Latest News
TGBC MONTHLY CHALLENGE - #ReadthePlaques
April 19, 2023
Glossy metal - usually brass, aluminium or similar. Most often rectangular and, if so, about A5 in size. Other shapes, too, but – ironically - rarely large enough to attract attention. Plaques. They occupy corners in communities and hearts across the country. At the...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #ThugLife
March 22, 2023
Did you know there are places in your community that provide a safe place out of the elements for you to read, use a computer, have meetings, make a podcast, provide activities for kids, and are staffed by learned superheros who just go out...
Read MoreChatswood Chapter Opening
March 17, 2023
It all starts with Shakespeare. Or possibly a guy named Dave. Let's clarify. While it is true that a lot of the western English-speaking literary canon can be traced back to a playwright from Stra tford-Upon-Avon who had a funny moustache and couldn't spell...
Read MoreCamp of the River Lizard
March 11, 2023
Another year, another great TGBC camp. While a lot of Goons like to write, more of us are readers, so we figured we’d heavily modify a famous work to get across exactly how awesome camp is: It was the best of times, it was...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #BPTest
March 10, 2023
105/75mmHg See that? That's a blood pressure reading. The first number is systolic pressure, which is the level of pressure against your artery walls when your heart beats. The second number is diastolic pressure, which is the level of pressure between beats when your...
Read MoreMayfield Chapter Opening
March 03, 2023
Mayfield, near Newcastle NSW, is home to one of the newest chapters of the Tough Guy Book Club (TGBC); a network of men’s book clubs held in pubs around the country and overseas, committed to getting men reading, catching up, and putting decent conversation...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #OpShop
December 28, 2022
Op shops. Charity shops, secondhand stores, Vinnies, Salvos, the Goodwill. Call them whatever you like, wherever you are. For some they're a curiosity, a ubiquitous presence on your small town strip. For others they're a place you were supposed to go to drop off...
Read MoreTGBC & International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
November 25, 2022
November 25 is host to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and we marked the occasion with a very special meeting of Tough Guy Book Club. Tough Guy Book Club’s mission is to have men read more, talk more, and...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #Short story
November 09, 2022
If you’ve been around the club for more than a few minutes, you’ll know we have a monthly challenge. The challenge is something different each month, but it always involves doing something to make yourself or your community better. When you do it, you...
Read MoreSeattle Chapter Opening
November 09, 2022
This article is supposed to be about the opening of one of our new international chapters, a chapter in Seattle, Washington, but we can’t do that without first talking about the chapter founder, Jeff. We’re an Australian based book club for men, but we...
Read MoreTGBC SHORT STORY COMPETITION
October 09, 2022
This months TGBC Challenge is to write a short story. By 31 October 2022, you need to write the draft of a short story (between 2,000 and 5,000 words) and send it to us. It just needs to be a first draft mind you,...
Read MoreInternational Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
October 05, 2022
Tough Guy Book Club is about men meeting in pubs to have rowdy conversations about big important issues. And one of the biggest issues facing the world is violence against women. So on November 25, to mark the International Day for the Elimination of...
Read MoreGoon Profile - Chas Lang
September 26, 2022
Name: Chas Lang Chapter: Mornington Chapter Who are you: So who am I? I'm I pretty ordinary 30-something guy. It's hard for 30-something guys to make new friends, but I found a way to do that. This isn't supposed to sound sad, but I'm...
Read MoreSale Chapter Opens
September 05, 2022
As Tough Guy Book Club slowly takes over the towns, cities, and suburbs of Australia, one area has been an unexpected focus of our expansion plans: Gippsland. For a relatively rural area, Gippsland in South-East Victoria boasts four chapters. TGBC also has a bit...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #NewBloods
August 31, 2022
If you’ve been around Tough Guy Book Club for a while, you’ll know we do monthly challenges. These challenges range from something a little strange like our unusual reading challenge, health related challenges like get your blood pressure checked, and club growth challenges like...
Read MoreTGBC in the News - The Senior - 17/08/22
August 17, 2022
Tough Guy Book Club brings deep discussion back to the pub- By Rowan Cowley Retiree Vince Bartilotta's life was missing something until he joined a blokey book club in an exciting new chapter. Since the 76-year-old joined the Tough Guy Book Club about seven...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #NewBloods
August 17, 2022
August 2022 saw one of our coolest challenges yet, with goons being encouraged to give blood as part of the TGBC Lifeblood donor team. Restrictions preventing former residents of the United Kingdom from donating had recently been lifted, so #NewBloods was perfectly timed to...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #GuerrillaGardening
July 20, 2022
guer.ril.la (noun) A member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces. From the Spanish, diminutive of guerra meaning 'war' +++ What's the first thing we learned from this month's challenge, where goons were tasked with planting...
Read MoreTGBC @ ASIST Training
July 13, 2022
In June 2022, ten goons from all points of the compass and all walks of life met in Sydney’s southwest for a two-day workshop in suicide first aid. The commitment this involved is evidence that suicide is at the forefront of our collective conscience,...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #LastDrinks
June 22, 2022
The Tough Guy Book Club June #LastDrinks Challenge is a barrel aged kettle sour double dry hopped imperial triple india hazy pale oatmeal stout lager ale. It ranges anywhere from 0% to 12% ABV. Sometimes it looks more like tea, coffee or soft drink...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #StraightArms
April 20, 2022
Is Tough Guy Book Club a drinking club with a reading problem, or the other way around? We get asked this question sometimes, but mostly because everyone’s mum used to come home from their book club hammered on Fruity Lexia. We’re never really felt...
Read MoreTGBC Monthly Challenge - #BPcheck22
April 20, 2022
Tough Guy Book Club takes January off (who wants to talk books when you're busy breaking your New Years resolutions?) so February is our first meeting of the year. That means it's also our first challenge. For 2022 we decided to dust off an...
Read MoreDudley Chapter Open
April 19, 2022
Make no mistake, Dudley gets into it. We've heard that not all book clubs actually talk about books. Tough Guy Book Club could easily fall into that category. We're the book club that meets in a pub after all - we're happy with...
Read More2022 Floods - Goons to the rescue
April 13, 2022
Say you're at home. Doing whatever it is you do at home. Reading, we hope. Or sprawling on the couch watching TV, that's fine too. Now, say something terrible comes on the news. War, plague, fire... flood. It seems to happen more and more...
Read MoreCamp of the Sunburnt River
April 02, 2022
To tell the story of the Camp of the Sun Burnt River, the 2022 Summer Camp, we have to travel all the way back to the before times of 2020, when things were innocent and you wouldn’t think twice about cramming a bunch of...
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