As many know, the Margaret River Men’s Shed presently operates from temporary premises at the Blacksmith’s Shed in the Old Settlement precinct. Due to both its physical constraints and current health and safety regulations, the temporary premises only has working space for nine people at any one time. With more than 100 foundation members and 78 active members, this is clearly inadequate.

MRMS chairman, Terry Hutchings said, “There was – and is an overwhelming demand for the new Shed and associated community facilities.”

Following finalisation of a lease agreement with the Shire for land adjacent to MR Tennis Club in Gloucester Park, Mr Hutchings announced that a building licence has now been issued and construction by local builder, Gordon Tenby has now commenced following the issue of a building licence,

The plans involve some 930m2 of space. This includes meeting facilities for a wide range of community groups to use as an affordable, versatile and accessible meeting place. The plans include retaining the iconic water tower as an entrance statement.

MRMS thanks the Shire, Rotary, Lions, LotteryWest, Bendigo Bank and the Wright-Burt Foundation for their financial contributions plus the many trades and suppliers who have offered services at discounted rates to enable construction to begin. Rotary – as a core sponsor of the Men’s Shed, has recently pledged a further $100,000 towards the final stage of the building program.

Although construction of Stage One has now begun, the MRMS is presently seeking substantially more funding to enable the new Shed to be completed

MRMS will continue and grow the positive resources to assist mental well-being of those in our community experiencing mental health problems arising from isolation, loneliness, depression or anxiety. However, the core focus is the provision and sharing of member skills, especially woodworking.

The new Shed will enable MRMS to expand its activities, its membership [including ladies], its skills base and its offering to the Margaret River community as a whole.

The Margaret River Shed opened a ladies day on Tuesdays with one of the men present to help with orientation and advise on equipment usage.

However, due to Covid-19 this was cancelled. Now, however it has recommenced. MRMS has always been determined to make this work, as it does in a number of Sheds. The objective is to encourage females to embrace, learn and share what may have been traditionally regarded as male skills – the use of power tools and other woodworking equipment especially in order to contribute to the Shed’s projects and community outputs still firmly in focus.

The MRMS is fortunate to find a lady who has both the skill and interest to see this happen. Honor Denby volunteered to run the Tuesday sessions with the understanding that inclusion of a Thursday session would be considered if the interest and numbers were present.

Honor has a wealth of creative skills. And although our current accommodation in the Old Blacksmith shop in the MR Historical precinct is charming it is limited. Nonetheless, it does have a good selection of woodworking equipment, machinery ands tools to support most projects.

If required, the MRMS will run ‘workshops’ covering safety and use of the various pieces of equipment. It would be great if you would visit the Shed any Tuesday between 9.00 to 12.00 and I am sure Honor would be delighted to show you around.

Since the MRMS has recently been allowed to reopen, we have persevered. We are really pleased with a turnout of four ladies so far.

To learn more, visit the Shed any Tuesday between 9.00 to 12.00. We are sure Honor would be delighted to show you around.

Come visit us to learn about our community construction projects, shared skills, mental wellbeing benefits and low cost wooden items we have for sale.

Date: Sunday 29 Sep, 10am to 12.30pm

Location: Historic Old Settlement Precinct, Eastern end, near Hairy Marron Coffee Shop – Access via Higgins Rd.