April 1, 2025 • 27 mins
Buckle up for an exciting and fun-filled conversation with Kal Krzyzanowski, radio announcer, producer, and podcaster. This week, we had a blast chatting with Kal as he shares his passion for radio and the many ways he's making a difference in the local community and the broader disability sector.
Link to Verity Group Disability Housing (as mentioned in the interview): https://veritygroupaustralia.com.au/about/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:12):
Hi I'm Abby.
S2 (00:13):
I'm Simon, and welcome to. In Plain Sight, a program
where we highlight people who are making a positive impact
within their community and the disability sector.
S1 (00:22):
Shining a light on those who might otherwise be hidden
in plain sight.
S2 (00:27):
And we share these stories on a weekly basis with
you here on Vision Australia Radio. Hi everyone, this is Simon.
How's everyone out there? Hope you're well. Hi, Abby. How
are you?
S1 (00:39):
I'm good. Thanks. How are you?
S2 (00:41):
I'm good. Thanks. What have you been up to this week, Abby?
S1 (00:45):
Well, uni work, the usual, but my partner recently just
bought this grill. Master. It's kind of like a barbecue grill, master.
It has, like, a a lid on it. And we
live in a tiny little one bedroom apartment, so he's
plonked it on the balcony. Um, it uses like coals,
so it's not like a proper fire. But the other
week we were roasting marshmallows on our balcony.
S2 (01:08):
Lovely. So you bought a grill master to roast marshmallows?
S1 (01:11):
Yeah, it was great. I like mine fully black and charcoal.
And my partner thinks I'm crazy for that. But he's
used it every. Every day this week. He's a real foodie,
and he's in love with it. So, yeah, he's cooking meat.
Everything on it every week.
S2 (01:28):
Feed the man meat.
S1 (01:29):
Yeah, exactly. And apparently you went to a theatre show
last week, right?
S2 (01:34):
I did, Abby. Yes. There's a few interesting firsts that
I had within that theatre visit. Firstly, I went to
the Heath Ledger Theatre as part of the State Theatre
of Western Australia, and that was amazing. What a beautiful
theatre it is. And I utilised the services of audio
description for the first time with the fantastic Bridget Brock,
(01:58):
who was leading the audio description.
S1 (02:01):
And how was that?
S2 (02:02):
It was fantastic. The play I saw was called August
Osage County. August as in the month. And Osage County
is a county within the state of Oklahoma in America.
And apparently I didn't know this at the time, but
it's a really well known play, which also was a film.
(02:23):
And one of the main stars in that film version
of the Osage County was Meryl Streep. And it was
an ensemble cast. The play I saw was mind blowing.
It was so, so very good.
S1 (02:37):
Mind blowing.
S2 (02:38):
Yeah. Everything was so well crafted. That's what blew my mind.
It was so fantastic. And to utilize audio description was fantastic.
I really, really appreciated it. And I was really thankful
to do that because this play had something like 13 characters.
S1 (02:56):
So oh my gosh.
S2 (02:57):
Yes, there was a lot of people and sometimes it
was difficult to tell who was on stage and who
was doing what. And so, so on. And the other
beautiful thing about the audio description experience is that we
get to go on a little behind the stage tour
before the event, and we get to see the props
for the people who need to. You can feel the props.
(03:20):
They call it a tactile tour. We get a bit
of a description about the stage, why they have this
on the stage. The stage designer was talking to us,
I got to we got to meet some of the
behind the scenes people involved with the theater and the
play itself. The people at the Heath Ledger Theater. My,
I'd like to give thanks and congratulations and appreciation to
(03:41):
the the service they gave us and to the help
and assistance they gave us. It was just fantastic. So
my whole overall experience at that was just fabulous.
S1 (03:51):
That's really cool. So you go again.
S2 (03:54):
Most definitely. Yep.
S1 (03:56):
Now who are we speaking to today?
S2 (03:57):
This week we are talking to Cal. Cal is a
very passionate and enthusiastic radio and podcast presenter, and he
was a fabulous guest to have here on our show.
He volunteers here at Vision Australia Radio in Perth, so
he was very familiar with the setup and really comfortable,
and it was a lot of fun to talk to Cal,
(04:18):
and we hope you enjoy listening to Cal as much
as we did.
S1 (04:27):
And today I'd like to welcome into the studio Cal Kryzanowski.
S2 (04:32):
How? Hi, Cal. How are you going?
S3 (04:33):
Thank you very much for inviting me, Simon. I'm very well,
thank you. Especially now that I'm in the room with
you and your magnificent producer, Abby.
S2 (04:41):
It's good to have you here. Now, you're quite familiar
with this studio, as you mentioned, as you walked in,
because you are a volunteer here at Vision Australia Radio.
You do some of the programs here, and you also
are a keen radio person and a podcast person. You
have two podcasts yourself. We'll get into that in a minute. Now,
I just had trouble with your name because I'm not
(05:02):
very good at pronouncing names, and I wanted when I
first saw your name, I wanted to call you Karl Krzyzanowski.
Like the famous scientist. Yes. Uh, but you're not a
famous scientist.
S3 (05:13):
Not yet.
S2 (05:14):
No. I looked at your name, and I thought, that
looks polish, because I don't want to stereotype. But you
just told me you speak French. Is that right?
S3 (05:21):
See.
S2 (05:23):
I like this. So can you say hello and welcome
to all our listeners in French.
S3 (05:28):
Bonjour. You are two stone couture on study.
S2 (05:34):
And what I love about that listeners is you can
tell he knows how to speak French because he's moving
his hands in a very French kind of manner. And
he's got the gestures down perfectly. That's that's lovely. Now,
just for fun to Cal, we'll go with the opening
question that you often have in your podcasts. Where and
(05:54):
when were you born?
