February 4, 2025 • 63 mins
Welcome to a new year and new series of The RegenNarration! You might remember me talking last year with prominent author, documentary maker and farmer at Fat Pig Farm, Matthew Evans, in the lead up to the new festival he’s founded back home in Australia, called GROUNDED: the Food and Soil Festival. Well, that festival happened in early December, and a couple of weeks later I got back online with Matthew to talk about what happened, how it happened, and if it might happen again.
And hearing how his partner Sadie’s initial reaction to the festival was something like ‘wtf?’ only made me happier that she had accepted my invitation too. Aside from the fact that I’ve wanted to talk to her in her own right on this podcast for ages. (I don’t know that Matthew and Sadie have been on many podcasts together, so maybe I can even claim an exclusive!)
This conversation felt a little different. You'll hear this couple’s customary candour, humour and insight, but also an acute dose of exhaustion and elation. And it ends fittingly, in that sense, with a moving moment and tune from the festival.
Recorded 18 December 2024.
Title slide: Sadie & Matthew (sourced here).
See more photos on the episode website, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.
Music:
My Mother, The Mountain, by Claire Anne Taylor.
Intro music by Jeremiah Johnson.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).
Find more:
The event with Charles Massy & the Pollocks that became ep.16. (Ep.20 features John Hewson with friend, and subscriber, James Tonson hosting.)
Join us for a journey on the Murray River, Australia, for the first Confluence 2026.
Pre-roll music: River, by Onyx Music (sourced from Artlist).
The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. We'd love you to join us.
Become a paid subscriber to connect with your host, other listeners and exclusive benefits, on Patreon or the new Substack.
Or donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.
While you can also visit The RegenNarration shop. Come to an event. And please do share, rate and review the podcast.
Thanks for your support!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matthew (00:00):
And I walked in and there's Claire belting out this
song and I reckon my smilestretched, you know, around the
back of my head because you knowI was just like, oh my God, we
got through it and we've gotthis incredible music and
everyone's having conversations.
I just stood there and watchedlike 13 different conversations
happening while she was singing,you know, and yeah, it was just
(00:22):
beautiful, beautiful.
AJ (00:32):
G'day from Antigua, Guatemala, where I managed to
connect online just prior to thenew year with Matthew Evans and
partner Sadie Chrestman.
You might remember me talkingwith Matthew last year in the
lead up to the new festival he'sfounded back home on his farm
in Australia.
It's called Grounded the Soiland Food Festival.
(00:52):
Well, that festival happened inearly December and oh, the
brilliant messages I wasreceiving from it.
Thanks very much for those.
As you can imagine, then I waskeen as mustard to get back on
the blower with Matthew to talkabout what happened, how it
happened and whether or not itmight happen again, nd hearing
how Sadie's initial reaction tothe festival was something like
(01:14):
WTF only made me happier thatshe had accepted my invitation
too, aside from the fact thatI've wanted to talk to her in
her own right on this podcastfor ages.
I don't know that Matthew andSadie have been on many podcasts
together either, so maybe I caneven claim an exclusive! G'day
Anthony James here for a newyear and new series of The
(01:37):
RegenNarration, your independent, listener-supported portal into
the regenerative era, withthanks to listeners like Linda,
Tibby Tuckett and TristanLovelock-Sweeney for becoming
subscribing members over thebreak To brother-in-law, Dennis
Cheng, for being the first toaccept a subscriber gift from
your wonderful sister.
To you brilliant earlysubscribers to my new Sub stack.
(01:59):
I'll thank you personally overthere.
And to Lisa Rock and CateSinclair, thanks for increasing
your subscriber support mazing.
If you're not yet part of thisgreat community of supporting
listeners, I'd love you to joinus.
Get benefits if you like Andhelp keep the show on the road.
Just follow the links in theshow notes with my great
(02:19):
gratitude.
My gratitude was all thegreater over the break too,
because amongst the end of theyear highlight slides I get sent
from varied podcast apps.
Spotify tells me that followersof the podcast there increased
by over 30% last year.
Buzzsprout, my host platform,tells me The egenNarration is in
their top 10% for downloads.
(02:40):
For a humble independent podcast, that's pretty cool, though, to
be honest, I don't pay muchattention to the metrics, for,
as my guest back in New YorkCity, douglas Rushkoff, puts it,
they take you towards figuresand away from ground, and in
this case literall nd in doingthat you're required to tend the
spectacle, he says.
(03:00):
Indeed, efforts to scale uprequire that, by definition.
Of course, moving towardsground is more this podcast's
focus, but each year theseslides come in I have a little
look and when I see things likethis I just feel more gratitude
for it all my guests, thelearning and you for listening
and subscribing to make it allpossible.
(03:22):
So let's have another rippingyear of things and see what we
can muster together.
For starters, then, right ontheme, a yarn about the
wonderful stuff that went downat the Grounded Festival, along
with some of its extraordinarybackstory and possible future
story.
Today we talk with the coupleat the heart of it all, who I
(03:43):
found in equal parts exhausted,elated, insightful, searingly
honest and utterly delightful.
I've actually put a photo onthe website that I snapped
during our conversation of anendearing moment between the two
that I love.
Here's Matthew first, and Sadiejoins us a few minutes later.
Matthew (04:02):
Hey mate, not wearing many clothes.
AJ (04:06):
It's hot here.
How are you, isn't it alwayshot?
Matthew (04:09):
there, though.
How close is Guatemala to theequator?
I must be almost on it.
AJ (04:14):
Well, south America is, the top of South America is on it
and we're here in Central.
So, yeah, it's getting closerand it's actually Guatemala is
called the land of eternalspring, so it sort of sits on
about.
Well, we're sort of 15 to 28degrees, something like that,
like every day, and that wouldbe for a lot of beer in this
particular part.
Here.
It gets hotter in the parts Iused to live in, but it's also
(04:36):
partly because I'm in thislittle room, obviously in this
little hostel type thing, andthere's air that comes through
the building but not into therooms, so and I've got the fan
off right.
Last same as last time.
Bloody georgia, I think I was.
So, yeah, the theme of heat inour conversations, yeah, um,
it's, it's funny seeing youthere.
Matthew (04:56):
I mean I was thinking how hot it was last time and you
would snuck off, and then youwasn't, like it was tractors or
something about to start up ormotorbikes that something that's
right.
AJ (05:04):
This time it's bless, it's pretty quiet this room we
managed to get one that's offthe road, which is a bonus, and
there's only five rooms andpeople are pretty quiet.
So, touch wood, that lasts forthe duration and, yeah, I've
just got to sweat it out.
Matthew (05:19):
Well, sadie's not here, but she'll hopefully be back
shortly.
Okay, sadie's not here, butshe'll hopefully be back shortly
.
Okay, she had to do a schoolrun Even though she wasn't at
work.
She still has to take Hedley tothe bus, so she'll be back in a
sec?
AJ (05:29):
Awesome, great.
So how are you doing?
I'm good.
Matthew (05:33):
Yeah, I'm a little slightly worn.
I think from my experience Ifound a good way to lose weight
is, you know, just burn through,uh, adrenaline for a few months
and it's a bit like.
It's a bit like, you know, ifyou really love cooking and
people go to me, I love cooking,I'm going to open a restaurant,
(05:55):
it's.
If you really love seeinginteresting talks, don't run a
fest.
You know, a conference, it wasthat kind of thing of like.
Oh, I really pretty much onlysaw the ones I was in, and even
then I wasn't you know, one ofthem.
I wasn't in because we had, youknow, our only little medical
hiccup happened just as I wassitting down to do the wine and
(06:17):
cheese hour.
AJ (06:19):
No way.
Matthew (06:19):
At the end of the first day I was like, woohoo, this is
it, I'm in, I'm 100% in forthis.
We've got through the day, nodramas.
Claire Anne Taylor (06:28):
Party's on.
Matthew (06:28):
And I get this message going.
Hey, you might have sent theambulance home 10 minutes too
early.
AJ (06:32):
Anyway, oh no, Was that okay ?
Did that work out okay?
Oh no, it was absolutely fine.
Matthew (06:38):
It was a woman who just had a migraine Awful and all
you need to do is find somewherecool and dark, and in those
particular two days in Tasmaniathere was nowhere on our farm
that was cool and dark, so itwas just a management thing of
you know.
Everyone's got their own littleneeds.
AJ (06:55):
So yeah, that was all good, all good, yeah, so you'll resign
to the recordings yourself then, hey.
Matthew (07:00):
Yeah, and I'm going to see one of the cinematographers
today.
So we had three people or fourpeople five actually on site
filming stuff over the two days,and so I've seen one little
clip of one of the things andI'm about to go see what was
happening in sort of theconference-style tents where
they were recording at a fixedcamera, recording every session
(07:22):
of the day, and see how that is,because apparently it's not
like you can't just look at iton your phone and upload it to
the YouTube or something.
It's in a different format.
AJ (07:33):
Says a man who's worked in TV for how long.
Matthew (07:37):
Yeah, but I didn't press any buttons.
Yes, that's right, very good,and it is this weird thing of
well, well, I'm still not sure Iknow how to use humanetics and
I still can't read a spreadsheet, um, and so it's yet another
skill set that I will have tohalf learn to be able to, um,
get it up.
But look, I think what wasreally nice is because we had
(07:58):
the three stages runningconcurrently and it was a big.
I have to say it was hard forpeople to get their head around.
I'm still getting messagesabout you didn't have a lunch
break.
It's like well, which sessionswould you have made me kill?
Which of those sessions did younot want that you loved?
Would I have to have got rid offor you to have a lunch break?
And the other thing is I can'thave 400 people all descend on a
(08:21):
35 seat restaurant for lunchall at once, and so that idea
that you can miss a session, Ithink people found really hard.
They weren't sure how theycould manage it, but at the end
of the two days I think theywere starting to get an idea of
oh, so I know how this works now.
I can't see everything, I can'tdo everything.
I know that a lot of it will beavailable later, but I can also
(08:41):
talk to people who are in thosesessions be available later,
but I can also talk to peoplewho are in those sessions and
the whole point is that there'sthere's enough to do, there's
enough to fill your brain oryour needs each day, and that in
you know, and that's differentto the next person's in next
year, in that session, you knowthe next hour they may need to
walk around or they may need togo and check out something
(09:03):
different, and so offering thedifferent stuff gives them an
ability to do a variety ofthings but then also catch up
later.
And it was one of those thingswe had right from the start and
it looked like it was going tofall over because we just didn't
have the money to do it.
And then we were lucky enoughto get some funding that
included recording stuff and sothat sort of guaranteed that we
(09:27):
would be able to put it, put itonline.
I was thinking I was just goingto have to be, you know,
someone with a better phone thanmine on a tripod um just to
make sure there was a record ofit.
But now we've got.
We had professional umcinematographers.
I'm very lucky to have, youknow, a filmmaker at the bottom
of my road.
She's going to show me how, toyou know how it all works, how
it looks on the, on the drive,on the um.
Eight terabyte hard drive orwhatever it is.
AJ (09:49):
Whatever a terabyte is, apparently it's big I think, um,
for better and worse, andthat's mostly worse, given how
much this takes, uh, data wise,data center wise across the
globe.
Even a terabyte's getting to benot regarded as that big
anymore, sort of a generalconsumer item.
But anyway it was big at onestage.
Matthew (10:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look, I don't know.
It just seems like I'm learningabout all this kind of stuff
because I didn't even know Ineeded to have a hard drive.
Claire Anne Taylor (10:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew (10:21):
Until they said oh, you need to go and spend dollars on
this, on this thing, to makesure that we can keep it.
AJ (10:26):
You know, I just thought oh, you just doesn't just sit on a
usb, apparently not well, yeah,even audio adds up in my case,
but it doesn't quite do whatvideo does.
Video is huge, but, yeah, it'sterrific that you did get that,
though that's that's going to bea brilliant record and that it
was done super well, all thebetter.
Before I ask you about somehighlights, I don't want to let
(10:47):
pass too quickly though thephysical, visceral experience of
it for you.
Setting something up like thisfrom the get-go you mentioned
the word broken to me, even inour little exchange after before
this Give us a bit of aninsight, as raw as it may be, so
we get a glimpse of behind thecurtain in that way.
That feels important andperhaps instructive for those
(11:09):
who might be thinking of otherstuff in future too, but also to
perhaps help out next time orjust appreciate what goes into
it.
Matthew (11:18):
Yeah, it was interesting.
We had a couple of people whowere on site, who'd run things
before, you know, field days orthat kind of stuff, and and they
looked at what we were doingand and it was they.
They were the people who, Iguess, like a parent, you know,
until you've been a parent andand you've seen, had your own
toddler screaming in thesupermarket, you know, don't
understand that.
What other people are goingthrough.
(11:38):
So, look, I have to say I hadno idea what I was getting into
and I was kind of like, well,why don't we have three tents in
the middle of paddocks?
Why don't we just film it all?
Why don't we just have it onfarm?
You know, and every step, youkind of went oh, that's why
that's the reason, you know.
I think that the moment when Iwas wanting to film it and you
(12:00):
know, have you need a microphonein each stage, you want to have
a screen in each stage, becausea lot of people were saying
they needed PowerPoint andwhatever.
And I was trying to talk peopleout of that, the speakers but
they were very keen to havePowerPoint.
Oh, that sounds exciting.
And so we went to aprofessional because people were
saying you need to be able tosee this.
Like people are paid, you know,hundreds of dollars to come to
(12:21):
this festival slash conference,you know you can't have
PowerPoint that no one can see.
And so we went to aprofessional and they said oh
yeah, no problem, we can putthose screens up.
We'll need a tech person and anAV person.
No problem, that's going tocost you between $30,000 and
$40,000, right.
AJ (12:35):
Yeah.
Matthew (12:36):
So that's the moment where I went holy moly, we'd
already got a forecast that wewere going to lose 30 grand on
the event before we got thatquote and you kind of went oh,
that's why you don't have ascreen in every tent, that's why
you don't do it in the middleof a paddock, because you have
to have power.
But what was amazing, anthonyand I was a bit broken by the
(12:58):
experience, but only because wetried to do a bit too much, like
I ended up having 40 speakers,we ended up having 65.
I thought we'd have 42 sessions, we ended up having 86 sessions
over two days.
Yeah, you know, this is nosmall thing that we did, but
every step of the way.
