[Will & Kate] (0:05 - 0:30)

Burners of New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Radically making magic on the paddock round the fire. B-O-N-Z-A-A-R!

Bonzaar Podcast!

[Stevan] (0:30 - 1:27)

A beautiful bonzaar, welcome to everyone out there listening. I'm Stevan Lay and this is the Burners of New Zealand, Australia and Asian regional podcast, an episodic conversation show about burner culture and its evolving communities in our regions. For this episode, we'll be talking about the 2026 Bonza Summit weekend that was held in Sydney on the 30th, 31st of May.

So the Bonza Summit is an annual invites only burner event that, well, what I'll do is read out the Bonza Summit mission. So what Bonza Summit is, is that it's to facilitate meaningful dialogue, skill sharing, knowledge, exchange, and relationship building between burners, artists, regional contacts, in-camp leads, community leaders, and burn event organizers across the Burniverse. And to discuss all the action and presentations from the Bonza Summit, we have invited a panel of burners who made the effort from the West for the first Bonza experience.

So welcome to the review panel, Dani, Paul, James, and Lucifer. How are you all guys going?

[James] (1:27 - 1:27)

Hello.

[Paul] (1:28 - 1:29)

Great. Pleasure to meet you.

[Dani] (1:29 - 1:30)

Good.

Thank you.

[Luci] (1:31 - 1:31)

Yeah.

[James] (1:32 - 1:32)

Great.

[Luci] (1:33 - 1:34)

Good. Thanks for having us.

[Stevan] (1:34 - 1:37)

How'd you all enjoy the networking and knowledge sharing experience at Bonza?

[Dani] (1:38 - 1:38)

It was great.

[Paul] (1:38 - 1:39)

Amazing. Yeah.

[Luci] (1:39 - 1:43)

Yeah. One of the most inspiring weekends of my life.

It's amazing.

[James] (1:43 - 1:48)

It was awesome. I didn't expect to get as much out of it as I did, to be quite honest.

[Luci] (1:48 - 1:52)

Nah, neither. Yeah. Nerding out with fellow burners was the best.

[Paul] (1:53 - 1:53)

Yeah.

[James] (1:53 - 1:59)

I know. I was going to say it was also fun as well, as much as it was networking.

It was a good time.

[Stevan] (1:59 - 2:03)

Did you feel exhausted as well? Like, quite overwhelmed with the knowledge?

[Luci] (2:05 - 2:12)

Yeah, I was pretty tired. Yes. The knowledge wore me down.

[Stevan] (2:15 - 2:20)

Quite a large range of topics and discussions also, right?

[Dani] (2:20 - 2:20)

Definitely.

[Stevan] (2:20 - 2:28)

A lot of insightful, earnest conversations and great talks and well-prepared slides and presentations.

[Luci] (2:28 - 2:41)

Yeah. There were some amazing presentations, but the discussions that happened sort of after them was where some really juicy stuff come out. And yeah, I was happily had my mind changed in a few points, which was great.

[Paul] (2:41 - 2:43)

Yeah. Really good discussions. Great talks. Yeah.

[James] (2:43 - 3:02)

I don't know if it was just like well-made points or if I'm just really easily swayed, you know, listen to the talk and be like, that was so good. And then someone have a separate opinion.

I was like, actually, now I'm fully on board with that. I guess it's just cool to get like, you know, informed, separate viewpoints on these topics. You know, it's pretty interesting.

[Stevan] (3:03 - 3:17)

Yeah. We started the weekend with a Friday night kind of soiree, kind of informal meetup. And I was really surprised to see how many blazers who were coming over for this event.

It was good to see. Every year there's always a bunch of amazing burners from the West Coast.

[James] (3:18 - 3:21)

I was sad there wasn't as many Kiwi burners there as well.

[Dani] (3:21 - 3:23)

Well, it's a big drive for them, isn't it?

[James] (3:25 - 3:29)

Yeah. Also, I think they've got a few struggles going on.

[Dani] (3:29 - 3:35)

Yeah. I think New Zealand is closer than WA is, but I think it's more expensive for them.

[James] (3:35 - 3:36)

Yeah. The flight's shorter.

[Dani] (3:36 - 3:36)

Yeah.

[James] (3:37 - 3:37)

Yeah.

[Dani] (3:37 - 3:51)

But it was nice. I actually went to Bonza not knowing all of the blazers there. So it was really nice to meet more blazers at Bonza.

So it was a nice thing to happen as well.

[James] (3:51 - 3:55)

I was actually surprised by how many other burners there were in Australia.

[Dani] (3:56 - 3:56)

Yeah.

[Paul] (3:57 - 3:58)

I had no idea how many there were.

