Know Your Neighbours with Liz Fama’aea

Transcript from the podcast “Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength from the Southern Downs”

SEASON 2: EPISODE 11

GUEST: Liz Fama’aea

PUBLISHED: 3rd April 2022

[00:00:00] Liz: We have honey eaters and little finches and wrens. And they all sort of hang out in this little gang. It’s really interesting because I didn’t realise, you know, how much birds all mix, even though they’re different species and completely different birds. And so you’ll get this little gang of about two families of finches and then a couple of families of Superb Wrens. They all come roaring through the garden eating the insects, eating whatever’s hanging around on the flowers. It’s really good to see that recovery of the bush after such devastation. I guess it made us all slowly feel a bit better.

[00:00:37] Kathryn: Today’s story on the podcast comes from Liz Fama’aea who joined me to share how valuable it is to be connected with your community. Liz had grown up in Stanthorpe and she was motivated to move back with her family into the area a few years ago so that they could reconnect and benefit from the support of the community. She has a really interesting story to share about the damage that her home and property sustained during the September 2019 bushfire as well as the incredible recovery journey of the landscape and the community which was reflected in the recent Hope and Growth Photo Exhibition.
Welcome to the podcast Liz.

[00:01:28] Liz: Thank you for having me.

[00:01:30] Kathryn: Can you share with our listeners what your connection is with the Southern Downs?

[00:01:34] Liz: I’ve lived here on and off since I was about seven. I think that’s when my family moved here. And I guess have mostly grown up here with my sisters and, you know, moved away as a lot of us do to study and work. Moved back briefly to have my children have my first two. And then moved back when they were starting high school. I think a lot of us do that. A lot of us move back. At some point you start to see the differences when you’re not as much part of a community and when you bring them back, it’s almost like this big sigh of relief, Oh, that’s what we were missing. And within six months they were back building cubbies outside and they were back doing mostly sport based activities or outdoors stuff and going fishing and they were enjoying life a lot more. They were a lot more relaxed and we were a lot more relaxed too. I think the presence of my parents as well really helped and just in general, the community of people that we’d all known as kids that embraced our kids as well. So I guess we moved back for the community and the community’s become fairly quickly a big part of our lives. And that’s really nice. Yeah. My husband also grew up here. He I think spent a little less time as a child in the community cause his parents moved away, but he’s from the Solomon Islands. And so, for him growing up in the Solomon Islands, he had this really close knit community of relatives and extended family that he lived with, and then coming to Australia, Stanthorpe was probably, he says, it’s the closest thing he’s had to the community that he had over there. So for him moving back here was really important as well, because this is the first place they came to in Australia and having a community of people who knew him since he was a child, and then also knew the boys. So for both of us, I guess, moving back here, um, and reconnecting with the people that had always supported us and seeing how they also supported the kids as they were growing up. That was really lovely. Yeah.

[00:03:40] Kathryn: You’ve been the official photographer for the community photo exhibition called Hope and Growth. Could you comment on how that exhibition celebrated the recovery journey and the growth following the bush fires that came through this region in 2019 and 2020?

[00:03:59] Liz: Oh, wow. That was, um, that was just such a wonderful thing to be a part of, I guess, one of the things that I really enjoy about being a photographer, and one of the reasons that I became a photographer to begin with, is the opportunity to sort of bear witness and record events that are deeply personal to both to people and to our community. And to see everyone being able to express their memories and their feelings and I guess the many things that Stanthorpe has been through as a community, through the photography that they’d done, that was really important. I think hearing people talk about their memories and one photograph, you know, would bring up different memories for each person. So you’d have the photographer talking to the firies or the neighbours or their Mum about the things that had happened that day. I think that was just really special. And that’s, I guess what I tried to capture in the photos that I took.

[00:05:04] Kathryn: And you have your own story of the bush fire that came through in September 2019. Is there part of that story that you’d like to share with the listeners as well?

[00:05:14] Liz: So I didn’t actually enter any of my own photos in the exhibition and I didn’t actually take many photos of the bushfire. I definitely didn’t get my camera out and do the professional photography bit. Sometimes I like to not take photos of things. Sometimes I like to try and remember them without having to record it officially. Being a photographer at times, everything becomes about capturing the moment, capturing, you know, evidence of what happened. And it’s not the same as experiencing it. It’s not the same as being in that moment and being fully present. When you’re photographing, you’re thinking about light and you’re thinking about exposures and you become a little clinical in your approach to things. So during that time, I actually didn’t take many photos because it was such a shock too. We had the bushfire come right up to our house. We’d had a plastic tank at the back of the house that melted and actually stopped some of the house from burning. We had a little shed at the back of the house and that had pretty much exploded. We’re still finding bits of melted metal all through our driveway. The tank was right next to it. Because of the drought, we’d been very careful with our water and that tank was full of water cos that was like our reserve. And yeah, the water in that tank stopped the house burning down. So that was pretty amazing to have that happen. We bought the house not long before the bush fire and we were still unpacking. I haven’t seen those sort of conditions at any of the properties that I’ve lived on, where everything is so dry from the drought and the wind was so high. We have had other catastrophic bushfires that have similar in the past. I guess it’s always a threat. It’s always a risk that we think of when we do anything. When we build a house, when we expand our garden, we’re always, you know, looking at it going well, you know, that tree is probably a bit too close to the house. And the trees near my house are trimmed and, a fair way back from the house. The ones that are close to the house have obviously been kept low and that was another thing that saved our house.

[00:07:24] Kathryn: You said that you’d only recently moved into the house just before the bushfire came. Had you had the opportunity to do any preparation to bush fireproof the property before the bush fire actually came through?

[00:07:39] Liz: I guess not really apart from the mowing. I think the previous owner had lopped some of the trees near the house and that really helped. But I didn’t see many of the trees right near the house actually burn. You can see on the tree behind you that there’s burn marks all the way up the trunk still, you know, it’s still shedding bark. It’s an apple gum, so it doesn’t shed bark as easily as some of the others. And that actually still had all its leaves on it. So the leaves didn’t catch fire. The bushfire sort of went around the house. But came up through the yard with the embers. And I think, you know, like a lot of houses, the mulch around things caught fire. But we hadn’t really had a chance to do much in the way of bushfire prep. We’d been, you know, just surviving the drought and I guess more focused on that. And we hadn’t been in the property long enough to really look at the bush and take out the dead wood.

[00:08:32] Kathryn: So here we are about two and a half years later. I think. What sorts of things have you done since the bush fire? obviously there was a bit of cleanup to do from what you were describing there. What other things have you done keeping in mind that you’re in a bushfire prone zone?

[00:08:51] Liz: For us it’s a case of just continuing to do what we’d already planned to do. We probably want to get more tanks put in like a lot of people would. Probably the first thing we did was try and drop the dead trees near the house. There were quite a few dead trees after the bushfire. We still have heaps sort of acres and acres of dead trees. So we’ll never get into all of that, but just trying to drop the dead trees near the house. We’re continuing to monitor the bush and keep dry grass away from the property. There’s not much you can do once you’ve got lovegrass and lovegrass is one of the biggest things that speeds up that onslaught of the fire. So in the backyard here, you can see, you know, I’ve got a bit of lovegrass around us right now, but, we’ve been working on actually removing as much as we can from around the house and replacing that with other grasses and especially the native grasses. I’ve seen a lot of native grasses come back since the bushfire. And just trying to fight the lovegrass a little bit so that the native grasses can have a chance.

[00:09:57] Kathryn: What other changes have you seen in the land around you following the bushfire as it’s gone into recovery as well?

[00:10:04] Liz: Oh, look, that was the most amazing thing. Before the bushfire, I’d been looking at the property and going Well, you know, compared to properties that I’d grown up on, there was not a lot of diversity in the vegetation. There was umm eucalypts and a few wattles of mostly the one variety. And I was looking at it going, you know, there’s no Hardenbergias, there’s no little ferns and there’s not a lot of insect life either. So I was thinking about how to do something about that and how to, um, bring some of those plants back in. And then the bushfire happened and I have seen this explosion of growth all around the house, all through the bush. I’ve seen stuff growing that I’ve never seen before. It’s just been incredible. So we’ve had everything change so quickly after the bush fire. bush right now has about four or five different types of wattle growing back. And that’s of course, you know, one of the things that happens first after bush fires, your wattle just explodes. So I’ve got these different wattles growing and then the smaller plants that have grown back have been amazing. So all of these little seeds that were just sitting there waiting, all came out and then after that the drought broke, you know, we had this incredible rain and it’s all just gone completely nuts. And all of our bird life changed as well, as well as a lot of our wildlife. I think from looking at things, the possums have been the slowest to recover. I have not seen many of those possums returning. I’m sure they’re still around there. There’s probably a lot more food for them, so they’re not coming close to their, our houses anymore, but the bird life has been, as you can probably hear the bird life has been incredible. It’s all changed. We’ve got different birds to what we had beforehand. We used to have a lot of parrots, a lot of different types of parrots come through. And that changed. They stopped visiting the house. A lot of birds did not visit at all. There were no birds anywhere for about six months, a good six months after the bush fire. I think there was just, a lot of them unfortunately wouldn’t have made it. And a lot of them would’ve just had to go elsewhere because there was nothing. It was just like a desert all around us. That was quite difficult because everything was just dead, you know, it was just, um, sand and dead trees and rocks. And that’s what it felt like so, after everything started to grow back, we, we planted a lot. We put a lot of work into the garden around the house, and we’ve planted a lot of, I guess, fast-food type plants, around us right now. We’ve got pineapple sage and that’s really brought the birds, some different salvias and I’ve let a lot of weeds grow, which sounds, it sounds really weird, but a lot of the weeds even the introduced ones that come in are really important for soil regeneration, and also food for the birds. So there’s one that I think is called ink weed. It’s got lots of spikes of black and purple berries, and I saw a lot of birds getting through winter on that. The little black cypresses that grow all through the bush, they’re actually a really important food source for a lot of parrots so we were lucky to have some of those survive and we saw our Rosellas start to come back to feed on the seeds from those guys. And now we’ve got this incredible bird life where we have honey eaters and little finches and wrens. And they all sort of hang out in this little gang. It’s really interesting because I didn’t realise you know, how much birds all mix, even though they’re different species and completely different birds. And so you’ll get this little gang of about two families of finches and then a couple of families of Superb Wrens. They all come roaring through the garden eating the insects, eating whatever’s hanging around on the flowers. It’s really good to see that recovery of the bush after such devastation. I guess it made us all slowly feel a bit better.

[00:14:06] Kathryn: Before we started recording our conversation Liz, you were pointing out to me the native bees as well.

[00:14:12] Liz: Ah, yes. When everything was so dead, there would be bull ants. And I actually found a lot of trapdoor holes that I hadn’t realized was there because they were all covered in vegetation, you know, so all around us, although, you know, don’t want to alarm you, but there are little trapdoor spiders living all through the undergrowth and they survived, which is really good. But we’ve got a lot more insect life now, which is wonderful to see. We’ve got the native bees, the little blue banded bees, they’re all through the pineapple sage, and all the natives that are growing back. I think we’re told that natives are quite short, lived plants and people think of something like a wattle. It’s just going to grow overnight and be quite quick to flower. And that’s not actually the case. What I’m seeing with a lot of the wattles growing back that most of them haven’t flowered yet. The variety we’ve got here hasn’t flowered at all yet. Some of the smaller wattles that I’ve seen growing in other areas, they’ve already flowered a couple of times, but the majority of our wattles haven’t, so there hasn’t actually been a lot of the mass food that those insects would rely on and they’ve come into our garden and are taking advantage of our little introduced plants. And I’ve been really happy about that. So that hopefully as the wattles and start to flower, they can move on to those and the populations can recover.

[00:15:38] Kathryn: Some really exciting changes happening there.

[00:15:41] Liz: So it makes me think, Oh, I wish I knew more about how all of the little ecosystems work together, because you can see it happening and you, you know, you can see that there’s something going on there and you wish you knew a bit more about how to support it really.

[00:15:55] Kathryn: What are some of the things that you’ve learned, Liz, as a result of being impacted pretty directly by this bush fire, something that you think the rest of the community also needs to know about, or maybe you’ve got some advice for other people who are living in bushfire-prone areas?

[00:16:12] Liz: I think, the thing that I, that I really learnt that really touched me the most, I guess, was how important your community links are. How important engaging with your community and being a part of your community is, because we’d only just moved into the house in our little area, I only knew a couple of the neighbors and we didn’t get any formal alerts about the fire until it was right on our doorstep when the police came down our little driveway and said, You guys need to leave now. If we waited for that, we would have left the house with pretty much clothes that we were in and we wouldn’t have been able to take any of the animals. So we may have come back to additional tragedies. So, luckily the one neighbour that we knew called us and let us know what was happening because the fire moved so quickly in our direction. And there’s only one way in and out from our little street. So I think the engagement with the community is super important. So I’d just really encourage people to get out there and introduce yourself to your neighbours, because it is sometimes really life-saving that you do that, not just for you, but for them, because we really rely on each other in the country in times of drought, in times of bushfire. If you have an accident at home, having neighbours that know that you’re there and know who you are and have your contact details you know, I can’t emphasise enough how important that is. And then during the recovery process, we just saw the entire community get together to support everyone. There was so much being given and donated and we’re not, you know, we’re not a rich community. We’re a community of farmers and workers and during the drought a lot of people really struggled and then just to see the amount of immediate help and support that was on offer for all of us, for everyone in the community was just really, you know, I think community moves faster than governments are able to, and all the big infrastructure support, you know, the army and all of that, they do take time to get here. Whereas your neighbours are right there and your friends down the road are right there. So, don’t be too proud to go and ask for help because it lets people know that they can rely on you for help. In the country, we don’t want to ask for help because we always are telling ourselves that, Oh, I don’t have it as bad as so-and-so or, I don’t want to be a whinger, but one of the things that I did learn was that if you ask other people for help, then they feel comfortable coming to you when they need help. That’s what I’ve been trying to teach the kids through this is that when we ask other people for help or when were honest about what we need and what our struggles are, other people will then feel free to come to us and share their struggles as well. And that’s really happened a lot since the bush fire for a lot of us. You do tend to feel that like, you know, that survivor guilt You don’t want to complain too much because you know, someone who, who literally has only their clothes I think it is a bit part of mentality of living here and the mentality growing up in the bush is that being self-reliant is very valued and people do take pride in not being a bludger and not being not being someone who takes more than they give, I think is the important thing. But at the same time, your mental health really suffers when you do that. And then you lack the ability to help other people. Rather than viewing ourselves as being really independent and not needing others or not asking the community for too much, if we keep in mind that we are part of the whole community, and it’s really important that if we stay healthy and we stay well, then we have the ability to help others. But if we’re sort of running on empty, then we can’t really, we don’t have a lot to give, you do see people that isolate themselves too much not able to participate in that I guess, mutual care and mutual support because no one knows they’re there. No one knows whether they want help and people will often be reticent to offer help because Oh they don’t like be disturbed.

[00:20:20] Kathryn: There might be times we need to have each other around.

[00:20:23] Liz: That’s right. We like our privacy and we often like having our own space in the country, but at the same time, I don’t know I think when I was a kid going to town was a really big deal and wasn’t something you did every day. It was a real community event. You’d go to town and get dressed up and put your good clothes on, put your good shoes on. And mum would wash everyone and off you’d all go, you know, do the shopping and, have a coffee or have a, have a catch up with people and then go home again. And I think even if you’re someone who normally spends time on their own it’s really important to keep going to town, you know, go and engage with the community and meet your friends and see how everyone is. And, you can offer help as well as receiving help.

[00:21:06] Kathryn: Circling back to the Hope and Growth Photo Exhibition, Liz, given your own bushfire story, how was it for you being involved with that photo exhibition?

[00:21:19] Liz: Oh wow. Um, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed talking to the other people in my street. A few of the other people on my street were involved in, um, they’d put their photos in and it was really lovely to talk to them about what had happened. it was also, I think, a really important chance for a lot of us to thank the emergency services, the bush fire volunteers and the people who were there because we often don’t get to see them except for when something happens, you know, and they see know them personally you don’t get much of a chance to say thank you. There were some wonderful poetry that was about thanking the emergency services personnel that had been there. And it was really lovely to see them getting out and feeling appreciated and feeling valued.
[00:22:04] Kathryn: Community events such as that photo exhibition is another way for people to get involved and to get connected with their community. Are there any other benefits that you’ve noticed or that you can think of for people when they do get involved in community projects like that?