So when I was like, oh my God,how are we going to put up a
screen, my filmmaker friend saidwell, I've got a projector for
(13:20):
one of the tents you know andSadie projector for one of the
tents you know.
And I and sadie um said I, Iknow a tech person, so you don't
have to employ someone at.
You know a thousand dollars aday which is what I was being
quoted to to make sure that the,the powerpoint, runs properly.
They do all the computers atthe school, um, where she
teaches, um, uh, you know, oh,we need to do some signage.
(13:41):
Well, I know how I'll just comeand hand, paint old Apple
palette boards and do all yoursignage for you.
And people stepped into the roomand the thing that blew me away
, anthony, like I put in a quitelarge effort, but I was
surrounded by goodwill and itwas only at the very last speech
(14:02):
, like sort of saying thanks forcoming, that I realised that we
had only paid at that point andwe have to pay a lot of people
since.
But at that point we had donethis event, as I say you know,
over 60 speakers, over 80presentations, two and a half
days of full-on stuff happeningon the farm.
We had paid one person eighthours a week for some admin for
about three months.
(14:22):
I had paid one person eighthours a week for some admin for
about three months and by thetime the festival was on, no one
had been paid for the previousthree months because I was doing
all the admin and it was alldone on the good energy and the
good vibes and the goodwill ofthe people who wanted to see it
happen.
And that blew me away.
(14:43):
I'm getting goosebumps justthinking about it.
AJ (14:44):
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, no, I think of how youonly experienced that because
you stuck your neck so far outas well.
But then the person who can dothat is game enough to do that.
Wow, what it can animate inothers.
Matthew (15:00):
Yeah, look, I think I was lucky because I mean we've
run hospitality stuff, we'vedone learning things on the farm
, I've been to events so I hadsome idea of what kind of worked
and what didn't.
One of the most beautifulthings that happened was we
opened our house as a bit of aspace where it was a quiet space
.
It certainly wasn't at six inthe morning when Dan Kittredge
(15:22):
is there cooking eggs for 12people.
There's people sleeping in thelounge room.
There's Dan Kittredge fromMassachusetts, wherever he's
from, you know, cooking eggs andgoing.
Oh, there's another person.
I walk in from milking, someonegrabs my milk churn.
Who's a farmer from New Zealandwho's over-volunteering, who
happens to be sleeping in a tentoutside our window and he can
recognise that I've just youknow, I've got the good milk in
my hand.
He starts making coffees,awesome.
(15:43):
But during the day the house wasthis sort of haven and you know
the revanks, helen, um therevanks and one of her sons.
They were jet lagged from theuk, so they slept in the house
and had a little quiet moment.
We had this beautiful woman whoused to work with us, who
volunteered to to just makepeople comfortable, that all the
speakers comfortable and wouldsort of insist they have a cup
(16:04):
of tea and a pastry and a sitdown before their session.
And so people fulfilled allthese little roles and we stuck
our neck out.
Well, I stuck my neck out, butkind of knowing that around me
were some people who had someskills and hoping that all of
the things that I am incapableof doing, there would be someone
who might be capable of doingit.
(16:25):
And if not, you know we also.
Everything was done with goodintentions, everything was done
trying to make things nice andgood, and I think it was a very
forgiving audience as well.
Yeah, Beautiful.
AJ (16:39):
Is it time to bring Sadie into the fray?
Hey, how are you?
Sadie (16:44):
Hello Anthony.
AJ (16:45):
Welcome.
Sadie (16:46):
Thank you, thank you.
AJ (16:47):
I feel like I've been waiting to say that to you for a
long time.
It's great to see you.
Sadie (16:53):
Very nice to see you too In wherever you are, because I
obviously missed the beginning.
Oh yeah, guatemala.
AJ (16:59):
I'm in Guatemala at the moment.
It's an old home of mine.
Sadie (17:02):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I know that from listeningto the podcast I knew you were
going down there.
Oh, fantastic.
AJ (17:08):
Yes, I'm not yet back where I used to live, but we're en
route.
It's a smallish country but,relatively speaking, to get
between places because it's verymountainous, dramatically
changing climates and, of course, logistical stuff, so nowhere
goes anywhere terribly fast.
Sadie (17:25):
Well, that's a nice way to live for a while.
AJ (17:29):
Exactly it is.
It's timely that it's the endof the year and I need to take
the foot off the pedal a bit too, but also very surreal that I'm
here again and with the familyand yeah, I'm bracing myself
partly, to be honest, twentyyears on, like what's a town, a
small dusty town, going to looklike these days, and who's there
(17:49):
and who's not, and who's diedand who's born, and what school
kids are now Grandparents?
I don't know.
It all happens pretty quickthere.
So yeah, we'll see.
But back to you.
But back to you.
You've come in at this pointwhere we're just talking as much
about the task of pulling itoff and to get as real as
possible, sort of with that toreally convey some of the depths
(18:12):
of the experience outside ofthe party.
Sadie (18:16):
How was it for you?
I largely ignored it for sixmonths, just the yes, dear.
Yeah, pretty much the deal wasand Matthew may have already
said this the deal was, uh, thathe could, he could have his
ridiculous festival, uh, butthat I wanted nothing to do with
it.
He wasn't allowed to call on me, uh, and he stuck to that like
(18:37):
he really did.
I mean, it helps, I know work,uh, I now teach off farm so I'm
I'm gone days a week.
On the fifth day I'm stilldoing sort of teaching things
and catching up things.
So I wasn't available either.
But he would work, you know,long into the night.
He would have, you know, wewould have family dinner
together and then he'd be up atthe kitchen bench back on his
computer emailing speakers andanswering questions and asking
(18:59):
questions.
I mean, it was a massive,massive administrative effort to
make it all happen.
And it was a massive, massiveadministrative effort to make it
all happen.
So I really didn't come inuntil the last minute, like I
took a week off work and Iworked the week of the festival
itself.
So that was my maincontribution, that and making
sure that Matthew was BenWharton for the six months
(19:21):
before.
AJ (19:22):
Well, having a partner who does a bit of that here as well,
that's not to be taken lightly.
And in that context, then theburst experience for you.
How did it look through youreyes and how did it feel?
Matthew (19:35):
I think we need to start with when she first looked
at the program and realisedexactly what I was doing, which
was on the Saturday before the.
You know you're kicked off witha Tuesday cocktail party.
This is the Saturday beforeshe's taken the week off.
Sadie (19:49):
She looks at the program and oh, I don't remember what
did I do?
What?
Matthew (19:53):
the heck did you do what on earth?
And then she cried.
Then she swore, and then sheleft the house for six hours.
Did I, Yep?
And I told our son she can'teven remember this and she told
our son sorry.
I told our son that naturesometimes has a way of saying
beware.
(20:13):
And the way your mother justbehaved means beware, Do not go
near, Don't touch.
It's like a snake when itflattens its head.
You know, that's kind.
There's a warning sign there.
Hedley, you and I, let's not gonear Sadie for a few hours and
let her come back Anyway.
(20:34):
So that was the Saturday,Anyway, you can tell us Very
good.
It wasn't good, Anthony.
AJ (20:39):
No, well, exactly.
So this is what I'm reallyinterested in the actual lived
experience in the background ofoh shit.
Sadie (20:47):
Of pulling something like that off.
AJ (20:48):
Yeah.
Sadie (20:50):
It's sort of actually how Matthew and I have run our
lives since the very beginningis that we've bitten off more
than we can chew, and then bothof us are extremely stubborn and
we have to make it happen Likethere's no room to go.
Maybe we shouldn't do this.
It's like, once you've sort ofmade the decision and you're
going with it, so you just doand you just.
If it means you have to stay uplater or get up earlier or move
(21:12):
faster, then that's just whathas to happen.
Um, I think this festival hastaught me that I am now.
I'm now 57, and I don't want tolive my life like that anymore
here we go I would actually liketo slow down and plan things a
bit and give, you know, have abit more space around each
project to actually let itfinish and wrap up and just
(21:33):
settle really.
But, yes, that first weekend Irealised I had to get from sort
of zero to a hundred very, veryquickly and get my head around
things about what was happeningand what needed to happen and
what my jobs would be once itall got rolling.
And that's what it was.
It was just like moving really,really fast, making sure that
all the volunteers had what theyneeded to do the jobs they
(21:55):
volunteered for, to make surethat all the kitchen staff were
supported, because that wouldnormally be Matthew's job but he
wasn't available to do that.
Um, and my job is often thepeople support and making sure
that the people who are I mean,it was the same when we had
staff in the restaurant as wellit's just that make sure that
(22:17):
people were were happy workinghere and therefore to do do
their best, and that's what Islipped into pretty easily yeah,
that's it.
AJ (22:26):
Yeah, so you got the skills, obviously in the background,
but huge job nonetheless, and sohow was your experience of it
then?
Actually, the festival wasamazing the festival was
absolutely amazing.
Sadie (22:38):
so once the speakers started arriving um, and no one
really knew what it was going tobe and they would arrive, and
there were these massivemarquees and there were flags
and there was bunting and therewere hand-painted signs and
there were lots of reallydelightful people welcoming you
and explaining where to go, andI think a lot of the speakers
(23:00):
were like oh, wow, okay, this iswhat this is excellent, it was
very well organized.
I think everyone felt that, um,it was the.
The vibe was was incrediblyjoyous.
Um, a couple of people havesaid since the festival and
matthew might might go into thisthat it was the kind of.
(23:21):
There were a lot of people withvery different opinions and
they all chose to find commonground and they all chose to
listen to each other and theyall chose to find something in
what the other person said thatthey could agree with, and that
was a pretty amazing atmosphere.
AJ (23:40):
Yeah, that is awesome.
And it reminds me, Matthew andI did want to come back to this
of what we talked about you youknow, three months out, when I
first saw the sort of draftprogram and I was struck by the
inquiring nature of the program.
We talked a bit about thatframing and it made me wonder
then what did come out of thatif there was that sort of a vibe
(24:02):
for a start, and then I guesswhat gems may have come out of
it yeah, after our conversationthat was really interesting, I
think, because I hadn't realizedthat lots of the topics were
questions.
Matthew (24:12):
You know, I hadn't sort of picked that and and I think
that after you and I talkedabout it and you brought that up
, I suddenly realized, yeah, soI guess what we're trying to say
is we don't have the answers.
Yeah, maybe some of thesereally clever people have the
answers for your farmer or yourland or whatever.
Maybe they don't.
Maybe you'll come up with theanswers after listening to them.
(24:33):
Maybe someone in the line forthe toilet will have you know
the answer.
Um, whoever you might meethaving a beer afterwards or
whatever it might be.
Um, look, it's hard to know forme.
I didn't really see sessions I,I think what all I I could do,
(24:53):
because I was generally dealingwith, um, a lot of little
on-site, little issues that werenothing major, but just lots of
stuff.
Um, so I was just picking up onthe energy of the event mostly.
The energy was good.
People talking about coolthings, testing their brains,
(25:16):
testing out ideas, wanting todiscuss things way beyond the 50
minutes or whatever we allowedin each marquee.
And yeah, like I say it was agood acceptance of other ideas
50 minutes or whatever we were,we allowed in each marquee.
And yeah, like a really likesay we're saying so good
acceptance of other ideas.
Because you know, and we'reright at the end that the last
three sessions I just wanted tothrow stuff in the air and say,
(25:37):
okay, you've been sitting herefor a couple of days listening
to stuff, but let's just, let'sjust blue sky.
I think, yes, let's think ofhow we can look at the world
differently, and I think a lotof that was happening.
Anyway, you know, we didn'tmaybe need to structure it like
that.
There was already people sortof trying to take concepts and
work out how they worked forthem.
You know, and I don't know whatwere the magic moments?
(25:58):
For me, the magic moments werethe madness on the farm, you
know, like waking up and going.
I think there's 35 people.
We have a two-bedroom house,you know.
There's like 12 people in thekitchen having breakfast at 6am.
There's something like 35people sleeping on the farm, in
various places there's thiswhole community and thing that
(26:19):
just appeared and disappearedyou know, sort of a day before
the event and a day after theevent it just sort of you know
appears, and for me that was thewonder was how something so
transient or whatever Ephemeral,ephemeral- yeah just can
(26:40):
actually have so much resonance.
AJ (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
Sadie (26:45):
I think one of the things .
I think that for me, um, I wentto a couple of sessions where,
uh, jack pascoe spoke, and alsojason smith, who's a palawa man
who lives near here, andunderstanding sort of deeply,
I'm sort of really sort offinally really understanding how
fragmentary all of our variousknowledges are.
(27:10):
And you know, the Palawa havelived in Lutruwita forever I
mean, it's 42,000 years inwhitefella terms and they
altered the landscape, farmedthe landscape to feed themselves
, and now we have a lot morepeople and we are feeding a lot
more people, but we'redestroying the topsoil.
So now we have to find a wayforward to continue to feed this
(27:31):
greater number of people.
But how do we do it in a waythat cares for the country and,
as Dan Kittredge puts it,engages with the earth as a
sentient being, as opposed toexploits it like a factory floor
and to be in a place whereeverybody had little bits of
knowledge around how to do thatand how do we fit this jigsaw
(27:54):
puzzle together and how?
That's different for everysingle landscape.
You know, that's different forthe Hegartys in Western
Australia and it's different forChris Hengler up in the
Kimberley and it's different forus down in Lutruwita, tasmania,
and that was very exciting thatmosaic of people coming
together and going, oh, wow,okay, we've got to figure this
all out going forward.
We have to come up with, youknow, new ways of doing things
(28:17):
and this is, you know, this isnot new, this is what you talk
about on your podcast all of thetime, but to be in one space
with all of those people tryingto work that out and
understanding that we need towork it out for future
generations was really exciting.
AJ (28:33):
Yeah, 100%.
I can just imagine and it'scertainly some of the stuff I've
heard too.
I've heard also that there wasa sense that it was.
I mean, one person said raw tome there was quite a rawness in
the vibe as well, like itsounded like people were really
putting it on the line.
Is that something you observedas well?
Sadie (28:53):
Oh, I wouldn't have thought of that if you hadn't
said that, because I also.
It was a very safe place.
You know that thing that wesaid earlier that people really
were trying to, you know, findthe good in each other's
arguments.
So it hadn't actually occurredto me that people were putting
themselves on the line.
