Mental Health Untangled

OOTW Winners

It sometimes takes us a while to get our presenters to bring their entries into the “Out of the Woods” Competition back, so that we can all see how they were made.

This is a typical example of what I am talking about, as Barry Viner’s winning chopping board “Fish in a Moonlight Creek” has already gone to its new owner.

Luckily, Barry has been busy in his workshop and brought the next generation of boards in to show us.

Still using the same technique of building different coloured timbers with a Jarrah surround then adding stringing and inlay to create a unique look to each board.

I can see us all having to lift our game the next time we make a chopping board. Congratulations Barry it was a well-deserved first place.

Mental Health Untangled

I really must apologise for the extended delay in reporting on this meeting but as I was not there on the night, putting these details together has taken the combined effort of Carolyn, Edward, and myself.

When Edward rashly volunteered to give us this talk, I was not sure how you could condense what can be a complicated set of conditions and do justice to his explanations.

However, it did not take long before everyone was laughing and hanging on to his every word.

Edward began by telling us a bit about himself and his background.

Then things got onto the more serious topics which he peppered with funny stories to lighten up the evening.

He talked about the importance of our health, both physical and social and how it affects all areas of our lives. In general men tend to ignore issues with their health, in particular their mental health and there are many reasons why this occurs.

He explained the most common issues affecting us all as aging men.

A very sober statistic is that seven men suicide every day in Australia, three times the rate of women.

This number is even higher in disadvantaged groups like those living remotely or from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Mental health difficulties can affect people at any time, not only during times of high stress.

Edward then gave us information on ways to take better care of ourselves and hopefully preventing these conditions occurring in the first place.

He also gave us good advice on what we can to do to help others, such as looking out for signs, model positive behaviour, reduce stigma and more than anything else, keep talking.

Edward finished with some good advice on what to do if we encounter someone in distress and the best way we could help them.

When Edward and I first talked about this at one of our workshops at Dwellingup, we both felt it was too important a subject to be ignored as it affects all of us to a lesser or greater degree.

So, I would like to thank Edward for explaining these problems to us in a way that we can all relate to, and if it only makes a couple of us think more about what he has said then it has all been worthwhile.