From boy scout to welder, electrician, builder, motorbike rider and a helper of others - Lismore Men and Community Shed president Bob Grieg has always been handy. 

He’s battled depression and come through the other side, and now he uses his skills and experience to mentor and help others.

Under his watchful eye, the Lismore Men & Community Shed is currently moving to a new location - after being located on Lismore Showgrounds for the past three years. 

After a lot of paperwork and lobbying, Bob said the new location at Norco Lane in South Lismore is theirs. 

But that’s just the beginning.

The shed needs help - and Bob is asking the wider community to pitch in.

Lismore Men's Shed Show and Shine this Sunday, October 13: Vintage vehicles and rockabilly music star at Men's Shed fundraiser

“Without the Men’s Shed, I would’ve committed suicide,” Bob said. 

About four years ago, Bob moved to Lismore for love.

At the time, he was an avid motorbike fan and rode a Honda Shadow.

“I’m still a member of the Shadow Riders of Australia,” he said. 

“But I stopped riding when I pranged my bike in a road accident in 2017 and had the bike’s driving light go through my chest,” he said.

“I’m still recovering from it. 

“My bike was written off and my body was broken. 

“My right lung was totally squashed and I couldn’t breathe properly.

“I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have anything. 

Bob Grieg outside the new Men's Shed in Norco Lane.

Suicide

“Without the Men’s Shed, I would’ve committed suicide.

“I hated what had become of my life.

“Someone suggested to me that I come to the Men’s Shed and that’s where I met George – the formed Men’s Shed president.

“He sat down with me and we had a cup of tea and talked. 

“I liked how he was non-judgemental.”

“Originally, the Men’s Shed movement started because men don’t talk about their problems at all. They get told to ‘toughen up’.

“I felt I had a lot to give as a teacher and mentor,” he said.

Bob said the first day he was at the shed, he saw someone using a jigsaw and “knew they needed help”.

Now, he’s taken on the role as Men’s Shed president and said trying to keep things on track “is the hardest job of my life”.

Men's Shed volunteers and committee members. Front row: president Bob Grieg, Greg Watson and vice president Ian Bottrell. Back row: secretary D'Wayne Russell and publicity officer Ernie Pagotto.

Lean on me

“Men’s Shed policy is to help - you can lean on me,” he said.

“I’ve got troubles myself, but if you have a problem, my shoulders are there to carry you.

“Members can come and talk about things here at the shed. A lot of blokes just want to talk and drink coffee.

“One guy is 84 and he comes on jobs and helps us and we have an 81 year old engineer and we help him into helping other people.”

The Lismore Men and Community Shed is a bit different from other Men’s sheds. It’s inclusive of everyone, and has women members too, including a female secretary on the committee.

“Everybody has something to give,” Bob said.

“We have one guy who comes in a wheelchair – he’s happy and laughs at everything and keeps the mood up. 

“He used to come to the shed until we had to close it because we were moving to new premises at Norco Lane. 

“We didn’t want to leave the showgrounds site, but it’s not suitable for us.

“The new shed is too small, but we’re renovating it to try to fit all of our equipment in.

“I’m upset we had to close the shed for safety reasons to do the move.

Inside the new Men's Shed.

New premises

“It’s a construction site at the moment.

“We’re constructing racking and work benches out of palettes and people can’t get in and use the facilities at the moment.”

Bob said the old ganger's shed on Norco Lane in South Lismore, next to the Norco factory, was given to the Men’s Shed by the NSW Minister for Transport.

“We said ‘yes please’, but didn’t realise we couldn’t extend the shed or build on the ground because it was in flood zone,” he said.

“It’s on crown land and we paid $2 up front for two years peppercorn rent. 

“We’re still trying to get the council zoning of the land changed from heavy to light industrial so we can prepare a development application.

“There’s also the problem of development application fees and working out how we can build something off the ground so we can have enough space to make the shed useable.

“We desperately need advice from an architect or engineer about what sort of structure we can design that will fit with council’s regulations.

“It needs to be high enough off the ground to be out of flood.