(29:14):
But I think you're right, Ithink they were.
I think a lot of people whospoke in their home countries,
in their home landscapes, intheir home communities, have to
be very careful about what theysay and how they say it.
You know, what they say is notnecessarily accepted.
So here we were, all you know,busily agreeing with each other
about a, you know, aregenerative future.
(29:37):
But actually for a lot ofpeople that is a novel
experience to be able to speakthat freely about what it is
that they believe.
So, yeah, so maybe it did feelraw.
AJ (29:49):
Yeah, that's really well said.
Yeah, I also heard that therewere strong themes, and the
decolonisation aspect you sortof broadly touched on before was
one, and so was the nutritionaspect, which again comes back
to what we talked about atlength, matthew, and what I
really took from you was perhapsyour personal key line of
(30:10):
inquiry around can farmers getpaid for nutrition, for
nutritional density in food?
What came from there?
Was there any sort ofdiscernible?
I mean, again, you're talkingfrom a I need to see the
recordings point of view Did youhear anything?
Matthew (30:26):
Oh, look, in terms in terms of like, yeah, there were
strong themes and they were sortof embedded because I guess my
interests and and and just theluck of you know someone like
felice jacker, nutritionalpsychiatry researcher, and dan
kittredge, and, uh, you know acouple of the other speakers, um
, you know anita fleming fromnew zealand.
Yeah, like they they all sortof tied into that and I was just
(30:46):
lucky that they all said they'dlove to come and so it was like
, oh, I get to follow this, youknow, from the soil to the
stomach, kind of to the brain,which is super cool, and they
are all meeting up, they're allhaving the private, you know
professional, you knowgatherings after the event,
awesome.
So, in terms of the farmersbeing paid, no, nothing, I think
(31:10):
there's nothing uh on thehorizon, um, really for that,
but that it doesn't mean it'snot going to happen in the next
few years.
I mean, we sort of have theparts coming into place, ready
for that, um, but we, we, youknow the mechanisms and
everything that is yet to beworked out.
But I think what was amazingwas the suddenly people who are
in that space going.
Oh, hang on, we know this stuff.
(31:32):
I was chatting to someone whoworks for a gold mining sorry, a
gold testing company out ofWestern Australia.
And so they need to know wheregold has come from, to know if
it's been stolen and which mineit comes from.
And so they now use thattechnology for cherries and they
can tell you whether a it comesfrom.
And so they now use thattechnology for cherries and they
can tell you whether a cherrycomes from Chile or Tasmania, or
whether it comes from northernTasmania or southern Tasmania.
And if you want to spend themoney, you can say which tree
(31:54):
and which orchard in southernTasmania that cherry has come
from.
And so, if we can do that, weknow that the composition of the
cherry is different.
And then we also now know thatfarming systems can drive the
difference in composition of thecherry.
So all of that stuff exists.
The bit we haven't quite got toyet is is you know a reasonable
way of testing which will allowfarmers to be paid for the, for
(32:16):
the product, as opposed to um?
At the moment, like we havebroad things like regenerative
or organic or biodynamic, andthey're all sort of trying to
say, well, well, thispotentially is better, but you
know from Dan's research, unlessyou're looking after soil
biology, it doesn't matter aboutyour label, so we need to be
able to pin it to the individualfarmer because that's where the
(32:38):
magic, that's where they can dothe right thing by their soil,
which can increase the nutrientdensity of the crop.
They're the person who's goingto get paid and I think that's
the little bit that's missing.
And it's making it cheap,available and accessible to
farmers of all size, because thebig operations can do it
(32:59):
already if they wanted to.
They probably just don't wantto because it's probably not in
their interest.
But once it's available at aprice that people can afford to
um the small farms, that's whenwe'll see actual change.
AJ (33:11):
Yeah, right on, it sounds like in that sense there was a,
because I'm curious, who wasthere right from a punter's
point of view, like who, who arethe people in the room or the
rooms?
And it sounds like there was abunch of people that you just
described there who are.
I mean, it gives me a sensethat there was the right people
were in the room for that sortof a discussion.
There were the people who hadthese skills.
(33:33):
I know there were financepeople there too, so there were
those.
Who else was there, who turnedup in the end?
Matthew (33:38):
Yeah, enough of them turned up, anthony, which is a
relief, yes, because for a whileit was looking a little sketchy
.
AJ (33:47):
Really, it always comes in at a rush in the end.
Matthew (33:50):
Well, it wasn't, I have to say.
There was virtually no ticketsin the last week, virtually none
.
AJ (33:54):
Is that right?
Matthew (33:55):
Yeah, and everyone said you will sell most of your
tickets in the last week and wesold for about five days in the
last week we sold zero tickets,but we were in an okay place by
then and we we did sell quite afew in the last 24 hours or
something to locals.
Look, anthony was mostlyinterstiters just over.
It's probably about 55 percentfrom interstate, because a lot
(34:15):
of tasmanians sort of bookedlater and so that, um, uh,
that's where we thought it wouldbe roughly was about 80 percent
farmers, we believe, or landmanagers, people who have access
to country or help other peoplelook after country.
So maybe advisors that you know, people who work with you know,
biostimulants or those sorts ofcompanies or RCS or whatever it
(34:37):
might be.
And yeah, I think we got theright people in the room because
it seems like it's very hard.
We're in southern Tasmania, wedidn't have an advertising
budget, we just went out throughour own channels and we
gathered quite a few people whoare well-connected.
So, from our understanding iswhat has happened is that they
(34:59):
came going up we don't even knowwhat this is.
This dude, this hobby farmerfrom southern Tasmania, got some
idea, you know, about runningsomething.
They came down and they went.
Oh my God, that's actually.
There was some incredibletopics covered.
There were things that wedidn't even know existed.
You know in the world happening.
There were experts on theground that I could just sit and
(35:20):
have a chat to personally andask questions, hard questions,
and so those people now aregoing oh, this is really quite
amazing, and so we get the sensethat it's filtering out through
their channels, which is whichwas always the hope that we.
You know, when we first targeted, we tried to go out through
organizations that that where,where the people who had more
sway would hear about it andmaybe they would come, because,
(35:42):
because we have a limited numberof, you know, we can only take
about 300 people on site, 300ticket holders, and we sold
about 286 tickets or somethingin the end.
So we were quite limited inthat sense.
So we wanted, I guess, peoplewho in some instances, have
other influence, because theseare messages that we want to get
out there.
(36:02):
You know I didn't set this upbecause you know I need to.
I'd heard all these peoplespeak before, you know.
That's why I invited them.
Um, this is not for me.
This is to get information outthere and to see it filtering
out and to know that someonelike dan pittridge has never
been to australia.
He's got a fortnight inaustralia and then a week in new
zealand.
That's super cool because thesoup there's great things going
(36:24):
on in that, that world ofmeasuring nutrient density that
can now be put into our societyand into our farming systems.
You know whether it's FeliceJacker's work on, you know,
mental health, and she's nowtapped into the farming
community, so she'sreinvigorated about the research
that she's doing and going in awhole new direction in terms of
well, it's not just what youeat, it's how what you eat is
(36:45):
grown Awesome, it affects youand so seeing that happen that
is wonderful, and part of thatis because we were lucky with
the people who chose to come tospeak, but a lot of it is.
We're very lucky in terms ofthe people who came to see it as
well, because they you know wepiqued their interest by getting
(37:06):
them to stump up for a ticket,and the feedback has been
incredible in terms of what theygained and what they're going
to use and how they're going tothink of the world that they
live in and farm.
Sadie (37:17):
Most people I spoke to had land, like when I was just
wandering around talking topunters, which I would have
liked to have done a lot more of.
A couple of big people had quitea lot of land in Victoria.
Quite a lot of people had smallbits of land around the place.
I spoke to a GP.
That was quite awesome.
Good, a couple of young peopleyou know doing ag science
degrees.
(37:37):
So yeah, it was a kind of.
It was a cross-section.
You know, I don't really wantto use the term conventional,
I'm just going to use it forconvenience.
Yes, from the conventional endof the spectrum to the more
experimental end of the spectrum.
Matthew (37:54):
Did you?
Sadie (37:55):
talk about the term regenerative and the reasons for
not.
Matthew (37:58):
No, we haven't, on this one Using that, yeah.
Sadie (38:00):
So at the beginning, matthew was very deliberate in
not using the term regenerative,because it's not really clearly
defined.
It means something different toeverybody who does it.
There are people who embrace it, there are people who reject it
, and so a decision was made notto use it, and so the tagline
(38:20):
was farming better, becausefarming better is something that
we can all hook into.
We all have different ideas ofwhat better means and what
better means in our landscape,but it's something we can all
hook into.
We all have different ideas ofwhat better means and what
better means in our landscape,but it's something we can all
agree with that we should all befarming better.
AJ (38:32):
Yep, there's the conversation.
Sadie (38:34):
So what that meant was, I think, had we used the word
regenerative, I think we wouldhave gotten more people from a
particular bent, and I think wecan also do more work at the
other end of the spectrum aswell.
It kind of because the, theidea is that this, what we want,
is the broadest, you know, the.
(38:54):
The broadest tent possible, themost inclusive tent possible.
We want people, you know,really bumping up against each
other and discussing things uh,in a, in a, in a way that's
generous, and I think we're onthe way to doing that.
Matthew (39:10):
Yeah, I'll be really honest, Anthony, it was a really
bad move from a marketing pointof view to not just go
regenerative, because you canjust tap into a whole movement.
But I felt that we were notbeyond regenerative but we were
inclusive of regenerative.
That was one of the stringsthat we wanted to, you know, to
(39:32):
pull on.
But there were others thatmaybe regenerative doesn't
necessarily encompass yet or atall.
And yeah, so trying to getpeople to come point of view was
a dumb idea.
But in terms of, I think, whatwe've set up and the philosophy,
I've had lots of people say oh,I thought it was going to be a
lot more woo, woo, or I thoughtit was going to be a lot more of
(39:52):
that, you know, just movingcows around stuff, um, where
they're going?
No, it's way more.
It was deeper, more complexthan that, and so, hopefully,
what it was a bit of a negative,I guess, when we kick-started
this one will be a positive intothe future that we can take on
all sorts of ideas, discuss themand possibly reject them.
(40:14):
That's fine.
That's the whole point of beinginquisitive, but in a way, you
know, not limiting ourselvesfrom a term that is, you know,
and sadly to some extentregenerative.
It's sadly often maligned inAustralia.
It's not so much in the UK.
You know it's much easier totalk about it there and not have
(40:35):
it sort of be so divisive.
But here it seems strangelydivisive sometimes.
AJ (40:38):
Yeah, it is interesting, but I really appreciate what you're
saying.
I mean, I feel the same withthe podcast too.
You know, having done it forwhatever it is, eight or nine
years now.
Eight years now it's um, I, Iwell see the triggers.
I could pull to get numbers and, yeah, part of it you could
work the terminology that youknow will attract the cheer
squad.
(40:59):
But it's part of why I named thepodcast the way I don't get too
many opportunities to say thisactually explicitly.
But part of the reason why is so.
It was always going to bereflexive, so I bought into that
regen bit, but with the littleplay on the, the word duration,
it wasn't just stories ofregeneration, it was a point of
(41:19):
reflection or a reflexivity,better said to say that this is
a movable, non--pin-downable,non-tear-squatty thing.
This is the nature of culturethat we ascribe meaning to stuff
, including words.
But that's what this is aboutUltimately.
Let's not get hooked onparticular terminology or
(41:41):
whatever, but come together forwhat we're really about,
whatever we're agreeing amongstourselves right now that we're
about and that we value and wewant to do something about.
So the fact that you've done itthat way, I really appreciate,
and I really appreciate hearing,then, that it panned out that
way that these people fromdifferent walks who had these
queries were able to cometogether and be together in that
(42:02):
way.
It does also make me wonder,stemming from your previous
answers and the story piece wasthere any media present?
Matthew (42:12):
Yeah, look, the ABC Country Hour did roving
reporting.
They were trying to be on siteto do an outside broadcast but
you know there's not great phonereception here and so they
couldn't rely on the tech.
But they recorded, I, I think,10 or 15 interviews.
But mains, oh, there was tazcountry here, um, so that's a
you know, a rural um newspaper,but apart from that was we had a
(42:36):
couple of podcasters and ayoutuber, so pretty much sort of
that.
More, uh, you know, alternatemedia, I guess, yeah, the new
media, we didn't, you know, wedidn't tell the local newspaper,
we didn't approach others.
The Land newspaper were tryingto send someone but they
couldn't make it at the lastminute.
Sadie (42:56):
They did do.
Matthew (42:57):
They did a really lovely story ahead of time and
made a site visit, but yeah, Iwouldn't say it was, it didn't
pick up huge amounts.
I mean, I think, anthony, likepeople, we didn't know what we
were pulling off.
Really, yeah, so to try toexplain to landlines.
Sadie (43:15):
Landlines yeah, why they should come yeah?
Matthew (43:17):
what they're going to gain out of this.
It was a hard sell and we, youknow, don't really have a the
capacity to be chasing a lot ofthat stuff, you know.
So I think we were happy withthe amount of publicity it got.
In a sense, we got, yeah, sometraditional media, some
alternate media, yeah good.
And I think being able to puteverything online will be really
(43:38):
nice so that people can justsort of pick that up and that'll
just gently filter out.
Sadie (43:43):
Yeah, I think being able to put everything online once we
can work out all the techbehind that, because that's a
whole other mammoth task that'sright like what a good idea that
was there's a reason I don't dovideo, yeah, um, but yes, I
think, once that happens, thepeople who were here will, you
(44:05):
know, cherry pick their favoritetalks and send them out to
their, yeah, so, people, um, youknow, I talked to a really
wonderful woman from slow foodwho was super excited about the
videos being able to go outbecause she had, you know, she
wanted to send it out throughher slow food, um and circular
economy networks.
So, you know, I think, I thinkthere's a lot of there's still a
lot of conversation to comeoutstanding.
AJ (44:26):
So the million dollar question maybe literally is do
you run it again?
I'm leaving?
You said it was so good, sadieit was.
Sadie (44:39):
I want to go as a punter there we go, I want to go to the
talks.
I want to sit with my my mom,in the chair and my notepad.
AJ (44:48):
This is it, so what?
Matthew (44:50):
do you do it's?