[James] (3:58 - 3:59)

I thought there was like two or three, you know.

[Luci] (4:00 - 4:08)

That was a nice surprise to realize how many burners are popping up everywhere. The community is growing and I love that.

[James] (4:09 - 4:28)

I think it really reflected on something that was probably one of my main takeaways of the weekend. There's so many people doing the same thing that we're doing in the same environments, the same countries or relatively similar environments. And we really should be working together more or spending more time together or helping out each other more.

[Dani] (4:28 - 4:28)

Definitely.

[James] (4:29 - 4:38)

It blew my mind. That's for sure. People are like, I'm from this burn.

I'm like, what is that burn? When you hear more about it, you want to go.

[Dani] (4:38 - 5:39)

I felt that we do have it lucky over in WA with the size of our event and the ticket sales and the ability to be able to get a larger number of people across. But I actually felt more community within the burner community by going to Bonza. So it was really nice to talk about the little burns and what they've had to overcome, which put into perspective what Blaze probably had to do right at the beginning as well.

So, yeah, I actually walked away with a really beautiful sense of belonging in a more community-based way and a lot lighter for it, because Blaze can get very stressful, especially from a leadership point of view. So it was really nice to walk away from that feeling exactly what James says. There are other people out there doing what we're doing, but it's a little bit different and it just hit home differently as well.

So I actually walked away feeling really nice about the actual whole community and a bit more related to people for want of a better word, I suppose.

[Luci] (5:39 - 5:40)

Connected.

[Dani] (5:40 - 5:40)

That's it.

[James] (5:41 - 5:43)

Shared suffering, maybe.

[Stevan] (5:45 - 5:47)

It's the bonding through trauma, right?

[Paul] (5:49 - 6:09)

It's just, it was, I was saying that I definitely felt that like we had it so easy at Blaze, like a lot of the dramas and stuff that we've had, yeah, it sounds like a lot of some of the other bands are dealing with much bigger problems. But then I was like, no, we have had those same problems in the past. So, yeah, at the moment we have it quite easy.

[James] (6:09 - 6:22)

Well, which I'll talk about later, but it's the same thing when people in the smaller bands would talk about these things, we're like, oh, we're dealing with this. And it's like, oh, I have the answer to that. We've dealt with it.

This is what we did. Oh, man, I wish you'd asked sooner.

[Luci] (6:22 - 6:23)

Yeah.

[James] (6:24 - 6:32)

The ability to share the experience and the knowledge, I think is like invaluable. We can bond without trauma.

[Luci] (6:32 - 7:06)

I think we're lucky because we've worked really hard and built this really beautiful burn event that has become a wonderful size that gives us a lot of opportunity. But also like going there and talking with these people that are doing these smaller ones, and there's so much for us to learn off what they're doing, which was so great. Their ways that they're dealing with building a culture and how they're doing that.

There's so many gold nuggets for us to take back to our burn as well.

[James] (7:07 - 7:11)

They got a lot more control, I felt, of how they want to build their community.

[Luci] (7:11 - 7:20)

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited having now these connections moving forward and how we can help each other grow and learn.

[Stevan] (7:20 - 7:23)

The network effect took place. You felt the network effect.

[Dani] (7:24 - 7:24)

Definitely.

[Stevan] (7:24 - 7:28)

What other burns did you catch up with? What other burn orgs or people, burners?

[Luci] (7:28 - 7:30)

Third Degree is one of them.

[James] (7:31 - 7:36)

That I've never heard of and just straight away by the name. It's an outrageous name.

[Luci] (7:39 - 7:42)

You look it up on the internet and you just get pictures of burn victims.

[Stevan] (7:45 - 7:47)

That's what I mentioned to them. We've got to change that.

[Luci] (7:47 - 7:52)

I think it's so clever. If you really want to find it, you've got to go deeper.

[Stevan] (7:54 - 8:07)

Yes. Unfortunately, the Dragon Burners didn't make an appearance this year. They're another collective that is inspiring.

It makes you feel proud to be a burner when you're amongst these people.

[James] (8:08 - 8:31)

Yeah, for sure. I personally really like seeing people from New Zealand burners and stuff like that, even though KiwiBurn wasn't represented. There's people there representing Northern Burn and stuff like that, but then they're all also involved with KiwiBurn.

It shows how it's, I don't want to say incestuous, but a nationwide collaboration of burners.

[Luci] (8:32 - 8:33)

Yeah, absolutely.

[Stevan] (8:34 - 8:58)

Cool. Let's get into some intros and burner origin stories. I think this is my favorite is to see where people come from, to see we all have different separate journeys.

