[Open Manufacturing] Men's Sheds: bring back the shed

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Bryan Bishop

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Jan 15, 2009, 12:29:43 AM1/15/09
to openmanufacturing, kan...@gmail.com
By way of what might be my clone in the down under, after hearing
about fablabs and techshops.

Mensheds Australia
http://www.mensheds.com.au/

An interview with Peter Sergeant
http://www.mensheds.com.au/index.php?id=93&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=88&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=2e3d1025de

"""
Peter Sergeant, Managing Director of Mensheds Australia, spoke
recently with communications student, Nick Carbonari about the concept
behind Mensheds and how they help men, and the communities they live
in, right across Australia.

Could you explain the concept of Menshed and how it began?

Well there was a couple of us , fellow directors, who saw the concept
of Mensheds about five years ago and our brains started to tick over
and we immediately thought, "my gosh, this could be the greatest
catalyst for economic development in communities that we've ever
seen." In fact that's exactly the way it's turned out, except that
there are a few added bonuses, the biggest one being about health. We
didn't immediately see the benefits to health but because of our
experience we've always been trying to look for ways and means of
getting men involved with their communities. You see a lot of men
hanging about the pubs and clubs and in the streets, how can we do
something for them? So it really became quite a fantastic vehicle for
that as well.

Why would someone join a menshed?

Well I could give you a list as long as your arm for that. I guess the
principal reason is that men like companionship, they like to be with
their mates, and they like to do practical things. They can't do too
much of that at home these days because of the change in living
arrangements. There's more unit living and town houses so the
traditional old backyard shed is very difficult to come by. Men
certainly miss that so the concept of a community shed where they can
go and fiddle with what ever they want becomes quite important to
them.

Men tend to suffer in silence. How does a Menshed help with depression
and other mental illnesses?

Men suffer in silence; well they do. Men are their own worst enemies
in a lot of ways and I can speak freely about that because I am a man
number 1 and number 2, I've had a few serious illnesses like cancer
and heart attack. Why did that come about, because I contained
everything within myself. Where it helps with these very serious
illnesses like depression is the fact that men can go into a friendly
environment, they can be with some mates an if the environment is set
up properly they tend to converse more and bring out their issues. I
think that's the biggest thing; if you can get men to talk about their
issues. One of the big differences with women is that they're very
good networkers and they're very good at communicating with other
women and talking about they're problems. Us stupid men, we have to
learn how to do that because if we want to live longer, and we live 6
years less than women now, then we better pay attention to some of
these things and pay attention to improving our communication skills
with one another.

You say on your website that a Menshed is not about grumpy old men or
secret men's' business. What exactly takes place in a Menshed?

Well there's all sorts of activities that can take place in a Menshed.
We have Mensheds doing all kinds of things. They started doing things
like wood work and metal work but today they're expanding into all
sorts of pursuits to deal with agriculture, climate change, energy and
a whole range of issues. So a Menshed can get involved in whatever the
men want to get involved with.

I know a lot of men who cannot relate to their fathers. Do you think
this is due to a cultural shift in Australia? Would they benefit from
being involved with a Menshed?

Yes there is a cultural shift in Australia and yes there are a lot of
young men out there with no role models. They come from single parent
families which are usually with the women and that is one of the big
things a Mensheds can do. We've seen some very good outcomes here
where the men of the shed can act as real role models and help these
young men in their pursuit of life.

How can a Menshed help the community that it's based in?

Well it can help in a number of ways. First if you're helping the men
of the community and improving their health and wellbeing, then that
means you've got men with a happier disposition, they're more inclined
to do things for other people. So it makes for better community life.

Could a Menshed help with problems like domestic violence and alcoholism?

Absolutely. I've been in quite a lot of sheds where alcohol is a
problem in the community and let me tell you, the men in the shed
don't tolerate that kind of behaviour. But they're happy to take
people in that have these problems and mentor them and help them
overcome they're issues.

A lot of people's Menshed is the pub, would you agree?

Absolutely, that's the big problem. That's where they meet their mates
and of course they cry in each others beers and they're not really
helping to get them self out of the circumstance they find themselves
in.

And if there is a young man or an older man out there suffering,
what's the first step they can take in getting involved with a Menshed
near them?

The first step is to find out where the closest Menshed is to them and
make inquires of that shed. They're all different, we've got about 150
different sheds associated with us now and let me tell you they're all
different.
"""

Some presentations:

Men's Sheds in Pictures (& audio)
https://admin.acrobat.com/_a35530995/p71271804/

other presentations: http://www.mensheds.com.au/index.php?id=start

Community knowledge (or lack thereof) is a pretty big health issue
when it comes to the crafts and growing length of dependencies to
address Gershenfeld's "21st century literacy". Comparing the quality
of life to what "men should be" shows how something hasn't been going
right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man

"A real man should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders,
give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight
efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

"""
From this combination of passion and inventiveness I began to get a
sense that what these students are really doing is reinventing
literacy. Literacy in the modern sense emerged in the Renaissance as
mastery of the liberal arts. This is liberal in the sense of
liberation, not politically liberal. The trivium and the quadrivium
represented the available means of expression. Since then we've boiled
that down to just reading and writing, but the means have changed
quite a bit since the Renaissance. In a very real sense post-digital
literacy now includes 3D machining and microcontroller programming.
I've even been taking my twins, now 6, in to use MIT's workshops; they
talk about going to MIT to make things they think of rather than going
to a toy store to buy what someone else has designed. The World Bank
is trying to close the digital divide by bringing IT to the masses.
The message coming back for the fab labs is that rather than IT for
the masses the real story is IT development for the masses. Rather
than the digital divide, the real story is that there's a fabrication
and an instrumentation divide. Computing for the rest of the world
only secondarily means browsing the Web; it demands rich means of
input and output to interface computing to their worlds. There was an
amazing moment as I was talking to these Army generals about how the
most profound implication of emerging technology for them might not
lie in designing a better weapon to win a war, but rather in giving
more people something else to do. So we're now at a cusp where
personal fabrication is poised to reinvent literacy in the developed
world, and to engage the intellectual capacity of the rest of the
world.
"""
-- Neil Gershenfeld

Though remember, it's not just exploitation (inventing), it's also
going to need some exploration.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

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