The men are busy at the Te Puke Menz shed from repairing grills to crafting wonderful wooden creations.

In the six years it's been going, The Te Puke Menz Shed has gone from strength to strength.

Setting up in Vincent House for the first two years, the Menz shed outgrew this space and have been set up at their Cameron Rd Shed in Te Puke ever since.

'I never dreamt in my wildest dreams that when we went into Vincent House, it would get to the point that it is today,” says chairman Malcolm Penn. 'We started with about two or three members and we've now got 25.”

The men behind the shed's handiwork are from all walks of life, says Malcolm. 'We've got four registered carpenters, a panelbeater, an industrial chemist, a plumber, an electrician, and a professionally trained woodturner in there. It's a great set up.”

With all these skills, the Te Puke Menz shed can help you with almost anything. 'A lot of our work is repair work.” 'If you get a personal problem with something…you can bring that in,” says Malcolm.

He says a local lady recently brought in her George Foreman Grill that had smoke and steam coming out of it after it was washed.

'She didn't want to use it until it was checked out so our electrician guy checked it and said: ‘No that's fine, go ahead and use it'. This is the type of stuff we get,” says Malcolm.

Moreover, some impressive wooden creations are coming out of the shed too. 'We've got a couple of woodturners here and one makes some beautiful ballpoint pens and the other chap is doing small clocks on a double pedestal set-up,” says Malcolm.

Te Puke Menz Shed's chirman, Malcolm Penn. Photo: Bob Tulloch.

Keeping an eye out in the Te Puke community, you can also spot the work of the menz shed crew. 'We repaired the local rubbish bins around Te Puke…cleaning them up and repainting them and they had allocated artists to do artwork on them.”

Currently, the Menz Shed is creating wooden trellised archways at the Western Bay of Plenty Cemetery, and there's more community work on the radar too. 'We were actually approached recently by the Western Bay of District Council to do more barbecue tables for the parks too.”

To check out the Te Puke Menz Shed's latest projects visit their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/MenzShedTePuke/

Hedley Quintal gets crafty with some ply wood in the shed. Photo: Bob Tulloch.