AJ (44:50):
a conundrum.
Matthew (44:51):
You can help with videos.
Sadie (44:52):
Yeah, I can drive people to the airport.
You know what my favorite jobwas On the last day?
I did the airport run.
AJ (44:59):
I love that job Because when I used to organize events
before the podcast started it'spart of why the podcast started,
because I'd ended up doing 10years I didn't think they would
end the events, but because Ifelt like the podcast, very
quickly I had to get out oncountry and learn about my
country.
Uh, the the events ended, but Iwas doing events that got to be
pretty big, like about 300people as well, largely out of
(45:21):
melbourne, and the last, whatended up being the last one, was
actually with charlie masseyand francis and david from
Walleen had been broughttogether on a paddle and it was
classic in a standing room.
Mainly amazing stuff, became apodcast later, but they ended up
being the last one.
But I'd done a bunch of themand I was, I mean, bless again.
The help was always amazing,but I was carrying the can and
(45:43):
doing the airport runs as wellmyself.
But they were awesome.
And I'll never forget the onewhere I got charlie because, uh,
john hewson had come down for Iwas organizing two in that
festival.
I had a mate hosting one withjohn hewson on it, um, which was
also super interesting.
I think we put that out on thepodcast too, and, um, john and
(46:03):
charlie, in the back of ol'sparents' car, right driving
through traffic jams, to get tobloody Federation Square or
wherever it was, gave us a lotof time and it turns out they go
way back because John launchedBreaking the Sheep's Back,
charlie's brilliant book, sothat was one of the.
I mean you just sit there andlisten.
(46:24):
Yeah, it's wonderful, yeah, yeahyeah, yeah, so I hear you Okay.
Matthew (46:33):
So, matthewew, do you run it again?
So, um, sadie said quiteclearly well, on the saturday
before I thought this is nevergoing to happen again.
And then she did an incrediblejob, as usual, of looking after
people and making sureeverything ran smoothly.
And after this craziness shesaid to me I'm not going to say
you can't do it again, but I'mgoing to tell you this you can
(46:54):
have no ideas no book ideas, nofestival ideas, no ideas until
you do the list, the first list,and then maybe another list of
things that I have got for youthat you have neglected to do
for the last six months.
So that's where we're at,anthony, good one, I have not
started on those lists.
I've been sort of recovering alittle bit and and there's quite
(47:18):
a lot of really boring adminwork.
No one told me about the boringadmin work after the high of
the festival.
Sadie (47:23):
I know you don't have volunteers for that part either
like before, after the festival.
Matthew (47:26):
It's just you don't have volunteers for that part
either, like before or after thefestival.
Sadie (47:28):
It's just a wrap-up.
It's just you.
Matthew (47:29):
You have 25 volunteers do two hours each.
Oh great, everything's done soquickly.
Hang on, it's me.
Taking that apart, that's me 50hours when I'm tired.
So I'm learning a little bitabout that side.
Look, we spoke.
I've spoken to people on themainland about and done a site
visit for, a potential one fornext year, possibly the year
(47:52):
after.
I've also spoken to people inWA two different farms actually
about potential for doingsomething, possibly next year,
but much smaller than thisoriginal one here.
Well, it's smaller in scope,not necessarily in numbers, but
in terms of ambition of what wewere trying to do.
But they're all conversationsthat we'll have in the new year.
(48:12):
So at the moment, what'samazing is we had an idea.
It came off.
You know, my I had my greatestexpectations were surpassed,
like I did I nothing that thatreally could have gone wrong
went wrong, and everything thatwent right went so much more
right than we thought.
Um, and that's kind of blown meaway.
(48:36):
There was a.
Yeah, it was a.
It was a very nice event to beat, even if you were working
hard, and we kind of know whatwe're doing a bit better.
So it it's almost like, well,it'd be a shame not to have
another crack.
AJ (48:51):
Yeah that's right, hard yards done.
I'll never forget Cole Mannixfrom Old Salt when they ran the
Old Salt Festival and he said,yeah, the first year, geez, that
was hard and we lost money.
But we did it again and webroke even or maybe even made a
touch, and we didn't killourselves.
And we broke even or maybe evenmade a touch and we didn't kill
ourselves, like it was thesecond time round that you bore
(49:12):
the fruit of the hard labour.
Matthew (49:20):
Yeah, look, I think to some extent we don't know what
another one would look like.
I mean, is this one?
Was it just magical?
Because no one knew what wasgoing on, you know, and look, we
sort of, even when we ran therestaurant, we sort of tried to
under-promise and over-deliver,but we were promising a lot with
this and I still think weprobably over-delivered.
Yeah, but does that happenagain?
When you can't rely on thegoodwill, when you can't rely on
(49:42):
everybody chipping in,everybody loaning you everything
, everybody, you know, next yearI think people would be less
forgiving of my failures andincapacities.
And so, yes, I think it wouldbe good to have another crack.
And I also think, like we'vegot something wonderful that
(50:04):
happened and I think we probablycould recreate it, but I think
everyone would be different.
Yeah, you know, you couldn'texpect the same again again.
AJ (50:10):
No, I think that would be part of the magic.
I almost want to come back tothe thing you said about um.
It's surpassing expectations onall levels.
This is the theme I gotcertainly got from old salt as
well, but probably every placethat was doing something of this
variety across the states, thatthis was true and I had this in
mind coming into thisconversation too.
So hearing you say that reallyechoed large in my mind, and I
(50:36):
mean easy for me to say fromhere, but I think that's the
nature of it.
I wouldn't anticipate that notbeing the case again, you know,
in a different form.
But I think that aspect, whenit's done in this way, does
result in wow, a little bit ofmagic, certainly more than some
of the parts you put together.
Matthew (50:57):
And it is completely reliant on not us, like we.
Just we bung a few tents up andget some people to talk, you
know, and there's a lot of workgoes into all of that but
actually where it happens is thepeople who show up, who buy a
ticket, volunteer.
They're the ones that actuallydrive something quite delightful
(51:20):
, and so, by definition, you'llhave a different crowd next year
, and it would have to bedifferent, but they're the ones
that make it happen.
Sadie (51:28):
Yeah, for me it always comes back to theatre, which is
where I started my life and that, as an audience, you know.
The kind of more interesting,the kind of forms of theatre
that I'm interested in actuallycome out of South America.
This idea that you're notspectators, you're spectactors,
you're active participants inwhat's going on.
(51:50):
It is no longer enough just tosit back and be passive
recipients of information.
The reason these festivals arespecial, the reason these things
work, is because the people whocome make the magic happen.
They have to want to be excitedand talk to each other and talk
to the speakers, and so theknowledge happens between people
(52:11):
, not within people.
AJ (52:14):
Yeah, that is a brilliant tradition, isn't it that
tradition of theatre?
Do you ever think of doing moreof that?
No, you can teach people now,Sadie I teach.
Sadie (52:24):
Now I teach kitchen garden, I work drama into lots
of things that I teach, yeahthere you go.
So it's all that stuff, allthose life things, all those
lives that we all say, they findtheir way out in other ways.
AJ (52:40):
Yep beautiful.
Matthew (52:41):
But Anthony, I think, and so he's right.
When we used to run arestaurant, it was like the
curtain goes up at a certainmoment, but it is theatre, it
smiles on and everyone's inplace and everything.
But what I think's whatinteresting about having just
run this and kind of going well,why didn't anyone ever do this
before?
You know, with multiplepaddocks, multiple sessions, it
(53:01):
forces people to be involved.
So, yes, they might go, oh, I'mmissing out on this.
Or you know, oh, I've got towalk, got to walk and get my.
You know, the coffee machine's along walkway because you can't
have the coffee machine next tothe tent.
It makes too much noise.
But it forces them to actuallybe involved, to get up, to move,
to interact, and that it's notby accident that that creates
(53:23):
something else.
That's actually quitedeliberate that we create spaces
and movement and action,because because that's actually
the the it's forcing people.
It's like at the table when youforce people to to use their
hands to break bread as opposedto use a knife and fork or force
(53:44):
them to share a plate, itbreaks down a certain barrier
and and it's not by accident.
I think that you can get adifferent response from the same
.
You can have the same talks,but you get a different response
on whether you think of it as atheatre set or as a you know, a
conference.
AJ (54:01):
Yeah, yeah, beautifully put.
Yeah, there's some realprinciples for community period
in that isn't there, and thedefault would be that, and then
you could hide away when youneed to, rather than the the
reverse, which is sort of howwe've structured things a bit
with our thoughts yeah, yeah,hide away by default, and that
can really really bury you allright.
Before we talk about a bit ofmusic, and maybe a bit of music
(54:24):
that came out of the festival, Ihave to come back to where we
did start.
Matthew, how did you gofinancially in the end?
Matthew (54:31):
Oh, so did we talk about the $71,000 loss that my
treasurer flagged at one point?
AJ (54:37):
Not quite.
You said something about$30,000 at one stage.
Matthew (54:41):
Yeah, he made a mistake , but it was $31,000.
No, we didn't lose money, welldone.
AJ (54:45):
Well.
Matthew (54:46):
I'm still waiting on a lot of invoices to come.
Here we go.
It's one of these things islike I really need you to
invoice me please invoice me,you know we're going well,
you're really good payer.
I'm like I need to get thisbecause I can't do a spreadsheet
right.
So you'd like, yeah, I'll needto get my treasurer back in, but
no, I believe we look, itdoesn't pay for my time or
(55:08):
anything, but there will beenough money to pay for the
structural changes we had tomake to the farm, to pay for
everybody who needs to be paid.
There's still a whole bunch ofpeople who weren't paid or
weren't paid enough.
But no, we should come out ofit, break even maybe, well,
hopefully, with a small, uh,admin fund to be able to kick
(55:30):
off the next one.
So there's actually, you know,someone can be paid to do the
clerical work that there has tobe done to start another one,
because, um, that again reliedon the bank of saudi and matthew
and some goodwill this year.
And we'd like, you know, if youwant things to be sustainable,
then they have to be financiallysustainable as well.
So you know, yeah, that wouldbe our hope, but no, we're
(55:51):
really stoked, anthony, oh.
AJ (55:54):
I'm blown away.
Matthew (55:55):
Yeah, look, we had some really great sponsors, but in
the end it was actuallygovernment money.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, we got a Departmentof Agriculture grant that
allowed us to film everything,to bring in a whole new level of
talks and other stuff, andwithout that it would have made
(56:17):
a small loss.
AJ (56:18):
So yeah, that's Tassie Department.
Matthew (56:21):
No, no, that was the federal government actually.
AJ (56:23):
That's good to hear, yeah.
Matthew (56:25):
You know the Tassie Department of Agriculture less
interested, you know, but yeah.
Sadie (56:31):
We got money from business events Tasmanian.
Yeah, we got some state money.
Matthew (56:35):
We got some state money like any conference can if
they've been tracking statevisitors and so that was super
helpful.
I mean, that's what sort ofgave us the confidence to go.
Well, this is something wecould potentially do.
Did you hear that cough?
That's the result of doing afestival.
Sadie (56:51):
That's me going slow down .
AJ (56:53):
Yeah, yeah, visceral representation.
Say no more.
Okay, all right.
So was there some music out ofthe festival that perhaps
captured you as well, that wecould make mention of here?
Matthew (57:07):
Yeah, so we had an incredible trio.
A woman named Claire AnneTaylor came, and I think it's
called my Mother is a Mountain,yeah.
Sadie (57:18):
My Mother, the Mountain, m.
Matthew (57:19):
My Mother the Mountain.
So Claire's, I think, born downin this part of the world and
lives down this part of theworld, and so the idea that the
I think it's about Kunanyi,mount Wellington.
You know my mother of themountain, you're all there.
Yeah, she writes songs thathave a lot of resonance and
she's got this beautiful husky,you know, voice.
That, yeah, I have to say, Iwalked into the because it was a
(57:43):
bit separate from where theconference bits were and I
walked in having dealt with thewoman, with the migraine and
dealt with a few you know, thetoilets running out of water and
all the things that we dealtwith during the day, all the
tiny little, you know admin, andI walked in and there's Claire
belting out this song and Ireckon my smile stretched, you
know, around the back of my headbecause I was just like, oh my
(58:06):
God, we got through it and we'vegot this incredible music and
everyone's having conversations.
I just stood there and watchedlike 13 different conversations
happening while she was singing,you know, and yeah, it was just
beautiful.
AJ (58:19):
Beautiful.
I'm so glad you got that moment, Matthew, when you got to take
it in that way.
That's awesome, and Sadie, foryou, did you get to pick up some
?
Sadie (58:28):
I was just elbowing Matthew, then going Claire Anne
Taylor.
Claire Anne Taylor.
AJ (58:32):
Oh there we go.
Claire Anne Taylor (58:33):
I booked her .
I remember her.
Sadie (58:37):
We had this other beautiful singer too, Esther
Cook, who runs the local WholeFoods shop.
AJ (58:42):
Oh, there we go.
Sadie (58:43):
So she came for the cocktail party because she has
this insane sort of soul-likevoice, love it.
And she came with a guitaristand they did sort of standards
and it was really a folk song.
AJ (58:56):
It was very beautiful, very beautiful, and I like how
distant from the original whathave you done?
Moment where you went apart,you left the building, that
actually, at the end, with thispinnacle moment of thinking
about the music, you wereutterly united.
It's symbolic and a great placeto end.
I can't thank you enough.
I'm blown away that you guyspulled this off and your team
(59:20):
and I, you know, personally hopethere's another one.
I'll get to hear that one.
Sadie (59:24):
Yeah, yeah, because you might be back.
Matthew (59:27):
I have to say, when terry mccosker was stuck in
sydney, who was supposed to belooking after a whole tent for
you know, running a tent for aday, and we're like, oh, we just
have to find someone to fill in.
Um, there was this moment ofwell, if anthony was here anyway
, we're luckily we got kirstenbradley from milkwood who did
the most incredible job.
(59:48):
You know, 8.30 at night.
Hey, guess what?
At 8 tomorrow morning you'vegot to be on stage for five
hours.
So she pulled it off.
But there was this thing oflike oh, luckily we have friends
who can do this sort of stuff.
AJ (59:59):
I tell you, this is the thing.
The pieces are there, aren'tthey?
We have the people and theskills.
That's a great example, andKirsten's another person.