[00:22:23] Liz: I definitely think that mental health support of similar events can’t be underestimated. A lot of the time when we think of mental health support or the mental health needs of the country and people who are living through a disaster or after a disaster, a lot of the time we think of counsellors or have social workers on hand or better access to mental health funding and things like that. But I think those events are of great value. Events that support the community as a whole to recover and support people to communicate their feelings about what’s happened in a creative way, help people who maybe struggle to verbalise or communicate how they felt about that event or communicate that they still are suffering from that event. I think having a community art practice like that was really a beautiful thing because you would see people who maybe at other times might struggle to talk about, Oh, hey, I’m still feeling like this. think having an event a few years after the fact might seem like that’s not really going to provide a lot of mental health support or that’s not really going to be the immediate help that’s needed. And you know, you do need immediate help and immediate support when something really big and traumatic happens, but it can take years for those emotions to come out. It can take years for you to actually access how you’re feeling. And I noticed that after about a year and a half after the bush fire, there was a smaller fire and they had the helicopters out again. And I had a really strong physical reaction that I did not expect just from seeing the helicopters and the change in the light that happens during a bush fire. And, you know, the smoke just covers the sun and the light is this really peculiar orange that you don’t really ever forget. It’s completely different to any other sort of light that made me realize that I was still actually affected by it. And then also again, you know, seeing the photos and hearing the stories brought a lot of things out that I had thought, you know, I’ve got this all sorted. I’ve had counselling, I’ve moved on and you realise that, Ooh, there are still some things there that I’m working through. And I think that was the case for a lot of us where getting together and talking about it was just a little step forward in the healing and a little step forward in reengaging with each other, and helping the community to, to heal and to move on and celebrate the good things that had happened. So, I think community events like that, where you’re not just focusing on having a chat or doing mental health work or trying to recover consciously, where you’re actually just connecting together and remembering, that’s a really important part of being a community, I think.

[00:25:23] Kathryn: Liz, we’ve covered a few different things in our conversation today from your connection to the community, your experience of being impacted by the bush fire and that burnt through your property and melted your water tank, the regrowth, we’ve talked about the Hope and Growth Photography Exhibition which you photographed the exhibition as well. And these opportunities for people to, I guess, explore their own recovery, either in structured or unstructured ways. And, once again, coming back to being connected with community and building strong communities. Is there anything else that you’d like to add into our conversation?

[00:26:10] Liz: I think, getting to know the countryside and the, bush around you is something that I don’t know if we talk enough about a lot of the time. The bush is sort of seen as something that we need to control or manage. And through the bush fire I actually learned a lot about the bush and about how we interact with it and how important that is for, not just our survival, but the survival of the environment that we live in. And it was interesting to see which trees burnt and which trees didn’t. A lot of the time we think of the bush as something that will all explode in flame, and we have to be cautious of it and we have to, I guess see it as something a bit dangerous, but I think that the more time we spend actually looking at what’s going on around us, the more chance we have of surviving when something like this happens and helping the bush to survive as well. Most of the eucalypts around my house didn’t burn. Their leaves didn’t burn. The little black cypress that I think a lot of people I’ve heard say, Oh yeah, they’ll go up like a candle. They didn’t. They all dropped their leaves after the fire from the heat. We lost almost all the stringy barks on the property because they did burn. And we lost a lot of our older gum trees. The parts of the bush where the trees are all dead the fire was so hot that nothing was going to stop it by that point. A really important part in, I think all of our houses surviving the bush fire was the fact that the state forest management teams had done a big burn off in the weeks before the bush fire, a huge burn off. They’d been in there for several days. And I think that really saved our little community because it would have checked the speed that the fire was going and the hotness of the fire. We do need more education on how to manage our bush. And we need more education on how to do a safe burn off, how to take out dead trees so that it doesn’t become just a ticking time bomb waiting for the next fire.

[00:28:18] Kathryn: It sounds like what you’re saying is if we get to know that land around us, get to know the bush, connecting with the community which helps with education, but also supporting that wider, that broader fire management strategy right across the community, that it’s not just you protecting your land, but you’re working together.

[00:28:41] Liz: Cos we’re really aware that it’s people around us, you know, whose houses are at risk as well as ours, you know, all of us. The fire got so close to the whole town that the whole town was at risk. And so the fire management strategies that the Park Rangers and the forest management teams and the council work on every year are just they’re vital. We can’t ever defund those because we will lose whole communities of people if we do. Their work throughout the town every year is just vital to to our whole community survival. But yeah, I think a lot of the older people have amazing knowledge that, you know, if we don’t engage with them, will be lost because they really know how to manage fire.

[00:29:27] Kathryn: There’s something there about that we have these people with some of that expertise and experience and being able to rely on them for some education, or being able to access information from them to help us as well.

[00:29:42] Liz: I remember reading about some programs that were happening here with Indigenous land management teams teaching on how to do a cool burn uphill and stuff like that. Like that was really interesting to see that all coming out after the fire. And I think that that would be amazing if we could get more education from people who actually have been doing it for so long. Land management practices of Indigenous people, I think, is an amazing untapped resource that communities could be benefiting from, and I know that the Park Rangers and things like that probably engage a lot more with local Indigenous people, but it would be wonderful to see the community itself being able to engage with that and a bit more of a, I guess, focus on recovering some of the knowledge that we’re losing there.

[00:30:30] Kathryn: Thank you Liz, for your time today. It’s been really lovely sharing this conversation.

Thanks for listening to the Speak Out Loud Stories of Strength podcast with me, Kathryn Walton. I hope this episode inspires you to get involved and to get connected with your community. You can find the transcript and any links mentioned in this episode, in the show notes and please share the podcast with your friends.
We acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual, and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Series Two of this podcast has been jointly funded under the Commonwealth and State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018.

Decision-making Tools with Helen Lewis

Transcript from the podcast “Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength from the Southern Downs”

SEASON 2: EPISODE 8

GUEST: Helen Lewis, Picot’s Farm

PUBLISHED: 21st March 2022

Helen Lewis, Picot's Farm
[00:00:00] Helen: If we focus on what we can change ourselves, what we can control and then what we can influence, that’s a far better use of my energy than worrying about the area of concern, which might be out of my control like rainfall. I can’t make it rain. I can’t make it not flood. I can’t do all those things, but I can make a contribution on my place so I’m ready for that. I can either get my business ready for that. I can get my land ready for that as best as I can. It’s never going to be perfect, but at least I feel I’ve, we’ve done as much as we possibly can with what we’ve got and we’ve made some early decisions.

[00:00:47] Kathryn: Today’s guest is Helen Lewis who shares some valuable insights and some tools to help you manage tough times. Helen is a primary producer from Picot’s Farm near Warwick on the Southern Downs, and she has a keen interest in educating communities about chosen change and unchosen change as well as decision-making for your farm, your business, your family, or your personal life that’s based on your values and your longer term vision. Helen also shares some information about the Outback Way Project which highlights the benefits of connections within and between communities and the power of collaboration.

Welcome to the podcast, Helen. Can you share with our listeners what your connection is with the Southern Downs?

[00:01:40] Helen: Well, thank you. It’s pleasure to be here, Kathryn really uh, It’s it’s wonderful the series you’re putting together. So thank you for including me in that. My connection with the Southern Downs probably starts when I was about nine months old. We moved from Brisbane to Warwick. And interestingly, my parents had purchased Hillside, which was Archdeacon Glennie’s old home sandstone home on top of the hill, in Glennie Heights. And so I grew up in this lovely old rambling sandstone home, and, uh, which had a deep connection with the area. The rectory of St. Mark’s church, is actually the kitchen from Hillside. And so I had 30 wonderful years living and you know, enjoying being at Hillside, in amongst being at boarding school and university and everything, but it was always home, which was lovely. So my connection has probably been in and out I guess of the Southern Downs with education and work. But eventually came home in 2003 and have been here since.

[00:02:40] Kathryn: The Southern Downs Region has been on a recovery journey following drought and then bush fires in 2019 and 2020. And more recently, the region has actually experienced some pretty significant rain and flooding. So we’ve had it all as well as the pandemic. What are some of the challenges that people who are working on the land have needed to navigate throughout these times?

[00:03:04] Helen: It has been a period of a roller coaster of events, hasn’t it? And there’s a lot of emotional impact that that has on people, uh, as well as physical, and obviously in landscape as well. The challenges are clear I mean, we know that drought is, is low rainfall and it’s just you know landscape dries out. We know the damage fires do. And we also know the impact of floods. But I guess, you know, it’s interesting that bush fires and floods are deemed to be a natural disaster because they are, you know, there there’s a start and finish. They come and they go, quite quickly, probably within days. A drought though lasts for however long it lasts and we don’t know how long that’s going to be. And so it’s the unending. It’s the continuous dry time. That’s the unnerving bit in drought. These events are actually unchosen and they create unchosen change for us. So there’s the process of unchosen change and where there’s steps and stages that we go through, regardless of how big the unchosen change is or how small and those steps include denial as the first one. So we put our head in the sand, it’s not happening, we don’t want a bar of it. We’ll just put our head in the sand. It’ll go away. Soon enough we understand that that’s not gonna satisfy with it’s still here. It’s still in our face. So then we start blaming. We start actually blaming others for it. And government’s not doing enough, or, you know, what happened, or whose fault is it? So we want to blame someone. Then we actually probably come to the acceptance. Okay. It’s here. Righto. Acceptance is just acknowledging that Right, we have a problem we’ve got dry times or, we’ve, you know, it’s happened. Um, and then from acceptance, if we can move through acceptance we get to resolution, which is actually, Okay what am I going to do about that. I better do something. I better make a decision about what I’m going to do differently, or how am I going to manage this? And then there’s exploration. Once we’ve hit that resolution of, Okay, I’ve got to do something, it’s up to me, we then start exploring, which is where we see all our options and ideas. And we actually then have chosen change. We move into the chosen change process. We’ve chosen change. There’s a relief because we’ve made a decision to do something and then there’s that excitement of, Okay, well, how can I make that work? And where can I put it? And let’s make this happen, but then we actually hit self-doubt. Sometimes we get caught on self doubt. And that’s where we can get stuck. And that’s where it’s really important to have supportive community around you because you need that support of the like-minded, your own tribe to actually help you and encourage you to keep on the path of of the change you’ve chosen. And then, from that you then go into resolution again. The resolution is I’m okay and I can keep going. And then you probably make another chosen change, you know, you kind of move through them. So it’s a really important that people understand those, but with all these events that have happened, natural, like, you know, with drought and bush fires and floods, it is the unchosen change and being aware of blaming. We can keep blaming for a very long time. And that’s not helpful for people to get stuck in because it’s negative and it’s very tiring. And also there’s no answers because it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault. So with that, I guess it’s comes then to the need for being part of local groups like the Landcare Group or farmer groups. We have a lovely farmer group of five other families. We meet every three months to work on our businesses. We discuss things. We, we challenge each other. We ask questions of each other. The kids have a lovely time together. Like it’s just a really great support. And during the dry times we certainly lent on each other heavily to discuss what was going well and what was good and how things happen. We just really tried to shift our focus into what was working but then also acknowledge what wasn’t, then you’ve got this group of people who can help you with ideas on, or what do you do to fix that or make it move, you know, how can we help each other? So Yeah, look, the challenges are endless. It’s about the commercial viability in a changing climate, really. I mean, if we don’t actually improve our landscape function, we’re going to have more droughts and more floods, and they’re going to be more severe. So we do have a responsibility to improve our landscape function. I mean, I was so excited that the recent flood we had a few months ago. There was silt on our flat so we have water coming through from Greymare Creek and it dropped a load of silt um on the first paddock. By the time it was crossing the road, it was only like maybe five to 10 centimeters deep. It was crystal clear. I could see the bitumen through it. But that’s exciting. That’s exciting. I know that our landscape is filtering that water. We’re getting the bonus of someone else’s silt I guess, but at the same time, we are sending that water off our place crystal clear. And it was completely saturated, but it wasn’t running fast. It was running slow, and it was clear.

[00:08:21] Kathryn: So some land management in action there.

[00:08:23] Helen: Absolutely. That’s testament to the work that we’ve been putting in with our planned grazing and really improving our ability for soil and our grass to filter water. It is our responsibility as farmers to actually get our landscape ready for rain and ready for drought. I want my landscape respond, whether it’s five mills or 50 mills. I want us to have enough ground cover so that five mils is useful and so is 50. We need to have landscapes that can function with very little rain plus also be able to absorb and hold lots of rain at once. That’s a great landscape. That’s a big compost bin and, you know, in the soil, which is what we’re aiming for. And if we’ve got that, then we’re holding the water in our soil and that’s the best place to hold moisture. It brings everything alive. It enables the microbes, the fungus, the bacterias everything to function. It’s about understanding that.

[00:09:17] Kathryn: I’m really interested in the unchosen / chosen framework that you spoke about Helen. It sounds like when you can accept that there are certain things you can’t control around the weather and those events like bush fires and floods, there’s only so much we can control around that, but you’re making that resolution and you’re exploring your options, even when things are going fine, when things aren’t tough, when those natural disasters aren’t occurring. And that’s a really good preparation for those times when drought might, you know, the dry times might come or, or the flood might come. And so holding that soil together and the water management, the land management, all the things there.

[00:10:06] Helen: Yeah, that’s right. And it’s also about really being very clear about your circle of influence and circle of concern. In the drought, Ian and I really talk about what can we do now? What are we a hundred percent in control of? Well, we’re in a hundred percent in control of our landscape. What’s going on here, whether we have animals or not. We can choose, we’ve got lots of choices to make lots of decisions to make, and we are a hundred percent in control of what we’re choosing to do. And when we actually really focus on ourselves and what we can control, we then help to break down what we can control and then that helps what we can influence. So our circle of influence grows and then also diminishes our circle of concern. So we could have lots of concerns about lots of things, but if we, uh, if we focus on what we can change ourselves, what we can control and then what we can influence, that’s a far better use of my energy than worrying about the area of concern, which might be out of my control like rainfall. I can’t make it rain. I can’t make it not flood. I can’t do all those things, but I can make a contribution on my place so I’m ready for that. I can either get my business ready for that. I can get my land ready for that as best as I can. It’s never going to be perfect, but at least I feel I’ve, we’ve done as much as we possibly can with what we’ve got and we’ve made some early decisions. But also we’ve sat down and said, Righto, what’s our drought trigger point? So in this good season, if we hadn’t have had the rain in, by the end of February that we’ve had this year, we would have started to de-stock. Now we’ve had three good seasons in a row. We have so much feed. We know we’ve got this year, we’re sorted, we know we’ve got standing hay for the winter. We know we’ve got enough feed to carry our animals all the way through and we could probably take on more animals. But then again, if we don’t have rain by January, February next year, because March is too late for us to grow anything, so we need to have the summer rain by the end of January, early, mid February, for us to know that we’ve then got enough growth time for us to have winter feed, we then start to reduce numbers. It’s just early decisions. And so we completely destocked in the drought and we had no stock here for 12 months. And that was, I mean, that was an excellent decision because we actually then were able to do other things in the drought. We weren’t doing the day to day feeding or anything. And how do you, how long does that go on for? You don’t know the end point. And so that whole notion of hanging onto something and continually putting money into it without knowing the end point, we don’t have that risk profile. We don’t, some people do and that’s that’s okay. But we don’t. So it’s about us knowing our risk level. We make that early decision and we destock, but saying that, so we had brown ground cover everywhere on this place. It wasn’t very thick at all, but when it rained, four weeks, we had knee-high grass. We were back in business four weeks.

[00:13:19] Kathryn: It was really amazing wasn’t it to see it just come up like that.

[00:13:23] Helen: Absolutely. So it’s about understanding what decisions am I going to make that will help me go into drought later. It looks like a depressing landscape, but then at the same time, it’s got its own function. And I was just thinking what what’s nature doing now, when I look out the window, when it’s dry and you go, what’s going on under there, something’s going on under there, like, and we had soil carbon for the microbes to eat. They were eating the pantry stores, which is our soil carbon. Then they can be brought back to life with rain, you know, and that’s, that’s extraordinary, you know, nature is so forgiving and just always happening. So I feel that it’s early decisions. It’s about understanding your own trigger points. So you need to make a plan and you need to stick to it. And understand how long are you prepared to feed Whereabouts are you going to do that on your property? Are you going to do it the same place every time? Why not move it around and actually put some animal impact around the place and then when it does recover, you’ll actually get some recovery. It won’t be another scalded place a spot for another 10 years, you know? So people move their feeder around into different paddocks, even onto bare patches and give that a bit of joojup with all the hoof action and every day just move the feeder. Then you’re actually preparing your soil for rain. And what are you going to feed them? Where are you going to get it from? How much is it going to cost you? So what are you doing? Why are you doing it? It’s all connected back to our values and how we want to live our life.

[00:14:45] Kathryn: And I wanted to circle back to something you mentioned a little while ago, Helen, about creating a network of farmers around you. And that it’s, it’s a really great way to support each other, to share information, to share ideas and inspiration as well about how to manage whatever happens to be going on at that time. And I just wanted to check in with you about that risk there is when we get together with groups of people. And I know particularly when the landscape was very dry and it was very brown, often the conversation would be around the negative. So how do you, within a network like that or in a, circle, a social circle, keep things positive and constructive?

[00:15:40] Helen: And I think that’s where we focus on what we can do and so if people are whingeing about feeding and it’s taking its toll, sell your animals. Get rid of them while you still can and while they’re worth something like, it’s actually about why do we make a rod for our own back? No one’s making you keep your animals. They are a saleable asset. Choose. Otherwise don’t complain. It’s actually about, it’s about the choices we make. We’ve got to actually be comfortable with those choices. If you know, if you’re comfortable feeding, great, well, that’s going to be a good story for you, isn’t it? But if it’s not, well, maybe there’s something wrong with that decision. Maybe you actually selling is a better decision for you because you are pushing against your own risk. You are pushing against your own values. And it’s in the face of your values and how you want to live your life and so sell. Or find agistment somewhere. So I feel that really being very, honest with yourself when you start hearing yourself talking in those groups, when you are in the middle of a drought, what are you whingeing about? What can you do about it again, circle of control, influence, concern? What can you do about that? Is it in your power to do something about that?