S3 (05:55):
Yes, I was born in a country town in Victoria
called sale. Um, that's in Central Gippsland. For those of
you who don't know, or some of you who may
be in Gippsland listening to this, because we do broadcast
to Warragul, which is West Gippsland. Unfortunately the frequency doesn't
extend to sale. It it only extends to Rosedale, but
it doesn't go any further east of that. So hello
(06:17):
to all of my Gippsland listeners. I love all of you. Um, yes,
that's where I was born, and I spent the first
12.5 years of my life there, and that was very cool,
very nice upbringing and and very good to mix with, uh,
the country people and, uh, learned traditional values from the
predominantly older age demographic that tend to live in country
(06:39):
towns and who I surrounded myself with at primary school. And, uh, yeah, I, um,
and that's, that's how I became the person I am today.
And I've got to thank sale for that.
S2 (06:49):
Hello to everyone in sale and in Gippsland, a beautiful
part of the world. Cal, I found it fascinating having
a brief chat with you the other day and having
checked out some of your, um, podcasts and some of
the way, some of the things that you do. Tell me, firstly,
how did you get an interest in in radio and
being a podcaster?
S3 (07:10):
Yeah. So they're almost like two separate stories. But I
wanted to get into radio first. And I remember I
was like, actually on holiday in March 2022, in Victoria.
I was in sale when I came to the realization
that being a horse racing commentator wasn't necessarily the right
choice of action for me. So I thought to myself, well,
(07:31):
what can I do with voice work? What can I
do to get myself heard to a mass audience? And
I thought, yes, I'll be a radio announcer and the
radio station that everyone listened to in sale, and it
still dominates the ratings to this day. Trfm um, that's
the radio station that I decided I really want to
work for them, and I want to work there for
(07:52):
the rest of my life. So later on I realized, well,
how am I going to get into commercial radio? And
one of the ways that people get into commercial radio
is by doing community radio and by putting themselves out
there by doing podcasts. So the podcasting element actually came
first and that I. You could argue that it actually
helps me get into community radio. I was encouraged by
(08:15):
my job coach Daymo, who's sitting with us in the
studio right now. Um, he encouraged me to start a
podcast because I never had an interest in them. I
didn't really know a lot about them. I never listened
to them. I sort of found them interesting, but they
were never up my alley. And I always thought to myself,
I never want to do a podcast. I have no interest.
(08:35):
But then I caved in because I was having trouble
getting to community radio. So the concept that I came
up with the title of the podcast is called It's
in Our name.
S2 (08:44):
It's in our name.
S3 (08:45):
Yes. That's correct. And I thought I'd come up with
the most basic concept for a podcast, which is interview
my friends about their lives, and that's basically all there
is to it. And like what you say, every the
first question I ask everyone is where and when were
you born? So that's the inspiration behind what I did
back then.
S2 (09:04):
And explain the name of the show. It's an interesting title.
S3 (09:06):
The name of the show. I actually was having trouble
coming up with a name for a podcast, so I just,
I just googled a podcast name generator and it came
up with, it's in our name, okay. For an interview.
Society and culture podcast. So there you go.
S2 (09:20):
Right. And you've done very well at that podcast. You
were nominated for an award. What was the award that
you were nominated for?
S3 (09:26):
I was nominated for the Best New Podcast at the
Best New Podcast independent at the 2024 Radio Today Australia
New Zealand podcast.
S2 (09:37):
That's excellent. You mentioned that you wanted to be a
horse racing commentator. What was that all about? Because I
know that that area of sale and that big in horses.
S3 (09:45):
Is it? Yeah, yeah, we actually, I was with my
family and I drove past the racecourse, and then it
occurred to me and I asked my family for clarification,
but they only hold race meetings in country areas like
once a month, if that. And that's when I realized, well,
I want something to do more often. And back when
I was in late high school, senior high school, I
(10:06):
wanted to be a sports commentator. But then I thought, well,
you can you can call football and basketball and whatever
on the weekends, but you don't really do it during
the week week, unless of course, you're a traveling horse
racing commentator. So but I thought to myself, well, I
don't want to do journalism during the week and I
don't want to study a journalism degree just so I
can call a game of footy. So I thought to myself, well,
(10:26):
what's an easier field for me to get into that
I can do most days a week I can arguably
do every day. So I thought, yes, I'll be a
radio announcer or newsreader.
S2 (10:36):
So why did you think that you wanted to do
something with your voice? You're obviously a very energetic and
enthusiastic speaker.
S3 (10:43):
When I was a child, I used to watch TV. Um,
because there's not much to do in sale aside from
watch TV. But, um. But I used to watch. There
was one show in particular that made an impact on me. Actually,
there was a lot of ABC shows, but good game.
Spawn point was a big influence on me growing up.
I never missed an episode of that when I was
in primary school and Kerry O'Brien on 730. He's one
(11:04):
of my big influences. Yeah, that's gone way back. And actually, um,
one of my early, I think the very first media
influence that I had was in Henderson, who was the, the, uh,
weeknights TV newsreader for ABC News Victoria and yeah. So
Ian Henderson I still yeah, I still remember when they
made the announcement that he was retiring. It was such
(11:25):
a full circle moment, thinking, goodness, this guy has actually
helped me get to where I am today and this
guy continues to inspire me to pursue media. I guess
you could say not TV anymore, because when I was
a kid, I wanted to be on national television. But
then I thought, well, I have anxiety and I can't
really make eye contact with the cameras, so I might
(11:45):
as well go on radio. So you have more privacy
in that aspect? Yeah. So yeah, like when I was
a kid, that's what I guess inspired me to pursue media.
And of course, my ideals have changed over the years.
But those same shows and people, especially on the ABC, yeah,
they really had a big impact on me.
S2 (12:03):
And we mentioned that you are a volunteer here at
Vision Australia Radio. You're based here in Perth. How did
you get involved with that and why did you want
to volunteer with this particular program?
S3 (12:16):
Well, I realized that I had to do community radio
to get into commercial radio. So I reached out to
a lot of different community radio stations, a lot of
them in my area, and I got so many knockbacks.
