years.

On the first Monday of the month we would have a free breakfast for the homeless at the front gate of the school from 6.30am to 9am , we had people from BCC come down to support us. All the bread was donated by the Golden Crust Bakery at Manly, the Manly Day Care Centre donated the Bacon Eggs and Sausages.

On the 6th July 2012 , our 1st birthday the staff of George Hartnett came down with a birthday cake and the Wynnum Manly Rotary donated a compressor to us. We had been doing sausage sizzles at Masters Home Improvements at Tingalpa, they were great to us and donated a specially made trailer for us to cart the BBQ gear around which had cost them over $2000 to have this built.

We had an official opening of our Men’s Shed on the 12th October 2012, and it was a wonderful day. Tim Matheson, the National Patron of Australian Men’s Sheds did the opening and we had a couple of hundred people there and the ladies did the food for the day.

In 2013, the Brisbane City Council built in a under the school for us. It was our social area and we had a pool table donated to us and lots of tools, also a large sliding table saw was donated by Caltex, all this was under the school. Everything was looking good for our future. We were told that we would be able to have this area, but that we would have to vacate the school while the enovations were being done on the big red building. We were ok with this thinking that we could come back when the renovation was finished. By this stage, we had 135 members and growing weekly.

But by the end of 2013, after all the promises, we were told not to bother about applying to get back under the school after renovations!!!! They were not having the Men’s Shed there. We had to find somewhere to store all the shed gear, so 2x 40ft containers were bought and gear stored in them and then they were stored down at the Council Depot at Lota in October 2014 until we could find another site. A lot of other gear was stored at members' homes also.

The Wynnum Manly Leagues Club were great by letting us meet every Wednesday at their club. This was a godsend, and it kept the men together, and we were still doing sausage sizzles at Manly Markets and Bunnings Hardware. Masters Home Improvements had closed their stores by this time, so our fundraising continued.

We can thank Ray Sanford for organising for us to be allowed to do the Manly Markets Sausage Sizzles on the 4th Sunday of every month. Without this market we would not have had enough funds to survive and build our sheds.

In 2012, Ann started doing garage sales for our shed with goods donated by the public. She runs them from our home garage and up to the present time has raised over $55,760, I have to give her a big hug for all the work that she does, but I have to suffer my car and boat out in in the elements when she is organising these Garage sales.

During this time, we were offered different sites by the BCC and then the ones that might have been suitable were taken off the table by the same council. This cat and mouse game went on for 3 years. In hindsight, we were lucky because the land that we got in the end was so good for us. We were in the wilderness until 6th December 2016 when the sub lease for the land with the Horizon Foundation was ready to be signed, YAY

The work began with a member Wayne Aberdeen, a retired surveyor doing all the levels etc. and our meetings with council to get the DA through were hitting brick walls with all their rules and regulations. Then along came Julie Storey who used to come to our garage sales. She heard about this problem, and came to our rescue and came along to the meeting with the council and said to the council officers, she said to them "Well! When will they get their censored DA? And bingo, she got a date for our DA. They had been beating around the bush for months with us. That meeting was heart stopping for us, but oh so good!

Gateway Surveys & Planning did a lot for us also free of charge. Lyn O’Sullivan Building Designer drew all our plans for us to take to council and gave her time at no charge also. Without all the volunteering and goodwill, we could not have had our sheds. We opened the site to our members in 2017 with using the green keepers shed as a base until all the hoops were gone through with the council. The Development Application went through on the 17th July 2017 and the fence and shade cloth went up later that month, and the construction of the sheds began on 8th August 2017. What a day, we had a problem getting a contractor to do the job for us because the Army Shed was in imperial measurements (instructions), but we talked to John O’Donnell’s son, Morgan who is a contractor and he took the job on. The concrete floors had to be rafted on the site and our members laboured doing this. It was hard work for old men, then the Total Span Shed arrived and the erection of it began, 28m x 8 m. We had a problem with the toilet, the first plumber gave us a quote of $150,000, that was rejected, and Plumber Jason Amsters did it for $22,000. That was a load of my mind!

Then it was all systems go with everyone working and washing louvers etc, Richard and Peter helped Morgan in the erection of the Army shed and then aprons around the sheds were done. There was lots of work for everyone to do, then came painting of the sheds. Richard would come down to the site and go home the colour of the shed, as he was the main painter. Alan Bothe was the organiser on the solar panels. Then on the evening of 3rd January 2018, Wayne Aberdeen, Alan Bothe, Ann and I went down to the Army shed and Alan turned the lights on with solar. What a buzz that was, we toasted the occasion with champagne in plastic cups.

May 2018, All the sheds were up, grass growing in the yard, thanks to Rod Murray. We could now have our official opening on June 16th 2018. What a wonderful day this was, we had over 200 people come and see the sheds, councilors and members of parliament Joan Pease and Ross Vasta and other special guests.

Our next thing to do was the naming of our 3 sheds, the Army shed was named after a local man Allen May who was in the Battle of Long Tan as a forward scout, and fired the first shot in the battle and helped his wounded mates, I must say that Allen is a good friend of Ann and myself, we grew up together. The Total Span Shed, our woodwork hed, was named after Paul Forrester, (his nickname was Woody), he was one of our founding members who has passed away. The green keeper's shed, our metal work shed, was named after Leon Warren, the other founding member who has passed away.

Our shed had 135 members when we were under the school and after we had to vacate and we were in the wilderness, we went down to 50 members, but now that we have the new sheds and home we are up to over 150 members and more joining each week. I want to thank all of our members that have gone out of their way to help the shed and all of the ladies that work so hard for us.

This is our 8th birthday and Barry, Wayne, Ron and I did not think that we could ever have achieved such a wonderful Men’s Shed from 6 blokes with a dream. We have the best Men’s Shed in Australia, with bay views and all. Needless to say, this shows that a Men’s Shed saves lives, because Barry is still with us!

David