To see how it all cross paths and intersects, that's the beauty of it for me. I love hearing those stories. Who wants to go first?

First of all, let's go around about your roles at Blaze. If you want to talk a little bit about that and your contributions as well. Do you want to go first, James?

[James] (8:59 - 10:20)

I was going to say shock or not. I'm the assurance manager for Blaze, which is still really hard to define. When I've heard other people define it, it still really doesn't make sense.

All my teams have something to do with, initially it's the legal obligations we have to put on a festival in terms of medical and accessibility and things and health and safety. But then I think it's grown beyond that to be things that we wouldn't want to run a burn without. So it's also consent and mental health support and things like that.

But yeah, it's a lot of legally obligated stuff and rules that are rules with not much room for interpretation. But yeah, it's a necessity. I always find myself talking about it as much as these people say, we want to have this separate community and live outside the bounds of what's expected in the real world.

But we are still running an event in a local government region with rules and regulations that we need to get permit to run the event. So it's not the most fun department, but it's interesting to make well, because also it's like making all these crazy things happen within those legally binding restrictions.

[Luci] (10:20 - 10:22)

Arguably the most important job.

[James] (10:22 - 10:22)

Yeah.

[Dani] (10:23 - 10:29)

I think I've got the most important job. I'd say yeah, the money is the job.

[James] (10:30 - 10:33)

Wait, so we're just doing roles now and then the background after?

[Stevan] (10:34 - 10:34)

Yeah, yeah.

[James] (10:34 - 10:36)

Yeah, sure. Well, maybe you can go then Dani.

[Dani] (10:36 - 11:28)

Okay. Well, I'm currently the treasurer of the committee for Blazing Swan. I have worked in roles last year for procurement and theme camp and I'm also a ranger.

So along with James, I've got to work with the rules and regulations and the legalities of our not-for-profit situation that we have at Blaze where we're pretty much a million dollar not-for-profit putting on this massive event over the Easter long weekend week where we sell a million dollars worth of tickets and hopefully don't spend as much. So we've got a little bit more in the kitty to start building things a bit bigger and a bit better and with things like insurance and stuff, which is a big part of our actual expenses, we've always got that money backing us up so we can go ahead with the event.

[James] (11:28 - 11:29)

Someone's got to pay for it all, right?

[Dani] (11:30 - 11:39)

I know, I know. It's actually really good to spend other people's money, but I still treat it like it's mine and really push back until I understand where people are coming from.

[James] (11:39 - 11:41)

The real world is not a gift economy.

[Dani] (11:42 - 11:45)

Exactly. So yeah, I'm fairly- Yet.

[Luci] (11:46 - 11:46)

Yeah, not yet.

[Dani] (11:46 - 12:31)

Yeah, I'm fairly strict when it comes to the money because I don't want to stuff it up and I don't want us to do the wrong thing as an org that makes the scrutiny, sort of the magnifying glasses come out. Because again, we do walk a fine line between having the fun at the event, but we've got to make sure everyone's safe and we do the right thing and tick all the right boxes too. So yeah, as James sort of says, we sort of for 11 months of the year, we work in a real life business professional organization.

So for that one month a year, we can actually go back to our burner culture and community and do what we do best.

[James] (12:32 - 12:55)

That's one of those roles where I wonder if your role would be harder or easier in a smaller burn because right now you're dealing with more money, but then maybe because you have more money, you've got a bit more leeway, but then the smaller burns, the margins are a lot more tighter, but then you're not so worried about there's not going to be a massive six-figure change in costs or anything for a smaller burn.

[Dani] (12:55 - 13:53)

My perception this particular year has been that we need to level up process-wise so people actually understand what happens behind the scenes and why decisions are made because there are a lot of blazers out there that don't really understand where it all comes from. To most people, it's very flat and it's like we pay for a ticket and this is what puts it on, but they don't understand the tick boxes that we have to ensure are done correctly for us to actually have the event on. They think that we go and burn a big pile of wood that someone's made this great art project out of, but the legalities behind it with regards to lighting the fire, who can do it, the fireys on the ground and all of the professional stuff that needs to happen.

Yeah, and even just with spending, it's not a case of here, have five grand, do with it what you want. We've got to account for all the money that's spent as well, which I think people don't really understand.

[Stevan] (13:53 - 14:02)

Do you think it'll be helpful to have some kind of like a pie chart of showing all the value propositions within that event where the money is spent for the general public maybe?

[Dani] (14:02 - 14:28)

Well, our members do get given our financial situations at our AGMs each year. And again, it is, I mean, they get given pie charts and stuff like that. And we have Excel spreadsheets for, and our budget, our accounting packages and stuff that we use.

