Please allow me to introduce myself: my name is Collin Anderson and I am a 33-year resident in the valley, with my wife Jill. I am 75 years old. My great great grandfather was running Barrengarry Store when it first opened in 1880 and I have 13 or 14 relatives buried in Kangaroo Valley cemeteries, so I think I’m now a local?
My working life has been involved with engineering / design and manufacturing special-purpose machinery and innovation of new products, one of which is the world’s best and still the only fully and truly personally-mouldered sleep apnea masks. I hold two patents on masks.
What the shed does and is: in the shed, we fix things and make all sorts of stuff. We train unskilled men both young and old in the art and safe use of power tools, use of computers, welding, woodwork, and all sorts of skills; how to build and fix almost anything for the Kangaroo Valley Community. We are open to all men from 15 years and older. We need more members, particularly more young ones. They can help us old fogeys with things like computer skills and we can assist them with trade and life skills. The major thing the shed does is to provide a sounding board for all men to talk about their depression and have the possibility of an older male/s to relate to in the elevation of thoughts and feelings of hopelessness. The shed is also about companionship, learning and fun.
We are a modern society and yet are not far removed emotionally and mentally from our distant ancestors who were tribal / community people. In our communities, if a man was having depressive thoughts, he would talk to another community member and suggestions of help and guidance would be forthcoming. This is where the men’s shed comes in to save the day and save lives.
We as human beings all require daily contact with family, friends and other people; yet in today’s world, for a lot of us, the only contact we have with other humans is via TV, radio, phone, computer, etc. Most of this is one-way contact and this is not enough to prevent many of us from taking the final desperate steps of ending our life’s pain with suicide. I personally (like I’m sure a lot of you reading this would understand) have been on this path and have been diverted from it before taking the final step.
I mentioned that I was a mechanical engineer and I have 65 years plus of working on the tools and I feel I have a great deal of experience and knowledge to share with all the members of the shed. Our members come from an extremely wide cross-section of our society, so I wish to learn from them, their training, and their experience.
As I am currently the K.V.M.S. Shed Manager, I have attended many committee meetings over the past 21 months and therefore am privy to the development of a shed, sighting of land, structure, layout, design, colour, shape, etc. The site which we have chosen to be most suitable out of many from our Council has offered, is located on a parcel of land just opposite Cullen Crescent and next to the Stop and Taste caravan which is next to the service station / supermarket.
This parcel of land, I believe, has been zoned for community use and I believe this has been the case for the past few decades (I could be wrong). If this is for community use, then the people living near this site would have been made aware of its potential future use 30 to 40 years ago when the homes were first built. Therefore the Men’s Shed would be an ideal structure and use for this area now.
I understand there may be an objection or two but that doesn’t change the zoning. Our usage, I can’t say exactly at present, but for example, Nowra Men’s Shed meet only four days a week from 8 am to 12 noon – that’s it. So, we wouldn’t be disturbing the wildlife or the few neighbours that may be close to our shed. In fact, our structure may indeed deflect and absorb some of the 24/7 traffic noise they experience now.
As for not having a Men’s Shed, if all things remain the same this land could be used for a community tennis court, basketball court, BMX track, skateboard track, motorcycle track, etc. All of these alternatives would want seven days a week fully-lit for night use and could be up to 10:30pm every night seven days a week, as well as lots of vehicles and headlights on the surrounding homes, possibly graffiti, drug use and vandalism and noise, making the whole area a security risk.
Therefore, I can’t think of a single reason that outweighs the need to save lives and give men friendships with other men of all ages and allow them to learn new skills and share their knowledge with others and (don’t forget) help our community as well. We have a lot of skills to be called upon and a lot to contribute.
We currently meet in the small shed inside the K.V. Public School grounds, kindly offered to us, on a temporary basis, by Jen, the school principal. We welcome other men to join us from 4pm to 6pm Friday afternoons for a chat. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope this alleviated some concerns and informed our community of what has been planned for the community. Thank you again.