[00:16:58] Kathryn: That’s probably a really good segue into exploring this values piece a little bit more Helen, which you also mentioned a couple of minutes ago. And one of the roles that you have apart from farming is educating people around values-based decision-making and holistic management. Could you share with our listeners a little bit more about those approaches and how they might be able to help people in tough times and with some of these tough decisions like destocking, keeping stock, feeding stock?

[00:17:31] Helen: That’s right. So I guess with our values-based decision-making, if we’re clear about how we want to live our life and what really matters to us, and then also talk about the attributes. When our land is at its best, when we’re at our best, when our community is at its best, what are the attributes? If people write those down, that becomes their life context, Uh, which allows them to use that as a reference point. And if we keep updating that as we grow and evolve as people, and you know, we try and do ours once a year and just to check in to make sure it’s still current, that means if we’re using that reference piece for our decision-making and in our decision-making, we’re just checking that every decision we make is good for us as people, it’s good for our environment and it’s good for our finances and wider economy. So we’re trying to actually ensure that we’ve thought about the impact that we’re having, the ripple effect that every decision makes, because you know, we don’t make decisions in isolation. It’s like a pebble in the pond. It causes a ripple. And it goes off farm too. You know, we need to be really conscious that it ripples into the community with the choices we make. Our decision making is, is based on our context of our values and what we want for the future. It’s very grounding. So it’s not Joe Bloggs down the road and what their opinion is. It’s not all the noise from the media. It’s not all the pamphlets from the trade show or the ag show that you go to and you don’t know what to choose and you, so you just choose everything. It allows us a sifting process of all that noise and all those pamphlets and those opinions and we can actually check it check to see if it actually fits our values. And if it does great, if it doesn’t it’s out. And so we make that decision, which is very good for early decision-making. It means that we’re making decisions that are true to ourselves. We’re backing ourselves and it allows us to then, create those sorts of trigger points and policies, I guess, for our farm and our management so that we can be as proactive as possible.

[00:19:36] Kathryn: Would you be able to give us an example of values decision-making in action?

[00:19:41] Helen: I guess one of them was in relation to the feeding. Our values include things like self-sufficient, we want to make a difference. We want to have a really nurturing environment. We also want to be having a highly functional landscape, you know, we want to be proactive. We want to be positive, all these things. And if we run the ideas of feeding or destocking, towards our values, then destocking came up trumps because it actually enabled us to maintain togetherness. We’re looking after our land because we’ve actually destocked, for a short period of time, really in the scheme of things and also just the financial one was a big one because we went Well, we don’t know how long for, and we’re just not prepared to spend that money feeding animals. If we can grow more grass, and if we can maintain that grass because of management, then we can go into drought later and we can come out sooner, even if it means destocking in the meantime. And our next plan for our drought will be probably some agistment somewhere because we now are part of a process where we’re putting our animals through to to other producers who are value adding and selling boxed beef into Brisbane. We’re supplying them with clean meat, into their clean supply chain, which absolutely ticks our boxes, compared to selling it onto the open market. Just knowing that we are being responsible, you know, when we are regenerative ag, and we are trying to produce a clean product and our nutrient integrity is intact, then it’s our responsibility to make sure that that nutrient integrity ends up, being maintained through the whole supply chain um, and that really sits well with us because that gives our product complete integrity. It also is completely in line with our values and that those are the decisions that we’ve moved, that we’ve checked towards our decision-making as well. So yeah, it gives us focus.

[00:21:30] Kathryn: And it sounds like that’s a way of enabling your values to catch one of those ripples that goes out to the wider community so that at the other end, the consumer is enjoying the benefits of those values that you started the process with.

[00:21:49] Helen: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That’s really important that we maintain that transparency and the value of the product all the way through for the consumer.

[00:21:57] Kathryn: So many wonderful ideas that you’ve shared with us already, Helen, but I’m wondering if you could choose one top tip to give somebody for managing tough times, whether it’s weather conditions or something else who’s living off the land, what would that be?

[00:22:15] Helen: It is decision-making. I mean, when we need to also understand the tools and the toolbox. So sorry. The one tip might be very big one tip. But yeah, look, the understanding how nature functions. So, planning grazing, moving animals. If we’re set stocking, we’re allowing animals, just to graze everywhere, anytime, for as long as they like. We’re just eating species by species, plant by plant. Like it’s not going to be helpful in a dry time. It’s just going to cause more drought. If you’re planning your grazing and allowing adequate recovery of your grasses, you will have feed for longer. There’s just so many people who’ve had success with that. And mobbing animals up putting them together and then moving them around your paddocks. And then not coming back to that first paddock till it’s fully recovered in a summer will mean that you are growing grass for winter. And that means that you can keep in business. So understanding how to manage your animals and even in cropping, explore the cover cropping. Explore direct drilling into to land. Why plough when you’re all you’re doing is you’re breaking the, microbes, you’re breaking up the soil profile and, all the things that you’re relying on to grow a crop, you’re actually destroying with the plough and then all your top soil blows away. It’s not about jumping off the cliff and going all of the farm all at once to do the transition into some cover cropping or some direct drilling into pasture. Just try it and try it for three years, but just keep persevering because yeah, this stuff, is you transitioning out from something that’s very input heavy, which costs a lot of money to grow, to try to transition to something that’s going to cost you far less. It’s all very well to be best in show and the best yield, but how much does it cost? And that’s a big point. And so I just feel that people need to be really aware of the costs and input costs are only propping up what should already be in the soil and the soil should be functioning for us. And the more diversity we have, the greater the resilience of the plant we’re trying to grow because of all the predator, prey relationship in play. In the toolbox we have technology, time and living organisms. Technology. We love technology because it’s quick, it’s a gadget, it’s a how to and humans are linear. We love it. But we have to keep in mind with technology, if it’s destroying soil structure, if it’s breaking down soil biology, if it’s baring ground and if it’s not solving the root cause of the problem, then why are we using it? Because that’s taking us backwards. Living organisms are all the natural biology. It’s the compost teas. it’s the microbes that people put on. It’s all this living inputs. That’s where we’re better off because in the technology bucket, in our toolbox, that’s the chemical fertilizer. It’s the chemical fungicide. It’s the chemical pesticides that’s, that’s all technology cause it’s manmade. If they really feel the need to put something on, they can transition to natural inputs which are living organisms. And in the middle is time, which is actually about understanding the time on the land for grazing, the time for plants to recover, obviously we have times for crops to grow. We have time for harvest. Time is something that we manage. It’s a tool. We can use the tool of time for healing, and growing and harvesting and eating and, and enjoying. So it’s uh, actually a really important one cause time in nature is huge. And droughts are really a time for nature to reset like frost. So it’s an event in nature. And so we need to acknowledge that as well.

[00:26:08] Kathryn: That toolbox sounds like it would be useful for every individual human being as well.

[00:26:15] Helen: So absolutely. It’s a universal toolbox that we need to just check in with and say, well, okay, what tool am I choosing to use here? And technology’s everywhere, but, um, we just need to be mindful about the application of that technology. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

[00:26:31] Kathryn: The other part of technology, which I’m thinking about as you’re speaking, Helen, is how we access information. And there are some wonderful opportunities these days to educate ourselves, to access information and education using technology.

[00:26:48] Helen: And that’s where technology comes into its own. And we’re doing farming in a completely different era now with technology. And if we can use it well, there’s Ted talks, there’s Google, there’s Zoom calls you know, you can go to a course every day on Zoom, you know, like there’s just so much out there. But even local land care field days are enormously beneficial and they’re tactile, they’re physical, they’re people, you know, face to face.

[00:27:11] Kathryn: I’d like to change focus for a few minutes, Helen, and have a bit of a chat about one of your other roles that you have in our wider community, even beyond the Southern Downs, which is with the Outback Way. Could you tell us a little bit about your work with the Outback Way and how that might be impacting communities that it’s serving directly, but also indirectly and more broadly across Australia.

[00:27:37] Helen: Sure thanks. So I’m the General Manager for the Outback Highway Development Council and we for the last 20 years have been, well, I think it’s 25 years now have been uh, advocating and lobbying for sealing the road between Laverton in Western Australia through to Winton in Queensland. So it’s a transnational link connecting the east to the west, um, right through past Uluru. And we have secured over $400 million and road is being sealed now. With the final use of that 400 million, we’ll only have 900 kilometers to seal and we’re hoping to have this done by 27, 28. That’s the plan and what it does for the community. So we have 13 indigenous communities along this route that rely on the Outback Way roads. And it’s connected by four or five different roads. So we’ve got the Kennedy Development Road. We’ve got the Donohue Highway. We’ve got the Plenty Highway. And then the Stuart Highway around Alice Springs right down to Yulara. Then it hits onto the Docker River or Tjukaruru Road. And then we hit the Great Central Road in Western Australia. So they’re the roads that make up the Outback Way. And um, along those roads, we’ve got very cultural communities right the way across. And the impact for the communities is it sounds Irish, but if you can leave a place, you will stay. And that really is magnified when we’re talking about health and educational service delivery. When teachers and nurses and doctors can leave a place, um, 24 7, regardless of weather, regardless of any time day or night. they will stay. longer. And so as a result of that, then the trust, continuity of service delivery and health delivery improves and is consistent which means that there is far better health outcomes and far better education outcomes. Um, and that trust is really, really important particularly indigenous communities. And so the sealing of the road is more than just, let’s just put some tar down and like make it a tourism route. That’s lovely. And that’s obviously going to be fantastic for Australia and you will actually be able to zigzag the nation, which is great. And so gray nomads won’t have to go around in circles anymore. Um, they’ll actually be able to come across. And so looking forward to that, that’s, that’s awesome. But really importantly, even just the basket of goods. So all the national basket of goods, we worked it out that in Warburton, which is in the Western deserts, WA their basket of goods is 136% more expensive and it’s tinned food. It’s not fresh food. It’s tinned and frozen food. If we can seal the road where it means fresh fruit and veggies and fresh meat can reach this central Australia and these isolated communities, again, their health and their wellbeing will be enhanced significantly with just simply better quality food. And so that in itself, you know, really does change things for these communities. In addition to that, there’s obviously employment opportunities and with tourists, there’s a huge amount of opportunity for indigenous tourism activities, but also just local remote communities. Boulia is just buzzing at the moment. They’ve just redone their Min Min Centre Encounter. And so they’re just loving the connection the Outback Way gives them to a whole new set of tourists from central Australia. And clearly on a bigger notion the Outback Way will really enable enormous amounts of growth in mining sector in Western Australia. And it’s the mines that are mining the minerals and resources we want for our gadgets. So these are the mines that have got the rural resources, the copper, all these things that are critical for taking us forward into the battery technology, uh, and then also, then we’ve got the national freight story. You know, just recently the uh, Stuart Highway was closed. The railway was closed. The Adelaide Darwin railway was closed. The Nullarbor railway was closed. And so if we had a third route across Australia, we’ve got then a freight option as well. Another freight option which is really critical. Last year the Nullarbor fires closed the Nullarbor for a while. And again, if we’d had the sealed route across Australia through the Outback Way, again we’d be able to transport product east-west. There’s a lot of horticulture in Central Australia. There’s a lot of cattle, and improved animal welfare, improved savings for freight companies and trucking and pastoralists and actually making viability more realistic out there and adding value to their marketing options as well. And then of course, the tourism as well. The Outback Highway Development Council is put together with, um, the five shires across the route. So Winton, Boulia, Alice Springs, Ngaanyatjarraku and Laverton. Uh, and this project is then multilayered. So we work with Indigenous Land Councils. We work with the state and territory governments, the federal governments, we’ve got three tiers of government involved. We’ve got Indigenous community, we’ve got tourism, we’ve got freight, we’ve got logistics and we’ve got mining companies all involved in our organisation. We’ve you know, 40 companies and organisations that we’re collaborating with. And the value of this project but it came from the ground up. And I was out there 2017 with a media famille. And when they knew that we were on the Outback Way, we got hugs all around. They just can’t wait. The Indigenous communities are crying out for this infrastructure because it means people will stop. They’ll spend some money. They can have enterprises, they can actually make some money. They can make some economic development choices and it does comes back to this decision-making, you know, when you’ve only got one choice of toothpaste on the shelf to choose from, you’re not even making a decision. And so we’ve got this situation where we’ve got these people in these communities who aren’t even empowered to choose what food they eat, what toothpaste they use. I mean, for someone in urban Australia, well, that’s we just take it for granted. So how do you empower yourself if you’re not even making that basic day-to-day decision there’s no choice. And I believe the sealed road will enable that choice because there will then be the option for other products to come in and they’ll suddenly be able to choose between two toothpastes, two different brands, maybe five different brands. That’s exciting because it suddenly means empowerment. That starts the whole notion of actually being able to be in control of their own life.

[00:34:11] Kathryn: There are some really terrific themes that are coming out of the Outback Way that you’ve described Helen. Choices on all different levels right from being able to choose something different at the supermarket. Perhaps even a choice of supermarkets but also a choice of roads for tourists who might want to do some travel around Australia. So those logistical choices as well for transport. So if there is a problem with one access road there may be this other option as well.

[00:34:46] Helen: Yep. And I guess, the big thing too is the project is really about, collaboration and it’s come from the grassroots. It’s come from the shires and the ground up, and there’s no one out there that doesn’t want this to happen. And that’s really unique for such a big scale national project. It’s the only one of its kind that doesn’t have contention attached to it.

[00:35:09] Kathryn: So you’re seeing this aspect of collaboration, lots of opportunity for connection as well in the example of the Outback Way and bringing that back to our local Southern Downs Region, it brings to mind the Food Map. Could you tell us a little bit about the Food Map because that’s very much about connection and collaboration and choice and empowerment as well.

[00:35:34] Helen: So in 2019, Sarah Duden and I completed the Food Map. And that’s basically a, um, a list of all the producers in the region that are direct marketing to consumers, so the consumer can actually buy direct from the farmer and also any cafes that are actually selling and putting local food on their menus and or value adding local foods. So, you know, Jamworks and their berries and then there’s variety of producers that are growing produce in the Southern Downs, processing it in the Southern Downs, and then it’s available for sale. So locals can buy local very easily when they get hold of the Food Map and then start buying direct from farmers.

[00:36:18] Kathryn: That’s terrific. We’ve covered lots and lots of topics on our episode today, Helen. Is there anything else that you’d like to share about holistic management or values-based decision-making or anything else that maybe we have covered, but we’ve missed or something that we’ve missed altogether?

[00:36:37] Helen: Just a closing thought and that is I think if we adopt the headspace that we’re either winning or learning, I think that’s really powerful. It’s either working for us, or what am I learning from this? If we’re not comfortable, if it’s not going so well, okay, what am I learning? What can I learn from this? And what can I do differently? It’s a really positive space to be in. And also it’s a really important because with that learning notion, it means that we have to be monitoring. We need to be checking in and we need to know what we want, to know that we’re not going so well. What, what do we need to find or seek out to help us take that next step. It really puts us in a much more proactive state of mind.

[00:37:24] Kathryn: Winning or learning. Sounds like a really fabulous motto for us to take on board and if people are wanting to learn a little bit more about this values-based decision-making Helen, how can they find out about that?

[00:37:39] Helen: Sure so my values-based decision-making contact is Decision Design Hub, so they can go to our, my website and then there’s a personal button and people can actually do the online course. And for agriculture, there’s an agricultural button, and then boards and organisations can also click through and I’m looking to help organisations and councils and community groups, actually uh, put together values-based decision-making for their own organisations, because it’s very good at collaborating. The Outback Way uses holistic decision-making within our decision-making process as well and it’s clearly helping us with our collaboration. And then for what we’re doing on farm, Picot’s Farm, and they can source our beef and also the workshops we host, through picotsfarm dot com dot au and Picot’s is P I C O T S farm. We get pickets, but it’s Picot’s from Harry Picot, the fellow who, uh, who built the buildings and did some work down here. We very happy to talk to anyone who’s interested in any of those things. And if they’re interested in the Outback Way and want to go on a trip it’s outbackway dot org dot AU.

[00:38:48] Kathryn: Thanks for listening to the Speak Out Loud Stories of Strength podcast with me, Kathryn Walton. I hope this episode inspires you to get involved and to get connected with your community. You can find the transcript and any links mentioned in this episode, in the show notes and please share the podcast with your friends.

We acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual, and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Series Two of this podcast has been jointly funded under the Commonwealth and State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018.

Returning Home with Peter Gill

Transcript from the podcast “Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength from the Southern Downs”

SEASON 2: EPISODE 6

GUEST: Peter Gill

PUBLISHED: 10th March 2022

bushfire regrowth
[00:00:00] Peter: The morning after the bushfire,

I’d snuck home by six o’clock

Without much time to prepare myself

For the return home was a shock.