I even did three weeks of training with an online
youth radio station called Pearl. No, not Pearl jam Youth
Jam that's no longer broadcasting now. And I thought, well,
(12:38):
this is hard, but it took me 14 months and
I got a referral from Graham George at Curtin FM,
and he encouraged me to pursue radio for the print handicapped,
as he called it, and information online was scarce. But
I knew what I was kind of looking for, and
I never heard of it before because I didn't know
that radio reading services existed. And so I reached out
(13:01):
online and I actually printed off my resume. I guessed
the address because it had the old Leederville address on
the website. So I went to the ABC building, which
is where we are, and I guessed correctly, and I
handed my resume to a security guard and I said
to him, can you please pass this on to Bridget Barry?
And that's so that happened. And I got a call
(13:22):
from Bridget Barry when I was out walking one day and, um, yeah.
And then that beautiful process ensued where I was interviewed.
She was really impressed with what I had to offer.
And 14 months after I first started pursuing Community radio,
I was on air for the first time on Tuesday,
the 26th of March, 2024 on the National News Hour.
S2 (13:43):
Okay. What do you do with that program? Do you
read the news or.
S3 (13:46):
I am a panel operator, like our wonderful Abby here.
Thank you. However, sometimes I can also be a news reader,
like a regular reader as well, when someone else is.
When I'm filling in for a reader on another day.
But I often do the panel operating, and like everyone,
I am involved with the pre-production of the show. I
print off articles, make sure they're edited so they're easy
(14:08):
to read, print them off, choose them, put them into
the run sheet, time them perfectly. And we, um, yeah,
we read the news for an hour for people with
a print disability. Which brings me joy.
S2 (14:20):
Yeah. And that brings other people joy, too.
S1 (14:27):
You're currently listening to In Plain Sight on Vision Australia
Radio with Simon Chong and Abby Green. And this week
we are speaking to Cal Krzyzanowski. Cal is a radio announcer,
producer and podcaster. This interview is super lively and energetic,
so I hope you're enjoying it.
S2 (14:53):
Cal, I like to highlight people in this program who
have a connection with a disability or have worked in
or around the disability sector. Now, Cal, is it okay
to mention that you have autism?
S3 (15:07):
Yes, we may talk about that. Yes.
S2 (15:09):
Before we actually talk about your autism, I noticed on
the internet the other day that on April 2nd, 2025
is International Autism Day. And I do like to make
mention of these days where we bring awareness to and
raise the platform of people who are just going about
their business and living their lives, but also have, in
(15:31):
this case, Neurodivergence. For you. Cal, how does autism sort
of look within your world?
S3 (15:38):
Yeah, it's it's a different way of thinking about things,
which is essentially what autism is. And I can't drive
because of my disability and also because of my anxiety,
which stems from my autism. And I've had anxiety for
pretty much my whole life. And it was worse when
I was a child. But it's improved, but I still
have the condition, so I can't drive. And so I
(15:59):
get disability support workers to drive me around and help
me do things like shopping and, um, shopping and going
to the movies or anything that I want to do.
Have a friend to take me to dance lessons and
help me exercise for 100 K your way, which we'll
talk about shortly. Yes we will, and I'm passionate about
things and people, I think. I think people can see. Look,
(16:21):
I hate saying because I, I refuse to believe that
I have so-called autistic special interests, but I guess anyone
that you meet who knows me will probably say that
I do have a couple of autistic special interests. Some
of those include radio. There's beer as well, which we
could get onto.
S1 (16:40):
I love.
S3 (16:40):
That. Yes. No, I.
S2 (16:42):
Can't blame that for my.
S3 (16:44):
Age. I'm very, very knowledgeable in those fields and very
passionate about those fields. And yeah, I contact like, for example,
I got to an age when I was mature enough
where I realised that when I was a kid, I
wanted to be on national television. But then I realised, well,
I can't actually maintain eye contact with the cameras because
I don't feel comfortable with doing that. And I hope
(17:04):
people don't interpret this as being rude. But when I'm talking,
I generally don't look at the person I'm speaking to
unless I feel comfortable doing so. But when someone else
is talking to me, I give them the due courtesy
and respect of, um, looking at that person in the eyes.
S2 (17:20):
Well, Cal, one of the reasons we talk about these
subjects on this particular program is that we want to
raise the awareness, but also So to highlight some of
the differences and to break some of the myths and
stereotypes that people have, and to maybe be a little
bit inspirational to people and think, well, if Kelly's got
(17:41):
autism and he gets able to do this, then it's
not a hindrance to following your passions and following your dreams,
and to pursuing certain lines of creativity or work or
sport or whatever it might be. So thanks for sharing that, Kelly.
Before we go into anything else, I want to talk
about your ballroom dancing, because we talked about that on
(18:01):
the phone, and we have talked about ballroom dancing on
this program a couple of times. Tell us about that.
S3 (18:07):
Like many wonderful things, I fell into it by accident.
How many times do you hear someone say, oh, I
fell into this lifelong career and hobby by accident. But
that's exactly what happened with me, with ballroom dancing and, um. Yeah.
So when I first came to Perth in April 2016,
almost immediately when I came to Perth and settled at
South Perth Primary School, where I went. I attended for
(18:30):
three terms. We got to take home slip. It was
an expression of interest for students who were interested, interested
in studying, dancing, to dance at the upcoming open day
at government House or the government House of Western Australia. Yes.
So I said yes because I thought, well, I've never
done this before, you know, might as well put my
(18:50):
put myself out there. So a wonderful man named Todd,
who's still at the studio today, and I still see
him and I still credit him with getting me into dancing,
Todd admits. That is, he was our teacher. No, not
Todd McKenney. No. Not Todd. No, no, this is a
better Todd, arguably. Um, but, um, no, Todd was, uh,
he instructed us when we got up earlier in the mornings,
(19:14):
and we attended school before our school day started, and
we started doing our dance tuition. You know, we learned
progressive jive and a hip hop routine, you know, just basics.
S2 (19:23):
Wow. That's fantastic.