So yeah, I try and keep it as simple as possible because creating a pie chart is adding more pretty pictures to it, you know.

[Paul] (14:28 - 14:31)

A pie chart would be too busy. There's too many categories.

[Dani] (14:31 - 14:37)

Yeah. And yeah, and I'll keep Paul away from that because he likes pretty shapes as well.

[James] (14:38 - 14:42)

I hate pie charts, don't get me started. Paul likes confusing hard shapes.

[Dani] (14:42 - 15:16)

Yeah. So we try, yeah. I mean, it's a case of finding that right balance of official stuff that puts people to sleep, but making sure people understand that we are doing the right thing behind the scenes, I think, to ensure.

So then they can step back and know that we do things with intention and for reasons, and we're not just doing it because we want to be a pain in the ass and make them have to think or be responsible. As a culture, I think we are really responsible, but we do need to just be aware of certain times where we have to go above and beyond.

[Stevan] (15:17 - 15:18)

All right, Paul, do you want to introduce yourself?

[Paul] (15:19 - 15:55)

Yeah. So I'm the chair now as of about a month ago.

I've been on the committee for about five years, except last year I took a year off. But yeah, basically my only roles with Blaze have really been with the committee, except for last year when I did the forms and stuff. But yeah, I kind of just jumped straight from nothing to committee somehow.

I just knew the chair. Yeah, pretty much. Apart from Blaze, I was a mathematician before that, so that's why James is talking about the shapes.

[James] (15:55 - 16:10)

I think you shouldn't undersell yourself on the forms. You mentioned it as just a passing, but you're known as the forms czar. Paul loves the form. Any excuse for a form? He wants a form for forms.

[Paul] (16:10 - 16:25)

Well, no. Well, yes. I try to be reasonable with the forms. I know people don't like filling them out, and I did try to reduce the number of total forms each year.

[James] (16:26 - 16:34)

Maybe you need to put a form out to see how many forms people want to take. A form for people to find out how many forms they want to take.

[Paul] (16:35 - 17:04)

We had a separate form for each team, and we had a lot of teams, so we had all these different forms. And I was like, we can just have most of this data come in one main form and then split it off to get the extra things. And then the next year, I cut out a lot more of those forms.

So we do actually have less forms than we used to have, but then I do bring in extra stuff for other things. But anyway, I'm trying to get away from the forms now.

[James] (17:05 - 17:07)

Would you say your kingdom is crumbling then?

[Paul] (17:07 - 17:20)

Yeah. Yeah, that's me. So being chair has been fun though.

So I mean, I've only chaired a few meetings, but it's been interesting.

[Stevan] (17:20 - 17:23)

And what are some of the things you've learned about the community as a chair?

[Paul] (17:23 - 18:09)

As a chair, I mean, it's only been about a month and we're in the quiet, relatively quiet part of the year.

But overall, being on committee, I mean, the community is amazing. It's just an incredible community to be a part of. They all work so hard and everyone loves it so much.

It's a bizarre thing. It always confuses. It's surprising how much people work on it, including myself, because in theory, you're not getting anything out of it.

None of us are getting paid. But we're all like, yeah, it's just strange how much we put into it. We all put into it.

It's surprising. And also like, at the same time, not surprising at all, because it makes perfect sense when I'm doing it. I'm like, no, I want to do this.

I want to make sure this is, you know, do whatever I can do to make it better.

[Stevan] (18:09 - 18:20)

Yeah, I can understand what you're saying, because that's how you kind of feel that way when you go to Bonza. You get to see so many passionate people and you can't believe it because there's so many amazing people out there.

[Paul] (18:20 - 18:35)

Yeah. And it's like, where do those, or just going to a burn. My first three years of Blazing Swan, I didn't really do a whole lot in terms of, I didn't join a camp, I didn't volunteer, but I went and I was just like, how does all this happen?

Like, how is this possible?

[James] (18:37 - 19:10)

I think your role is probably like the least known role or probably maybe the better way before I kind of knew what a chair did, like even from KiwiBurn was like, this is the CEO, the guy who's calling all the shots and making all the decisions. But you gave a definition. We had like an all leads meeting a week before Bonza.

Maybe you could like, and you explained it like, maybe you could like describe that because I thought that was pretty good.

[Paul] (19:10 - 20:00)

Basically, the way I understand it is like, there's two roles as chairing the meetings, which is just running the meeting. And so it's just, you set an agenda and kind of keep people on time and on track and stuff like that. And you're kind of a figurehead of the whole book.