I dodged around the roadblocks

To get back up to my place.

My house alone there in the bush

Where fire swept through a pace.

My carport and my shed as well

Were such a welcome sight.

Though I had prepared myself I might have lost them through the night.

I swung around the corner

And pulled up in the drive

I saw right there, the roof intact

So my house, it did survive.

[00:00:33] Kathryn: My guest on the podcast today is Peter Gill. Peter lives on the Granite Belt in the Southern Downs Region where he’s surrounded by bush land that’s a habitat to a diverse range of vegetation and wildlife, including many birds which you might hear as you listen to this episode. For Peter, writing poetry is a catalyst for self-expression and creativity. He shares one of his poems with us today that conveys the relief and the despair of returning home after the bush fire in September 2019. Peter also shares with us the vital importance of preparation and being proactive, including asking for help of any kind, if you need it.

Peter, can you tell us what’s your connection with the Southern Downs?

[00:01:27] Peter: Well, I’ve been here about 11 years, um, just over and to be honest, I picked Stanthorpe off the map because I wanted to be near family in Brisbane and Ballina but I wanted to be in a nice, natural environment that had its own couple of industries, be it tourism and agriculture. So I figured that there was going to be a healthy economy and a healthy community, and also wanted to be able to buy property with a significant amount of land, my idea of big land, so that I could care for that and be part of it, but still be near a community that had the basics to get by shopping the usual things. If you need to go to the big smoke you do so, but otherwise you can avoid it. So, um, I just thought that Stanthorpe looks like an attractive town, be it Quart Pot Creek and the National Parks around it. Um, and yeah, the agricultural industry and the tourism industry being a significant part of how Stanthorpe can exist. And I was looking forward to becoming part of that and have done so.

[00:02:27] Kathryn: And a few years ago, 2019 and 2020, we had a number of fires come through the region and late last year, so late 2021 we had a community photography exhibition called Hope and Growth. And that was an opportunity for people in the community to submit artwork, particularly photos. And you submitted some poetry to that. And that was a great time to reflect on those bush fires and the recovery journey that the community had been on. Peter, would you like to share one of your poems with us?

[00:03:07] Peter: Sure I’d be more than happy to do that. I did write seven or eight poems, most of them focused on the bushfire. Um, some of it was focused on thanking particular, um, aspects of the, either the firefighting process or the recovery process being the community recovery hub. And I wrote a couple about more personal note of living in the forest, coming home to a house in the forest after the fire had been through and things like that. So, yeah, there was a bit of variety, that I expressed in that, and they were usually tapped out onto my phone at some ridiculous hour in the morning when I couldn’t sleep properly, because it was a bit on the stressful side, as you can imagine. So yeah, I wrote a few, but I think we’re going down the avenue of a personal aspect one that’s written partly as a, an emotional returning home but also includes a bit of an educational aspect about how to manage your own bush setting if you live amongst the bush, or you have some native bush land nearby, um, it’s got a little bit of educational stuff about how to interact with your environment so that you can live in harmony with it rather than being scared of it and how to prepare yourself for bushfire basically. It touches on a couple of different levels, but we’re going for the returning home one just simply called Returning Home and here it is.

The morning after the bushfire,

I’d snuck home by six o’clock

Without much time to prepare myself

For the return home was a shock.

I dodged around the roadblocks

To get back up to my place.

My house alone there in the bush

Where fire swept through a pace.

My carport and my shed as well

Were such a welcome sight.

Though I had prepared myself I might have lost them through the night.

I swung around the corner

And pulled up in the drive

I saw right there, the roof intact

So my house, it did survive.

Though as I looked around me

With smoke still in the air,

The brief sense of relief had passed

And turned into despair.

Most of my sheds and caravans

And several water tanks,

The fire on its ruthless charge

Had plowed on through their ranks.

My fire break had done its job

Almost right across the hill,

And yet it crept around the sides

And burnt most things down still.

Where I had done cool fuel burns

The forest fared really well.

Where the high fuel loads were the fire

Turned it all to blackened hell.

So the lesson here is not to rest

Until your fire prep is done.

And your bushfire plan is personalised,

Not just some generic one.

You’ve got to make really sure

That you’ve thought of everything.

For now we know a bushfire plan

Is not something you can wing.

You’ve got to keep on top of the grass

And trim it nice and short.

If you let some parts get out of hand,

You’ll be on that insurance report.

So call the local firies in for a fuel reduction burn.

Slip the brigade 200 bucks,

Could save your place you’ll learn.

For fire generally knows no bounds

Charging like an angry steer.

So it really came as no surprise

That it had done some damage here.

The drought we’re in has set the stage

For a scary fire season,

For a week ago it was winter here.

Me thinks climate change the reason.

It’s all part of preventing loss

And reducing risk of pain,

For once you’ve been through one bush fire,

Its memory will remain.

That’s Returning Home.

[00:06:10] Kathryn: There are a lot of pointers in there about preparing, really practical pointers about preparing for bush fire season. And that emotional element as well. Certainly a very stressful event, being part of a bushfire.

[00:06:25] Peter: It certainly was.

[00:06:26] Kathryn: And that recovery journey I think it really starts even before the bush fire doesn’t it, with your preparation and then there’s that stressful event. And then there’s the immediate clean up the immediate things that need to be done that are often very practical things. And then as time goes on, there continues to be recovery. I’m thinking that that Hope and Growth Exhibition in the community, that came about around about two years after the fire. So reflecting on those two years, there’s been you know, a lot of other actions that have taken place that have been part of your recovery journey and for the community as a whole there’s been a lot going on too.

[00:07:14] Peter: Absolutely. The agricultural community, not every year, but you know, frequently goes through stressful times, whether it be hail damage, flood damage, fire damage, various economic issues. So yeah that I mean now community deals with stress every year. It’s not just an economic cycle or a global phenomenon of a flu or anything. It’s it’s every year it’s tough going. And I think part of the strength of the community is that there’s support out there. And it’s part of the acknowledgement that if you need support and, you know it exists, then you feel confident enough or brave enough, or it’s not stigmatised. It’s like, oh, you know, I’m being a bit of a wimp here. I need some help. It’s like, no, it’s not about that. It’s about, it’s about understanding that other people are going through similar things. They might’ve been there before. They might be going through it at the same time as you. And if you can interact with people in your community, then you’ve got support and you might have, you might get some good ideas from someone about how to deal with something, or you might simply have someone who’s willing to listen to you tell them how hard it is. Opening up to someone can be the first step for you to have an emotional recovery or to deal with a problem or to fix something or, you know, whether it’s sharing to people talking about, yes, we’re both having the same problem, isn’t it terrible. Or, Hey, I’ve come up with this solution. Or, you know, so-and-so told me that we could do this or whatever, and next thing you know, you’ve got resources available to you. You’ve got something to help. The concept of mental health, we’re starting to try and get it out there in the public domain rather than it’s like, you know, you know, did you hear about this? And I don’t even want to talk about it. Well, now you can actually talk about something with confidence and say, Look I’m going to go out and I’m going to talk to someone and I’m going to get, whether it’s counselling or I’m going to find a resource to help whether it be something as simple as practical skills or recovery or mental health improvements, whether it be socialising more, whether it be getting help with fixing the farm, coping with the loss of a crop, that sort of thing. It’s about sharing. It’s about support. It’s about, acknowledging that it’s okay to say, you’re not okay. I mean, that’s the whole thing. You mentioned about the Blue Tree Project. And that was a project to raise awareness of a lack of mental health, perhaps like, you know, you’re stressed and you’re worried that you’re going to lose the plot or, you know, you’re not going to be able to cope with situations as you used to. And to be able to talk about it, um, whether it be in confidence or whether it be with friends, To actually just acknowledge that there’s an issue and start dealing with it and working towards solutions rather than dwelling on the fact that you’ve got a problem. Work towards solutions, get support and, um, yeah, let’s face it. You can save a few lives by everyone being able to find the resource base that they need and find a connection with someone that’s going to help them, even if it’s just someone at council steering them in the right direction, saying, you know, you can get help by contacting this number or something. It’s like the first step is the most important one. You don’t solve something if you haven’t taken your first step. So the first step is the biggest one. That’s the hardest one. It might be the most confronting one to acknowledge that, Hey I’m not coping with this. I’m not dealing with it. Need some help. And that is the moment in time where you actually start fixing something because you’ve acknowledged that it exists and that you want to fix it. So, yeah, the Blue Tree Project was a bit of a, um, a visual for creating awareness and to get the community talking about it. It gets people talking and starts helping people find solutions to problems that they’re facing so, yeah, there’s always a solution. You can have been through something really stressful. Whole family can go through it. A whole community can go through it. A whole country can go through it. It’s about finding help.

[00:11:17] Kathryn: And certainly the research has been showing how important it is to be connected with your community and to be prepared for stressful events, whether it is a bush fire, preparing your property and preparing your safety plan for a bush fire, or it can be making sure that you’re connected and that you know where to seek help if there is something else stressful going on in your life.

[00:11:46] Peter: Troubles are predictable. Some are predictable. Some are not, you can see some of them coming. I started preparing for the bushfire that came on Friday night. I started preparing on Monday and I decided on Sunday that I was going to prepare for Friday on Monday. So I took the day off work and I took stuff off my bush property and stored it in town cos I thought, excuse me if the [WHISTLE] hits the fan on Friday cos the weather forecast is appalling- strong winds, hot winds, high temperatures, dry, dry ground. I was like, this place is a tinderbox. If Friday turns out badly I’m going to be really up the creek unless I do something today. So on the Monday, I actually was probably the only person that was thinking about a bushfire on Friday because I took my ride-on-mower and my trailers and started packing things up. I packed up all my backpacks full of clothes and bedding and stuff. And I thought, because if I don’t prepare now, I’m not going to have time. If I’ve got five hours notice that there’s a fire coming, I’m going to be losing a hell of a lot of stuff if my place goes up. And I sat on the bonnet of my four wheel drive in town, watching the fire go over the hill. And I counted the fireballs go up where the gas bottles exploding. And I actually thought they were the gas bottles next to the hot water for the house and the granny flat. And it turned out to be barbecue gas bottles. But if I hadn’t have prepared myself for the possibility that I was going to lose, possibly going to lose everything, then I wouldn’t have had the mental focus to start acting and preparing myself for the possibility of loss, for the mental anguish. No, if I’m taking action, then I’m not suffering mental anguish. If you’re starting to prepare yourself for, be it a drought or, you know, you’re going to go look I’m not going to suffer from hail damage next year because I’m going to invest in hail netting or my crops, they’re not all going to be just tomatoes. I’m going to have a diversity of crops. The neighbour up the road now grows vegetables as well as fruits and things like that. So that’s about diversifying. It’s about preparing. It’s about building up a buffer zone or cushioning yourself or whatever. You can’t always see trouble disasters coming, but, um, there are certainly times when if you stop and think about the possibility of a particular type of disaster, then it’s the fore warned fore armed sort of thing. If you’re already on the front foot and you’re thinking about it, you’re conscious about it. You’re mentally more mentally prepared for it. You’re also more physically prepared and more economically prepared perhaps. So there’s things like that. So it’s about preparation and coping and you’re more likely to bounce back. Gotta be honest, I’ve bounced reasonably well after the fire, because I just went Well okay so I’ve reduced my human footprint on my block of land. It’s a big block of bush. It’s now more natural. So rather than going, I lost all my push bikes in the shed and you know all that went up and all my building materials got burnt. It’s like, well, now I don’t have as many projects to deal with so life’s going to be easier and you decide how you manage your recovery. And not to mince words, but you get an insurance pay out if you get burnt out. You get an insurance pay out if you’re insured properly. I know I was under-insured, but, I decided what I spent money on. To replace what I wanted to replace and didn’t replace what I thought well actually can get by without that. So that’s part of putting things in perspective and the usual thing of seeing a silver lining in a situation. How you deal with it, I guess, is really important. Yeah. Rather than me sitting and moping like sure, I was in shock for days and weeks for sifting through stuff and looking at everything that got charred going Oh there’s you know one of my best resource books. Yeah. Here’s the front cover, the little, little bit of ash that you can just read if you look at it in the right angle. How do you deal with that? It’s hard.

[00:15:37] Kathryn: Sounds like it was, almost in a surprising way, an opportunity to reevaluate your priorities, how you spend your time and your energy and finances.

[00:15:50] Peter: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s the full range of aspects in your life, whether it be health, financial, recreational, employment, and it’s not necessarily a fresh start as such, but it’s certainly part of it was a clean slate and going, Okay, so I’m going to rethink how I do things to reduce the possible exposure to risk in the future or to feel okay about loss to, be able to deal with loss. You’ve got to feel okay about it. You’ve got to accept it. You’ve got to understand it. You gotta talk about it. So then you can cope with it and move on. Not moving on forgetting, but moving on knowing, knowing that you’ve managed to survive something or recover from something, and perhaps, you know, reduce the chance of loss in the future, or be a bit smarter than you were last time around, like. We’ve got to come up with a way of minimising our exposure to damage or loss. And that can be done as a long-term preparation basis. Whether it be every year you prepare yourself for fire season, or you prepare yourself for storm season or that sort of thing, or economic downturn, you know, whether you’re multi-skilled or whether you’re, you can only do one thing. I’m always busy it’s because I do three different things in my employment for self-employed. Yeah, I do trees. I do grass and I do shrubs and I can do handyman stuff or whatever. That’s that’s just a simplistic thing, but, but diversifying your interests means that you’re going to roll with the punches and be able to get through things more like the next door neighbour doesn’t just grow fruit anymore. He does the veggies and that sort of stuff. So you’ve got different markets that you can sell your products on different times of year when you can sell it. So you’ve got a more consistent income or something like that. So it’s basically about understanding your own situation, preparing yourself for change, being able to accept a change and deal with it. And when things get out of hand, knowing how to step up and change tack or readdress things, reassess it, and maybe go off on a different tangent. As long as you’re prepared mentally, then you’ve got a lot more chance of being able to cope with it and if something takes you by surprise that you weren’t prepared for and you’ve never thought about, then you’re more likely to be knocked off your feet and take months to get back on your feet. And that’s a hard slog. I’ve seen that happen to people, you know, I might have been part of it myself at times, but strengthening yourself for possible things the foreseeable things and the unforeseeable things. It’s I guess it’s comes down to the strength of spirit and, and your preparedness and your foresight to have a bit of an idea about what things in life can affect you and what things you can bounce back from and what things are you going to need help with and who you can contact to get help.

[00:18:58] Kathryn: So circling back to community projects and community events like the Hope and Growth Exhibition, and we know that when people are connected with events, with projects, with people, with the land in their community, that they have a greater opportunity to bounce back. Sounds like you’re saying it really helps to have people in your life that you can talk to that you can be open with about how things are going. You’ve got practical help there as well, you can help other people, but they can also step in and give you a hand, if you might need that from time to time?

[00:19:35] Peter: Absolutely.

[00:19:36] Kathryn: And raising awareness and sharing information, that’s something else that you brought up as being really important in those connections that we have in the community.

[00:19:45] Peter: Yeah. Being comfortable with acknowledging that something’s not right in your life and thinking about which friend or family member or community member, or which official person, you know, whether they be behind a desk or on the other end of a phone, trying to think about who’s most likely or most relevant or who could understand who can assimilate and understand with what you’re going through and who can help you. Even if it means asking someone else, Who do you reckon I should call or where should I go? Should I try the council? Or should I ring up the state ombudsman or go and talk to a neighbour that, you know, went through such and such 10 years ago. Talk to them about it, how they coped with something. Yeah, it’s about taking the first steps to recovery. Not expecting recovery to come to you necessarily, but to actually go, Hey, I want to fix this. How can I do it?

[00:20:32] Kathryn: Some really great pointers in there. thank you, Peter. And thanks for sharing your poetry with us as well.

[00:20:39] Peter: You’re very welcome. There’s a few on the wall in the Hope and Growth Exhibition. You can pop into Jamworks, or you can go into the High Street or out to Wild Grounds Cafe out east of Warwick. And then there’s Vincenzo’s. There’s a few places around where you can see some bushfire photos and some of my poetry’s on the wall there. I don’t consider myself to be a poet per se but you need a catalyst or a stimulus, something to provoke. The need to express something and I just chose poetry to do it. Some people would draw a painting, some people would you know, write a story. Some people would go and plant a forest. I just use poetry, but now, and then I might know who got months, couple of years, whatever, without writing anything, but then something dramatic happens like that. And next thing you know, you pop out eight poems in the space of three or four days. Let it be said that the growth season that we’re in with all of this beautiful lush growth, will eventually lead to dry grass, dry leaves and possibly a water shortage. It’s just the usual cycle. So don’t think that we’ve had one bush fire it’s reduced the fuel load. It’s building up again. So.

[00:21:48] Kathryn: Be prepared.

[00:21:49] Peter: Be prepared. Think about it, work out what you need to do to minimise the damage. Be prepared.

[00:21:57] Kathryn: Thanks for listening to the Speak Out Loud Stories of Strength podcast with me, Kathryn Walton. I hope this episode inspires you to get involved and to get connected with your community. You can find the transcript and any links mentioned in this episode, in the show notes and please share the podcast with your friends.

We acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual, and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Series Two of this podcast has been jointly funded under the Commonwealth and State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018.

Get Creative with Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery

Get Creative with Mary Findlay from Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery

Transcript from the podcast “Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength from the Southern Downs”

SEASON 2: EPISODE 5

GUEST: Mary Findlay, Director Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery

PUBLISHED: 7th March 2022

Stantghorpe Street Art
“WHATEVER THE WEATHER, WE STAND TOGETHER”
https://www.srag.org.au/stanthorpe-street-art

[00:00:00] Mary: I talk about uniqueness there. Not one of them, not one artwork is the same. And that tells you a little bit about yourself. So find your uniqueness of what you would like to do and follow that in your heart and do it because it does give you peace. And especially with the things that we’re kind of facing. It connects you to yourself, first to yourself and then it can connect you to other people.

[00:00:23] Kathryn: Mary Findlay is my guest on the podcast today. Mary is the director of the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery and her enthusiasm for connecting people to the creative arts is incredibly contagious. As Mary says, the arts are a wonderful connector that brings people together as well as being a valuable way to express your own voice or story.

Mary, welcome to the podcast. Can you tell us what your connection is with the Southern Downs?

[00:01:05] Mary: Kathryn, thanks very much for inviting me, first of all. And connection. Well, oh about 20 odd years ago, I came up here for my honeymoon with my husband, it’s really his connection. So his mother was born up here in Nundubbermere which is a sheep station on the Texas Road. And we came up here for our honeymoon and that was kind of it. I’d heard about Stanthorpe. And a friend of mine had moved up who was an artist as well. And then several years later we bought a 10 acre property. Then and several years later we moved up and I got a job at the high school and then subsequently got this job as the director at the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery. I feel like I’ve known this place for a long time, although it hasn’t been really my connection, but I suppose now it has, I come from a tiny village in Scotland about the size of Wallangarra on the east coast of Scotland near the, um, North Sea. The sense of community here and this smallness, I think really I was never a city girl and the city is kinda too big for me and so when I came here, I felt the sense of peace and, and I feel it’s a really, really strong community, so that’s my connection at this point. And I think slowly over time, you know, the investment in the community and then other people invest in you and that strengthens you, your connection to the place and to the people so that’s where I’m at at this time and it’s strengthening every moment, I suppose, really.

[00:02:36] Kathryn: Mary, could you tell us a little bit more about the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery and the role that you have here?

[00:02:43] Mary: Yeah, this is my sixth year and um Nicole Holly was here before me and she was a young Irish girl and she kind of woke the place up a bit with her ideas and everything. And then I heard that through the grapevine that her job was there. And I, I was teaching art up at the high school amongst other subjects and my background’s with theatre with Zen Zen Zo theatre company in Brisbane for 10 years, so I applied for the job and got it, which it was 4th of October, five years ago, last year. So it’s nearly six, this I’m in my sixth year. And it was a 90 degree learning curve, but this gallery has at this point 71 active volunteers. Some of them have been here for over 20 years and they know this gallery inside out. We have a 4 million just underneath a $4 billion collection that’s been gathered over many years. We have a very, um, feisty and wonderful calendar of events and lots of exhibitions we change every six weeks. We have a biennial art prize, which was last year, and that was a $50,000 art prize national. We had a photography prize last year and another national prize. We’ve got the, at present a local art prize, but we do favour local art here. And this particular exhibition is, just to give you, as a kind of example, there’s 95 works here from 95 different people. So that gives you an insight to how many artists are here. And there’s a few people I know haven’t entered for a variety of reasons. We’ve run a boutique and under that boutique it’s all local art and all that money goes back into the local community of artists. And as you know, during the last few years, it’s been difficult for artists, you know, um, performance art, everything to, you know, to make a living out of what they do. So that has been really, really useful. So I think the art gallery I’m kind of the face of it, but really, it’s been around for over 70 years in different forms in different places here. And then 33 years ago, 34 maybe now, they pushed for an actual bespoke gallery and no one can believe that we have such a kind of large, beautiful gallery as this in a small town. And these people who there’s a whole, um, what is it? The triangle of them behind me have pushed to this point in time. And, they valued art and I often thought, why it was so valued and there’s so many artists and so much creativity here is like during the 18th century. Cause we are having the hundred and 50th of Stanthorpe this year. We’ve done a lot of research and um, there was a sanatorium here and people came up here because of TB and well there was no television or anything. So they drew and they painted. And then there was the first world war people came up to recover from that. And then people didn’t have television. They didn’t have radios. There was theatre and plays people put on and there was poetry nights. There was art club. And then there’s a huge Italian influence here as well. And I think the cultural, uh, marriage of colonial people and the Italians was really amazing and they’ve fought hard for their place in this town and brought their culture here, which has been fabulous. But I mean, one thing I admitted to see that Indigenous people here long before us and we in our hundred and 50th, we’ve actually got some artwork and we’ve had permission to put a photograph in there from the Kambuwal people and so art has been practised by humans for thousands and thousands of years. And we’re just carrying on as a way of expressing ourself, our emotions, our stories, the things we’re thinking about, the things we’re worried about. And it’s a way of doing this. And I think that’s what makes art so important. For me anyway.

[00:06:39] Kathryn: Mary, you were talking about different art exhibitions and photography. And that brings me to the next question that I wanted to ask you about, which is the Hope and Growth Photography Exhibition, which was a community exhibition that began in late 2021. Stanthorpe is in the heart of this Granite Belt area which is at the southern end of the Southern Downs Region. And this whole area had been experiencing severe drought for quite a number of years and then there were the bush fires in 2019 and 2020. There were a number of them and I know there were fires before and after that as well. And since that time, we’ve had some other challenging events such as floods and the COVID-19 pandemic which has brought a few extra bumps to the region’s recovery journey. But one of the wonderful projects that was created as part of the region’s recovery journey, was this photography exhibition called Hope and Growth. Could you tell us a little bit more about how that began and what sort of benefits there are for the community and for the people who got involved with that project?

[00:07:53] Mary: Yeah, I think it was really timely, you know, because people were struggling in some ways of, you know, I think acknowledging that we had gone forward, even though there had been other issues after the fire and all that sort of things and the drought that we’d experienced all that time. So there was a chance then in that particular project to celebrate some of the things, but also acknowledge what had happened to us and not let it go, you know, like it’s happened, but as usual things do happen and they’re not what we want, but people stand up and they’re counted and they come together and they survive. And which is what we did. I feel really strongly, we did survive as a community. So the word was out that um photography, and we’d done this during Crisps Art Prize. We’d ask people to send to the gallery photographs to us of things that were happening to them and everything. And we put it up on our webpage. So it was put out again to photographers or people in the, in the region to send them to the council as well, because they were kind of putting this together with the recovery resilience and getting us back. And so they were chosen some of the photographs that did remind us hope and growth, but also reminded us of what we had done to survive. And there was three exhibitions. Was one down at Jamworks and one in town and then one at Vincenzo’s. And I thought they were kind of really timely because they were south, the middle and we had all experienced everybody in these communities had experienced the fire particularly and the drought. So, um, we were able to put these exhibitions up and come together again to um, the word celebrate isn’t perhaps correct, but acknowledge, and celebrate what we, how we had survived and how we continue to overcome things there. And to see some of the beautiful shots of growth from, you know, nature and nature had grown again after being burned to what we thought would never recover and what happens? You know, it, it does recover. And that gives you hope and hence the name Hope and Growth because it does give you hope. So I thought it was a really, really important exhibition and the Rural Fire Brigade were part of that as well. And there was photographs of them and they were there at every occasion because people looked to them at the time to help us and they did and um, it was unbelievable. And I know many of these people and, you know, we, we were all feeling very fragile at the time, so it was great to look back on it and see, well, we had felt pretty tricky, but here we are now, so yeah. Very important.

[00:10:39] Kathryn: A really lovely way to reflect and look forward to the future with some hope. Stanthorpe has a reputation for creative arts, as you were mentioning, before Mary. What else is on offer for locals as well as for visitors to get involved with arts projects or arts pursuits?

[00:11:01] Mary: Well, oh my goodness. I’m overwhelmed by how much there is to do. I mean, just to start with the gallery, you know, we have our fibre art group every second Wednesday. So they knit and a lot of them make their own patterns. And mix things up and they meet here. Every Wednesday we have an art group who meet here. We have workshops during the school holidays for young people and workshops during the year, like during the Apple and Grape. We’ve got our Indigenous basket weaving going on if you have a look on the webpage. Other great celebrations of art is GBART, which is a group that’s come together there. And we have one weekend where everybody in the district who are artists come out and show their wares, and this has become a tourist attraction. So it brings other things to the region as far as accommodation, and as far as for restaurants and things, but people can showcase their work and that has being hugely successful. We’ve got, um, the pottery club has been here for over 50 years and they have workshops if you’re interested in that. It’s really nice. And so many people willing to help you start off as a beginner. It’s always a bit intimidating, but these people really do help you. And we have Artworks are part, um, the QR Precinct. So they run art classes all the time, which is on the webpage there. They’ve got I think working Monday, Tuesday on a Friday and I think there’s cheese-making classes going on on a Saturday and then you’ve got another one, Laurie’s Larrikins. They’re up in the Agricultural Society on the Monday morning and Borderline are another group of artists who cross the border from Tenterfield in here. They’ve been together for, I think, a long, long, long, long time, 50 years, a long time. And they are very strong group as well. And there just seems to be something going on all the time, you know, for different things to do. And if you feel that you wanted to get involved in any of these, you know, please, you know, give me a ring and I can put you in the right direction. But I think what it does bring to people that when I noticed some of the group on, particularly the Wednesday group who are in the room next to me, and I’m often sit and have a cup of tea with them, is there’s all different levels. One person had never painted before in her life. And she’s a single person. And I know that, her horse had to be put down and things like that. And she came to the Wednesday group and, and that was really sad for her, but she had a group of people who shared that sadness. They were all loved nature and knew that. So there’s a sense of community in that little group that’s really lovely. And I was sort of saying to them, Do you think you’d ever like to put a little small exhibition together and we could celebrate? And they sort of giggle and think that might be a good idea or it might not be a good idea. When I go up to Artworks on a Thursday, I get invited for coffee there and there’s poetry every Thursday and they read poetry and it’s humorous and it’s social commentary and it’s, some of it’s a bit sad sometimes. And then there’s people who paint at that same time, again, all different levels and people just pop in and they have coffee at 10 o’clock and do the poetry. If you’d like to just have a look at that. I think there’s lots of musicians here. People come in, we have a piano in the gallery too, if you’d like to. Grand piano in beautiful condition. Many backpackers come in and play that, other people when they’re doing their exams play it. One of the volunteers just plays it cause she likes playing it. And so there’s a lot of music here as well and teachers who teach music. So I think there’s so much creativity here, and I think it does bring people together. And I find it really a way that people can express themself. It’s what they paint. They don’t paint as a person the same next to them. You know, they have different choices. Some are doing water colors. Some are doing acrylic. Some are using pastels. Some are just drawing. And so it’s, um, something they seem to, when I observed their participation in that, there’s number one, a sense of connectedness on their art connects them together. Then there’s a sense of peace when they’re actually doing the work. So they lose themselves in the work and there’s peacefulness in what they’re doing. And there’s also they share capabilities and skills, like someone’ll say, Oh, I can’t get this bloody tree right. Or, you know, something like that, I can’t get this right. And I remember one of the, another artists who came down one day for a meeting with me and someone was struggling with perspective and he did a quick fix on perspective, which was really super. So I think such sharing of skills and the fact that you don’t have to feel that you’re perfect or ultra good or you know, anything. And I think we discussed before that people say they aren’t creative. And I think everybody is creative in different ways. It can be gardening. There’s a community garden up within the Artworks Precinct which is a QR Precinct. And they meet a couple of times a week, which is really amazing. And they create gardens. They create food, they, um, brought some peaches along the team came on Saturday. The steam train came on Saturday at 10:15, but it was late because we had a tree over the thing. So we all hung around and someone had dropped peaches along for us to share from the community garden. So whether it be gardening, I find for myself, cooking is great for me. I love cooking. You know, I love gardening because it just gives me peace and I feel like I’m in nature and you really enjoy it. So lots of things to do.

[00:16:51] Kathryn: Lots of things to do by yourself, but also lots of things to do if you choose to gather with another group. Sounds so vibrant.

[00:16:59] Mary: People YouTube things to learn things too, you know, if, if technology has its benefits and other things, but we won’t talk about that are annoying, but you know, if you want to do something, you can have a look at that too. So there’s lots of ways to do it on your own too.

[00:17:13] Kathryn: If someone’s listening in and is feeling inspired to get involved with a community project, or one of the groups, or even to take up a new hobby that helps them to express themselves creatively, have you got any advice for them, Mary, on how to get started?

[00:17:29] Mary: Number one, you can phone the gallery or look on our website or any of the websites around here. And I mean, if you’re in Warwick, Warwick Art Gallery, again, get in touch with them. And they know other community groups that are doing things as well. And I suppose, talk to people, I think, follow your heart and making time to do something that you have thought that you might want to do. Is it writing every day? Is it a bit of poetry? Is it spending 10 or 15 minutes? If I spend 10 or 15 minutes in my garden, I can actually pull out a few weeds and sort things, put a rock here and there, you know, try and give yourself some time. It is really, really important to give yourself some time because um you deserve it. And creativity, you might say to yourself, it doesn’t exist, but it’s hidden away inside you. And maybe you’ve been told you aren’t creative. But during the Crisp’s Art Prize, we had 918 entries from all students in this area. Kids who don’t paint, who don’t do things. Cause I go and visit all the schools. And when I asked the teachers, they thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy it. And everybody has a goal and I talk about uniqueness there. Not one of them, not one artwork is the same. And that tells you a little bit about yourself. So find your uniqueness of what you would like to do and follow that in your heart and do it because it does give you peace. And especially with the things that we’re kind of facing. It connects you to yourself, first to yourself and then it can connect you to other people.

[00:19:08] Kathryn: That sounds just absolutely inspiring, Mary, thank you. Is there anything else that you’d like to share with us about the arts generally or about the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery?

[00:19:21] Mary: I think arts transcends things. It transcends differences. You know, the street art that we have here, you don’t have to walk through a door and feel intimidated if you’ve never been to a place like an art gallery before, but you can see it in the streets. So public art is seriously important. So I think art to me during this time, I’ve noticed that people have found a lot of peace and joy in singing and creating music, all the forms of creativity that, that are in the world. We have really, really enjoyed it. So participate enjoy and find your muse.

[00:19:59] Kathryn: Thank you so much, Mary. You did mention the art gallery website. We’ll include a link to that in the show notes for this episode. And, we’ll try to link up as many of those groups that you mentioned as possible into the show notes. I think on the gallery website there’s also a page, a bit of a directory?

[00:20:19] Mary: Yes, there is. And we give it out freely. If any of the art groups want to put their webpage, we put a link on because we see ourselves as trying to bring people together and people are, it doesn’t have to be at the art gallery. You find where it suits you, you know, to be a part of whatever it is.

[00:20:37] Kathryn: So it’s a wonderful way for people to get connected. Thank you very much for your time today, Mary.

[00:20:41] Mary: Thank you Kathryn.

[00:20:42] Kathryn: Thanks for listening to the Speak Out Loud Stories of Strength podcast with me, Kathryn Walton. I hope this episode inspires you to get involved and to get connected with your community. You can find the transcript and any links mentioned in this episode, in the show notes and please share the podcast with your friends.

We acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual, and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Series Two of this podcast has been jointly funded under the Commonwealth and State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018.

Building and Nurturing Community at the Dalveen Community Hall

BUILDING AND NURTURING COMMUNITY (DALVEEN COMMUNITY HALL)
Transcript from the podcast “Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength from the Southern Downs”

SEASON 2: EPISODE 3

GUEST: Nathan Parkes, President Dalveen Sports Club

PUBLISHED: 22nd February 2022

Dalveen Community Hall

[00:00:00] Nathan: When I moved here, I was told about the Friday nights at the Dalveen Hall. So I came along to meet the locals and enjoy a beer and a meal. I found it to be a great community. The locals are very welcoming and I’ve been coming to the hall ever since.

[00:00:20] Kathryn: Nathan Parkes joins me on the podcast today. Nathan is the president of the Dalveen Sports Club which is housed by the Dalveen Community Hall. The hall is a hub for this vibrant community that’s located between Warwick and Stanthorpe on the Southern Downs. There’s so much going on at the hall, so many opportunities to connect with locals and visitors, to get involved in volunteering and with community groups. And this community has some really innovative ideas that Nathan shared with me in this conversation. And I’m excited to share them with you too, so that you can also be inspired to take action. Hello, Nathan. And welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:03] Nathan: Thank you.

[00:01:04] Kathryn: Nathan, can you tell us what’s your connection with the Southern Downs and even with the Dalveen community specifically?