S3 (19:24):
Basic social dancing that we did perform at the government
House Open Day in 2016, and I was snubbed of
meeting the governor. The governor at the time, Kerry, whatever
her name was. And because the, you know, the rich,
posh girls who would sit up the other end of
the line of chairs got to meet her first and
I was situated the complete other end of the line
(19:46):
of chairs. So I actually didn't get to shake the
hand of the governess, which is a bit disappointing. But
I got to dance at government House and they actually
had a full show of competitive ballroom dancers. And I thought, yeah,
this is really cool. These guys look really cool and formal.
And I continue dancing. You know, we learned dancing as
a part of our phys ed unit. Wow. Six. Yes.
(20:08):
And a part of that was for our year six graduation,
and where we danced with our parents and basically did
a whole lot of this, a whole lot of that.
And then at the end of the graduation, Todd said, oh,
before everyone goes, I have some sheets for our scholarship
medal program if anyone's interested. So I took a sheet
because I thought, oh, I might get to dance with
(20:29):
some of these hot girls that I went to school with. So. Yeah,
but but that's, uh, unfortunately, none of the other hot
girls joined us in dancing for the scholarship medal program.
But I started that medal program at the beginning of 2017.
And I kid you not, I've stuck with it ever since.
It's given me purpose. It's given me joy. Something to
do with my weekend.
S2 (20:50):
Where do you do your dancing?
S3 (20:51):
I do dancing at Humphrey's Dance Studio in Victoria Park,
and I've been there ever since I first started. And
it was actually the Humphrey School's program who taught us,
so I've been with them ever since.
S2 (21:03):
Before we move on, I'd like to give a shout
out to the, um, the para dancers who are in
Hong Kong right now, a big group of them from Perth,
showing off their talents and trying to win the big
international competition representing Australia in Hong Kong right now. So
shout out to, uh, Heidi Prindiville and all the other
crew from Perth over there are dancing up a storm
(21:26):
and representing Australia, and that's fabulous. You briefly mentioned to
the fundraising event that's going on right here, right now
for Vision Australia. Now tell us a little bit about
the 100 K your way challenge and how and why
you participate in that.
S3 (21:45):
So 100 K your way is a big annual challenge
and fundraiser for Vision Australia, not just our radio component
across all of Vision Australia, and it enables participants. It
challenges participants to walk, cycle, roll, swim or move 100km
during the month of April or whatever target kilometres that
(22:07):
they choose to set themselves, and the goal is to
raise funds and awareness for people who are blind or
have low vision, and also help to support the different
components of Vision Australia, like our radio service and Seeing
Eye dogs, Vision store and all these other components as well.
And I answer the other part of your question, I
was asked if I wanted to be co-captain by Bridgett
(22:28):
for our Vision Australia Radio Perth fundraising team. I said, yes,
I'm doing it with Kate Lever, who has donated over
$4,000 collectively amongst her friends, which is absolutely extraordinary. And
so far I have raised $766 and that's amazing. 86.06km
(22:49):
walked or danced or jogged. Um, so far as of
the time recording and my target until the end of
April is 200km, so I'm well on my way.
S2 (23:00):
That's brilliant. That's fantastic. You're awesome.
S1 (23:03):
200km is a lot.
S3 (23:05):
Not for me, it isn't. No, that's like sail to Melbourne.
S2 (23:09):
Cal. I really enjoyed listening to a couple of episodes
of the two podcasts that you participate in. Tell us
about the organization that you work for could Verity.
S3 (23:20):
So verity group Australia as we're known we are a
specialist disability accommodation provider or SDA provider. We supply homes
for people who have high physical needs. And so we
help people in wheelchairs and with high physical needs into
their forever home.
S2 (23:37):
That's excellent. How did you get involved with Verity?
S3 (23:40):
By chance, like all things. I actually returned from a
long holiday in Victoria because I wanted to get a
job over there, but I failed. So I came back
and I was unemployed for a few months and I
made my job. Coach said, I've got a job for
you that's really close to your house, within walking distance.
And on my final chance, I said yes. And I
was interviewed and initially they wanted me to just do
(24:02):
cleaning chores. But then I said, tell them about your
podcasting ventures. And so I told them about It's In
a Name, which was the only podcast I had done
at that time, and I told them, I've done 14
episodes of this. I interviewed my friends, I edit everything.
And they looked at it. They looked at me and
at each other with dollar signs in their eyes because they, um,
(24:23):
they real well, actually, it was our former business development
manager who said to me, we've been wanting someone to
do a podcast for a long time, but we don't
know how to do it ourselves. Can you help us out?
So I said yes, and we've been doing this podcast
since the beginning of 2024. Fantastic. And I interviewed, you know,
(24:45):
colleagues and cell providers and.
S2 (24:48):
Adam Gilchrist, famous cricketer. That was fantastic. Really great. You're
obviously chosen the right field, Cal, because you're passionate, you're energetic,
and you've got natural skills in this area. And I'd
like to highlight people that are giving back to the community.
You were given a go. You were given a chance.
(25:10):
And you're giving back in so many ways. You're doing
a podcast. You work for a disability organization, and you're
helping to spread the word of giving and sharing and
working as a community member. That's fabulous. Kellan, thanks very
much for that. Is there anything else you'd like to
say before we end up?
S3 (25:28):
I just want to say thank you so much, Simon,
for inviting me on to your podcast and radio show.
I also want to extend a thank you to Abby,
who's been handling this show magnificently.
S1 (25:38):
And thank you.
S3 (25:40):
Thank you. And thank you so much to you, too.
And especially you, Simon, because, um, I can't imagine what
it's like to live with impaired vision. And I'm not
going to pretend to know what it's like to be
vision impaired. But I think you do a magnificent job
with what you do and supporting people who are blind
or have low vision with your radio show and raising
money for 100 K your way and your ability to
(26:01):
just formulate questions at the top of your head without
reading is really inspiring, mate. So well done to you.
S2 (26:08):
Thank you very much. I really appreciate that, and I
thank you for your time coming in into today, and
I'd like to check out your ballroom dancing someday. That
would be great. And thanks to all the listeners out there.
Bye for now.