So you kind of, you're the face of the organization to some extent. So there's some public speaking and stuff, which, you know, not a great public speaker, but then, but you don't, it's not actually, I mean, it's leadership, but you're not actually calling the shots because you get one vote like everyone else on committee. So you don't actually, you can kind of set the vision from the start and say, this is where I want place to go.

But if the rest of the committee don't agree with that, they're just not going to go with you in that direction. So yeah, it's not really a call the shots kind of CEO kind of role because you only get the one vote. Is that what I said, the leads meeting?

[James] (20:01 - 21:00)

I think the way you said it is like, so the committee is there to run the move, to run, to move on the, like on what the members vote on. So kind of the way that the members want things to happen, the committee is supposed to act on that. And then the chair is just kind of, you know, leading the committee to act on what the members vote on, you know?

So it's almost like you're just someone being like, Hey, this is the thing that they want us to do. Let's do it. You know?

Yeah. I mean, it is true, but I think a lot of people who aren't, a lot of people who probably aren't involved in the org, you know, a lot of, you know, maybe members, not so much, but just burners or blazers in general, who are attending, you know, might not understand that, you know, you're just, you're just trying to lead the committee in doing what the, what the burn wants, you know, what the members vote on, you know, which is, yeah, it's a pretty noble thing to do. I'd say, you know, you have to go out and do something that maybe you don't even want to do. You didn't vote for that, but that's your role is to push forward and get it done.

Right.

[Paul] (21:00 - 21:00)

Yeah.

[Dani] (21:01 - 21:07)

Well, it's all about roles really yours to James. I just, seriously, half the time I just crossed my fingers and hope I'm doing it right.

[James] (21:07 - 21:18)

My role is not what people want to happen. It's not, my role is telling people things that they can't do, which is mostly a joke.

[Dani] (21:18 - 21:24)

Or helping other, supporting other people, your leads underneath you to tell people what they can't do.

[James] (21:24 - 21:38)

No, just like to clarify, I don't tell people no, but I structure the way in explaining what they'll need to do to make their thing happen, to show how difficult it will be that they just say, know themselves.

[Paul] (21:39 - 21:48)

That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. It's like, yeah, you can do this, you can do it, but it's going to be really difficult.

You've got to sign lots of forms.

[James] (21:49 - 22:00)

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I'm not like the Chair, fighting other people's battles.

You know, who knows a lot about fighting battles?

[Luci] (22:02 - 22:09)

Oh, that's me. Are you finished, Paul?

[Paul] (22:09 - 22:09)

Yeah, I'm finished.

[Luci] (22:10 - 22:51)

Yes. Sweet. So yeah, I'm Luci.

The last, well, not last year, the two years before that, I was leading Kamp Koasis, which is one of our original theme camps that are still running. And that was awesome and exhausting. Before that, I was sort of, I was part of the greeters and I also spent my first two years just enjoying everyone else's labor and not knowing how or what anything was.

But yeah, I like to try out new experiences at Blaze and find different ways to contribute. One year I bought a big art piece, The Nest. And now this year I'm probably going to nominate for the committee and see if I can get voted in.

[Dani] (22:51 - 22:52)

Yay.

[Paul] (22:53 - 22:53)

Yay.

[Stevan] (22:53 - 22:53)

Cool.

[James] (22:54 - 22:54)

Boo.

[Luci] (22:54 - 23:12)

Which will be so I can fight James. So that'll be exciting. And hopefully I can be a part of that to help assist the guys and move the community and help shape the vision of everyone.

[Stevan] (23:12 - 23:19)

So what draws you to do that, to step up, to be on the committee and to help the community? What inspires you?

[Luci] (23:20 - 24:10)

I really believe in what we're doing. I really believe the Burner community worldwide and the ripples that that creates across the world.

I see it every day with people that you meet or people that you meet in a different country and you find out that they're burners. And next thing you know, you've got a house you're staying in. And the principles and the things that they're teaching us all and helping, you know, that I dare you to find one person that's been to the burn that hasn't had their life trajectory changed afterwards.

And so I really, I really believe in what we're doing and the difference we can make in the world. And so I want to be a part of that. I want to help.

I want to help. I love leadership. I'm very passionate about leadership.

So I really want to step into that in the org dimension and away from the theme camp leading. Also, I'm exhausted from being in sound camps.

[James] (24:11 - 24:13)

How big was Koasis?

[Luci] (24:14 - 24:23)

Koasis is like 50 people. We run from the start of the day until the end of the night, and it was awesome. But it's time for time for new things.

[James] (24:23 - 24:39)

Luci also is maybe downplaying his role as the host of probably like the most, one of the most preeminent events at Blaze, in my opinion. The jousting that happens every year. He's an amazing host.

It's so good. That's why I said he knows fights.