I look forward to meeting atsome stage, and there would have
been many at that festival.
So, yeah, I hope there'sanother one.
I will definitely be there.
We are going to be back for atleast the Regen WA conference in
Perth in September.
But thanks for speaking with me, guys.
(01:00:19):
I'm so glad you were both here.
Thanks, Sadie.
Look forward to seeing u whenwe're back a somewhere sometime.
Matthew (01:00:24):
No, worries, see you on one side of the country or
another yep, cheers.
AJ (01:00:27):
Thanks again, Sadie, for being here too, hey nd uh thanks
for your support of this aswell.
Thanks, cheers, guys.
inging when I die.
I'll live on in your smile Foryears after.
(01:00:56):
I'll be right there in yourlaughter.
Oh, she's singing when I die.
Oh, live on in your smile.
(01:01:19):
Oh, for years after After I'llbe right there in your laughter.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, hey, hey.
And I walked in and there's Claire belting out this
song and I reckon my smilestretched, you know, around the
back of my head because you knowI was just like, oh my God, we
got through it and we've gotthis incredible music and
everyone's having conversations.
I just stood there and watchedlike 13 different conversations
happening while she was singing,you know, and yeah, it was just
(00:22):
beautiful, beautiful.
AJ (00:32):
G'day from Antigua, Guatemala, where I managed to
connect online just prior to thenew year with Matthew Evans and
partner Sadie Chrestman.
You might remember me talkingwith Matthew last year in the
lead up to the new festival he'sfounded back home on his farm
in Australia.
It's called Grounded the Soiland Food Festival.
(00:52):
Well, that festival happened inearly December and oh, the
brilliant messages I wasreceiving from it.
Thanks very much for those.
As you can imagine, then I waskeen as mustard to get back on
the blower with Matthew to talkabout what happened, how it
happened and whether or not itmight happen again, nd hearing
how Sadie's initial reaction tothe festival was something like
(01:14):
WTF only made me happier thatshe had accepted my invitation
too, aside from the fact thatI've wanted to talk to her in
her own right on this podcastfor ages.
I don't know that Matthew andSadie have been on many podcasts
together either, so maybe I caneven claim an exclusive! G'day
Anthony James here for a newyear and new series of The
(01:37):
RegenNarration, your independent, listener-supported portal into
the regenerative era, withthanks to listeners like Linda,
Tibby Tuckett and TristanLovelock-Sweeney for becoming
subscribing members over thebreak To brother-in-law, Dennis
Cheng, for being the first toaccept a subscriber gift from
your wonderful sister.
To you brilliant earlysubscribers to my new Sub stack.
(01:59):
I'll thank you personally overthere.
And to Lisa Rock and CateSinclair, thanks for increasing
your subscriber support mazing.
If you're not yet part of thisgreat community of supporting
listeners, I'd love you to joinus.
Get benefits if you like Andhelp keep the show on the road.
Just follow the links in theshow notes with my great
(02:19):
gratitude.
My gratitude was all thegreater over the break too,
because amongst the end of theyear highlight slides I get sent
from varied podcast apps.
Spotify tells me that followersof the podcast there increased
by over 30% last year.
Buzzsprout, my host platform,tells me The egenNarration is in
their top 10% for downloads.
(02:40):
For a humble independent podcast, that's pretty cool, though, to
be honest, I don't pay muchattention to the metrics, for,
as my guest back in New YorkCity, douglas Rushkoff, puts it,
they take you towards figuresand away from ground, and in
this case literall nd in doingthat you're required to tend the
spectacle, he says.
(03:00):
Indeed, efforts to scale uprequire that, by definition.
Of course, moving towardsground is more this podcast's
focus, but each year theseslides come in I have a little
look and when I see things likethis I just feel more gratitude
for it all my guests, thelearning and you for listening
and subscribing to make it allpossible.
(03:22):
So let's have another rippingyear of things and see what we
can muster together.
For starters, then, right ontheme, a yarn about the
wonderful stuff that went downat the Grounded Festival, along
with some of its extraordinarybackstory and possible future
story.
Today we talk with the coupleat the heart of it all, who I
(03:43):
found in equal parts exhausted,elated, insightful, searingly
honest and utterly delightful.
I've actually put a photo onthe website that I snapped
during our conversation of anendearing moment between the two
that I love.
Here's Matthew first, and Sadiejoins us a few minutes later.
Matthew (04:02):
Hey mate, not wearing many clothes.
AJ (04:06):
It's hot here.
How are you, isn't it alwayshot?
Matthew (04:09):
there, though.
How close is Guatemala to theequator?
I must be almost on it.
AJ (04:14):
Well, south America is, the top of South America is on it
and we're here in Central.
So, yeah, it's getting closerand it's actually Guatemala is
called the land of eternalspring, so it sort of sits on
about.
Well, we're sort of 15 to 28degrees, something like that,
like every day, and that wouldbe for a lot of beer in this
particular part.
Here.
It gets hotter in the parts Iused to live in, but it's also
(04:36):
partly because I'm in thislittle room, obviously in this
little hostel type thing, andthere's air that comes through
the building but not into therooms, so and I've got the fan
off right.
Last same as last time.
Bloody georgia, I think I was.
So, yeah, the theme of heat inour conversations, yeah, um,
it's, it's funny seeing youthere.
Matthew (04:56):
I mean I was thinking how hot it was last time and you
would snuck off, and then youwasn't, like it was tractors or
something about to start up ormotorbikes that something that's
right.
AJ (05:04):
This time it's bless, it's pretty quiet this room we
managed to get one that's offthe road, which is a bonus, and
there's only five rooms andpeople are pretty quiet.
So, touch wood, that lasts forthe duration and, yeah, I've
just got to sweat it out.
Matthew (05:19):
Well, sadie's not here, but she'll hopefully be back
shortly.
Okay, sadie's not here, butshe'll hopefully be back shortly
.
Okay, she had to do a schoolrun Even though she wasn't at
work.
She still has to take Hedley tothe bus, so she'll be back in a
sec?
AJ (05:29):
Awesome, great.
So how are you doing?
I'm good.
Matthew (05:33):
Yeah, I'm a little slightly worn.
I think from my experience Ifound a good way to lose weight
is, you know, just burn through,uh, adrenaline for a few months
and it's a bit like.
It's a bit like, you know, ifyou really love cooking and
people go to me, I love cooking,I'm going to open a restaurant,
(05:55):
it's.
If you really love seeinginteresting talks, don't run a
fest.
You know, a conference, it wasthat kind of thing of like.
Oh, I really pretty much onlysaw the ones I was in, and even
then I wasn't you know, one ofthem.
I wasn't in because we had, youknow, our only little medical
hiccup happened just as I wassitting down to do the wine and
(06:17):
cheese hour.
AJ (06:19):
No way.
Matthew (06:19):
At the end of the first day I was like, woohoo, this is
it, I'm in, I'm 100% in forthis.
We've got through the day, nodramas.
Claire Anne Taylor (06:28):
Party's on.
Matthew (06:28):
And I get this message going.
Hey, you might have sent theambulance home 10 minutes too
early.
AJ (06:32):
Anyway, oh no, Was that okay ?
Did that work out okay?
Oh no, it was absolutely fine.
Matthew (06:38):
It was a woman who just had a migraine Awful and all
you need to do is find somewherecool and dark, and in those
particular two days in Tasmaniathere was nowhere on our farm
that was cool and dark, so itwas just a management thing of
you know.
Everyone's got their own littleneeds.
AJ (06:55):
So yeah, that was all good, all good, yeah, so you'll resign
to the recordings yourself then, hey.
Matthew (07:00):
Yeah, and I'm going to see one of the cinematographers
today.
So we had three people or fourpeople five actually on site
filming stuff over the two days,and so I've seen one little
clip of one of the things andI'm about to go see what was
happening in sort of theconference-style tents where
they were recording at a fixedcamera, recording every session
(07:22):
of the day, and see how that is,because apparently it's not
like you can't just look at iton your phone and upload it to
the YouTube or something.
It's in a different format.
AJ (07:33):
Says a man who's worked in TV for how long.
Matthew (07:37):
Yeah, but I didn't press any buttons.
Yes, that's right, very good,and it is this weird thing of
well, well, I'm still not sure Iknow how to use humanetics and
I still can't read a spreadsheet, um, and so it's yet another
skill set that I will have tohalf learn to be able to, um,
get it up.
But look, I think what wasreally nice is because we had
(07:58):
the three stages runningconcurrently and it was a big.
I have to say it was hard forpeople to get their head around.
I'm still getting messagesabout you didn't have a lunch
break.
It's like well, which sessionswould you have made me kill?
Which of those sessions did younot want that you loved?
Would I have to have got rid offor you to have a lunch break?
And the other thing is I can'thave 400 people all descend on a
(08:21):
35 seat restaurant for lunchall at once, and so that idea
that you can miss a session, Ithink people found really hard.
They weren't sure how theycould manage it, but at the end
of the two days I think theywere starting to get an idea of
oh, so I know how this works now.
I can't see everything, I can'tdo everything.
I know that a lot of it will beavailable later, but I can also
(08:41):
talk to people who are in thosesessions be available later,
but I can also talk to peoplewho are in those sessions and
the whole point is that there'sthere's enough to do, there's
enough to fill your brain oryour needs each day, and that in
you know, and that's differentto the next person's in next
year, in that session, you knowthe next hour they may need to
walk around or they may need togo and check out something
(09:03):
different, and so offering thedifferent stuff gives them an
ability to do a variety ofthings but then also catch up
later.
And it was one of those thingswe had right from the start and
it looked like it was going tofall over because we just didn't
have the money to do it.
And then we were lucky enoughto get some funding that
included recording stuff and sothat sort of guaranteed that we
(09:27):
would be able to put it, put itonline.
I was thinking I was just goingto have to be, you know,
someone with a better phone thanmine on a tripod um just to
make sure there was a record ofit.
But now we've got.
We had professional umcinematographers.
I'm very lucky to have, youknow, a filmmaker at the bottom
of my road.
She's going to show me how, toyou know how it all works, how
it looks on the, on the drive,on the um.
Eight terabyte hard drive orwhatever it is.
AJ (09:49):
Whatever a terabyte is, apparently it's big I think, um,
for better and worse, andthat's mostly worse, given how
much this takes, uh, data wise,data center wise across the
globe.
Even a terabyte's getting to benot regarded as that big
anymore, sort of a generalconsumer item.
But anyway it was big at onestage.
Matthew (10:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look, I don't know.
It just seems like I'm learningabout all this kind of stuff
because I didn't even know Ineeded to have a hard drive.
Claire Anne Taylor (10:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew (10:21):
Until they said oh, you need to go and spend dollars on
this, on this thing, to makesure that we can keep it.
AJ (10:26):
You know, I just thought oh, you just doesn't just sit on a
usb, apparently not well, yeah,even audio adds up in my case,
but it doesn't quite do whatvideo does.
Video is huge, but, yeah, it'sterrific that you did get that,
though that's that's going to bea brilliant record and that it
was done super well, all thebetter.
Before I ask you about somehighlights, I don't want to let
(10:47):
pass too quickly though thephysical, visceral experience of
it for you.
Setting something up like thisfrom the get-go you mentioned
the word broken to me, even inour little exchange after before
this Give us a bit of aninsight, as raw as it may be, so
we get a glimpse of behind thecurtain in that way.
That feels important andperhaps instructive for those
(11:09):
who might be thinking of otherstuff in future too, but also to
perhaps help out next time orjust appreciate what goes into
it.
Matthew (11:18):
Yeah, it was interesting.
We had a couple of people whowere on site, who'd run things
before, you know, field days orthat kind of stuff, and and they
looked at what we were doingand and it was they.
They were the people who, Iguess, like a parent, you know,
until you've been a parent andand you've seen, had your own
toddler screaming in thesupermarket, you know, don't
understand that.
What other people are goingthrough.
(11:38):
So, look, I have to say I hadno idea what I was getting into
and I was kind of like, well,why don't we have three tents in
the middle of paddocks?
Why don't we just film it all?
Why don't we just have it onfarm?
You know, and every step, youkind of went oh, that's why
that's the reason, you know.
I think that the moment when Iwas wanting to film it and you
(12:00):
know, have you need a microphonein each stage, you want to have
a screen in each stage, becausea lot of people were saying
they needed PowerPoint andwhatever.
And I was trying to talk peopleout of that, the speakers but
they were very keen to havePowerPoint.
Oh, that sounds exciting.
And so we went to aprofessional because people were
saying you need to be able tosee this.
Like people are paid, you know,hundreds of dollars to come to
(12:21):
this festival slash conference,you know you can't have
PowerPoint that no one can see.
And so we went to aprofessional and they said oh
yeah, no problem, we can putthose screens up.
We'll need a tech person and anAV person.
No problem, that's going tocost you between $30,000 and
$40,000, right.
AJ (12:35):
Yeah.
Matthew (12:36):
So that's the moment where I went holy moly, we'd
already got a forecast that wewere going to lose 30 grand on
the event before we got thatquote and you kind of went oh,
that's why you don't have ascreen in every tent, that's why
you don't do it in the middleof a paddock, because you have
to have power.
But what was amazing, anthonyand I was a bit broken by the
(12:58):
experience, but only because wetried to do a bit too much, like
I ended up having 40 speakers,we ended up having 65.
I thought we'd have 42 sessions, we ended up having 86 sessions
over two days.
Yeah, you know, this is nosmall thing that we did, but
every step of the way.
So when I was like, oh my God,how are we going to put up a
screen, my filmmaker friend saidwell, I've got a projector for
(13:20):
one of the tents you know andSadie projector for one of the
tents you know.
And I and sadie um said I, Iknow a tech person, so you don't
have to employ someone at.
You know a thousand dollars aday which is what I was being
quoted to to make sure that the,the powerpoint, runs properly.
They do all the computers atthe school, um, where she
teaches, um, uh, you know, oh,we need to do some signage.
(13:41):
Well, I know how I'll just comeand hand, paint old Apple
palette boards and do all yoursignage for you.
And people stepped into the roomand the thing that blew me away
, anthony, like I put in a quitelarge effort, but I was
surrounded by goodwill and itwas only at the very last speech
(14:02):
, like sort of saying thanks forcoming, that I realised that we
had only paid at that point andwe have to pay a lot of people
since.