S1 (26:19):
That concludes in Plain Sight for this week. Join us,
Abby Greene and Simon Chong at the same time. Next
week on Vision Australia Radio, VA radio digital and online
at VA Radio.com. You can also listen on demand by
searching for In Plain Sight wherever you get your podcasts,
or ask your smart device to play in Plain sight
(26:41):
by Vision Australia Radio. Thanks for listening.
Hi I'm Abby.
S2 (00:13):
I'm Simon, and welcome to. In Plain Sight, a program
where we highlight people who are making a positive impact
within their community and the disability sector.
S1 (00:22):
Shining a light on those who might otherwise be hidden
in plain sight.
S2 (00:27):
And we share these stories on a weekly basis with
you here on Vision Australia Radio. Hi everyone, this is Simon.
How's everyone out there? Hope you're well. Hi, Abby. How
are you?
S1 (00:39):
I'm good. Thanks. How are you?
S2 (00:41):
I'm good. Thanks. What have you been up to this week, Abby?
S1 (00:45):
Well, uni work, the usual, but my partner recently just
bought this grill. Master. It's kind of like a barbecue grill, master.
It has, like, a a lid on it. And we
live in a tiny little one bedroom apartment, so he's
plonked it on the balcony. Um, it uses like coals,
so it's not like a proper fire. But the other
week we were roasting marshmallows on our balcony.
S2 (01:08):
Lovely. So you bought a grill master to roast marshmallows?
S1 (01:11):
Yeah, it was great. I like mine fully black and charcoal.
And my partner thinks I'm crazy for that. But he's
used it every. Every day this week. He's a real foodie,
and he's in love with it. So, yeah, he's cooking meat.
Everything on it every week.
S2 (01:28):
Feed the man meat.
S1 (01:29):
Yeah, exactly. And apparently you went to a theatre show
last week, right?
S2 (01:34):
I did, Abby. Yes. There's a few interesting firsts that
I had within that theatre visit. Firstly, I went to
the Heath Ledger Theatre as part of the State Theatre
of Western Australia, and that was amazing. What a beautiful
theatre it is. And I utilised the services of audio
description for the first time with the fantastic Bridget Brock,
(01:58):
who was leading the audio description.
S1 (02:01):
And how was that?
S2 (02:02):
It was fantastic. The play I saw was called August
Osage County. August as in the month. And Osage County
is a county within the state of Oklahoma in America.
And apparently I didn't know this at the time, but
it's a really well known play, which also was a film.
(02:23):
And one of the main stars in that film version
of the Osage County was Meryl Streep. And it was
an ensemble cast. The play I saw was mind blowing.
It was so, so very good.
S1 (02:37):
Mind blowing.
S2 (02:38):
Yeah. Everything was so well crafted. That's what blew my mind.
It was so fantastic. And to utilize audio description was fantastic.
I really, really appreciated it. And I was really thankful
to do that because this play had something like 13 characters.
S1 (02:56):
So oh my gosh.
S2 (02:57):
Yes, there was a lot of people and sometimes it
was difficult to tell who was on stage and who
was doing what. And so, so on. And the other
beautiful thing about the audio description experience is that we
get to go on a little behind the stage tour
before the event, and we get to see the props
for the people who need to. You can feel the props.
(03:20):
They call it a tactile tour. We get a bit
of a description about the stage, why they have this
on the stage. The stage designer was talking to us,
I got to we got to meet some of the
behind the scenes people involved with the theater and the
play itself. The people at the Heath Ledger Theater. My,
I'd like to give thanks and congratulations and appreciation to
(03:41):
the the service they gave us and to the help
and assistance they gave us. It was just fantastic. So
my whole overall experience at that was just fabulous.
S1 (03:51):
That's really cool. So you go again.
S2 (03:54):
Most definitely. Yep.
S1 (03:56):
Now who are we speaking to today?
S2 (03:57):
This week we are talking to Cal. Cal is a
very passionate and enthusiastic radio and podcast presenter, and he
was a fabulous guest to have here on our show.
He volunteers here at Vision Australia Radio in Perth, so
he was very familiar with the setup and really comfortable,
and it was a lot of fun to talk to Cal,
(04:18):
and we hope you enjoy listening to Cal as much
as we did.
S1 (04:27):
And today I'd like to welcome into the studio Cal Kryzanowski.
S2 (04:32):
How? Hi, Cal. How are you going?
S3 (04:33):
Thank you very much for inviting me, Simon. I'm very well,
thank you. Especially now that I'm in the room with
you and your magnificent producer, Abby.
S2 (04:41):
It's good to have you here. Now, you're quite familiar
with this studio, as you mentioned, as you walked in,
because you are a volunteer here at Vision Australia Radio.
You do some of the programs here, and you also
are a keen radio person and a podcast person. You
have two podcasts yourself. We'll get into that in a minute. Now,
I just had trouble with your name because I'm not
(05:02):
very good at pronouncing names, and I wanted when I
first saw your name, I wanted to call you Karl Krzyzanowski.
Like the famous scientist. Yes. Uh, but you're not a
famous scientist.
S3 (05:13):
Not yet.
S2 (05:14):
No. I looked at your name, and I thought, that
looks polish, because I don't want to stereotype. But you
just told me you speak French. Is that right?
S3 (05:21):
See.
S2 (05:23):
I like this. So can you say hello and welcome
to all our listeners in French.
S3 (05:28):
Bonjour. You are two stone couture on study.
S2 (05:34):
And what I love about that listeners is you can
tell he knows how to speak French because he's moving
his hands in a very French kind of manner. And
he's got the gestures down perfectly. That's that's lovely. Now,
just for fun to Cal, we'll go with the opening
question that you often have in your podcasts. Where and
(05:54):
when were you born?
S3 (05:55):
Yes, I was born in a country town in Victoria
called sale. Um, that's in Central Gippsland. For those of
you who don't know, or some of you who may
be in Gippsland listening to this, because we do broadcast
to Warragul, which is West Gippsland. Unfortunately the frequency doesn't
extend to sale. It it only extends to Rosedale, but
it doesn't go any further east of that. So hello
(06:17):
to all of my Gippsland listeners. I love all of you. Um, yes,
that's where I was born, and I spent the first
12.5 years of my life there, and that was very cool,
very nice upbringing and and very good to mix with, uh,
the country people and, uh, learned traditional values from the
predominantly older age demographic that tend to live in country
(06:39):
towns and who I surrounded myself with at primary school. And, uh, yeah, I, um,
and that's, that's how I became the person I am today.