[Stevan] (24:40 - 24:42)

When did that start, the jousting? At blazing swan?

[Luci] (24:43 - 25:01)

That's been running for two years now. I had it at my wedding the year before that, and Lewis was there watching it with my dad.

And he turns to me and he's like, you're going to have to bring this to Blaze. And I was like, I didn't think I'd be able to, but I'm surprised that James likes it because I'm pretty sure his medics have a fair bit extra work because of it.

[James] (25:02 - 25:04)

But they got to do something, you know?

[Luci] (25:04 - 25:20)

Yeah. No, I do. I do love hosting events.

I hosted the Grundy this year and I hosted jousting. And yeah, I do. I do love the hype that you get from the burner crowd.

They're pretty forgiving lot when you're in front of them with a microphone and they're very easy to hype up.

[James] (25:20 - 25:27)

Well, you talk about having these unique experiences. I feel like you've given me a lot of unique experiences in probably a lot of Blazes.

[Luci] (25:27 - 25:38)

Yeah, I think that's what it's all about though, you know, like gifting each other these moments in time that we just like take with us forever. And that's such a magic thing to be able to gift to each other, you know?

[James] (25:39 - 25:43)

These moments that you try to explain to someone and it just doesn't really make sense.

[Luci] (25:43 - 26:15)

They have no idea what we're talking about, you know? But I think the wonder at burn events where you're not on a mission or a quest or a goal and you're just like walking across the player and all of a sudden you find yourself in a fort and there's medieval people everywhere and there's people jousting on tiny kids' bikes, you know, like that moment for that person is worth all of the effort, you know? Yeah, that's why I love doing it.

Yeah, I think it's just, it's so powerful and amazing to be able to give that to people.

[Dani] (26:15 - 26:28)

And me and Paul will tell you that being on committee isn't exhausting at all. It's so wonderful. Oh, look, different kinds of exhausting, you know? It is different kinds of exhausting.

[Luci] (26:28 - 26:34)

Different kinds of exhausting. And as I like to collect experiences, this is the next one to receive from.

[Dani] (26:35 - 26:37)

Well, I hope you get voted in.

[Luci] (26:37 - 26:44)

Yeah, me too. We'll see.

I've got a bit of sway in the crowd, so surely. Yeah, so that's me.

[Stevan] (26:44 - 26:48)

What about your origin story?

Let's hear how you got involved in the burner scene.

[Luci] (26:48 - 26:54)

Yeah, this is pretty good, actually. So I was living...

[James] (26:54 - 26:55)

I was jousting one day.

[Luci] (26:56 - 28:07)

I was on the back of this horse. No, I was living in this town, Collie.

That's a coal mining tower town. And I was working down there. And as I was, I don't know, I was pretty young.

And there was a very attractive creature working behind the bar who'd just flown in for the night to work behind the bar. And I ended up going skateboarding with them all night while we were having the best time. And they had just been to the very first Blazing Swan.

And so they told me all about this event and this community while we skateboarded hills all night. And then I just kept a check on it. And as soon as the tickets came out the next year, I bought one for myself and my little brother.

And then I didn't know anything about it. And then, yeah, I rocked up to my very first burn event and the second Blazing Swan. And I was lucky enough to roll up to the door of the greeters and open my front door.

And one of my friends who I was at boarding school with, who I hadn't seen since boarding school, just happened to be there to greet me. So it was a pretty nice landing to come in and have Josh Niven greeting me at the gate.

[Stevan] (28:07 - 28:07)

Oh, wow, Josh.

[Luci] (28:07 - 28:20)

Yeah. Yeah. So that was amazing.

And yeah, like trajectory of life changed forever. So yeah, that's how I got into the burner scene, the community, random chants at pubs and skateboarding.

[James] (28:20 - 28:22)

Well, beautiful people, right?

[Luci] (28:22 - 28:22)

Yeah.

[Dani] (28:23 - 28:26)

Or creatures. I like the beautiful creature.

[Paul] (28:26 - 28:26)

I like that.

[Luci] (28:26 - 28:33)

Yeah, yeah. A very beautiful creature came along and swept me up and pushed me in. So that's pretty, pretty good.

[Stevan] (28:33 - 28:36)

So Paul, did you have a gateway friend as well? Someone who whispered in your ear?

[Paul] (28:36 - 29:01)

I had a bunch of friends who, like, I'd heard about it from a few different places, mostly Pasaan, who was the chair before I got into comedy. So I remember one day I asked on Facebook about it.

I was like, I heard of this blazing swan thing, and I don't know if I'd be into it. Like, do people think I should go? And a couple of them were like, no, I don't think you'd be into it.

