With their current lease ending soon, the Narooma Men’s Shed is still looking for its new home.
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Acting president Bernie Perrett said the owners of their present site had been fantastic.
“They would love us to stay, and we’ve looked at it, but it is very expensive for us,” Mr Perrett said.
“We need a special place of our own – a homeland.”
Easier said than done, it seems. Mr Perrett said the shed had put up seven sites for the Eurobodalla Shire Council to consider.
“They have all failed,” he said.
“There is a level of despondency (in the shed) I don’t want to see.”
However, Mr Perrett said the stars had “aligned more favourably around one or two sites”, after the group presented to council in February, and conducted site-tours for councillors, following an opening presented by the shire’s Report on Recreation and Open Space Strategy.
“At this moment we have some fantastic support from council,” he said.
“We hope to have a site up and going before we have to shift.”
Mr Perrett said a new site presented new opportunities.
“I think our future is with a permanent home, working under our own steam, and self-funding all of our outgoings,” he said.
“That lets us offer-up a community asset to other groups: Using our facilities as meeting rooms, or having us build things for them.”
He said the group had been at the current site for about seven years and was well supported by it’s owners, but if they stayed the shed’s culture would change.
“If we stay on a commercial lease, we become like a factory,” Mr Perrett said.
“We would lose members.”
He said shed members were a special group and the shed meant a hell of a lot to them: “When you retire, your identity changes. Sometimes that’s really hard for blokes.”
“There are guys here who had very-powerful jobs, other blokes who ran a business for forty years. They lose that identity when they retire.
“This shed offers a sense of belonging, camaraderie, and purpose in life.”
Mr Perrett said the shed was also a massive resource for the community.
“We feel we have demonstrated our goodwill,” he said.
“Being on your knees for too long hurts; it’s time for us to rise up, and stand on our own two feet and be proud to serve the community into the future.”