And I've got to thank sale for that.
S2 (06:49):
Hello to everyone in sale and in Gippsland, a beautiful
part of the world. Cal, I found it fascinating having
a brief chat with you the other day and having
checked out some of your, um, podcasts and some of
the way, some of the things that you do. Tell me, firstly,
how did you get an interest in in radio and
being a podcaster?
S3 (07:10):
Yeah. So they're almost like two separate stories. But I
wanted to get into radio first. And I remember I
was like, actually on holiday in March 2022, in Victoria.
I was in sale when I came to the realization
that being a horse racing commentator wasn't necessarily the right
choice of action for me. So I thought to myself, well,
(07:31):
what can I do with voice work? What can I
do to get myself heard to a mass audience? And
I thought, yes, I'll be a radio announcer and the
radio station that everyone listened to in sale, and it
still dominates the ratings to this day. Trfm um, that's
the radio station that I decided I really want to
work for them, and I want to work there for
(07:52):
the rest of my life. So later on I realized, well,
how am I going to get into commercial radio? And
one of the ways that people get into commercial radio
is by doing community radio and by putting themselves out
there by doing podcasts. So the podcasting element actually came
first and that I. You could argue that it actually
helps me get into community radio. I was encouraged by
(08:15):
my job coach Daymo, who's sitting with us in the
studio right now. Um, he encouraged me to start a
podcast because I never had an interest in them. I
didn't really know a lot about them. I never listened
to them. I sort of found them interesting, but they
were never up my alley. And I always thought to myself,
I never want to do a podcast. I have no interest.
(08:35):
But then I caved in because I was having trouble
getting to community radio. So the concept that I came
up with the title of the podcast is called It's
in Our name.
S2 (08:44):
It's in our name.
S3 (08:45):
Yes. That's correct. And I thought I'd come up with
the most basic concept for a podcast, which is interview
my friends about their lives, and that's basically all there
is to it. And like what you say, every the
first question I ask everyone is where and when were
you born? So that's the inspiration behind what I did
back then.
S2 (09:04):
And explain the name of the show. It's an interesting title.
S3 (09:06):
The name of the show. I actually was having trouble
coming up with a name for a podcast, so I just,
I just googled a podcast name generator and it came
up with, it's in our name, okay. For an interview.
Society and culture podcast. So there you go.
S2 (09:20):
Right. And you've done very well at that podcast. You
were nominated for an award. What was the award that
you were nominated for?
S3 (09:26):
I was nominated for the Best New Podcast at the
Best New Podcast independent at the 2024 Radio Today Australia
New Zealand podcast.
S2 (09:37):
That's excellent. You mentioned that you wanted to be a
horse racing commentator. What was that all about? Because I
know that that area of sale and that big in horses.
S3 (09:45):
Is it? Yeah, yeah, we actually, I was with my
family and I drove past the racecourse, and then it
occurred to me and I asked my family for clarification,
but they only hold race meetings in country areas like
once a month, if that. And that's when I realized, well,
I want something to do more often. And back when
I was in late high school, senior high school, I
(10:06):
wanted to be a sports commentator. But then I thought, well,
you can you can call football and basketball and whatever
on the weekends, but you don't really do it during
the week week, unless of course, you're a traveling horse
racing commentator. So but I thought to myself, well, I
don't want to do journalism during the week and I
don't want to study a journalism degree just so I
can call a game of footy. So I thought to myself, well,
(10:26):
what's an easier field for me to get into that
I can do most days a week I can arguably
do every day. So I thought, yes, I'll be a
radio announcer or newsreader.
S2 (10:36):
So why did you think that you wanted to do
something with your voice? You're obviously a very energetic and
enthusiastic speaker.
S3 (10:43):
When I was a child, I used to watch TV. Um,
because there's not much to do in sale aside from
watch TV. But, um. But I used to watch. There
was one show in particular that made an impact on me. Actually,
there was a lot of ABC shows, but good game.
Spawn point was a big influence on me growing up.
I never missed an episode of that when I was
in primary school and Kerry O'Brien on 730. He's one
(11:04):
of my big influences. Yeah, that's gone way back. And actually, um,
one of my early, I think the very first media
influence that I had was in Henderson, who was the, the, uh,
weeknights TV newsreader for ABC News Victoria and yeah. So
Ian Henderson I still yeah, I still remember when they
made the announcement that he was retiring. It was such
(11:25):
a full circle moment, thinking, goodness, this guy has actually
helped me get to where I am today and this
guy continues to inspire me to pursue media. I guess
you could say not TV anymore, because when I was
a kid, I wanted to be on national television. But
then I thought, well, I have anxiety and I can't
really make eye contact with the cameras, so I might
(11:45):
as well go on radio. So you have more privacy
in that aspect? Yeah. So yeah, like when I was
a kid, that's what I guess inspired me to pursue media.
And of course, my ideals have changed over the years.
But those same shows and people, especially on the ABC, yeah,
they really had a big impact on me.
S2 (12:03):
And we mentioned that you are a volunteer here at
Vision Australia Radio. You're based here in Perth. How did
you get involved with that and why did you want
to volunteer with this particular program?
S3 (12:16):
Well, I realized that I had to do community radio
to get into commercial radio. So I reached out to
a lot of different community radio stations, a lot of
them in my area, and I got so many knockbacks.
I even did three weeks of training with an online
youth radio station called Pearl. No, not Pearl jam Youth
Jam that's no longer broadcasting now. And I thought, well,
(12:38):
this is hard, but it took me 14 months and
I got a referral from Graham George at Curtin FM,
and he encouraged me to pursue radio for the print handicapped,
as he called it, and information online was scarce. But
I knew what I was kind of looking for, and
I never heard of it before because I didn't know
that radio reading services existed. And so I reached out
(13:01):
online and I actually printed off my resume. I guessed
the address because it had the old Leederville address on
the website. So I went to the ABC building, which
is where we are, and I guessed correctly, and I
handed my resume to a security guard and I said
to him, can you please pass this on to Bridget Barry?
