UK Men’s Sheds Association is an organisation to promote and support the development of the Men’s Sheds movement which began in Australia when men realised they could come together around practical tasks on a regular basis, particularly if they had a designated place or workshop where tools and work in progress could be stored. The organisation aims to: Promote Men’s Sheds through this website and the media Respond to enquiries, signpost and advise Collect and redistribute helpful information (within the Data Protection Act) Bring interested people together to discuss the future of the Shed movement. The Shed concept was first realised in England by Age Concern Cheshire at Hartford in 2009. The first user-initiated Shed opened here in April 2011 and the UK Men’s Sheds Association was formed in March 2013. Now there are over 500 Sheds open in the UK, with many others being planned. A Men’s Shed is a larger version of the typical man’s shed in the garden – a place where he feels at home and pursues practical interests with a high degree of autonomy. A Men’s Shed offers this to a group of such men where members share the tools and resources they need to work on projects of their own choosing at their own pace and in a safe, friendly and inclusive venue. They are places of skill-sharing and informal learning, of individual pursuits and community projects, of purpose, achievement and social interaction. A place of leisure where men come together to work. A Shed’s activities usually involve making or mending in wood (eg carpentry, joinery, turning, carving, whittling, marquetry, furniture renovation) and may include activities as varied as bike repair, gardening, vehicle repair, tool renovation, upholstery, boat renovation, model engineering, milling, turning in plastics, etc. Reclamation, reuse and restoration will feature strongly – and some say that is true of the men too! Although Sheds mostly attract older men, some have included men of any age, women and young people. Whichever activities are pursued the essence of a Shed is not a building, which some don’t have, but the network of relationships between the members. For more information, please follow the link to visit their website. We're sorry but <%= htmlWebpackPlugin.options.title %> doesn't work properly without JavaScript enabled. Please enable it to continue.
