Fight Like A Pro

With special guest:

• Gavin Topp

Today’s show is a knockout! Our guest is Gavin Topp and he tells us about his training program called Fight Like a Pro which he runs on the Gold Coast of Queensland.

It is not an overstatement to say that the program has changed lives because on top of the physical aspects of training hard with a group of fellow amateurs Gavin looks for the mental changes in his charges. You might not expect to hear life lessons from a professional boxer but as numerous testimonials on the website of Fight Like a Pro will confirm Gavin is a bit of a philosopher as well as a hard physical taskmaster.

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A Fresh Look at Mental Health for Men

With special guest:

• Rae Bonney
  … in conversation with Glen Poole & Pete Nicholls
  

Rae Bonney is an integrated wellbeing specialist who works with organisations to develop and deliver workplace mental health initiatives. She hosts two shows on 94.1FM 3WBC, a community radio station in Melbourne.

Rae is also a men’s issues advocate and is speaking at the I’m Just A Man Men’s Mental Health Awareness Gala in Melbourne alongside Movember founder, Adam Garone; AFL player, Tom Downie; and I’m Just a Man founder Dr Jim Skivalidas.

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Dadvice

With special guest:

• Dr Luke Martin

Seriously! Becoming a Dad can be a white-knuckle ride and sometimes it can be overwhelming. When you leave the hospital carrying a new baby it might be the first time it hits you that you have taken on an enormous responsibility and yet you are not issued with an instruction booklet.

Men have lots of different reactions when they hear that they are about to be joined by a new family member who will need 24-hour support. Some jump around, some think about the meaning of life and some might even feel depressed. The main thing to remember is that whatever feelings you experience you will not be the first. This is where Dadvice comes in, a new mental health campaign for new Dads developed by beyondblue and funded by the Movember Foundation.

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#DADUP

With special guest:

• Nick Thorpe

Scotland has become a hotbed of reform in supporting dads.

After the highly successful Year of the Dad campaign in 2016 Fathers Network Scotland has again joined with the Scottish Government in the 2017 campaign called Dad Up. In today’s program we cross to Edinburgh to speak to Nick Thorpe who is the Head of Communications for Fathers Network Scotland to hear directly about the successes and what has been learned through these initiatives.

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Is There Anything Good About Men?

With special guest:

• Prof Roy F. Baumeister

Something we have always wanted to know but never been game to ask.

This book’s title Is There Anything Good About Men? How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men leads on to a whole range of surprises. We often accept without questioning that women are better networkers than men and that women are better at multi-tasking but is this supported in the research? At a practical level will women succeed in the current push for much more representation on the Boards of major companies?

Professor Roy Baumeister has examined human behaviour as our culture developed. This culture brings humans enormous advantages not available to other primates. You just have to think of us being able to shop at supermarkets, sleep in a warm bed every night and being able to find out on our computers everything ever learned in human history.

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Fathering Adventures

With special guest:

• Darren Lewis

He doesn’t claim to have been the beginning of all fathering adventures but in July 2008 Darren Lewis started an organisation by that name which has made many fathers and their children come alive through adventure based activities. Darren quotes Howard Thurman in recognising that the world needs people who have come alive.

We live in a world where fathers commonly spend just 8 minutes a day with each of their children, sometimes it is as little as 57 seconds on a week day. Darren provides an opportunity for Dads to spend dedicated time with their children in a fun environment.

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Top Blokes Foundation

With special guest:

• Melissa Abu-Gazaleh

We cannot avoid the bad news stories about young men. The figures show that 82.6% of articles in the press about young men are negative.

In today’s program we speak with Melissa Abu-Gazaleh, the founder and Managing Director of the Top Blokes Foundation, who counters that negative stereotype by encouraging the young men to become “top blokes”. Melissa argues that young men can be a force for good; they are a resource that is largely untapped.

Every now and then we get to speak with someone who is making a real difference in our community. We get to do just that when we speak with Melissa who has taken the organisation from its humble beginnings to now positively impacting over 1600 boys a year. Melissa has been recognised nationally and is an acclaimed speaker who is much in demand at national and state based men’s health conferences.