[00:01:11] Nathan: All right. Well, my wife and I, we did the tree change thing about 17 years ago, this coming June. So we both gave up careers in the city. I worked in construction and my wife worked in scientific research and we moved to the country so that our children could be raised in a country environment. I had a, uh, a good friend move here and he encouraged me to come along and have a look at some property in the area. And I fell in love with with the place. We moved here when our eldest boy was one. I now have three boys, all of which were schooled at the Dalveen State School and are now in their last years at high school.  So I’ve held various positions within the club and I’m currently the president of the Dalveen Sports Club.

[00:01:48] Kathryn: What is the hall currently being used for? It’s quite an establishment here. There are a number of buildings and a number of different functions.

[00:01:58] Nathan: Yes. Yeah. It’s quite a large area that the land itself is owned by the council. And on that land, we have the Dalveen Hall, and the oval. And also we have the Dalveen Rural Fire Brigade facility. So it’s a large area, numerous buildings. We all sort of work together. The Dalveen Sports Club supports the, the fire brigade and vice versa. So yeah, it’s, a great establishment and it’s an establishment that’s been funded by community. It’s been fundraised and built by the community for the community. I could confidently say the Dalveen Hall would be one of the most well utilised halls on the Southern Downs. So in terms of, of use, I’ve got a bit of a list here I’ll refer to. The hall is used for a number of things. We have CWA craft groups here every fortnight. We have CWA monthly meetings. They hold the Biggest Morning Teas and other fundraising events at the hall. The Sports Club hosts community dinners every Friday night except public holidays. It also has its holds its meetings monthly. We have a subcommittee of the Dalveen Sports Club called the Dalveen Film Society. They hold monthly meetings and bi-monthly movie screenings. We have another Sunday sewing group held every fortnight. The Wild Dog Management Group have their monthly meetings here. The Dalveen State School regularly utilise the hall and the oval for their school and inter-school sports. The Dalveen CWA have held a Christmas Tree here every year for the last 96 years. So that’s a celebration Christmas celebration that the CWA put on for the community. We have a group called the Darling Downs Drifters which hold three day events yearly. We have community meetings with councillors, the electoral commission hold their polling for federal and state elections. We have private bookings for functions. They can be birthdays, engagements, weddings wakes, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services hold training and public information sessions in the hall.
Other events, such as hosting the Darling Downs Tractor Trek which is happening later in the year, other fundraising events, and this year the Dalveen Film Society will be supporting the Apple and Grape Festival by screening two Italian theme films during the festival week. We’ve hosted recently a small horse festival show as part of the Drought Resilience Tour. And today it’s being used for free haircuts prior to the return to school and that’s been put on by the Granite Belt Neighbourhood Centre.

[00:04:13] Kathryn: That’s quite a list. No wonder you needed to have list in front of you there Nathan.

[00:04:17] Nathan: I know. I couldn’t commit all that to memory.

[00:04:20] Kathryn: There are many halls that serve as community hubs in the rural communities and the villages right across the Southern Downs region. And we were hearing about the halls and the rural fire sheds a couple of years ago, being used as hubs during the drought to distribute water to people who needed it. And then we were hearing about the halls during the bush fires as a meeting place for the community to share information and to share management plans as well. So there are lots of things happening in these halls across the region. Coming back to the Dalveen Hall, how else does the Dalveen Hall, this whole establishment here, benefit the community as well as the individuals who live locally?

[00:05:07] Nathan: Well, during the drought, most of the water distribution in the southern end of the Granite Belt was carried out through associations like Granite Belt Water Relief. I would say that our club played a vital part in sustaining the mental health of the local community by providing a community hub where people could come together to enjoy a drink and a meal and chat with other people going through similar situations. In terms of the other natural disasters like bushfire, the Dalveen Hall and the oval is recognised by Southern Downs Regional Council as a neighbourhood safe place. During the bush fires of 2019 we had a number of people turn up, but unfortunately we weren’t able to operate as a, a safe place because power to the village had been cut. A neighborhood safe place should be able to provide a place for people that have come together during times of natural disasters to share and receive information and feel safe. It was after this, that the hall committee got together with the Dalveen Rural Fire Brigade and decided to get to seek funding together for the supply and installation of backup generator power for both the shed and the hall in the event of power outages. And it’s hoped we will be successful in seeking grant funding to make this happen at some point in the future. In terms of the other community benefits over the years, the Dalveen Hall committee has been an active advocate for the community and serves as an unofficial, I guess you call it a progress association for the village. So the whole is the community heart of our village. And it’s home to an active and proud community. Council recently developed an urban design framework for the village in consultation with some key stakeholder groups like the Dalveen Hall and the fire brigade and the school. And also the Dalveen locals. So during the development of this urban design framework or UDF, a key message from the community was the desire for council to continue to improve and upgrade community meeting spaces and support local community groups. Through this framework, the hall has also advocated promoting Dalveen as the gateway to the Granite Belt, investigating the possibility of a new tourist drive commencing at Dalveen, developing heritage trail linking local Dalveen heritage sites, upgrading the toilets at Jim Mitchell Park, exploring the opportunity of installing coin operated barbecues in the park with those funds being invested back into community projects, investigating the potential to deliver additional community units to the town centre as part of the new planning scheme and that’s to allow our local residents to age in place, supporting the club in grant applications for the installation of power and water to the oval to allow for RV friendly camping outside of use by the Dalveen Rural Fire Brigade and council as a neighbourhood safe place during periods of natural disaster and supporting the club to build an amenities block on the oval for use in these times. Council, as part of their planning review, their planning scheme review have also indicated they’ll review subdivision allotment sizes around the village to create opportunities for people to move to the area and support the village’s existing infrastructure. And whilst these initiatives won’t happen overnight, the urban design framework has given the Dalveen community a voice with council and an opportunity to set its own future direction. A couple of years ago, the Dalveen fire brigade in conjunction with the hall fundraised to install a theatre system in the hall which could be used for fire training purposes, community information nights. The last 12 months has seen the formation of the Dalveen Film Society subcommittee and their success in gaining a grant for the installation of theatre curtains, reverse cycle air con and advertising to the value of about 40,000. So we’re now able to heat the hall during the cooler months, and it does get cold here in Dalveen and provide a more comfortable and pleasant experience for our visitors. The film nights have been incredibly well received across the district and they’ve sparked a wave of media interest. So we’ve had numerous interviews on ABC radio. We’ve had stories in local papers and magazines that have shone a positive light on the Dalveen Hall and the local community. We have the film nights are regularly sold out and they’ve been well supported. And we’ve recently received a grant again from council that will see a new front of house theatre curtain installed as well as some additional sound curtains to the walls prior to our Apple and Grape Festival screenings. So, it’s been a very important part of our community and it’s so much more than a hall. It provides that sort of community hub where people can come together and share stories and experiences and get things off their chest. We’ve had a terrible sort of period in terms of bush fires, drought, and now COVID-19 so, you know, for us locally to be able to supply, uh, to provide a place where people can come and just address any mental health issues they may have as you know, it’s a great facility. It’s a great facility and it’s really well used by the community.

[00:09:34] Kathryn: And it sounds like it’s a really important place for socialising and having fun, relaxing. It’s not all about the seriousness of what’s going on out there.

[00:09:45] Nathan: No. That’s exactly right. So predominantly, you know, we get together once a week on a Friday. We have a fantastic team of volunteers that come together and we have a volunteer cooking roster. They provide a meal, uh, which can be purchased. We have a licensed bar that operates, and we have a pool table and yeah, it’s, it’s a great friendly family friendly social environment that people can come and, yeah get together and enjoy each other’s company.

[00:10:11] Kathryn: Nathan, you’ve referred to back in history a few times in terms of the hall and the Dalveen community. Can you tell us a little bit more about the history of the hall?

[00:10:22] Nathan: I’ll have to credit my mother-in-law for this information because she’s part of the, um, Dalveen Historical Society. So she’s been doing quite a bit of research on the hall and the local, the local area. It’s not quite clear when the first Dalveen Hall was built, but the first Dalveen Easter Sports Day was held on the oval in 1882. It appears that this was also the birth of Dalveen Sports Club. The hall quickly became the hub for a variety of sports and sports related events. By about 1927, the Warwick paper dubbed Dalveen the home of sport. With the oval at the back of the hall and the memorial tennis courts alongside, the hall became a hub for sports and sport related events. The Dalveen Easter Sports drew participants and spectators from the whole district. A Sports Queen was crowned. And a dance was held in the hall at the conclusion of the event. Indeed, the hall gained a reputation actually for having one of the best dance floors in the Warwick district. With the formation of the CWA in the 1920s, the hall became a venue for a variety of functions with catering provided by the CWA ladies. The annual CWA Christmas Tree was held for the first time in 1925. With a picnic afternoon at the hall, the annual Christmas Tree has been held at the hall every year since bringing together families from the Dalveen community. Last Christmas saw the 96th CWA Christmas Tree at the hall with many more to follow. So also travelling moving picture shows in the Dalveen Hall were popular with the local community and beyond. While their popularity waned over the years, the recently formed Dalveen Film Society brought their echoes of the past alive with bi-monthly film nights in the hall last year. Sometime in about 1937 to 38 the Dalveen Hall, the original Dalveen Hall was destroyed by fire. The community quickly set about erecting, a new hall with locally donated timber which was milled free of charge at the Dalveen saw mill. Members of the Sports Club and the CWA helped the builder Jack Smith when needed. Jack Smith conveniently lived next door to the hall grounds. The final task was construction of the brick stand for the copper, just outside the kitchen of the new hall. The bricks were made at the Dalveen brick work and laid by a local brick layer. The fire under the copper needed to be lit early so that the hot water could be provided for tea and coffee, as well as washing up. The boiling water was carried into the hall in old kerosene tins. The new hall was opened in 1939 in time for the annual Dalveen Easter Sports Day. All through its history the Dalveen Hall has been a venue for weddings, entertainment, community meals, celebrations, weddings, birthdays, and funerals and wakes.

[00:12:47] Kathryn: That’s an incredible history isn’t it? Really fascinating bringing in, the local skilled people to help out with the volunteers, to get that back on track.

[00:12:58] Nathan: It was quite a, it was quite a village, actually. It had its own saw mill. And it had a brick works and yeah, it was, yeah, it was a very, very, um, very sort of vibrant community.

[00:13:10] Kathryn: Yeah, sounds like it still is a very vibrant community.

[00:13:14] Nathan: Very much, so.

[00:13:15] Kathryn: Even though we’re living in a different world in a way aren’t we with a lot of these goods and chattels get transported from further afield these days rather than each community supplying them to themselves. Wow. What are your hopes, Nathan, for the hall as we move into the future?

[00:13:34] Nathan: Well, I’d like to see the Dalveen Hall Committee to continue to advocate for the community, and provide a community hub where people can come together and enjoy each other’s company through the good times and the bad times. I’d also like to see Council continue to see the value in community halls and recognise their importance within the comm unity. And I’d like to see Southern Downs Regional Council continue to support, improve and upgrade these community meeting spaces and support the local community groups that, that use the hall. I’d also like to see the hall source a passive income into the future. And we’re looking at doing that as I mentioned earlier, by providing some RV friendly camping around the perimeter of the oval so that we can continue to provide the services that we do to the community at little cost.
So that’s been recognised as well in the urban design framework and Council are supporting us with that. We have some other things as well. Some, some future goals and aspirations. One of them is to seek some grant funding to upgrade our kitchen to a commercial standard. And, um, there’s also some talk about the possibility down the track of subject to Council approval um, building a drive-in movie theatre on the oval.

[00:14:42] Kathryn: Wow, that would be wonderful wouldn’t it?

[00:14:44] Nathan: That’d be just something a bit different and unique. And I think unique for this area. So, you know, we could alternate between once a month we could have screenings once a month. We could do one inside and one outside. So yeah, something just a little bit different.

[00:14:55] Kathryn: Yeah, it sounds wonderful and it’s really great to have those hopes and goals for the future to work towards and have that collaboration and those partnerships happening in the community.

[00:15:06] Nathan: Absolutely.

[00:15:07] Kathryn: Nathan, is there anything else about the community or the hall that you wanted to share before we wrap up?

[00:15:13] Nathan: I guess Dalveen’s, it’s a very unique place. I grew up in the country. I grew up in a sort of a town of 4,000. Dalveen’s quite a small little village, but it’s, it’s unique in the fact that we have a very sort of proud, active community that are very pro Dalveen. It’s a remarkable place to live. And it’s just nice to be part of that. It’s nice to be part of a community that really want to push things forward and progress things. It makes doing it quite easy. And it’s in, in this sort of environment, you know, in a small village, we have a number of organisations. We have the Dalveen Rural Fire Brigade. We have the P & C. We have the Dalveen Sports Club and other organisations as we mentioned, the CWA. The lovely thing is, is that when someone puts the call out, everyone puts their hand up and it doesn’t matter how many hats you wear. You’ll quite often find that, you know, you’ve got members of the CWA that are members of the fire brigade that are members of the sports club that are members of the P and C, you know, but everyone puts their hand up and nothing’s a problem.
So when it comes to organising stuff, it’s shared by a lot of people and it’s quite easy to do. And I think that’s something very unique and it’s something that, in these days, you know, life is busy, but we always manage to get things done and, you know, I love it. I think it’s great. I always used to be on the lookout for nice place to live. I moved here and I’ve never looked since.

[00:16:30] Kathryn: Thank you very much Nathan for sharing your story. I think that a lot of individuals and communities can be inspired by how Dalveen is really nurturing their community and protecting it into the future.

[00:16:42] Nathan: It just goes to show that you can achieve anything. I mean, if you look around here at the assets, on this block of land, they’ve all been provided for and fundraised by the community, and there’s a lot of infrastructure here, and, um, unique place, great place to live. And like you say, an inspiration around the halls, anything’s possible. You’ve just gotta, work hard and, and have a vision, I guess,

[00:17:04] Kathryn: And chip away at it gradually.

[00:17:05] Nathan: Chip away gradually, that’s correct.

[00:17:07] Kathryn: Nathan, if any listeners would like to follow up on anything you’ve said by contacting one of those organisations or finding out a bit more about the Dalveen Hall, where’s the best place for them to go?

[00:17:18] Nathan: Well, we don’t have a website at this stage. There is a Dalveen Sports Club Facebook Page. There’s also a Dalveen Film Society Facebook Page and a Dalveen Community Facebook Page. Uh, the Dalveen Sports Club also produces a monthly newsletter called the Windy Ridge which is distributed locally via the post office and email. Contact details for committee members are sign posted at the hall. Alternatively, you can contact the Sports Club via Messenger and Facebook, and we can give you the relevant information.

[00:17:46] Kathryn: Thanks for listening to the Speak Out Loud Stories of Strength podcast with me, Kathryn Walton. I hope this episode inspires you to get involved and to get connected with your community. You can find the transcript and any links mentioned in this episode, in the show notes and please share the podcast with your friends. We acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual, and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Series Two of this podcast has been jointly funded under the Commonwealth and State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018.

Connection to your Community with Marco Gliori

CONNECTION TO YOUR COMMUNITY

Transcript from the podcast “Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength from the Southern Downs”

SEASON 2: EPISODE 1

GUEST: Marco Gliori, Councillor for Southern Downs Regional Council; Performance Poet

PUBLISHED: 7th February 2022

Marco Gliori

[00:00:00] Marco: There’s a voice to tell a story that could stir a restless soul
There’s a voice to call the final pass or toast a winning goal
There’s a voice that seems to lift the horse and rider past the post
Some voices whisper wisdom and some cannot help but boast
I have a voice for poetry though some dispute that claim
The rhythm rattles through me and I squarely place the blame
On the contours of the landscapes that caress me down the track
And the voices of the characters that echo when I’m back.

Kathryn: Today’s episode is a really fun one with Marco Gliori, chatting all about the things he loves most – the arts, culture and connection to family and community. It was an immense joy to record this episode with Marco which you’ll understand as you listen in to our conversation. Marco has a wonderful knack for inspiring others by sharing his optimism and enthusiasm. Regarded as one of Australia’s premier performers of bush verse, Marco is also a councillor for the Southern Downs Regional Council. In this episode, Marco shares not only his original verse, but also his thoughts on how individuals and communities can get through tough times.

[00:01:32] Kathryn: Hello Marco. It’s great to have you on the podcast

[00:01:35] Marco: Great to be here Kathryn

[00:01:38] Kathryn: Marco could we start this episode by introducing you. If you could explain to our listeners what your connection is with the Southern Downs Region.

