THE gentlemen at the Arrunga Community Men’s Shed in Ermington do an extraordinary job of fixing and creating, but their latest job is one with a difference.
 
They are modifying a table-tennis table so that it can be used by blind and vision-impaired people for their own version of table-tennis called swish.
 
Swish also allows vision-impaired and sighted people to play on almost equal terms.
 
A swish table is about 60cm longer than a regular table-tennis table and the net is actually a wall.
 
It has a gap under which the ball, which has a bell inside, passes and is batted back by the opposing player with a flat paddle, rather than hitting a ball over a regular net.
 
All schools in the Bennelong electorate received two tables last year, and Mark Stibbard from Ryde Secondary College requested an additional table as his daughter Samantha is visually-impaired, which Table Tennis Australia donated.
 
The Men’s Shed has been running for five years, with a mix of men from all walks of life helping out and keeping themselves busy.
 
Three of its committee members have been involved from the start: Dennis Rolinson, a for

SOURCE:DAily Telegraph