“Ideally we’d like to move into the shed on nearby Engine Street – it would be ideal for us.

“But it’s owned by the railways and they have it up for sale – it’s out of our reach.”

Inside the new shed before the volunteers began working on it.

Donations and the new shed

The volunteers at the new shed have already replaced the rotted-out roof and put a concrete floor at the entrance – thanks to donations from local businesses of concrete, roofing material from Metroll and paint and palettes from AJ Magnay.

Now they are repairing walls with palette racking to make benches for working work on, but it’s a quarter of the size of the old shed. 

“We plan to make it bigger maybe by going up,” he said.

“We can put a concrete slab down but we’re not allowed to build on it – so we thought what if we have posts with a mezzanine floor - like an airport with a shed on top?

“Fair Dinkum Sheds can’t give us a quote to do it because no-one has done it before.

“If we can get an approved plan to go up, that would be great.

“We had a laptop computer donated by Officeworks here too, but somebody stole it. 

“We’ve had a lot of stuff go missing from here and been broken into a couple of times.”

Industrious childhood

Bob’s handiness with tools and a desire to help people started when he was a very small boy.

“I learned to weld when I was five years old,” he said.

Bob’s father was a manufacturing engineer when he was growing up in Dubbo and the family lived in the engineer’s cottage on the grounds of the geriatric hospital.

“I guess I followed in the footsteps of my father.

“When I was five, I did all the welding and build a monstrous bid cage, with the help of my father.

“It was 25 feet long and high and we used to keep parrots and other birds in it.

“It was still there the last time I went back to Dubbo to see it.

Bob said as a boy Scout, he was always industrious. 

“During bob-a-job week, I earned the most money ever earned by a boy scout in the whole of Australia,” he said.

“I always wanted to go and do something. I liked working hard and helping people.”

His desire to help others is still as strong as ever. 

These days, Bob spends most of his time at the Lismore Men’s Shed, helping people build things, and talking to people who drop into the shed.

Bob’s handiness moved from welding into electrics. 

He signed up as an apprentice electrician on the railways for three years, before quitting when he realised it would be another four years of study if he wanted an official qualification.

“So I travelled Australia and moved to Parkes and became a second class welder,” he said. 

“I met my wife there and had three kids before we moved to Dubbo and I worked as an automotive air conditioning technician.

“Then we moved to Brisbane and did the same sort of work, where from scratch I built brackets to hold the compressor onto a Porsche.”

From there, he worked in an abbatoir as a tradesman assisting in manufacturing.

“They needed a truck driver so I got my truck driving licence and drove all over Australia.”

Volunteers love to have a laugh and joke around with each other at the Men's Shed.

Future vision

Lismore Men’s Shed needs help creating a vision for the future.

“I’m hoping for the best,” Bob said.

“We really need help to look for alternative visions to help us establish a good men’s shed, but we lack money and the people to help us do it.

“At the moment, we have about 50 members, but only ten of them are active and capable of doing things.

“The more people that get involved, the better it will be.

“We are one of the only Men’s Sheds in Australia that doesn’t get support from our local council.

“Casino Men’s Shed got thousands of dollars to put up a shed at Casino Showground. 

“We need something better.

“We’ve been offered a small grant from the Australian Men’s Shed Association, but we need more help. 

“We’ve got to keep going.”

Helping community

Volunteers at the shed regularly fundraise by doing Bunnings Sausage Sizzles, going to people's places and putting flat packs together, as well as home maintenance and organising car Shows like the Show and Shine on today at Tullera Hall. Read more: Vintage vehicles and rockabilly music star at Men's Shed fundraiser

"If you have any jobs that need to be done, just let us know," Bob said.

"We charge $25 to put together flat pack furniture - and we can build anything for you, from kitchens to benches, dolls houses, wheelbarrows and more.

"We work a lot cheaper than your regular tradies - give us a call."

Bob is looking for new members to join the shed, or any help they can get.

The Lismore Men & Community Shed is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am until 2pm. 

To contact the Men’s Shed, visit the Facebook page Lismore Men & Community Shed, or phone Bob on 0404 860 504.