As regional gathering places disappear, Tough Guy Book Club is helping Australian men reconnect

Across parts of regional Australia, the places that once brought communities together are slowly disappearing.

Sporting clubs and community groups have traditionally given people somewhere to meet, form friendships and stay connected.

As those spaces decline, concerns are growing about what replaces them.

For men in particular, the loss can leave fewer opportunities to build friendships outside work and family life at a time when loneliness and social isolation remain significant problems across the country.

It is a challenge Tough Guy Book Club founder Shay Leighton has seen first-hand as demand for the volunteer-led men’s group surges across regional Australia.

Leighton said the erosion of everyday gathering places is changing how people interact with their communities, taking away opportunities to meet neighbours and form relationships naturally.

“We’re going through a remarkably lonely time in the world and that’s not so much about how we communicate but more about how we get together as groups of people,” Leighton told 7NEWS.com.au.

“One of the things we’ve seen, especially in rural areas, is that the civic locations — your library, your football club, your restaurant, your churches, your community halls — either disappear, are underfunded, or are closed in our communities, and people have fewer ways to meet and be in community with each other.”

The impact goes beyond simply having fewer places to socialise, with those interactions playing an important role in keeping communities connected.

“There are lots of conversations right now about community cohesion and it starts with knowing your neighbours and knowing and speaking to people about important, interesting things and not just with people you agree with,” he said.

Leighton said men can become particularly focused on their responsibilities as they get older, while hobbies and social lives quietly fall away.

“We’ve convinced ourselves that our lives need to be effective, efficient and productive when sometimes they just need to be fun,” he said.

“But when you blow your knee out at 30 and you can’t play football anymore, what do you do to see the guys on the weekend? How do you have that connection to your community?” Leighton said.

Research from Ending Loneliness Together found 35 per cent of people living in rural Australia experienced loneliness, compared with 30 per cent of those in metropolitan areas.