By Abbey Cannan
The Noosa Women’s Shed team celebrated their year of smashing goals on their freshly cleared block on Sunday 17 December, preparing to have a permanent home in Noosa in 2024.
With much-loved president Robyn Smith stepping down, they needed a new member to step up to lead the group, and newcomer Jan Ford was happy to fill the role.
“I’m lucky to be the new president of the Noosa Women’s Shed,” Jan said.
“It was only my second meeting ever, and they needed a president, so here I am. Robyn has been very helpful and I’m excited to join these amazing group of women.”
Having been involved with community groups since she was young, Jan’s excited to bring some new goals and ideas to the group for 2024.
“I knew I could do the president part, but I couldn’t use a drill,” she said.
“So, I had to learn all of those things. I did a workshop. It feels so good to have these skills. It’s so empowering. It’s almost like, ‘How did they keep this from us from so long and how did we not know?'”
The group’s two main goals for 2023 included; ‘To give our members opportunities to learn new skills’ and ‘To build our own shed’.
It’s safe to say that Noosa Women’s Shed is well underway to smash both goals.
It’s taken a tonne of hard work from the team over the past year, as in September 2022, they didn’t have a shed and couldn’t do their ‘shed sessions’.
Thanks to Noosa Seniors, they moved into a temporary shed and in September 2023, they progressed to regular tool accreditation and project building sessions.
The group worked in the temporary shed four times a month – either a Monday morning or a Saturday afternoon, with hopes to increase sessions as memberships continues to grow.
The Noosa Men’s Shed have been a huge help in their learning phase, and now, the training wheels are off and they have skilled members who can pass their skills onto new members.
In August 2022, Unity Water granted the group a deed of licence on land in Wallum Lane, Noosa Heads.
The land was surveyed, Noosa Council approved their development application, and the group was successful in their application for a grant.
With the funds ready to build their own shed, they’ve cleared the land and selected a company to start the build.
“Construction is set to start on the new shed very soon and we’re hoping to be finished by Mother’s Day 2024,” Jan said.
The new president is thrilled to be back in the Noosa region, after moving from the area three decades ago.
“I had a career change about 30 years ago with my husband-to-be and we drove across Western Australia looking for a new place to nest,” she said.
“I wanted to come to Queensland. We first went to the Gold Coast and it was too busy, came to the Sunshine Coast and Noosa and saw how beautiful it was and stayed here for four years and built a house. But then we ran out of money. We were really young. So we went back to Western Australia and built our careers again and rented the house out. Then we came back here a year ago.”
Noosa Women’s Shed next shed meeting will be on Saturday 13 January at 1.30pm, with newcomers welcome.
It’s held at Noosa Seniors (formerly Noosa Community Support Centre) at 11 Wallace Drive Noosaville.
For more information visit noosawomensshed.com.au
