By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT

 

MATESHIP is built on support.

The Gippsland Tigers and Traralgon Men’s Shed continue their partnership in 2025, as both eye big years on the football field and at the workbench.

The local over 35s AFL club have been supporters of the Traralgon Men’s Shed since 2021, and last week completed a donation of $2000 to the not-for-profit community group.

“We’ve been around for 25 years (and) we’ve been donating to the men’s shed for the last four years, so in total I think we’ve raised about $6500 for the men’s shed… raising awareness for men’s health,” Gippsland Tigers President, Mel Segond said.

Besides being a social space for anyone to visit and get involved with, the Traralgon Men’s Shed undertakes woodwork, metalwork, and other restoration projects across Gippsland.

Traralgon Men’s Shed President, Patrick Zaffina articulated the importance of outside funding to help with their feeless ventures.

“It helps us out a lot seeing as we’re a volunteer group, we depend on the public donating to us which is great for us and that’s how we can move forward when people do things like that for us… it keeps us alive,” he said.

“All in all, we’ve been kept pretty busy with all the projects we’ve been doing, so it’s been great.”

In an effort to build upon what they stand for as a club, the Gippsland Tigers were seeking to expand their horizons and incorporate themselves further into the community.

“We found that we needed to change what we were kind of thinking about like people we were recruiting… there was a lot of people that were struggling mentally (after COVID),” Tigers player Colin Mackrell said.

“So we changed our philosophy in what we were doing because we were more based on playing football and having fun, that sort of stuff, but actually making it more communal, a lot more community-based.”

The club holds a sponsors raffle once a year, with half of the proceeds raised going back to local organisations like the men’s shed.

Gippsland Tigers are still seeking players ahead of the upcoming AFL Masters season beginning on April 6.

Join the Tigers for training at Terry Hunter Oval, Traralgon every Wednesday night from 6.30pm.