Timeline
History is important as we must give credit where it is due.
Here we recognize individuals and significant events that brought us to where we are today.
Click on the event's title for more information.
This worldwide movement started in South Australia through many experiments on social engineering, where the final result was the Men's Shed as we know it today. For us, the path is clear, but it was anything but in those early years. After much experimentation with many Sheds, we have all benefitted from their work. For details, click here.
Today Australia boasts more than 1,000 sheds serving their community.
From Australia, it spread to New Zealand (125 Sheds), then the UK (800 Sheds), Ireland (450 Sheds), Canada (60 Sheds) and the US (14 Sheds)
Doug Mackie, the founder of Men’s Sheds Canada, has received the Manitoba Lieutenant Governor’s Make a Difference Community Award!
Doug Mackie founded the first Canadian shed in 2011 in Winnipeg. Doug recognized that many men in his community had time on their hands and a tendency to suffer from isolation, loneliness, and depression. This was especially true after they retired, as many men tied much of their identities to their careers. Since starting MenSheds Manitoba, Doug has helped men come together, stay productive, and contribute to the community—all of which are keys to good overall health.
Congratulations Doug!
The CMSA launched this national website in collaboration with the University of Manitoba and the November Foundation.
Some planned future features included a forum space and an interactive shed startup toolkit.
The site's main goal was to provide a point of connection for people interested in starting a shed, so we hope to list all of the sheds we know of in Canada, along with contact information and links to their respective websites.
But they also provided a space for sheds that don’t want to maintain or pay for their own site to start a sub-page on this one.
Men's Sheds from across Canada met for the first time via Zoom to vote on issues related to the formation of this newly Incorporated Not-For-Profit Organization.
A Board of Directors was elected.
Six months later, another All-member Zoom Meeting was held to inform member sheds of progress and to Vote on a new, shorter name for the organization. (31 characters vs 18 for Men's Sheds Canada)
The Canadian Men's Sheds Association (CMSA) was quite a mouthful and tough to fit on a Baseball Cap. We shortened the name to Men's Sheds Canada (MSC).
We also developed a new website, first made available to the public in March 2023.
Our first Newsletter documenting the above and much more was published in March 2023
The Canadian Men's Sheds Association's website:
http://menssheds.ca
was retired.
All traffic is now redirected to the new site:
https://www.mensshedscanada.ca