Like, I think Pasaan actually said that.

[Stevan] (29:01 - 29:01)

They know you too well.

[James] (29:02 - 29:02)

Look at me now.

[Paul] (29:03 - 30:06)

I'm not sure. You know, there's a lot of, you know, it's the radical self-reliance. It's difficult and everything.

But others were like, yeah, it's amazing. So I was like, OK. And it was great.

It was just the most incredible thing. And like you said, Luci, it completely changed my life. And the first three years, like I said, I didn't volunteer or do a theme camp.

I was just kind of, kind of gifting a little bit. And I was really getting into it, but I didn't really know where to go from there. And then Pasaan called me up one day and he was like, you want to get a bit more involved?

So I just kind of shot straight up to the top because we'd known each other for years through uni and like I'd been on other comedians and stuff before. So I wasn't completely. But yeah, it was a pretty big jump.

Yeah, it's like such an amazing thing. Even from that first like the greeter ceremony where you jump over the stick, like even that I could feel I could tell that this was going to be really special. Like I didn't really know what I was getting into, but I was I knew something was like really special about this.

[Stevan] (30:06 - 30:09)

So you're drawn to the values and the principles and you're curious about it.

[Paul] (30:09 - 31:16)

Yeah, definitely. I love like I get really into the principles. I'm a bit of a like principles fundamentalist, I think.

They're not rules. They're just principles. And I'm like, I know, but I still want to take them seriously.

It's like at the very least they're like, if even if they're not a thing for living life, which I think they are, they're the very least. It's like a really good formula for creating an event. It's like if you create an event following these, it will be good.

It'll be a good time. And whenever people are trying to like change something or, you know, something that's changed the event in a way that goes a little bit against the principles. I always feel like that's risky.

Like I don't know. I might maybe I don't know why exactly why that's a bad idea. But I just feel like that's going to end badly.

If you go, if you do something that goes a little bit against the principles or further away from that, that's that can only make the event worse, even if it makes perfect sense on paper. And it's probably the biggest superstition I have because I'm a very like not, I'm big into like skepticism and rationalism and stuff like that. I'm not a spiritual guy at all.

[Stevan] (31:16 - 31:18)

But you're a science, you're a man of science, a mathematician.

[Paul] (31:21 - 31:38)

The principles just feels I can't explain it, but it just feels right. It feels like if you if you mess with that, it's going to be bad.

And if you go further in that direction towards the principles, it's going to be a better time. And I think that probably applies to life as well. But it definitely applies to events.

[James] (31:38 - 31:48)

I actually think it might be closer to Godel's incompleteness theory. You can't tell exactly what it is, but there's something where you just know if you don't follow these, there's a hole there.

[Luci] (31:49 - 31:52)

Well, there are pillars of the community that we've built it on.

[Paul] (31:52 - 31:53)

Exactly.

[Luci] (31:53 - 32:00)

Paul, I think it's brilliant.

Absolutely. That's that's what we all stand for. And that's what we all agree to come together as.

And I think that's so important. Yeah.

[Stevan] (32:01 - 32:05)

And are you also someone who loves rituals, Paul? What's your take on the effigies and the temples?

[Paul] (32:06 - 32:51)

I do actually. Yeah. Like, that's one of the things that really appealed to me when I first heard about it. I was like, okay, it's like a ritual, but without any belief attached to it.

There's no, there's nothing about the effigy or temple that you have to believe in order to do it. There's no claims being made, not even like a little thing. But it's just, it's just a pure ritual and enjoyment and being around people and seeing fire and running around.

And it's all that stuff that is great about ritual. So you love fire as well? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, me too. And I didn't, I didn't even realize that until I got to Blaze. Like, I'd seen fires and I was like, oh, yeah, it's kind of fun to look at.

But you know, I'd never seen one that big. So once you see that, it's like, oh, okay, I actually love that.

[Dani] (32:51 - 32:52)

Fire means everything.

[Stevan] (32:53 - 32:57)

Okay, Dani, would you like to share your background, your origin story?

[Dani] (32:57 - 33:40)

Yeah, I haven't been a blazer for very long or a burner for very long. My first burn was meant to be during COVID, but that Blaze cancelled that. And then the one straight after was like a half burn.

So I didn't go to that. So I've only been attending for the last four years. But my gateway, I suppose, was through friends and external burn scenes.

I just knew a lot of people who were blazers and just said that I should come along and that I would like it. And not knowing too much about it as well. Again, like Luci said and James said, people try and tell you a story about jousting or whatever.

You don't really understand until you see it.

[James] (33:40 - 33:46)

And you think they're embellishing it or something. Yeah, exactly as how it was told.