But at that point we had donethis event, as I say you know,
over 60 speakers, over 80presentations, two and a half
days of full-on stuff happeningon the farm.
We had paid one person eighthours a week for some admin for
about three months.
(14:22):
I had paid one person eighthours a week for some admin for
about three months and by thetime the festival was on, no one
had been paid for the previousthree months because I was doing
all the admin and it was alldone on the good energy and the
good vibes and the goodwill ofthe people who wanted to see it
happen.
And that blew me away.
(14:43):
I'm getting goosebumps justthinking about it.
AJ (14:44):
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, no, I think of how youonly experienced that because
you stuck your neck so far outas well.
But then the person who can dothat is game enough to do that.
Wow, what it can animate inothers.
Matthew (15:00):
Yeah, look, I think I was lucky because I mean we've
run hospitality stuff, we'vedone learning things on the farm
, I've been to events so I hadsome idea of what kind of worked
and what didn't.
One of the most beautifulthings that happened was we
opened our house as a bit of aspace where it was a quiet space
.
It certainly wasn't at six inthe morning when Dan Kittredge
(15:22):
is there cooking eggs for 12people.
There's people sleeping in thelounge room.
There's Dan Kittredge fromMassachusetts, wherever he's
from, you know, cooking eggs andgoing.
Oh, there's another person.
I walk in from milking, someonegrabs my milk churn.
Who's a farmer from New Zealandwho's over-volunteering, who
happens to be sleeping in a tentoutside our window and he can
recognise that I've just youknow, I've got the good milk in
my hand.
He starts making coffees,awesome.
(15:43):
But during the day the house wasthis sort of haven and you know
the revanks, helen, um therevanks and one of her sons.
They were jet lagged from theuk, so they slept in the house
and had a little quiet moment.
We had this beautiful woman whoused to work with us, who
volunteered to to just makepeople comfortable, that all the
speakers comfortable and wouldsort of insist they have a cup
(16:04):
of tea and a pastry and a sitdown before their session.
And so people fulfilled allthese little roles and we stuck
our neck out.
Well, I stuck my neck out, butkind of knowing that around me
were some people who had someskills and hoping that all of
the things that I am incapableof doing, there would be someone
who might be capable of doingit.
(16:25):
And if not, you know we also.
Everything was done with goodintentions, everything was done
trying to make things nice andgood, and I think it was a very
forgiving audience as well.
Yeah, Beautiful.
AJ (16:39):
Is it time to bring Sadie into the fray?
Hey, how are you?
Sadie (16:44):
Hello Anthony.
AJ (16:45):
Welcome.
Sadie (16:46):
Thank you, thank you.
AJ (16:47):
I feel like I've been waiting to say that to you for a
long time.
It's great to see you.
Sadie (16:53):
Very nice to see you too In wherever you are, because I
obviously missed the beginning.
Oh yeah, guatemala.
AJ (16:59):
I'm in Guatemala at the moment.
It's an old home of mine.
Sadie (17:02):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I know that from listeningto the podcast I knew you were
going down there.
Oh, fantastic.
AJ (17:08):
Yes, I'm not yet back where I used to live, but we're en
route.
It's a smallish country but,relatively speaking, to get
between places because it's verymountainous, dramatically
changing climates and, of course, logistical stuff, so nowhere
goes anywhere terribly fast.
Sadie (17:25):
Well, that's a nice way to live for a while.
AJ (17:29):
Exactly it is.
It's timely that it's the endof the year and I need to take
the foot off the pedal a bit too, but also very surreal that I'm
here again and with the familyand yeah, I'm bracing myself
partly, to be honest, twentyyears on, like what's a town, a
small dusty town, going to looklike these days, and who's there
(17:49):
and who's not, and who's diedand who's born, and what school
kids are now Grandparents?
I don't know.
It all happens pretty quickthere.
So yeah, we'll see.
But back to you.
But back to you.
You've come in at this pointwhere we're just talking as much
about the task of pulling itoff and to get as real as
possible, sort of with that toreally convey some of the depths
(18:12):
of the experience outside ofthe party.
Sadie (18:16):
How was it for you?
I largely ignored it for sixmonths, just the yes, dear.
Yeah, pretty much the deal wasand Matthew may have already
said this the deal was, uh, thathe could, he could have his
ridiculous festival, uh, butthat I wanted nothing to do with
it.
He wasn't allowed to call on me, uh, and he stuck to that like
(18:37):
he really did.
I mean, it helps, I know work,uh, I now teach off farm so I'm
I'm gone days a week.
On the fifth day I'm stilldoing sort of teaching things
and catching up things.
So I wasn't available either.
But he would work, you know,long into the night.
He would have, you know, wewould have family dinner
together and then he'd be up atthe kitchen bench back on his
computer emailing speakers andanswering questions and asking
(18:59):
questions.
I mean, it was a massive,massive administrative effort to
make it all happen.
And it was a massive, massiveadministrative effort to make it
all happen.
So I really didn't come inuntil the last minute, like I
took a week off work and Iworked the week of the festival
itself.
So that was my maincontribution, that and making
sure that Matthew was BenWharton for the six months
(19:21):
before.
AJ (19:22):
Well, having a partner who does a bit of that here as well,
that's not to be taken lightly.
And in that context, then theburst experience for you.
How did it look through youreyes and how did it feel?
Matthew (19:35):
I think we need to start with when she first looked
at the program and realisedexactly what I was doing, which
was on the Saturday before the.
You know you're kicked off witha Tuesday cocktail party.
This is the Saturday beforeshe's taken the week off.
Sadie (19:49):
She looks at the program and oh, I don't remember what
did I do?
What?
Matthew (19:53):
the heck did you do what on earth?
And then she cried.
Then she swore, and then sheleft the house for six hours.
Did I, Yep?
And I told our son she can'teven remember this and she told
our son sorry.
I told our son that naturesometimes has a way of saying
beware.
(20:13):
And the way your mother justbehaved means beware, Do not go
near, Don't touch.
It's like a snake when itflattens its head.
You know, that's kind.
There's a warning sign there.
Hedley, you and I, let's not gonear Sadie for a few hours and
let her come back Anyway.
(20:34):
So that was the Saturday,Anyway, you can tell us Very
good.
It wasn't good, Anthony.
AJ (20:39):
No, well, exactly.
So this is what I'm reallyinterested in the actual lived
experience in the background ofoh shit.
Sadie (20:47):
Of pulling something like that off.
AJ (20:48):
Yeah.
Sadie (20:50):
It's sort of actually how Matthew and I have run our
lives since the very beginningis that we've bitten off more
than we can chew, and then bothof us are extremely stubborn and
we have to make it happen Likethere's no room to go.
Maybe we shouldn't do this.
It's like, once you've sort ofmade the decision and you're
going with it, so you just doand you just.
If it means you have to stay uplater or get up earlier or move
(21:12):
faster, then that's just whathas to happen.
Um, I think this festival hastaught me that I am now.
I'm now 57, and I don't want tolive my life like that anymore
here we go I would actually liketo slow down and plan things a
bit and give, you know, have abit more space around each
project to actually let itfinish and wrap up and just
(21:33):
settle really.
But, yes, that first weekend Irealised I had to get from sort
of zero to a hundred very, veryquickly and get my head around
things about what was happeningand what needed to happen and
what my jobs would be once itall got rolling.
And that's what it was.
It was just like moving really,really fast, making sure that
all the volunteers had what theyneeded to do the jobs they
(21:55):
volunteered for, to make surethat all the kitchen staff were
supported, because that wouldnormally be Matthew's job but he
wasn't available to do that.
Um, and my job is often thepeople support and making sure
that the people who are I mean,it was the same when we had
staff in the restaurant as wellit's just that make sure that
(22:17):
people were were happy workinghere and therefore to do do
their best, and that's what Islipped into pretty easily yeah,
that's it.
AJ (22:26):
Yeah, so you got the skills, obviously in the background,
but huge job nonetheless, and sohow was your experience of it
then?
Actually, the festival wasamazing the festival was
absolutely amazing.
Sadie (22:38):
so once the speakers started arriving um, and no one
really knew what it was going tobe and they would arrive, and
there were these massivemarquees and there were flags
and there was bunting and therewere hand-painted signs and
there were lots of reallydelightful people welcoming you
and explaining where to go, andI think a lot of the speakers
(23:00):
were like oh, wow, okay, this iswhat this is excellent, it was
very well organized.
I think everyone felt that, um,it was the.
The vibe was was incrediblyjoyous.
Um, a couple of people havesaid since the festival and
matthew might might go into thisthat it was the kind of.
(23:21):
There were a lot of people withvery different opinions and
they all chose to find commonground and they all chose to
listen to each other and theyall chose to find something in
what the other person said thatthey could agree with, and that
was a pretty amazing atmosphere.
AJ (23:40):
Yeah, that is awesome.
And it reminds me, Matthew andI did want to come back to this
of what we talked about you youknow, three months out, when I
first saw the sort of draftprogram and I was struck by the
inquiring nature of the program.
We talked a bit about thatframing and it made me wonder
then what did come out of thatif there was that sort of a vibe
(24:02):
for a start, and then I guesswhat gems may have come out of
it yeah, after our conversationthat was really interesting, I
think, because I hadn't realizedthat lots of the topics were
questions.
Matthew (24:12):
You know, I hadn't sort of picked that and and I think
that after you and I talkedabout it and you brought that up
, I suddenly realized, yeah, soI guess what we're trying to say
is we don't have the answers.
Yeah, maybe some of thesereally clever people have the
answers for your farmer or yourland or whatever.
Maybe they don't.
Maybe you'll come up with theanswers after listening to them.
(24:33):
Maybe someone in the line forthe toilet will have you know
the answer.
Um, whoever you might meethaving a beer afterwards or
whatever it might be.
Um, look, it's hard to know forme.
I didn't really see sessions I,I think what all I I could do,
(24:53):
because I was generally dealingwith, um, a lot of little
on-site, little issues that werenothing major, but just lots of
stuff.
Um, so I was just picking up onthe energy of the event mostly.
The energy was good.
People talking about coolthings, testing their brains,
(25:16):
testing out ideas, wanting todiscuss things way beyond the 50
minutes or whatever we allowedin each marquee.
And yeah, like I say it was agood acceptance of other ideas
50 minutes or whatever we were,we allowed in each marquee.
And yeah, like a really likesay we're saying so good
acceptance of other ideas.
Because you know, and we'reright at the end that the last
three sessions I just wanted tothrow stuff in the air and say,
(25:37):
okay, you've been sitting herefor a couple of days listening
to stuff, but let's just, let'sjust blue sky.
I think, yes, let's think ofhow we can look at the world
differently, and I think a lotof that was happening.
Anyway, you know, we didn'tmaybe need to structure it like
that.
There was already people sortof trying to take concepts and
work out how they worked forthem.
You know, and I don't know whatwere the magic moments?
(25:58):
For me, the magic moments werethe madness on the farm, you
know, like waking up and going.
I think there's 35 people.
We have a two-bedroom house,you know.
There's like 12 people in thekitchen having breakfast at 6am.
There's something like 35people sleeping on the farm, in
various places there's thiswhole community and thing that
(26:19):
just appeared and disappearedyou know, sort of a day before
the event and a day after theevent it just sort of you know
appears, and for me that was thewonder was how something so
transient or whatever Ephemeral,ephemeral- yeah just can
(26:40):
actually have so much resonance.
AJ (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
Sadie (26:45):
I think one of the things .
I think that for me, um, I wentto a couple of sessions where,
uh, jack pascoe spoke, and alsojason smith, who's a palawa man
who lives near here, andunderstanding sort of deeply,
I'm sort of really sort offinally really understanding how
fragmentary all of our variousknowledges are.
(27:10):
And you know, the Palawa havelived in Lutruwita forever I
mean, it's 42,000 years inwhitefella terms and they
altered the landscape, farmedthe landscape to feed themselves
, and now we have a lot morepeople and we are feeding a lot
more people, but we'redestroying the topsoil.
So now we have to find a wayforward to continue to feed this
(27:31):
greater number of people.
But how do we do it in a waythat cares for the country and,
as Dan Kittredge puts it,engages with the earth as a
sentient being, as opposed toexploits it like a factory floor
and to be in a place whereeverybody had little bits of
knowledge around how to do thatand how do we fit this jigsaw
(27:54):
puzzle together and how?
That's different for everysingle landscape.
You know, that's different forthe Hegartys in Western
Australia and it's different forChris Hengler up in the
Kimberley and it's different forus down in Lutruwita, tasmania,
and that was very exciting thatmosaic of people coming
together and going, oh, wow,okay, we've got to figure this
all out going forward.
We have to come up with, youknow, new ways of doing things
(28:17):
and this is, you know, this isnot new, this is what you talk
about on your podcast all of thetime, but to be in one space
with all of those people tryingto work that out and
understanding that we need towork it out for future
generations was really exciting.
AJ (28:33):
Yeah, 100%.
I can just imagine and it'scertainly some of the stuff I've
heard too.
I've heard also that there wasa sense that it was.
I mean, one person said raw tome there was quite a rawness in
the vibe as well, like itsounded like people were really
putting it on the line.
Is that something you observedas well?
Sadie (28:53):
Oh, I wouldn't have thought of that if you hadn't
said that, because I also.
It was a very safe place.
You know that thing that wesaid earlier that people really
were trying to, you know, findthe good in each other's
arguments.
So it hadn't actually occurredto me that people were putting
themselves on the line.
(29:14):
But I think you're right, Ithink they were.
I think a lot of people whospoke in their home countries,
in their home landscapes, intheir home communities, have to
be very careful about what theysay and how they say it.
You know, what they say is notnecessarily accepted.
So here we were, all you know,busily agreeing with each other
about a, you know, aregenerative future.
(29:37):
But actually for a lot ofpeople that is a novel
experience to be able to speakthat freely about what it is
that they believe.
So, yeah, so maybe it did feelraw.
AJ (29:49):
Yeah, that's really well said.
Yeah, I also heard that therewere strong themes, and the
decolonisation aspect you sortof broadly touched on before was
one, and so was the nutritionaspect, which again comes back
to what we talked about atlength, matthew, and what I
really took from you was perhapsyour personal key line of
(30:10):
inquiry around can farmers getpaid for nutrition, for
nutritional density in food?
What came from there?