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Men’s Health Week 2017

With special guest:

• Prof John Macdonald

Men’s Health Week this year is going to provide a platform to challenge and debate key issues in men’s health and to raise the profile of men, their health outcomes and health needs around the country. The week is not going to be focussed on telling men where they are going wrong which is good news for men and boys.

Our guest today is Professor John Macdonald who tells us about some of the many activities surrounding Men’s Health Week that we can expect and look forward to in June of each year. The theme in 2017 is Healthy Body Healthy Mind: Keeping the Balance. John tells us that they do go hand in hand so if you look after yourself physically you will get the mental advantage as well.

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Private Bill: In Love and War

With special guest:

• Barrie Cassidy

It makes for a rare occasion when Barrie Cassidy goes to the other side of the microphone. Barrie is one of Australia’s most respected and experienced political journalists and we welcome him to Dads on the Air.

But we are not going to discuss politics in this program. We are going to find out more about Barrie’s father Bill who is the main subject in Barrie’s book Private Bill: In Love and War.

After saying nothing about his war experiences for many years Bill Cassidy finally agreed to tell his children in great detail what he was doing in 1941, how he got seriously injured and finished up as a POW without being captured. He was transported in cattle trucks, put into isolation and had two unsuccessful escapes from the German Stalags. This period was when Bill faced the first of several major tests that he had to get through as he made his way through a long life.

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How much father? How have dads evolved since the 1930s?

With special guest:

• Dr Peter West

How have dads evolved since the 1930s? In the 1990s, Dr Peter West interviewed a wide variety of men who grew up in the decades between the Depression and the final decade on the 20^th Century. The result of those interviews was the book Fathers, Sons and Lovers: Men Talk About Their Lives from the 1930s to Today. From footballers to policemen, from railway workers to farmers, he provided a rare glimpse into the lived realities or everyday Australian dads.

In this program, Glen Poole of Stop Male Suicide interviews Peter about the changing nature of fatherhood since the 1930s, asks how things have changed for dads since he wrote his book nearly 20 years ago and explores what fatherhood holds for the next generation of dads.

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The Making of Men

With special guest:

• Dr Arne Rubinstein

“If we don’t initiate our boys they will burn down the village to feel the heat” This is an African proverb quoted by our guest today Dr Arne Rubinstein that could describe the situation for young men today in Australia and other societies far from Africa.

The Making of Men is a book that Dr Arne Rubinstein has written after seeing first-hand in his medical practice the disasters that can befall boys who are not initiated into life as a man in the community. Arne recognises the qualities valued in young boys when they are naturally loving, energetic, funny, creative and sensitive. What happens then, when so many kids get into trouble as teenagers?

In this program we talk about one of the most important ways in which the community or village can play a role in bringing the boy through to being a valuable man in the community.

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The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men

With special guest:

• Prof Barry Golding AM

When we think of great Australian inventions we might be referring to the Black Box Flight Recorder, electronic pacemakers, cochlear implants or even the stump-jump plough. But today we talk about another Australian invention that has spread internationally and saved thousands of men’ lives.

Our guest today is Dr Barry Golding who is the honorary patron of the Australian Men’s Shed Association and he provides a fascinating insight into the development and growth of this iconic Australian success story. Barry Golding gives us the benefit of his fifteen years of research in his new book The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men. In talking to us today Barry lets us discover what actually goes on inside the Men’s Sheds we see as we pass through so many country towns.

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Men of Honour

With special guest:

• Glen Gerreyn

Our guest today is Glen Gerreyn a man by choice as distinct from being born male. This personal development did not happen when he became a champion athlete but rather by some important choices that Glen has made in his life. So what does it mean to be a man, a real man? And what are these choices?

Glen has spoken to groups around Australia and around the world on the topic of men of honour and some of the content probably comes under the heading of “secret men’s business”. In these talks no subject is taboo. Because so many fatherless boys in our community do not have a mentor they can confide in, Glen often finds that no-one else has ever spoken to our young men so frankly in language they understand.

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Mendemic: Inside the man cave

With special guest:

• Cindy Rochstein

Cindy Rochstein is very clear about this. She is not a man and her book Mendemic is not telling her story.