[00:01:49] Marco: Thank you. At the moment I’m a councillor on the Southern Downs Regional Council. I was born here in 1963 at the Warwick Base Hospital. And my father is the reason we arrived in Warwick. He was an Italian migrant who came over after the Second World War and got a job as most Italians did at that time concreting. And they sent him to Lake Tinaroo in North Queensland to work on the irrigation up there. He met my mother Audrey a dairy farmer’s daughter whose farm now lies on the bottom of Lake Tinaroo. And they fell in love and took off down through Queensland working at Moogerah Dam, Coolmunda Dam, Leslie Dam. They had a child at every dam I might add and I was lucky enough to be born while Dad worked at Leslie Dam and we lived out there for the first two years of my life at Leslie Dam. One of the earliest memories I have is from that time living out there. I must’ve only been two or maybe three and running down the slopes and leaping into the Sandy Creek into the arms of my father who was squatted in Sandy Creek with all his work mates and the families with a stubbie of beer in one hand and a rollie cigarette in his other but he still managed to catch me. And they were rejoicing in the water being released from Leslie Dam for one of the first times I guess and flowing out down through Sandy Creek and out into the black soil plains. It was a really joyful time, a happy time, a hopeful time. And now when our dams are full as they are now that memory comes back to me. It’s an everlasting memory and a very joyful one. I grew up in Warwick. We moved into town after the dam was completed. And I went to Central State School, Warwick State High School. I had no real plans for life. And then Dad actually passed away two weeks before my 18th birthday. And the last thing I remember him saying was “You got to get a good bloody job. You got to get a good bloody job.” And of course he meant a career. So after Dad passed away I applied for everything that looked like an exciting career – the army, the air force, the Navy and I was actually accepted into the Queensland police force. So I had 10 years in the Queensland police force. So I attained the rank of Detective Senior Constable and had a great career. I really did enjoy it but there was something else that had me chomping at the bit to give a dream a go. And my dream was spoken word poetry. My father was a craftsman and I believe that while I wasn’t a craftsman like him, someone who could chisel a 22 rifle out of a piece of pine timber, I did have that ability to be tenacious, to be persistent, to take an idea and mould it. And I did that with my poetry, and my mother, by singing country music around the house, something as simple as that, sowed in me the rhythm of the ballad. So I left the police force and didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it but started becoming a performance poet as my job. And I was lucky enough to be contracted by the Queensland and Victorian Arts Councils. I performed over 3000 performances for them over a decade. I travelled on the road with my family. And this of course led into many more opportunities – spoken word festivals, the Maleny Folk Festival which is now the Woodfordia, the Tamworth Country Music Festival, the Outback Festival at Winton. I was flying around the country doing after-dinner guest speaking spots with my original poetry and it was just a wonderful way to earn a living. And I did that for 30 years and after 30 years on the road and my children had grown up I decided I needed to stay at home for a year. And it was during those first few weeks where I just started putting my feet up and thinking I don’t know what I’m going to do but I’m going to enjoy it, people started saying you should run for council. You should run for council if you’re here and you’re staying home. Oh how ridiculous I have no political aspirations. I have no political agendas. And after enough people tell you that you think “Well why not give it a go.” Something I was never afraid to do was step off the edge. So that’s why I arrive at the moment as a councillor for the Southern Downs Regional Council and loving my interaction with all the community and especially the arts and culture community.

[00:06:00] Kathryn: You would have seen the region go through various droughts and other natural disasters and other challenging times, and the region in particular more recently has been on a recovery journey following the bush fires that we had in 2019 and 2020. And there was drought before that. And of course since then we have had floods and we’ve had mouse plagues and we’ve had the COVID pandemic. Recently the Southern Downs Regional Council partnered with the Queensland and the Australian governments to celebrate the resilient spirits of this community. And we developed a photo exhibition called Hope and Growth and the images and the stories from that exhibition celebrating the resilient spirit have been on display at various locations across the region where you also performed one of your original verses that honours volunteers which I think was just so apt. There are so many volunteers involved in managing and recovering from disaster. I’m curious about when and why did you write that poem Volunteers?

[00:07:15] Marco: I had seen so many volunteers on the road travelling around doing festivals, events, places that had experienced bush fires, floods. They continue to be the inspiration within the community to create community, something to be proud of and to be proud of because they don’t require any recognition. I remember about 20 years ago we had a bushfire right here beside my place. It had started down in the gully with two electrical wires connecting up in the trees that were growing through the trees at that stage. It wasn’t on my property but it was at the bottom of a gully that led to my property. And I was in town one afternoon. No one was home. They were all at school and at work and I was at home, ducked into town, and driving back I saw my whole mountain in a big cloud of of gray smoke. I thought “What have I done? I’ve left something on.” I thought my house was gone. It was that ominous driving up towards where the gully started and it’s 1.2 kilometres from the road to my house. And that was a very long 1.2 kilometres but as I begin accelerating to the bottom of the gully I realised that the whole gully’s ablaze heading up towards my house. I didn’t know the wires had touched and that had caused it at that stage but about 30 meters up where it is, it’s a road but it’s literally my driveway into my house, I saw 20 people with wet bags. I saw a D2 dozer driving out of my driveway. This fire had only just started. I’m thinking “Where did these people come from?” And I was so lucky. They were actually having a firefighting course with the Hermitage staff right across from the fence from where I live at the state government research station which is closed at the moment. So I was just so lucky and I realised that these are the people that go out when the fires start, when the floods start and they they are so happy to just, they were so humble about helping me, but that fire burned for three days in my gully. The barrier that they formed, the safety barrier with the D2 dozer, the firebreak, saved my house from burning and my kids cried literally for days. I had three little girls at that time. They’d met all the wallabies and echidnas and the birds that lived in that gully and to just see that smouldering for three days, the tragedy, the psychological stress that that can place on children, families that are surrounded by fires and the aftermath is a devastating thing for a community. And to have this exhibition gave those people who were just on the frontline at the time the opportunity to stand back and relive that feeling of the ominous coming of the fire, the urgency there. And they could actually talk back then through their experiences in a calm, reflective way and say wow I didn’t realise it looked like that. So we had people on the frontline, the photographers, snapping history. And that is what’s important with an exhibition like this. Not just that other people get to share but those who were so entrenched in the experience get to sit back, breathe deep and say “How lucky were we? What have we to be grateful for?” And of course the great thing is we were grateful for the volunteers who step out there and save us. So this is that poem:

When your weary hands are trembling and the load appears immense,
When trouble like a Terrier comes scratching at your fence,
When waves of devastation flush your spirit from its core,
And common sense would have you kneeling down in very awe.
Watch them come with helping hands,
Rolling forth like marching bands,
Against the odds they’ll persevere
And stand their ground to Volunteer.
From somewhere west of nowhere, by the truckload they’ll appear.
Leaping down to fight beside you, at your shoulder, by your rear,
Armed with all the best intentions, firing gestures of goodwill,
Then retreating to the trenches when the spotlight starts to spill.
They couldn’t give two hoots for fame.
Their ever-ready boots are game.
Time is wasting! Crank the gears,
Saved again by Volunteers.
My Mother knitted jumpers in a cake stall down the street,
And volunteered a smile to every person she would meet.
To her, their grateful eyes were worth a thousand Souvenirs,
For twenty years she sat there with her mates the Volunteers.
No matter where their anchor lands,
They dedicate their helping hands,
For hands are valued more than cheer
When someone needs a Volunteer.
Now all around the world we see the troops are checking in,
To lend a hand as old Miss Fortune tries her best to win,
And should the future swallow us, the message will be passed
To start evacuating and, one guess who’s going last.
As the boats that harbour rich and poor
Go scrambling from each fatal shore,
The final hand to cast them clear
Will belong, no doubt to a Volunteer.

[00:12:26] Kathryn: Thanks Marco it’s a really powerful poem. I’m curious do you know how many times you’ve performed that one?

[00:12:33] Marco: I think the first time I performed it was at a cancer fundraisers breakfast – The Big Morning Tea in Toowoomba. And of course the organisers there said “Can we have a copy of that?” because my mother had that about her character. It wasn’t something that you went out and did. It was something that was ingrained in you from generations who had seen war time, who had experienced almost starvation in some areas, who had gone to school with dripping on bread you know as their lunches. That was their school experience. And here they were just instilling that in my generation. And I think sometimes, I wonder, if my generation has had it so good, so lucky in this fortunate, prosperous time in Australian history, that sniff of wealth for the working class of mines exploding in big wages for inexperienced, unqualified people that we’ve had this great moment in history where where we’ve been surrounded by abundance, a smorgasbord of opportunity. And now with COVID maybe it’s time for us to stand up as a generation, to refuel the CWAs, to rejoin the Lions and the Rotaries and the Apexes, to get out there and activate as is happening with our country halls, with the great Festival of Small Halls shows that have happened recently. That wasn’t just shows for entertainment. That gave an opportunity for the rural fire brigade to raise money, for the local schools to set up and raise money, for the local community to realise why those halls were created and how valuable they were in war time, of times of tragedy, communities would come together. And now when we stay home where we often don’t go out we have everything delivered to us whether it be on television, we have Facebook, we have delivery from restaurants. Maybe it’s time to get back out there in the community and let people know that we’re there to support them.

[00:14:33] Kathryn: It’s really interesting. The current research from more recent natural disasters is saying that one of the most protective factors that we have is to be involved with our community. And that’s backed up by what you’re saying there Marco, that historically people were really involved. That was part of their normal every day routine or just what they did getting involved with clubs and helping out. And certainly when we look at, for example the arts, which is another way of getting involved in the community, there are some benefits there for people’s wellbeing, being involved in various ways. I’m wondering if you can comment on that. As a whole community having the arts as a resource can be useful but also for the individual.

[00:15:27] Marco: The art galleries, our two regional art galleries, Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery, Warwick Regional Art Gallery here, it became a sanctuary for me during COVID and during my early days as a councillor trying to grasp with all the political strategies, with all the information you’re asked to go through and work out some pretty important decisions. It was great to walk into those galleries and meet my creative workmates on a completely different level. I’m no visual artist but they became a sanctuary. And I think that opportunity exists for everyone in the community. If you’re having a tough time, if your kids are sitting around home worrying and asking you those questions, take them to a library, take them to an art gallery. Have a look around, see how you feel after 20 minutes in there. It does soothe the soul as it does the artists who create them. While you’re there, ask them about workshops, ask them what’s available for the kids. We have programs coming up in both art galleries for students, for young children, for students from headspace are allowed to come in and do some wonderful creative workshops that release emotions. And this is what it can do for you. When you go to your libraries ask them about the storytelling workshops. Ask them if there’s any poets and storytellers coming to do workshops. There’s an opportunity for you to tell your story. And this is what’s so important, I think, in times of adversity, is that you as a community member know that your story is being heard because they all matter. Every story matters. And once we all connect with each other’s story we have empathy. And once you have empathy you can come up with common sense solutions to soothe your society. To say “Well what do we need, really?” We need food. We need shelter. We need mateship. And that’s what you get from your volunteer groups. That’s what you get when you go into an art gallery community. I’ve always found it welcoming, wanting to talk with you about what’s happening from a visionary perspective in your community. What ideas do you have with recycling? What ideas do you have for your landscapes and waterways that sustain us? Do you want to just go out and clean by the Condamine River or Quart Pot Creek? Do you want to go to Artworks at the railway station in Stanthorpe and join in with their workshops or are you retired? There’s something there for everyone. Do you want to act and sing a song? Go to the Stanthorpe Little Theatre when they have their open nights. Warwick doesn’t have an amateur theatre group at the moment. That’s something I think that we could do up this end of town. And I think that once you begin to do that, once you get folk clubs back in the pubs, once you get school groups have their string ensembles or their bands playing in the art galleries, those sorts of things bring in the fathers and the mothers, bring in the students who are friends of those playing, bring your community in who just like seeing young people express themselves. And there can never be enough of that. And the one thing we don’t want to happen at the moment with COVID is that we become so fearful that we forget how to do that. And I think that is one of the things people worry about, “Well I’ll just stay home.” But in actual fact we’re going to have to go out eventually. So let’s be prepared to set that example that is about empathy, that is about sharing, that is about creative workshops, mental health workshops. Just discussing how you feel and if there’s an opportunity or your local hall to turn up because they might have a rural perspective with characters who are isolated on farms. Go along. Just sit there. You don’t have to say anything but it’s amazing how many people hang around afterwards and just keep talking and have that cup of tea because they’ve made the effort and you have got to make the effort.

[00:19:24] Kathryn: I think you brought up some really really important words there. There’s creativity, connection, understanding, empathy, being heard – because sometimes we think when we go to an art gallery or to a workshop that it’s about hearing or seeing somebody else’s work but there’s also that opportunity for our own expression to come through which I think is really important too. So it sounds like there are lots of opportunities across this Southern Downs Region for people no matter what age they are or what interests they have to to get involved in some way in the arts through some public groups and public opportunities. But perhaps even if they’re not feeling comfortable to get out and about there might be some creative ways for people to get involved with the arts in their own home or perhaps with a small group of friends.

[00:20:21] Marco: Yeah I mean there I was just telling you before we started this interview, I gave you a bottle of my homemade mango chutney. That for me is creative. I never sit down and make the same recipe anytime. I go to Sam’s fruitery down on the way to Stanthorpe and I get boxes of fruit or I might go to another local produce place and buy stuff that I, and I just come home. And for me it’s always a mixed match of different flavors and spices. I love doing that and what do I do? I take those bottles out and give them to people. I give them to people at art gallery launches. I give them to people like yourself Kathryn who share, are willing to share their stories and capture the stories of our Southern Downs. That in itself is an expression of interest in other people’s lives. We have people who go out and mow the verges of of our footpaths, who mow the sides of our roads. They do that simply because they’ve got a tractor and a slasher. They don’t have to do it. They’re often not compensated for it. They don’t do it because council can’t do it. They do it because they want to show a pride in where they live. I remember doing a story some years ago on stage in Brisbane that involved an Aboriginal mate of mine by the name of Dusty who was a radio announcer in Brisbane. And he was there in the audience so I thought “Oh there’s Dusty”, so I told this yarn about him and me going hunting in the Gold Coast Hinterland. And it had a one-liner at the end and everybody laughed including Dusty. As we’re having a beer after the show Dusty said “Oh that was a great yarn ya funny bugger.” And we were just laughing and he said “But you know that couldn’t have been me down there on the Gold Coast.” And I said “What do you mean?” He said “That couldn’t have been me down the Gold Coast, huntin’ down the Gold Coast.” And we’re laughing but I couldn’t figure out what he meant. I said “I don’t get you, what do you say?” And he says “I wouldn’t have been hunting down the Gold Coast Marco. I’m a river Murri. I’m from Charleville.” And he was so proud of where he came from and he had no doubt where his soul and spirit was attached to. I didn’t grow up with that. I floated down the Condamine River on a tractor tyre but my education was about the animals that lived at the river. But there was no obligation placed on me as a human being to connect myself to the landscapes and the waterways that sustained me. Those stories of Tiddalik the dreamtime frog, beautiful colourful stories that Indigenous Australians told around the campfires of this country under the canopy of the million star motel for thousands of years connected them in a spiritual way to where they lived. And I wonder how many of us can truly say we’ve found that. And Dusty, in that with his great sense of humour, in just a passing comment didn’t have to convince me. It was so obvious that he was always going to be connected to the rivers of Charleville cause that’s where his people came from. And as our young Anglo Saxon society grows and evolves I hope that we find that because if we don’t we’re going to be in real trouble. When I came back after that, hearing that from Dusty and just thinking “What do I know about this place where I live really? Why aren’t I bragging?” I brag it here.

Yeah I come from Warwick, you know Warwick.
Old people retire there.
Young people can’t wait to leave there.
And some actually do.
Up the street boots wearing cowboy hats climb into big cars and dirty utes.
That smell of oil, cattle and KFC.
Tough teenagers with skinny elbows stuck out the windows of 83 Geminis
Cruise past the shoppin’ centre shoutin’ “Hey boofhead” to a lucky mate.
Chattin’ up two Grade 10 babes
Fiddlin’ with that cool silver neck chain hot off the $2 stand at Silly Solly’s.

That was my teenage years. I remember that so clearly, just cracking laps up and down the street, playing footy. But there’s another part to our existence that I think when we sit in these quiet moments that we’re having through COVID, when we have time to reflect, we should think about who we are, where we come from and how do we connect to the planet. How do we connect to the Southern Downs? When I came back from working with Dusty I wrote a poem. I still remember the first verse:

I was born beside the Condamine
She is my dreaming place.
Within me deep her stories flow
She’s the river I embrace.
Cascading west from the Great Divide
Across the Darling Downs
Over waterfalls, through sandy creeks,
Meandering past towns.
Her vital veins injecting life
Where the morning’s misty air
Serenely cloaks the farming land
And houses cluttered there.
And Mother Nature’s weary voice,
I’ve heard her weep and pine
Whisper solemnly to thirsty humans
By the Condamine.

That was a poem that I wrote after talking with Dusty but I brought it home and then got the kids from Central State School to recite it on the banks of the Condamine River. And you can actually go online and watch them reciting that. So for me that’s another way of sharing your creativity with the community. You might write something, it could be a play, a song, a poem.

It’s where you’re from that counts old mate
The highway home, the boundary gate
That street your mind meanders down
The view by night of twinkle town
That sparkles in your very core, no matter where you wash ashore
What fuels your blood you can’t deny
The rivers flow, the rumbling sky
Granite rocks, the harsh terrains
Ranges rapping black soil plains
Cascading falls in a sandy creek
That murmurs every time you speak

That was a poem called Pride of Place and I was asked by Ron Bellingham, the former mayor of Warwick, when I was asked to write a poem pre-amalgamation that remembered where we all came from. And that was his phrase – Pride of Place. And I’ve actually adopted it. It’s a wonderful way to look at where you live. Do you have a pride in the place where you live?