Was there any sort ofdiscernible?
I mean, again, you're talkingfrom a I need to see the
recordings point of view Did youhear anything?
Matthew (30:26):
Oh, look, in terms in terms of like, yeah, there were
strong themes and they were sortof embedded because I guess my
interests and and and just theluck of you know someone like
felice jacker, nutritionalpsychiatry researcher, and dan
kittredge, and, uh, you know acouple of the other speakers, um
, you know anita fleming fromnew zealand.
Yeah, like they they all sortof tied into that and I was just
(30:46):
lucky that they all said they'dlove to come and so it was like
, oh, I get to follow this, youknow, from the soil to the
stomach, kind of to the brain,which is super cool, and they
are all meeting up, they're allhaving the private, you know
professional, you knowgatherings after the event,
awesome.
So, in terms of the farmersbeing paid, no, nothing, I think
(31:10):
there's nothing uh on thehorizon, um, really for that,
but that it doesn't mean it'snot going to happen in the next
few years.
I mean, we sort of have theparts coming into place, ready
for that, um, but we, we, youknow the mechanisms and
everything that is yet to beworked out.
But I think what was amazingwas the suddenly people who are
in that space going.
Oh, hang on, we know this stuff.
(31:32):
I was chatting to someone whoworks for a gold mining sorry, a
gold testing company out ofWestern Australia.
And so they need to know wheregold has come from, to know if
it's been stolen and which mineit comes from.
And so they now use thattechnology for cherries and they
can tell you whether a it comesfrom.
And so they now use thattechnology for cherries and they
can tell you whether a cherrycomes from Chile or Tasmania, or
whether it comes from northernTasmania or southern Tasmania.
And if you want to spend themoney, you can say which tree
(31:54):
and which orchard in southernTasmania that cherry has come
from.
And so, if we can do that, weknow that the composition of the
cherry is different.
And then we also now know thatfarming systems can drive the
difference in composition of thecherry.
So all of that stuff exists.
The bit we haven't quite got toyet is is you know a reasonable
way of testing which will allowfarmers to be paid for the, for
(32:16):
the product, as opposed to um?
At the moment, like we havebroad things like regenerative
or organic or biodynamic, andthey're all sort of trying to
say, well, well, thispotentially is better, but you
know from Dan's research, unlessyou're looking after soil
biology, it doesn't matter aboutyour label, so we need to be
able to pin it to the individualfarmer because that's where the
(32:38):
magic, that's where they can dothe right thing by their soil,
which can increase the nutrientdensity of the crop.
They're the person who's goingto get paid and I think that's
the little bit that's missing.
And it's making it cheap,available and accessible to
farmers of all size, because thebig operations can do it
(32:59):
already if they wanted to.
They probably just don't wantto because it's probably not in
their interest.
But once it's available at aprice that people can afford to
um the small farms, that's whenwe'll see actual change.
AJ (33:11):
Yeah, right on, it sounds like in that sense there was a,
because I'm curious, who wasthere right from a punter's
point of view, like who, who arethe people in the room or the
rooms?
And it sounds like there was abunch of people that you just
described there who are.
I mean, it gives me a sensethat there was the right people
were in the room for that sortof a discussion.
There were the people who hadthese skills.
(33:33):
I know there were financepeople there too, so there were
those.
Who else was there, who turnedup in the end?
Matthew (33:38):
Yeah, enough of them turned up, anthony, which is a
relief, yes, because for a whileit was looking a little sketchy
.
AJ (33:47):
Really, it always comes in at a rush in the end.
Matthew (33:50):
Well, it wasn't, I have to say.
There was virtually no ticketsin the last week, virtually none
.
AJ (33:54):
Is that right?
Matthew (33:55):
Yeah, and everyone said you will sell most of your
tickets in the last week and wesold for about five days in the
last week we sold zero tickets,but we were in an okay place by
then and we we did sell quite afew in the last 24 hours or
something to locals.
Look, anthony was mostlyinterstiters just over.
It's probably about 55 percentfrom interstate, because a lot
(34:15):
of tasmanians sort of bookedlater and so that, um, uh,
that's where we thought it wouldbe roughly was about 80 percent
farmers, we believe, or landmanagers, people who have access
to country or help other peoplelook after country.
So maybe advisors that you know, people who work with you know,
biostimulants or those sorts ofcompanies or RCS or whatever it
(34:37):
might be.
And yeah, I think we got theright people in the room because
it seems like it's very hard.
We're in southern Tasmania, wedidn't have an advertising
budget, we just went out throughour own channels and we
gathered quite a few people whoare well-connected.
So, from our understanding iswhat has happened is that they
(34:59):
came going up we don't even knowwhat this is.
This dude, this hobby farmerfrom southern Tasmania, got some
idea, you know, about runningsomething.
They came down and they went.
Oh my God, that's actually.
There was some incredibletopics covered.
There were things that wedidn't even know existed.
You know in the world happening.
There were experts on theground that I could just sit and
(35:20):
have a chat to personally andask questions, hard questions,
and so those people now aregoing oh, this is really quite
amazing, and so we get the sensethat it's filtering out through
their channels, which is whichwas always the hope that we.
You know, when we first targeted, we tried to go out through
organizations that that where,where the people who had more
sway would hear about it andmaybe they would come, because,
(35:42):
because we have a limited numberof, you know, we can only take
about 300 people on site, 300ticket holders, and we sold
about 286 tickets or somethingin the end.
So we were quite limited inthat sense.
So we wanted, I guess, peoplewho in some instances, have
other influence, because theseare messages that we want to get
out there.
(36:02):
You know I didn't set this upbecause you know I need to.
I'd heard all these peoplespeak before, you know.
That's why I invited them.
Um, this is not for me.
This is to get information outthere and to see it filtering
out and to know that someonelike dan pittridge has never
been to australia.
He's got a fortnight inaustralia and then a week in new
zealand.
That's super cool because thesoup there's great things going
(36:24):
on in that, that world ofmeasuring nutrient density that
can now be put into our societyand into our farming systems.
You know whether it's FeliceJacker's work on, you know,
mental health, and she's nowtapped into the farming
community, so she'sreinvigorated about the research
that she's doing and going in awhole new direction in terms of
well, it's not just what youeat, it's how what you eat is
(36:45):
grown Awesome, it affects youand so seeing that happen that
is wonderful, and part of thatis because we were lucky with
the people who chose to come tospeak, but a lot of it is.
We're very lucky in terms ofthe people who came to see it as
well, because they you know wepiqued their interest by getting
(37:06):
them to stump up for a ticket,and the feedback has been
incredible in terms of what theygained and what they're going
to use and how they're going tothink of the world that they
live in and farm.
Sadie (37:17):
Most people I spoke to had land, like when I was just
wandering around talking topunters, which I would have
liked to have done a lot more of.
A couple of big people had quitea lot of land in Victoria.
Quite a lot of people had smallbits of land around the place.
I spoke to a GP.
That was quite awesome.
Good, a couple of young peopleyou know doing ag science
degrees.
(37:37):
So yeah, it was a kind of.
It was a cross-section.
You know, I don't really wantto use the term conventional,
I'm just going to use it forconvenience.
Yes, from the conventional endof the spectrum to the more
experimental end of the spectrum.
Matthew (37:54):
Did you?
Sadie (37:55):
talk about the term regenerative and the reasons for
not.
Matthew (37:58):
No, we haven't, on this one Using that, yeah.
Sadie (38:00):
So at the beginning, matthew was very deliberate in
not using the term regenerative,because it's not really clearly
defined.
It means something different toeverybody who does it.
There are people who embrace it, there are people who reject it
, and so a decision was made notto use it, and so the tagline
(38:20):
was farming better, becausefarming better is something that
we can all hook into.
We all have different ideas ofwhat better means and what
better means in our landscape,but it's something we can all
hook into.
We all have different ideas ofwhat better means and what
better means in our landscape,but it's something we can all
agree with that we should all befarming better.
AJ (38:32):
Yep, there's the conversation.
Sadie (38:34):
So what that meant was, I think, had we used the word
regenerative, I think we wouldhave gotten more people from a
particular bent, and I think wecan also do more work at the
other end of the spectrum aswell.
It kind of because the, theidea is that this, what we want,
is the broadest, you know, the.
(38:54):
The broadest tent possible, themost inclusive tent possible.
We want people, you know,really bumping up against each
other and discussing things uh,in a, in a, in a way that's
generous, and I think we're onthe way to doing that.
Matthew (39:10):
Yeah, I'll be really honest, Anthony, it was a really
bad move from a marketing pointof view to not just go
regenerative, because you canjust tap into a whole movement.
But I felt that we were notbeyond regenerative but we were
inclusive of regenerative.
That was one of the stringsthat we wanted to, you know, to
(39:32):
pull on.
But there were others thatmaybe regenerative doesn't
necessarily encompass yet or atall.
And yeah, so trying to getpeople to come point of view was
a dumb idea.
But in terms of, I think, whatwe've set up and the philosophy,
I've had lots of people say oh,I thought it was going to be a
lot more woo, woo, or I thoughtit was going to be a lot more of
(39:52):
that, you know, just movingcows around stuff, um, where
they're going?
No, it's way more.
It was deeper, more complexthan that, and so, hopefully,
what it was a bit of a negative,I guess, when we kick-started
this one will be a positive intothe future that we can take on
all sorts of ideas, discuss themand possibly reject them.
(40:14):
That's fine.
That's the whole point of beinginquisitive, but in a way, you
know, not limiting ourselvesfrom a term that is, you know,
and sadly to some extentregenerative.
It's sadly often maligned inAustralia.
It's not so much in the UK.
You know it's much easier totalk about it there and not have
(40:35):
it sort of be so divisive.
But here it seems strangelydivisive sometimes.
AJ (40:38):
Yeah, it is interesting, but I really appreciate what you're
saying.
I mean, I feel the same withthe podcast too.
You know, having done it forwhatever it is, eight or nine
years now.
Eight years now it's um, I, Iwell see the triggers.
I could pull to get numbers and, yeah, part of it you could
work the terminology that youknow will attract the cheer
squad.
(40:59):
But it's part of why I named thepodcast the way I don't get too
many opportunities to say thisactually explicitly.
But part of the reason why is so.
It was always going to bereflexive, so I bought into that
regen bit, but with the littleplay on the, the word duration,
it wasn't just stories ofregeneration, it was a point of
(41:19):
reflection or a reflexivity,better said to say that this is
a movable, non--pin-downable,non-tear-squatty thing.
This is the nature of culturethat we ascribe meaning to stuff
, including words.
But that's what this is aboutUltimately.
Let's not get hooked onparticular terminology or
(41:41):
whatever, but come together forwhat we're really about,
whatever we're agreeing amongstourselves right now that we're
about and that we value and wewant to do something about.
So the fact that you've done itthat way, I really appreciate,
and I really appreciate hearing,then, that it panned out that
way that these people fromdifferent walks who had these
queries were able to cometogether and be together in that
(42:02):
way.
It does also make me wonder,stemming from your previous
answers and the story piece wasthere any media present?
Matthew (42:12):
Yeah, look, the ABC Country Hour did roving
reporting.
They were trying to be on siteto do an outside broadcast but
you know there's not great phonereception here and so they
couldn't rely on the tech.
But they recorded, I, I think,10 or 15 interviews.
But mains, oh, there was tazcountry here, um, so that's a
you know, a rural um newspaper,but apart from that was we had a
(42:36):
couple of podcasters and ayoutuber, so pretty much sort of
that.
More, uh, you know, alternatemedia, I guess, yeah, the new
media, we didn't, you know, wedidn't tell the local newspaper,
we didn't approach others.
The Land newspaper were tryingto send someone but they
couldn't make it at the lastminute.
Sadie (42:56):
They did do.
Matthew (42:57):
They did a really lovely story ahead of time and
made a site visit, but yeah, Iwouldn't say it was, it didn't
pick up huge amounts.
I mean, I think, anthony, likepeople, we didn't know what we
were pulling off.
Really, yeah, so to try toexplain to landlines.
Sadie (43:15):
Landlines yeah, why they should come yeah?
Matthew (43:17):
what they're going to gain out of this.
It was a hard sell and we, youknow, don't really have a the
capacity to be chasing a lot ofthat stuff, you know.
So I think we were happy withthe amount of publicity it got.
In a sense, we got, yeah, sometraditional media, some
alternate media, yeah good.
And I think being able to puteverything online will be really
(43:38):
nice so that people can justsort of pick that up and that'll
just gently filter out.
Sadie (43:43):
Yeah, I think being able to put everything online once we
can work out all the techbehind that, because that's a
whole other mammoth task that'sright like what a good idea that
was there's a reason I don't dovideo, yeah, um, but yes, I
think, once that happens, thepeople who were here will, you
(44:05):
know, cherry pick their favoritetalks and send them out to
their, yeah, so, people, um, youknow, I talked to a really
wonderful woman from slow foodwho was super excited about the
videos being able to go outbecause she had, you know, she
wanted to send it out throughher slow food, um and circular
economy networks.
So, you know, I think, I thinkthere's a lot of there's still a
lot of conversation to comeoutstanding.
AJ (44:26):
So the million dollar question maybe literally is do
you run it again?
I'm leaving?
You said it was so good, sadieit was.
Sadie (44:39):
I want to go as a punter there we go, I want to go to the
talks.
I want to sit with my my mom,in the chair and my notepad.
AJ (44:48):
This is it, so what?
Matthew (44:50):
do you do it's?
AJ (44:50):
a conundrum.
Matthew (44:51):
You can help with videos.
Sadie (44:52):
Yeah, I can drive people to the airport.
You know what my favorite jobwas On the last day?
I did the airport run.
AJ (44:59):
I love that job Because when I used to organize events
before the podcast started it'spart of why the podcast started,
because I'd ended up doing 10years I didn't think they would
end the events, but because Ifelt like the podcast, very
quickly I had to get out oncountry and learn about my
country.
Uh, the the events ended, but Iwas doing events that got to be
pretty big, like about 300people as well, largely out of
(45:21):
melbourne, and the last, whatended up being the last one, was
actually with charlie masseyand francis and david from
Walleen had been broughttogether on a paddle and it was
classic in a standing room.
Mainly amazing stuff, became apodcast later, but they ended up
being the last one.
But I'd done a bunch of themand I was, I mean, bless again.