However this outsider has been granted access in an unprecedented way to the complex lives of her male subjects. The stories Cindy chooses to include will help all of us understand the difference between the stereotypical male and the individual male as she takes us on adventure. Mendemic presents the raw voices of the male contributors, some forty men of many different ages and backgrounds who surprised Cindy and sometimes themselves with their openness and rare insights.

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International Men’s Day 2016

With special guest:

• Diane Sears

Today we are lucky that we get the chance to go to the heart of an international movement by speaking to Diane Sears in the USA about the 2016 International Men’s Day (IMD). Diane is the USA Co-Ordinator for IMD and is a dynamo in the movement with a special interest in caring for the increasing number of incarcerated men and boys.

The theme for IMD this year is “Talk About Male Suicide”. Throughout the world the number of deaths by suicide is in the order of 800,000 per year. And in 99% of countries the majority of these people are the men and boys of the community. In the USA and Australia the ratio of men to women who take their life by suicide is three to one. We must find out why we are losing so many men and boys leaving others to grieve when even one death is too many.

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Stop Men Dying Too Young

With special guest:

• Sam Gledhill

Movember is a classic example of someone having a great idea.

In 2003 a few blokes came up with the idea of combining fundraising with a fashion statement for men and 13 years later that idea has led to over $700m being raised to benefit men’s health in some areas that are not fashionable.

Our guest today is Sam Gledhill who is the Men’s Health Program Manager at Movember. We had a fantastic interview with Sam last year in Movember and this year there is a lot to talk about as the movement keeps expanding.

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The Greatness of Dads

With special guest:

• Kirsten Matthew

Kirsten Matthew was inspired by her father to take on the Big Apple where she worked as a journalist for ten years. This is a huge achievement considering that she arrived in New York without even a green card, no job offers not even any friends. At a low point Kirsten rang her father who gave some simple advice to get on with it and that was enough to get her established.

After that experience and lots of other insights, wisdoms and truths from her father Kirsten realised that the universal threads of fatherhood can be found the world over. So she set about the task of recording some quotes, song lyrics, artwork and images of dads throughout history and around the world. The result of these efforts is a beautifully presented book The Greatness of Dads.

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The Prostate Cancer Challenge

With special guest:

• Peter Dornan AM

Our guest is not squeamish about many things. He opens up to us today about what it is like to face a condition that we still do not like talking about, urinary incontinence. Incontinence affects men and women; it has been described as the most widespread yet least known and understood affliction in society today. This problem can seriously impact on your lifestyle, job, emotional wellbeing, exercise activity and most importantly, your sex life.

Peter Dornan has been a leading Physiotherapist for over fifty years and during that time he has helped patients with all sorts of complaints. Yet twenty years ago he did not know what a prostate was when he was told that he had prostate cancer and if he did not take any action it would kill him.

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Father’s Day is Special

With special guest:

• Warwick Marsh

Today we welcome Warwick Marsh as we approach Father’s Day in 2016. Warwick started the Dads4 Kids Fatherhood Foundation not long after Dads on the Air first hit the airwaves and has been one of our most frequent guests over the years.

Warwick brings enormous enthusiasm to everything he does and he does a lot. To get the message out about what it can mean to be a father Warwick has through the Dads4 Kids Foundation produced Community Service Announcements which have been taken up by network television stations. We urge everyone to see these vignettes, if not on your local TV station then on Dads4Kids YouTube channel. In the 2016 edition it tears at your heartstrings to hear a range of children from many different backgrounds provide a script with the simple word “Dad” or sometimes “Daddy”.

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Our Boys: Raising strong, happy sons from boyhood to manhood

With special guests:

• Richard Aston & Ruth Kerr

On this program we get to talk to good people who are making a difference in our society. Our guests today, Richard Aston and his wife Ruth Kerr, fit this category and they speak to us from across the ditch in New Zealand.

For the last thirteen years Richard and Ruth through the Big Buddy program have been providing fatherless boys with a buddy, someone who can show them the way to manhood. These buddies are volunteer mentors who are carefully chosen by going through a detailed screening. The boys know they can rely on their buddies to turn up when expected and listen to what is happening in the boys’ lives. And they get to do fun things.

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