And that's so that happened. And I got a call
(13:22):
from Bridget Barry when I was out walking one day and, um, yeah.
And then that beautiful process ensued where I was interviewed.
She was really impressed with what I had to offer.
And 14 months after I first started pursuing Community radio,
I was on air for the first time on Tuesday,
the 26th of March, 2024 on the National News Hour.
S2 (13:43):
Okay. What do you do with that program? Do you
read the news or.
S3 (13:46):
I am a panel operator, like our wonderful Abby here.
Thank you. However, sometimes I can also be a news reader,
like a regular reader as well, when someone else is.
When I'm filling in for a reader on another day.
But I often do the panel operating, and like everyone,
I am involved with the pre-production of the show. I
print off articles, make sure they're edited so they're easy
(14:08):
to read, print them off, choose them, put them into
the run sheet, time them perfectly. And we, um, yeah,
we read the news for an hour for people with
a print disability. Which brings me joy.
S2 (14:20):
Yeah. And that brings other people joy, too.
S1 (14:27):
You're currently listening to In Plain Sight on Vision Australia
Radio with Simon Chong and Abby Green. And this week
we are speaking to Cal Krzyzanowski. Cal is a radio announcer,
producer and podcaster. This interview is super lively and energetic,
so I hope you're enjoying it.
S2 (14:53):
Cal, I like to highlight people in this program who
have a connection with a disability or have worked in
or around the disability sector. Now, Cal, is it okay
to mention that you have autism?
S3 (15:07):
Yes, we may talk about that. Yes.
S2 (15:09):
Before we actually talk about your autism, I noticed on
the internet the other day that on April 2nd, 2025
is International Autism Day. And I do like to make
mention of these days where we bring awareness to and
raise the platform of people who are just going about
their business and living their lives, but also have, in
(15:31):
this case, Neurodivergence. For you. Cal, how does autism sort
of look within your world?
S3 (15:38):
Yeah, it's it's a different way of thinking about things,
which is essentially what autism is. And I can't drive
because of my disability and also because of my anxiety,
which stems from my autism. And I've had anxiety for
pretty much my whole life. And it was worse when
I was a child. But it's improved, but I still
have the condition, so I can't drive. And so I
(15:59):
get disability support workers to drive me around and help
me do things like shopping and, um, shopping and going
to the movies or anything that I want to do.
Have a friend to take me to dance lessons and
help me exercise for 100 K your way, which we'll
talk about shortly. Yes we will, and I'm passionate about
things and people, I think. I think people can see. Look,
(16:21):
I hate saying because I, I refuse to believe that
I have so-called autistic special interests, but I guess anyone
that you meet who knows me will probably say that
I do have a couple of autistic special interests. Some
of those include radio. There's beer as well, which we
could get onto.
S1 (16:40):
I love.
S3 (16:40):
That. Yes. No, I.
S2 (16:42):
Can't blame that for my.
S3 (16:44):
Age. I'm very, very knowledgeable in those fields and very
passionate about those fields. And yeah, I contact like, for example,
I got to an age when I was mature enough
where I realised that when I was a kid, I
wanted to be on national television. But then I realised, well,
I can't actually maintain eye contact with the cameras because
I don't feel comfortable with doing that. And I hope
(17:04):
people don't interpret this as being rude. But when I'm talking,
I generally don't look at the person I'm speaking to
unless I feel comfortable doing so. But when someone else
is talking to me, I give them the due courtesy
and respect of, um, looking at that person in the eyes.
S2 (17:20):
Well, Cal, one of the reasons we talk about these
subjects on this particular program is that we want to
raise the awareness, but also So to highlight some of
the differences and to break some of the myths and
stereotypes that people have, and to maybe be a little
bit inspirational to people and think, well, if Kelly's got
(17:41):
autism and he gets able to do this, then it's
not a hindrance to following your passions and following your dreams,
and to pursuing certain lines of creativity or work or
sport or whatever it might be. So thanks for sharing that, Kelly.
Before we go into anything else, I want to talk
about your ballroom dancing, because we talked about that on
(18:01):
the phone, and we have talked about ballroom dancing on
this program a couple of times. Tell us about that.
S3 (18:07):
Like many wonderful things, I fell into it by accident.
How many times do you hear someone say, oh, I
fell into this lifelong career and hobby by accident. But
that's exactly what happened with me, with ballroom dancing and, um. Yeah.
So when I first came to Perth in April 2016,
almost immediately when I came to Perth and settled at
South Perth Primary School, where I went. I attended for
(18:30):
three terms. We got to take home slip. It was
an expression of interest for students who were interested, interested
in studying, dancing, to dance at the upcoming open day
at government House or the government House of Western Australia. Yes.
So I said yes because I thought, well, I've never
done this before, you know, might as well put my
(18:50):
put myself out there. So a wonderful man named Todd,
who's still at the studio today, and I still see
him and I still credit him with getting me into dancing,
Todd admits. That is, he was our teacher. No, not
Todd McKenney. No. Not Todd. No, no, this is a
better Todd, arguably. Um, but, um, no, Todd was, uh,
he instructed us when we got up earlier in the mornings,
(19:14):
and we attended school before our school day started, and
we started doing our dance tuition. You know, we learned
progressive jive and a hip hop routine, you know, just basics.
S2 (19:23):
Wow. That's fantastic.
S3 (19:24):
Basic social dancing that we did perform at the government
House Open Day in 2016, and I was snubbed of
meeting the governor. The governor at the time, Kerry, whatever
her name was. And because the, you know, the rich,
posh girls who would sit up the other end of
the line of chairs got to meet her first and
I was situated the complete other end of the line
(19:46):
of chairs. So I actually didn't get to shake the
hand of the governess, which is a bit disappointing. But
I got to dance at government House and they actually
had a full show of competitive ballroom dancers. And I thought, yeah,
this is really cool. These guys look really cool and formal.
