Anglesea’s Men’s Shed welcomes federal grant

THE Anglesea and District Men’s Shed have welcomed a $10,000 grant from the federal government, and will use the funding to further improve their facilities.

The group was one of the successful applicants to the latest round of the Stronger Communities Program, which provides grants of between $2,500 and $20,000 to community organisations and local governments for small capital projects that delivers social benefits for local communities.

Anglesea and District Men’s Shed convenor Ross Davey said the grant would be used in a number of ways.

“It’s not so much to do with putting the rooms together, it’s more for the furnishings in the quiet room – we’ll use it as a committee room and a room for blokes to talk about various issues one-on-one – we’ll put in an air-conditioner, we’ll fix up the welding area because there’s an OH&S issue at the moment and it’ll probably go towards some more updated equipment, we may need some more machinery in the shed.

“It’s very hard to know because we haven’t got any fixed quotes from the council (the Surf Coast Shire) yet, and we won’t know any of that until March next year.”

The group bought the rooms from the Anglesea Bowls Club about 15 months ago and have been working towards improving them since then.

Mr Davey said the Men’s Shed had enjoyed a “terrific year” in 2018.

“The guys have put in an incredible amount of work, raising money for the shed through Riverbank Markets, sausage sizzles, working at the tip, making stuff for the primary school, and making seats for the Lions.”

Corangamite federal member Sarah Henderson visited the shed last week to announce the grant. “One of the reasons we have this program is because these little pots of money do go such a long way to building stronger communities,” she said.

“That’s what it’s all about, and frankly no one does it better than the Men’s Shed movement.”