Perth Voice Interactive

BAYSWATER Women’s Hub marked Women’s Shed Week by celebrating all the projects, builds, repairs and repaintings its members have accomplished this year.

The BWH is home to a tool library and a women’s workshop. Over the past year or so they’ve transformed the old kiosk, changerooms and bunker at Maylands’ Shearn Memorial Park from a dusty cobwebby shell into the first dedicated space for a women’s shed in WA.

In that time members have learned home handyman skills, repaired furniture and learned how to start a terrarium. One member has picked up a power tool for the first time, and another has rebuilt an old bookshelf into a herb garden on wheels. 

Bridget Bell is one of the hub’s tool skills volunteer teachers. 

“Teaching a willing audience is the most rewarding feeling,” she says.

“The ladies come in eager to learn and leave with a sense of accomplishment. I wish I could say it was my teaching; realistically the women are like sponges, quick to absorb any information that is shared.”

Hub chair Michelle Slater says “as a 100 per cent volunteer-run organisation, we are so incredibly proud of the accomplishments of the workshop, and the impact that the programs they delivered have had in the community”.

Women’s Workshop co-chair Renee Cabassi says they’ve got big plans in line this year, to “expand our range of workshops to include tool maintenance, a chopping board workshop, furniture upcycling, plumbing, jewellery making, watercolour painting and more”.

The not-for-profit group’s currently looking to build up member numbers at their Central Ave hub. 

They have currently got a reduced-cost pilot membership of $60 for 12 months and are looking for women of all ages and from any area to join their ranks.