The help was always amazing,but I was carrying the can and
(45:43):
doing the airport runs as wellmyself.
But they were awesome.
And I'll never forget the onewhere I got charlie because, uh,
john hewson had come down for Iwas organizing two in that
festival.
I had a mate hosting one withjohn hewson on it, um, which was
also super interesting.
I think we put that out on thepodcast too, and, um, john and
(46:03):
charlie, in the back of ol'sparents' car, right driving
through traffic jams, to get tobloody Federation Square or
wherever it was, gave us a lotof time and it turns out they go
way back because John launchedBreaking the Sheep's Back,
charlie's brilliant book, sothat was one of the.
I mean you just sit there andlisten.
(46:24):
Yeah, it's wonderful, yeah, yeahyeah, yeah, so I hear you Okay.
Matthew (46:33):
So, matthewew, do you run it again?
So, um, sadie said quiteclearly well, on the saturday
before I thought this is nevergoing to happen again.
And then she did an incrediblejob, as usual, of looking after
people and making sureeverything ran smoothly.
And after this craziness shesaid to me I'm not going to say
you can't do it again, but I'mgoing to tell you this you can
(46:54):
have no ideas no book ideas, nofestival ideas, no ideas until
you do the list, the first list,and then maybe another list of
things that I have got for youthat you have neglected to do
for the last six months.
So that's where we're at,anthony, good one, I have not
started on those lists.
I've been sort of recovering alittle bit and and there's quite
(47:18):
a lot of really boring adminwork.
No one told me about the boringadmin work after the high of
the festival.
Sadie (47:23):
I know you don't have volunteers for that part either
like before, after the festival.
Matthew (47:26):
It's just you don't have volunteers for that part
either, like before or after thefestival.
Sadie (47:28):
It's just a wrap-up.
It's just you.
Matthew (47:29):
You have 25 volunteers do two hours each.
Oh great, everything's done soquickly.
Hang on, it's me.
Taking that apart, that's me 50hours when I'm tired.
So I'm learning a little bitabout that side.
Look, we spoke.
I've spoken to people on themainland about and done a site
visit for, a potential one fornext year, possibly the year
(47:52):
after.
I've also spoken to people inWA two different farms actually
about potential for doingsomething, possibly next year,
but much smaller than thisoriginal one here.
Well, it's smaller in scope,not necessarily in numbers, but
in terms of ambition of what wewere trying to do.
But they're all conversationsthat we'll have in the new year.
(48:12):
So at the moment, what'samazing is we had an idea.
It came off.
You know, my I had my greatestexpectations were surpassed,
like I did I nothing that thatreally could have gone wrong
went wrong, and everything thatwent right went so much more
right than we thought.
Um, and that's kind of blown meaway.
(48:36):
There was a.
Yeah, it was a.
It was a very nice event to beat, even if you were working
hard, and we kind of know whatwe're doing a bit better.
So it it's almost like, well,it'd be a shame not to have
another crack.
AJ (48:51):
Yeah that's right, hard yards done.
I'll never forget Cole Mannixfrom Old Salt when they ran the
Old Salt Festival and he said,yeah, the first year, geez, that
was hard and we lost money.
But we did it again and webroke even or maybe even made a
touch, and we didn't killourselves.
And we broke even or maybe evenmade a touch and we didn't kill
ourselves, like it was thesecond time round that you bore
(49:12):
the fruit of the hard labour.
Matthew (49:20):
Yeah, look, I think to some extent we don't know what
another one would look like.
I mean, is this one?
Was it just magical?
Because no one knew what wasgoing on, you know, and look, we
sort of, even when we ran therestaurant, we sort of tried to
under-promise and over-deliver,but we were promising a lot with
this and I still think weprobably over-delivered.
Yeah, but does that happenagain?
When you can't rely on thegoodwill, when you can't rely on
(49:42):
everybody chipping in,everybody loaning you everything
, everybody, you know, next yearI think people would be less
forgiving of my failures andincapacities.
And so, yes, I think it wouldbe good to have another crack.
And I also think, like we'vegot something wonderful that
(50:04):
happened and I think we probablycould recreate it, but I think
everyone would be different.
Yeah, you know, you couldn'texpect the same again again.
AJ (50:10):
No, I think that would be part of the magic.
I almost want to come back tothe thing you said about um.
It's surpassing expectations onall levels.
This is the theme I gotcertainly got from old salt as
well, but probably every placethat was doing something of this
variety across the states, thatthis was true and I had this in
mind coming into thisconversation too.
So hearing you say that reallyechoed large in my mind, and I
(50:36):
mean easy for me to say fromhere, but I think that's the
nature of it.
I wouldn't anticipate that notbeing the case again, you know,
in a different form.
But I think that aspect, whenit's done in this way, does
result in wow, a little bit ofmagic, certainly more than some
of the parts you put together.
Matthew (50:57):
And it is completely reliant on not us, like we.
Just we bung a few tents up andget some people to talk, you
know, and there's a lot of workgoes into all of that but
actually where it happens is thepeople who show up, who buy a
ticket, volunteer.
They're the ones that actuallydrive something quite delightful
(51:20):
, and so, by definition, you'llhave a different crowd next year
, and it would have to bedifferent, but they're the ones
that make it happen.
Sadie (51:28):
Yeah, for me it always comes back to theatre, which is
where I started my life and that, as an audience, you know.
The kind of more interesting,the kind of forms of theatre
that I'm interested in actuallycome out of South America.
This idea that you're notspectators, you're spectactors,
you're active participants inwhat's going on.
(51:50):
It is no longer enough just tosit back and be passive
recipients of information.
The reason these festivals arespecial, the reason these things
work, is because the people whocome make the magic happen.
They have to want to be excitedand talk to each other and talk
to the speakers, and so theknowledge happens between people
(52:11):
, not within people.
AJ (52:14):
Yeah, that is a brilliant tradition, isn't it that
tradition of theatre?
Do you ever think of doing moreof that?
No, you can teach people now,Sadie I teach.
Sadie (52:24):
Now I teach kitchen garden, I work drama into lots
of things that I teach, yeahthere you go.
So it's all that stuff, allthose life things, all those
lives that we all say, they findtheir way out in other ways.
AJ (52:40):
Yep beautiful.
Matthew (52:41):
But Anthony, I think, and so he's right.
When we used to run arestaurant, it was like the
curtain goes up at a certainmoment, but it is theatre, it
smiles on and everyone's inplace and everything.
But what I think's whatinteresting about having just
run this and kind of going well,why didn't anyone ever do this
before?
You know, with multiplepaddocks, multiple sessions, it
(53:01):
forces people to be involved.
So, yes, they might go, oh, I'mmissing out on this.
Or you know, oh, I've got towalk, got to walk and get my.
You know, the coffee machine's along walkway because you can't
have the coffee machine next tothe tent.
It makes too much noise.
But it forces them to actuallybe involved, to get up, to move,
to interact, and that it's notby accident that that creates
(53:23):
something else.
That's actually quitedeliberate that we create spaces
and movement and action,because because that's actually
the the it's forcing people.
It's like at the table when youforce people to to use their
hands to break bread as opposedto use a knife and fork or force
(53:44):
them to share a plate, itbreaks down a certain barrier
and and it's not by accident.
I think that you can get adifferent response from the same
.
You can have the same talks,but you get a different response
on whether you think of it as atheatre set or as a you know, a
conference.
AJ (54:01):
Yeah, yeah, beautifully put.
Yeah, there's some realprinciples for community period
in that isn't there, and thedefault would be that, and then
you could hide away when youneed to, rather than the the
reverse, which is sort of howwe've structured things a bit
with our thoughts yeah, yeah,hide away by default, and that
can really really bury you allright.
Before we talk about a bit ofmusic, and maybe a bit of music
(54:24):
that came out of the festival, Ihave to come back to where we
did start.
Matthew, how did you gofinancially in the end?
Matthew (54:31):
Oh, so did we talk about the $71,000 loss that my
treasurer flagged at one point?
AJ (54:37):
Not quite.
You said something about$30,000 at one stage.
Matthew (54:41):
Yeah, he made a mistake , but it was $31,000.
No, we didn't lose money, welldone.
AJ (54:45):
Well.
Matthew (54:46):
I'm still waiting on a lot of invoices to come.
Here we go.
It's one of these things islike I really need you to
invoice me please invoice me,you know we're going well,
you're really good payer.
I'm like I need to get thisbecause I can't do a spreadsheet
right.
So you'd like, yeah, I'll needto get my treasurer back in, but
no, I believe we look, itdoesn't pay for my time or
(55:08):
anything, but there will beenough money to pay for the
structural changes we had tomake to the farm, to pay for
everybody who needs to be paid.
There's still a whole bunch ofpeople who weren't paid or
weren't paid enough.
But no, we should come out ofit, break even maybe, well,
hopefully, with a small, uh,admin fund to be able to kick
(55:30):
off the next one.
So there's actually, you know,someone can be paid to do the
clerical work that there has tobe done to start another one,
because, um, that again reliedon the bank of saudi and matthew
and some goodwill this year.
And we'd like, you know, if youwant things to be sustainable,
then they have to be financiallysustainable as well.
So you know, yeah, that wouldbe our hope, but no, we're
(55:51):
really stoked, anthony, oh.
AJ (55:54):
I'm blown away.
Matthew (55:55):
Yeah, look, we had some really great sponsors, but in
the end it was actuallygovernment money.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, we got a Departmentof Agriculture grant that
allowed us to film everything,to bring in a whole new level of
talks and other stuff, andwithout that it would have made
(56:17):
a small loss.
AJ (56:18):
So yeah, that's Tassie Department.
Matthew (56:21):
No, no, that was the federal government actually.
AJ (56:23):
That's good to hear, yeah.
Matthew (56:25):
You know the Tassie Department of Agriculture less
interested, you know, but yeah.
Sadie (56:31):
We got money from business events Tasmanian.
Yeah, we got some state money.
Matthew (56:35):
We got some state money like any conference can if
they've been tracking statevisitors and so that was super
helpful.
I mean, that's what sort ofgave us the confidence to go.
Well, this is something wecould potentially do.
Did you hear that cough?
That's the result of doing afestival.
Sadie (56:51):
That's me going slow down .
AJ (56:53):
Yeah, yeah, visceral representation.
Say no more.
Okay, all right.
So was there some music out ofthe festival that perhaps
captured you as well, that wecould make mention of here?
Matthew (57:07):
Yeah, so we had an incredible trio.
A woman named Claire AnneTaylor came, and I think it's
called my Mother is a Mountain,yeah.
Sadie (57:18):
My Mother, the Mountain, m.
Matthew (57:19):
My Mother the Mountain.
So Claire's, I think, born downin this part of the world and
lives down this part of theworld, and so the idea that the
I think it's about Kunanyi,mount Wellington.
You know my mother of themountain, you're all there.
Yeah, she writes songs thathave a lot of resonance and
she's got this beautiful husky,you know, voice.
That, yeah, I have to say, Iwalked into the because it was a
(57:43):
bit separate from where theconference bits were and I
walked in having dealt with thewoman, with the migraine and
dealt with a few you know, thetoilets running out of water and
all the things that we dealtwith during the day, all the
tiny little, you know admin, andI walked in and there's Claire
belting out this song and Ireckon my smile stretched, you
know, around the back of my headbecause I was just like, oh my
(58:06):
God, we got through it and we'vegot this incredible music and
everyone's having conversations.
I just stood there and watchedlike 13 different conversations
happening while she was singing,you know, and yeah, it was just
beautiful.
AJ (58:19):
Beautiful.
I'm so glad you got that moment, Matthew, when you got to take
it in that way.
That's awesome, and Sadie, foryou, did you get to pick up some
?
Sadie (58:28):
I was just elbowing Matthew, then going Claire Anne
Taylor.
Claire Anne Taylor.
AJ (58:32):
Oh there we go.
Claire Anne Taylor (58:33):
I booked her .
I remember her.
Sadie (58:37):
We had this other beautiful singer too, Esther
Cook, who runs the local WholeFoods shop.
AJ (58:42):
Oh, there we go.
Sadie (58:43):
So she came for the cocktail party because she has
this insane sort of soul-likevoice, love it.
And she came with a guitaristand they did sort of standards
and it was really a folk song.
AJ (58:56):
It was very beautiful, very beautiful, and I like how
distant from the original whathave you done?
Moment where you went apart,you left the building, that
actually, at the end, with thispinnacle moment of thinking
about the music, you wereutterly united.
It's symbolic and a great placeto end.
I can't thank you enough.
I'm blown away that you guyspulled this off and your team
(59:20):
and I, you know, personally hopethere's another one.
I'll get to hear that one.
Sadie (59:24):
Yeah, yeah, because you might be back.
Matthew (59:27):
I have to say, when terry mccosker was stuck in
sydney, who was supposed to belooking after a whole tent for
you know, running a tent for aday, and we're like, oh, we just
have to find someone to fill in.
Um, there was this moment ofwell, if anthony was here anyway
, we're luckily we got kirstenbradley from milkwood who did
the most incredible job.
(59:48):
You know, 8.30 at night.
Hey, guess what?
At 8 tomorrow morning you'vegot to be on stage for five
hours.
So she pulled it off.
But there was this thing oflike oh, luckily we have friends
who can do this sort of stuff.
AJ (59:59):
I tell you, this is the thing.
The pieces are there, aren'tthey?
We have the people and theskills.
That's a great example, andKirsten's another person.
I look forward to meeting atsome stage, and there would have
been many at that festival.
So, yeah, I hope there'sanother one.
I will definitely be there.
We are going to be back for atleast the Regen WA conference in
Perth in September.
But thanks for speaking with me, guys.
(01:00:19):
I'm so glad you were both here.
Thanks, Sadie.
Look forward to seeing u whenwe're back a somewhere sometime.
Matthew (01:00:24):
No, worries, see you on one side of the country or
another yep, cheers.
AJ (01:00:27):
Thanks again, Sadie, for being here too, hey nd uh thanks
for your support of this aswell.
Thanks, cheers, guys.
inging when I die.
I'll live on in your smile Foryears after.
(01:00:56):
I'll be right there in yourlaughter.
Oh, she's singing when I die.
Oh, live on in your smile.
(01:01:19):
Oh, for years after After I'llbe right there in your laughter.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, hey, hey.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!