Men’s – and now Women’s and Community Sheds – are meeting many people’s acute, unmet needs and debilitating dilemmas arising, largely, out of a lack of paid work and retirement, and the void of meaninglessness that can arise as a result. As a model, those inside a Shed work shoulder to shoulder, with participants standing alongside other volunteers in a shared endeavour. Rather than a top-down, face-to-face professional program, the Shed model radically upends the traditional power dynamic, putting ‘shedders’ collectively back in charge of their health and wellbeing. The Shed’s a place that offers shared opportunities within a community setting.

In the six years since the publishing Barry Golding’s, first book, The Men’s Sheds Movement: The Company of Men, the movement has not only spread globally from four to seven nations, but has also seen Women’s and Community Sheds taking root. Featuring four co-authors, this new book gives voice to the diverse set of new players and Sheds joining Australia, the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, now extending globally from Denmark and Iceland to Canada, the United States and Africa. And it shines a light on the wider experiences and positive impact that Sheds have had on the lives of both men and women, their children and families, as well as the community at large.

Offering its readers an informative and insightful view of a growing grassroots movement, this timely book shows how the Shed movement, far from contracting, is nimbly and rapidly responding to the needs of communities during the global crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. From the humblest of beginnings in Australia, the movement today has evolved to total almost 3,000 Sheds worldwide.This book’s focus on the rapid and remarkable international broadening of Men’s Sheds between 2016 and 2021 is complemented by Professor Golding’s previous (2015) book, ‘The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men’. The 2015 book delves back into how and why the movement originally developed in Australia and spread so rapidly internationally. ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’ usefully includes an index which covers both books.

Barry Golding AM is associated with Federation University in Ballarat, Australia. He self-describes as a ground-up, community-oriented, polymathic, place-based story teller. His degrees span four disciplines: geology, arts, environmental sciences and education. Barry has researched and published internationally in vocational, adult and community learning including about community Men’s Sheds. Barry is honorary Patron of the Australian Men’s Shed Association, former President of Adult Learning Australia and in 2016 was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM). Barry is honorary Patron of the Australian Men’s Shed Association, former resident of Adult Learning Australia and in 2016 was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM). His most recent (2024/25) book, ‘Six Peaks Speak: Unsettling Legacies in Southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country’, undertaken as a State Library Victoria Creative Fellow, is also published by CGRN.

New Edition: Shoulder to Shoulder