Thread: An Interesting Discussion

Originally Posted by Deverell

I've found that there is a great deal of valuable information on this forum regarding this topic, which is excellent.

However, a forum is not a readily accessible place to find this information. Just going through the sticky thread regarding 2HP dust extractors is a 21 page exercise. Overall I find that the vast majority of forum posts do not tend to hold much value five years on, so getting through the weeds to the valuable information can be a bit of a chore. It also doesn't help that the search functionality can be a bit discouraging at times.

I agree - its almost like after say 12 months an "editor" should go through some of these popular threads and delete superfluous posts.

[QUOTE=Flintlock;2264904]

Originally Posted by BobL

Chris - this graphic might cause a few more people to pay attention at your seminars.
Although Wood dust is a known nail, tracheal and bronchial carcinogen, these cancers are a relatively minor player in the impact of fine dust on human health.

It would be great if we could gather all these type of graphs and statistics together so I could make a PP presentation for my Menzshed. As you say, most just don't care.

A video was done by the host MS during the last seminar but I have yet to see it finished so that may be of some benefit for sheds which are not viable for us to travel to. Full disclosure here, during the seminar there is a segment explaining how our blast gate system maximises and manages dust extraction. What we have done is produce an all Australian sourced product apart from one component and one Men's Shed is going to do the assembly and some of the manufacturing as well and Auto Blast Gates have undertaken to do the education. AMSA NSW are fully on board with this and at our next one in Mudgee NSW quite a few people from head office in Newcastle will be attending to lift their knowledge on the subject. If anyone or any MS wants to attend the seminar in Mudgee PM me for details.

We are available to do seminars in the Eastern part of NSW and there will possibly be a chance to do a one off in SE QLD early next year as we might have to make a trip for other reasons. I would say that there is a big chance of a seminar in the ACT sometime next year but nothing has been decided. Everyone who has attended has been very enthusiastic and admit they have had their eyes opened to stuff they never understood or worried about and all the sheds are planning upgrades to their systems or plan to install systems where there is nothing existing. This will be an ongoing education plan but what we would like to do is for the sheds themselves to have enough knowledge so they can carry on the work themselves. Unfortunately I can't see how our seminars can educate the wider community of WW's, it only works within an organisation such as Mens Sheds.

Over about the last decade I've worked out that I have visited about 2 dozen different mens shed, a similar number of private workshop, some half dozen commercial workshops and a couple of woodies conferences, to provide presentations/advice wood dust. Some mens sheds I've revisited 3-4 times over several years usually without much progress in-between.

Audience numbers at presentations ranged from about 200 at a general mens shed association annual congress to 3 persons at a small mens shed to single shed owners. The biggest audience I've had at a mens shed was 70 and that was on a Saturday morning which is when that shed regularly schedules hour long seminars followed by a BBQ. After giving half a dozen or so just "presentations" to mens sheds, i realized from the audience members body language, glazed over eyes, and types of questions asked that conventional presentations were not connecting with many members. Maybe I'm not that enthusiastic or charismatic a speaker but when I attended the congresses etc I could see that apart from a couple of very funny speakers the audience reactions to speakers were pretty similar.

After this, for mens sheds I changed my approach and offered them the following activities
a) a formal presentation of a length of their choosing
b) a Q&A with a time length of their choosing - often they would allow 10 minutes but it would gor longer than a)
c) a walk thru their shed to look at existing setups and explain what was being done well and not so well and make recommendations.
This was often much longer than a) + b)
d) Anything else they could think of like commenting on specific plans and designs.

The most popular activity selected is usually c) and the next is b) .
These days, if it's left to me and or its a situation like a congress, if a shed asks for a presentation I tend to keep these very short (10-15 mins) and then allow at least half an hour for questions. The question time is really important because this tells me where the audience is coming from and where their interests, biases and beliefs are at. Then if we run out of questions I sneak in some topics to fill in the gaps of which there are usually many. Then I do the shed walk through which can last as long as an hour or more.

Often after that I will sit with a smaller group and look at say shed (extension) plans or upgrades and work through any issues on those.

This is nothing new but standard teaching/entertainment practice of "working with the audience".