And I continue dancing. You know, we learned dancing as
a part of our phys ed unit. Wow. Six. Yes.
(20:08):
And a part of that was for our year six graduation,
and where we danced with our parents and basically did
a whole lot of this, a whole lot of that.
And then at the end of the graduation, Todd said, oh,
before everyone goes, I have some sheets for our scholarship
medal program if anyone's interested. So I took a sheet
because I thought, oh, I might get to dance with
(20:29):
some of these hot girls that I went to school with. So. Yeah,
but but that's, uh, unfortunately, none of the other hot
girls joined us in dancing for the scholarship medal program.
But I started that medal program at the beginning of 2017.
And I kid you not, I've stuck with it ever since.
It's given me purpose. It's given me joy. Something to
do with my weekend.
S2 (20:50):
Where do you do your dancing?
S3 (20:51):
I do dancing at Humphrey's Dance Studio in Victoria Park,
and I've been there ever since I first started. And
it was actually the Humphrey School's program who taught us,
so I've been with them ever since.
S2 (21:03):
Before we move on, I'd like to give a shout
out to the, um, the para dancers who are in
Hong Kong right now, a big group of them from Perth,
showing off their talents and trying to win the big
international competition representing Australia in Hong Kong right now. So
shout out to, uh, Heidi Prindiville and all the other
crew from Perth over there are dancing up a storm
(21:26):
and representing Australia, and that's fabulous. You briefly mentioned to
the fundraising event that's going on right here, right now
for Vision Australia. Now tell us a little bit about
the 100 K your way challenge and how and why
you participate in that.
S3 (21:45):
So 100 K your way is a big annual challenge
and fundraiser for Vision Australia, not just our radio component
across all of Vision Australia, and it enables participants. It
challenges participants to walk, cycle, roll, swim or move 100km
during the month of April or whatever target kilometres that
(22:07):
they choose to set themselves, and the goal is to
raise funds and awareness for people who are blind or
have low vision, and also help to support the different
components of Vision Australia, like our radio service and Seeing
Eye dogs, Vision store and all these other components as well.
And I answer the other part of your question, I
was asked if I wanted to be co-captain by Bridgett
(22:28):
for our Vision Australia Radio Perth fundraising team. I said, yes,
I'm doing it with Kate Lever, who has donated over
$4,000 collectively amongst her friends, which is absolutely extraordinary. And
so far I have raised $766 and that's amazing. 86.06km
(22:49):
walked or danced or jogged. Um, so far as of
the time recording and my target until the end of
April is 200km, so I'm well on my way.
S2 (23:00):
That's brilliant. That's fantastic. You're awesome.
S1 (23:03):
200km is a lot.
S3 (23:05):
Not for me, it isn't. No, that's like sail to Melbourne.
S2 (23:09):
Cal. I really enjoyed listening to a couple of episodes
of the two podcasts that you participate in. Tell us
about the organization that you work for could Verity.
S3 (23:20):
So verity group Australia as we're known we are a
specialist disability accommodation provider or SDA provider. We supply homes
for people who have high physical needs. And so we
help people in wheelchairs and with high physical needs into
their forever home.
S2 (23:37):
That's excellent. How did you get involved with Verity?
S3 (23:40):
By chance, like all things. I actually returned from a
long holiday in Victoria because I wanted to get a
job over there, but I failed. So I came back
and I was unemployed for a few months and I
made my job. Coach said, I've got a job for
you that's really close to your house, within walking distance.
And on my final chance, I said yes. And I
was interviewed and initially they wanted me to just do
(24:02):
cleaning chores. But then I said, tell them about your
podcasting ventures. And so I told them about It's In
a Name, which was the only podcast I had done
at that time, and I told them, I've done 14
episodes of this. I interviewed my friends, I edit everything.
And they looked at it. They looked at me and
at each other with dollar signs in their eyes because they, um,
(24:23):
they real well, actually, it was our former business development
manager who said to me, we've been wanting someone to
do a podcast for a long time, but we don't
know how to do it ourselves. Can you help us out?
So I said yes, and we've been doing this podcast
since the beginning of 2024. Fantastic. And I interviewed, you know,
(24:45):
colleagues and cell providers and.
S2 (24:48):
Adam Gilchrist, famous cricketer. That was fantastic. Really great. You're
obviously chosen the right field, Cal, because you're passionate, you're energetic,
and you've got natural skills in this area. And I'd
like to highlight people that are giving back to the community.
You were given a go. You were given a chance.
(25:10):
And you're giving back in so many ways. You're doing
a podcast. You work for a disability organization, and you're
helping to spread the word of giving and sharing and
working as a community member. That's fabulous. Kellan, thanks very
much for that. Is there anything else you'd like to
say before we end up?
S3 (25:28):
I just want to say thank you so much, Simon,
for inviting me on to your podcast and radio show.
I also want to extend a thank you to Abby,
who's been handling this show magnificently.
S1 (25:38):
And thank you.
S3 (25:40):
Thank you. And thank you so much to you, too.
And especially you, Simon, because, um, I can't imagine what
it's like to live with impaired vision. And I'm not
going to pretend to know what it's like to be
vision impaired. But I think you do a magnificent job
with what you do and supporting people who are blind
or have low vision with your radio show and raising
money for 100 K your way and your ability to
(26:01):
just formulate questions at the top of your head without
reading is really inspiring, mate. So well done to you.
S2 (26:08):
Thank you very much. I really appreciate that, and I
thank you for your time coming in into today, and
I'd like to check out your ballroom dancing someday. That
would be great. And thanks to all the listeners out there.
Bye for now.
S1 (26:19):
That concludes in Plain Sight for this week. Join us,
Abby Greene and Simon Chong at the same time. Next
week on Vision Australia Radio, VA radio digital and online
at VA Radio.com. You can also listen on demand by
searching for In Plain Sight wherever you get your podcasts,
or ask your smart device to play in Plain sight
(26:41):
by Vision Australia Radio. Thanks for listening.
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