[00:26:36] Kathryn: So that sounds like that’s about connection to place, the geography, the natural world. And there are also other aspects of the region that will help people to do that, will support them to do that such as the local festivals and the local resources and the community events and the people connecting to each other.

[00:27:00] Marco: Yeah, you can join the Landcare group tomorrow. Go and join and you will know exactly what I’m talking about. They will take you to all those places that are going to connect you to where you belong to right now. They’ll take you up into the mountains. They’ll take you to the rural places that are growing crops that want to make sure that the wrong weeds are taken out, that makes sure the environment is healthy. And they do it from not just a natural perspective, a nature loving perspective, but an economic perspective. You can do it with the different festivals and events we have that are often in beautiful places aren’t they? Like where do we have them? We have them in parks. We have them where people want to get together under a tree and by riverside. And we have that ability here to celebrate our seasons through events and events are essential to the way we live, the celebration of the harvest always comes with the events. The events industry, the arts and culture industry has had COVID come down on it like a guillotine. People don’t realise how important the events in culture industry, not just the people on stage but the backstage people, the people who own the tents where the performance has happened, the hospitality industry that suffered, the local accommodation houses that are suddenly empty and have to pay staff. There are so many things that go along with this art and entertainment industry that we’ve created and they often don’t get the recognition because they’re not a shopfront, they’re not a farm turning up with a truckload of produce. They just walk on stage and do what they do. But what you’ll find in times of adversity like COVID, the arts and entertainment industry will often produce its best work. And I think coming out of this COVID when we’re all back on deck we will value them more than ever. But don’t forget them now because I can assure you many of my friends who have mortgages, who are just struggling, are finding it more and more difficult to get up off the canvas. And the way we react now to what we’re going through, which is the great battle of our time, I mean my father lost millions in his generation, my mum, through two wars, and this is our great battle across the planet. How we react to this as a society will see how our children look upon us in history and who they become. And if they can be inspired by this rather than see us talk the world down, be negative, then we have hope that they will see the meaning of trust, resilience and all those catch phrases we use. Well we might have to really get busy using them, experiencing them, showing them off and letting kids know that it’s okay. This will be part of history one day and let’s hope the other side of what we’re experiencing with climate change, that that would be part of history as well. But we need our generation who has had so much prosperity, we need to knuckle down and get busy because that’s what happened after two world wars. They were just told to knuckle down, get busy. And they were keen to get on living because they’d seen so much of dying. And we haven’t seen that yet. We have been fortunate that we’ve had the facilities to manage this COVID pandemic better than past generations. How many million died with the Spanish flu? But we need to also remember that we’ve been in a very fortunate few decades especially in Australia, not across the world, but in Australia, and we, as a country, can set an example as we have done so far I believe with the way we react. And we need to give that example to our kids to take into their future so they can say “This is where I’m from, this is what I believe in, my parents did so much for me.” Like we talk about our generations, they went to war, they sacrificed, they built a nation back from a war torn world, And they built us up into something successful, inspirational around the planet. Let’s see if we can do the same thing.

[00:31:24] Kathryn: And I think when we look at the bushfire recovery and the whole cycles that we go through with natural disasters, just using the bushfire as an example, there’s devastation and we can feel hopeless. We can feel like this is never ending. Similar with the drought. Those two events were very closely connected of course. And through that photo exhibition that I mentioned or that we mentioned a little bit earlier, we can see that there is re-growth, that things do change. Things don’t stay the same always. But there are things that we can do to invest in that recovery and to make that more successful. And it sounds like what you’re saying with COVID at the moment is there are things that we can do to to invest in that recovery as well for ourselves, for our communities and for our world. And thinking about the arts in terms of that COVID recovery journey as well, that we can look towards times with some optimism, we can invest our time and our energy and our hopefulness into when the Jumpers and Jazz in July festival will be a really large vibrant event or perhaps it will be a little bit different, the Snowflakes in Stanthorpe Festival, the Apple and Grape Festival. And of course there are lots of other festivals that happen across the region as well so I’ve just mentioned a few of them.

[00:33:08] Marco: I think that what we can do is enjoy the quiet moments and we’ll often be inspired not by something grand but by a gesture, a moment where somebody’s kind to you, where families are opening their hearts to other families who might be suffering and those things like you said, words you used there like optimism, they’re pretty big, they’re pretty big character traits if you can have them in times of stress. And the community is always inspired and they’ll ask “Well how can that person be so optimistic?” And if they ask the question, they’re asking the question of themselves “What can I do to be optimistic?” Well maybe I can go out and volunteer. Maybe I can turn up and create something in an art workshop or pop down to Artworks Granite Belt, pop into the Warwick Art Gallery. Ask them what’s coming up, what can I come along and have a go at and create? And it’s amazing once you focus on the little things, the big things take on their own momentum and they just become as I said, part of history. The event mightn’t happen this year. It will happen next year. And that is optimism. That’s just saying “Well not today but tomorrow.” If farmers have lived with it all their lives. They go “Oh I was gonna plough that paddock today, well look at that beautiful rain. I’ll just have to sit back. I can’t do it. It doesn’t suit me but I’m going to have to put up with it. I might want to sell them cattle but the prices aren’t right.” So I mean this is rural Australia. we We deal with those things all the time and that’s why as you can see people are flocking to rural Australia. You can’t buy a house around here at the moment because they want that pace. They want that lifestyle. They want that little community that we’re talking about going out and catching up with people, riding your bike around the street, going to a local park that’s less than 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes drive anyone from anywhere in town. They’re pretty exceptional attributes for a region to have. We’re very lucky.

[00:35:15] Kathryn: Marco what keeps you optimistic?

[00:35:20] Marco: Well I think you can only go with what’s around you and that’s family. I try to do my best with my family, to keep them close, to keep them optimistic. I think if you inspire those closest to you it might trickle out. If you have mates that are down, go and check on them. That keeps me optimistic because you’ll always find someone who’s doing it worse off than you. It doesn’t take far to look. What keeps me optimistic is seeing the volunteer groups at small halls who are putting on events, who are doing the little things right and saying “We’re happy, we had 80 people here tonight and gee that was good.” They’re not after thousands. They’re not after big accolades or front page headlines. They’re just after what we’re talking about – community – and if they can get the 10 neighbours that live around that hall to come in and celebrate. My daughter got married in the Freestone country hall, the best wedding I’ve ever been to. And it was so because it had that attachment to what that hall was about and that’s creating community. Everybody said “That was just so relaxed in there wasn’t it.” And so they’re the things that keep me optimistic, is that you’ve got more people than not willing to have a go at creating something little that will build into something big.

[00:36:40] Kathryn: Now if any of the listeners are thinking, after hearing you talk so enthusiastically about local arts opportunities and volunteering opportunities, if anyone’s thinking “I might have a go at something” what advice do you have for them?

[00:36:58] Marco: Make a plan. Write things down, get someone else to run it by you. I had the wonderful Spoken Word Festival at Killarney where they approached me and we had a lovely chat around and off they went and the plan came, went stunningly. It was a great weekend. I think discuss these ideas with people who can help you. I can help you. The art gallery directors can help you. The librarians can point you in the right direction. Just ask. I mean, text me, email me and I’ll point you in the right direction. And there are a lot of council staff for example that can say “Well you know that project that you’re thinking about, if you can really articulate that well, there’s a bunch of funding coming up specifically for that style of event. Why don’t you put in for it?” But be prepared. So clarify your idea. Clarify what it’s going to cost, how are you going to fund it, what local events coordinators you might use or entertainers or hospitality people and get some quotes. Think about how you might manage that event both financially and artistically and logistically. And if you have trouble, the council staff are always happy to help you run through ways that you can put that submission together and then get some funding for it. I never applied for funding myself because I figured “Well, I know what show I’m going to do, I’ve got a bit of a profile so I’m going to put up some posters.” And I did. I loved that part of it you know, printing the posters, putting them in newspapers and backing myself as a performance artist. At some stage you’ve got to back yourself and that’s what I love doing. So if you’ve got a show and you’ve got five artists who want to perform on that show, you might collaborate with them and say “Let’s all put in some funds and have a crack at this. We might make some good money out of it.”

[00:38:53] Kathryn: So many opportunities for people who just want to have a taste of what some of the arts might be like. So there are often free workshops or low-cost workshops around but likewise there are also quite a number of fee for service type workshops that people can participate in either through these festivals or in-between times.

[00:39:15] Marco: That’s right we have two amazing art trials, Granite Belt Art Trail, Condamine Art Trail and they happen in different formats but generally there’s opportunities to do workshops. So you might create candles in one workshop and that’s couple of hours you’ve created a candle. Yep I love that or not for me but I enjoyed it I’ll go and try something else. Or you could do some painting workshops. You could do sketching. You can do textiles. And there are always artists there who are willing to mentor and help you through. Those sip and paint workshops – how popular are they! They’re always full very quickly. I think there’s more of the sipping than the painting that people are being attracted to but that’s great because that’s what CWA halls are based on – craft and cups of teas. And let’s have an event that’s based on this and that’s what artists are realising too, that if they can get out into those country halls, we’ll do anything from drumming workshops to textile workshops.

[00:40:16] Kathryn: Fabulous. Marco is there anything else that you’d like to share about how being involved with the arts or with projects or with volunteering can add great value to people’s lives?

[00:40:28] Marco: Yeah I just think being part of something rather than nothing. That means going out in the morning you can sit at your table and drink a cup of tea or you walk outside and try and spot that first bird of the morning. Walking down the road as I do with my 18 month old granddaughter, we stop and pick up colourful stones. We pull a bit of a bark off a tree and by the time she gets home she’ll have a collection of stones and barks and leaves and feathers that we find in the grass. And she’s fed a horse and you can’t do that everywhere but you can touch the earth. You can listen for a bird singing. You can smile at someone passing in the street and once you start to do that I think the next step is becoming part of something else other than just where you feel you’re trapped. Sometimes people can often feel isolated and trapped living in units in town. Grow a vegetable garden for goodness sake. We have this abundance of space in our housing blocks still in rural areas, not enough people grow vegetables. So just have a crack. Buy one little punnet of carrots and at least you’ve got something happening that’s regenerating life. And they’re the little things that you can do. I remember there are lots of places of worship or church groups, food vans, St Vincent De Paul’s, your Red Cross places where you can sit behind the counter, go out the back and sort through donations. There are so many places looking for volunteers. Men Sheds – I’m patron of the Warwick Men’s Shed – just going over there and seeing some characters turn up to create and get busy and other characters turn up to sweep the floor and have a cup of tea and work on the computers and do the accounts and everyone is there for one thing mainly, and that’s mateship. And that is the great thing about our culture is it has always promoted mateship. And we need to continue building on the strength that we have in that area which is bringing our community together through mateship.

[00:42:47] Kathryn: So being involved with something rather than nothing sounds like a really great place to start, doesn’t it? And from there building up connections to place and connections to people and connections to community. Marco thank you very much for your time. It’s been a real privilege to have a chat with you today and to record your stories around the arts and around volunteering, the stories around your life as well today for our podcast for the benefit of our communities as they recover from bushfire, from COVID from whatever those stresses might be in their lives. What’s the best way for listeners to contact you or if they’d like to find out a little bit more about you?

[00:43:36] Marco: I would just go through the council website. We’ve got a phone number and an email there.

[00:43:41] Kathryn: And we will include those details in the show notes for the episode.

Thanks for listening to the Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength podcast with me, Kathryn Walton. I hope this episode inspires you to get involved and get connected with your community. You can find the transcript and any links mentioned in this episode in the show notes, and please share the podcast with your friends.

We acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Series 2 of this podcast has been jointly funded under the Commonwealth and State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018.

Asking for help

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Does it come as any surprise to you that one of the most common fears people have is related to asking for help? Yet asking for help is exactly what can help us move forward, achieve success, overcome challenges and experience a sense of fulfillment.

What IS the best way to deal with fear so that it doesn’t become a stumbling block and limit your success in life?

In this article I share my tips on managing one of our most common, unspoken fears – asking for help.

Fear is an obstacle to asking for help

Over the past few years my community has been impacted massively by severe drought and bushfires. Before that there were floods. With government and community support flowing in, it’s been interesting to witness how few people asked for the help that was available to them. Yes, we could argue that some of it wasn’t the right sort of help, or not offered in ways that were inviting and accessible. But during confidential one-on-one conversations with farmers, business owners and residents, it was evident that a number of fears were pretty big obstacles to asking for help such as hand-outs from charities and support from health professionals.

fear and possibility

Fear is the voice in your head that tells you not to ask for help

I like to describe fear as the voice in your head that tries to keep you safe. In the case of (not) asking for help, the voice of fear can bring up feelings of shame, lack of worth and pride. The voices of fear say things such as:

  • They’ll think you’re stupid if you ask for help.
  • You should be ashamed of yourself for getting into this predicament.
  • You never get anything right, you’re a failure.
  • Other people need / deserve help more than you.
  • It’s your own fault and you don’t deserve help. If only you had done [X] then this wouldn’t have happened.
  • You should have been prepared for this to happen, now you have to put up with the consequences.
  • You got yourself into this, you’ll have to get yourself out of it.
  • Asking for help is a sign of weakness.
  • Taking handouts would prove how lowly you are.
  • If you ask for help they’ll say ‘no’ then you’ll feel even worse.
  • Fear is trying to keep you safe but sometimes it oversteps the mark

Fear is trying to keep you safe but it can overstep the mark!

It’s just as well you have an in-built system of staying safe because there are dangers in our world that you need to prepare for and protect yourself from. Fear gets you ready to fight off the danger, run away and hide from it, or freeze. Even when there is no logical risk of danger, fear will continue to search for the possibility of it … just in case. This includes physical as well as emotional danger.

In most situations, asking for help isn’t going to put you in physical danger especially when it comes to asking for help that’s been offered to you by organisations and governments to assist with natural disasters. However emotional safety is at risk. Asking for help means opening a part of yourself that you usually keep hidden away. You feel vulnerable asking for help because those voices of fear have been shouting loud and clear and before you know it, you believe every word they say – even if it’s not true! In an effort to keep you safe, fear can overstep its mark and keep you small and scared, floundering in the wilderness of independence and isolation.

fight flight freeze OR pause breathe think

Put fear back in its place

Despite how tempting it might seem to completely do away with fear altogether, it’s an essential mechanism for survival. You can use the following strategies to keep fear in its place so that you don’t avoid asking for help when it could actually be, well, quite helpful to do so!

Listen to the voices of fear

It will seem strange at first, but no, it doesn’t mean you’re going crazy! What’s behind your voices of fear? Is is worry about what others think? Is it about people-pleasing? Is it shame and feelings of lack of worth? Guilt? A sense of failure? A desire for independence? Something else? When you get to know what’s behind your fear, you can respond to that instead of the fear itself.

Practise noticing when fear steps across the line of reason

Keep practising this noticing technique your whole life long. Simply noticing and remembering that fear is trying to keep you safe can settle those voices down a little bit.

Speak back to the voices of fear that are stopping you from asking for help

You could say:

  • Where’s the evidence for that?
  • Just because that happened before doesn’t mean it will happen again.
  • I pay my taxes and I deserve to claim some of that back in help.
  • We’re all wiser with hindsight. I did the best I could with the knowledge and skills and resources I had then. I can do my best now and that includes asking for professional / financial help.
  • I ask the solicitor for specialist advice about legal matters. I ask the garden shop for specialist advice about my garden. I ask the shoe shop for advice about buying new shoes. I can ask for help for anything I like including my relationships, my finances, my mental health.
  • If I ask for help, it will make other people feel like they can ask for help too.
Use some metaphors to re-imagine how your fear is behaving and how you could manage it

For example, you can picture yourself in a car putting fear in the back seat, strapping it in with a harness, and taking charge of the steering wheel yourself. If you are avoiding asking for help because the voices of fear are jumping up and down and shouting at you that everyone will think you’re stupid, don’t allow them to take control of your every movement. Be in charge of your emotions rather than allowing them to be in charge of you.

Another metaphor is to imagine that your voices of fear have a volume dial. You have control over how loud you allow your voices to be. Dial them down when they are clearly being irrational and there’s no evidence for what they are saying. Allow the volume to be louder when the risk of danger is higher.

Tell someone that you’re feeling reluctant about the idea of asking for help

Worries like these hate the light of day and as soon as you bring them out into the open, they tend to reduce in size or go away altogether. Fears about asking for help can seem very worrying when we keep them to ourselves; they gain power in your silence. Talking about your fears can lead to practical solutions that make it easier to ask for help.

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.

It uses inner courage and strength. Asking for help is a good thing. It’s how you find out information, learn and grow. It means you put the well-being of your loved ones above any fears or misgivings you harbour about asking for help.

are you feeding your fears

Use fear as a stepping stone to asking for help and achieving success

When you are ready, willing and able to ask for help, you put yourself in a powerful position to move beyond the position you’re currently in – whether that’s financial stress, relationship difficulties, health problems or anything else. You position yourself to succeed and experience a sense of fulfillment by overcoming the challenges. Don’t let fear become the stumbling block that prevents you from asking for help. Use it as a stepping stone to success.

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Discovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Kathryn Walton shares information and reflections in ‘Daisy Spoke’ that inform, inspire and empower women to a healthy and active lifestyle.