Men Behaving Wisely
ROD WEBB
Anyone involved in Hastings’ voluntary sector will know how well served the town is. Local research suggests that regular volunteering is far more common here than in much of the country, and the sheer number of organisations responding to local need speaks volumes about the community’s energy and compassion. But alongside that strength comes a fair question: with so many groups pursuing overlapping aims, is there enough communication and collaboration between them?
It was therefore inspiring to attend the Mr Hastings & St Leonards Community Health & Wellbeing event, which brought together organisations working in the area of men’s mental health. In the introduction, Maz of Mr Hastings joked that this could be the first time so many related organisations had come together in the UK “but don’t quote me on that!”
Also attending were: Talk Club, Yaybox, The Samaritans, A Band of Brothers, Andy’s Man’s Club, Take Action Man and Keith’s Activity Finder (linked to Active Hastings), the Art Studio with Keith, Hastings Voluntary Action and Rother Voluntary Action.
The setting was the beautiful Hope Farm Community Garden, and the day turned out to be so warm, the beginning of the current heatwave, that the stalls had to be relocated from the greenhouse to outside. The informal atmosphere and clear timetable of events enabled those attending to make maximum use of the four-hour event.
Throughout the day there were presentations by the key men’s organisations, interspersed with a supervised cooking session, a men’s circle experience around a fire in the woods led by Luke Fennel of Take Action Man, two sessions of Pilates and a tour of the extensive Hands of Hope grounds. The packed schedule was then unpacked over lunch (the outcome of the cooking session), food being one of the fundamental pillars of community wellbeing, “a primary catalyst for social connection, mental health support, and community resilience” (research from the University of Oxford).
I attended presentations by Mr Hastings and Band of Brothers, both including professionally made films. I’d already seen the first film, Men Don’t Talk, it was well worth a second viewing; the Band of Brothers film, It Works, coming from a very different angle, was equally engaging and thought-provoking.
I also attended The Men’s Fire Circle. An extract from their Facebook page sums this up: “You don’t have to talk. You don’t have to explain yourself. Just show up and see what happens”. I showed up and something happened: a moment of calm and connection.
Mr Hastings was initially funded for three years, but its success has prompted East Sussex County Council to expand the approach into other parts of East Sussex, beginning with Rother, backed by a further three years of funding. That next phase will inevitably involve working with a wider range of stakeholders, which is why the event in May was so important.
It’s a great initiative, particularly the work to encourage collaboration. And for anyone that feels men are getting too much attention, their mental wellbeing is a key component of everyone’s wellbeing. Congratulations to all those who took part – including several key female figures.
Find more about all the organisations attending by going to their websites. To watch the two films, go to abandofbrothers.org.uk home page for It Works and search Men Don’t talk on Youtube.
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