[Dani] (33:46 - 34:36)

Yeah. And it's like a joke, an in-joke. You don't get it until you're actually part of the crowd that was there when it happened.

And sort of being a person that likes a bit of structure when they don't know quite what's going on. Kirk had actually said to me that I should probably ranger because I do have a military background. So I actually went in as a volunteer for my first year.

And funnily enough, this being my fourth year was the only time I've ever been to greeters because I always have gone in early and always left. So I helped with set up and pack down. So I'd never done the actual greeters thing till this year.

And someone actually said, hey, come down, which was really, really nice. And it did hit home a bit differently. As Paul said, it makes this bit of difference when you actually go through and do the principles and jump the piece of timber or a bit of stick or whatever was on the ground.

[Stevan] (34:37 - 34:38)

The magic line, right?

[Dani] (34:38 - 34:39)

The magic line.

[James] (34:39 - 34:47)

Now, the blaze has like a stick, like a magic stick that you put all the energy in and then it gets on the ground and you jump over it.

[Dani] (34:48 - 36:50)

But it was the first year I came along, the rangers started shifts before the event opened. And the funny thing was that I was teamed up with Peter Roehrig, who's been a blazer since day dot and knows a lot of people on site. And so we buddied up to do the first ranger shift, you know, and we're walking around and we're stopping everywhere.

So he can say hello to everybody and we can check in. But for every person that he's saying hello to, I'm actually saying hello and hugging my friends that I knew. So by the time we'd done our shift or halfway through our shift, he's sort of looking at me side-eyed and going, you sure you haven't been here before because you know so many people, which was really, really nice because to me, it was really great to see people that I know and love outside of how I know and love them in this totally other environment, which it was such a lovely community where you don't have to go and buy each other drinks, you're gifting things and you're doing things in your own time and you really get to connect on a different level with these people.

But also no matter where I went, I knew someone as well while I'm still meeting people. So it's been a really nice journey. So I've always volunteered, but just been stepping up into different roles as my time has allowed me to do that.

And now I'm still rangering, still doing other stuff outside treasury, but I'm trying to do as much as I can to just keep moving Blaze forward. And I'd really, yeah, looking forward to actually now going and attending other burns. I didn't really have any interest in it.

I'm not really interested in Burning Man because it's so big and it just seems so chaotic when you see all the, everything getting blown over by a sand storm or it's muddy and stuff and waiting like eight hours in a line. It just really doesn't appeal to me. But now I've seen our local burner culture and whether it's really small or not, I'm just feeling a bit more connected to actually make the effort to go.

So that's something that I'm definitely going to be exploring in the future, I think, is to get out and visit.

[James] (36:51 - 37:00)

How many over promises did you do to people? Like, oh my God, I'm definitely going to come to that burn, it sounds so cool. I told everyone, I told everyone, I've got to make it there.

[Paul] (37:00 - 37:03)

I was like, I'm just going to go to every burn next year.

[Dani] (37:06 - 37:25)

I think, I think I really like all the Eastern states. Like if we could say, if say Adelaide could do theirs on this weekend and then a couple of weekends later Melbourne does one, then you go to Tassie and then you go up and then you could do the whole Eastern Seaboard.

[Stevan] (37:25 - 37:25)

It's a circuit.

[James] (37:26 - 37:26)

Yeah.

[Dani] (37:26 - 37:29)

And we could, we could have a blaze caravan for a couple of months.

[James] (37:29 - 37:31)

Just get on one big bus and we could.

[Dani] (37:32 - 37:42)

Well, yeah, no Adelaide burn, but we could just make a blaze bonfire on our way through. We'll just go and make one. Yeah.

That's right. We're all going to be on a bus together.

[James] (37:42 - 37:43)

We might as well.

[Dani] (37:43 - 37:49)

Yes. Maybe that's a blaze funding thing for the future. But anyway.

[Stevan] (37:50 - 37:56)

So when you get told welcome home at blaze, what kind of meaning is that to you?

[Dani] (37:56 - 38:51)

To me? Well, again, like I said, this is the first time that I'd actually been. So my welcome home is when I'm actually going through the gate for the first time.

And it's a different gate to everyone else. And I have to stop. And there's usually gate people there, but it's a much less stressful thing.

We just show them our tickets, get our thing, say hello. Cause we generally know each other. And then I park up and then I'm dropping off stuff to the kitchen and then I'm traveling down and dropping off stuff to other people.

And I'm trying to find people to give them stuff because I'm usually carrying a lot. So that to me is my welcome. It's just like, yeah, have all the shit I've been carrying around for so long.

So then I can actually know that I've given it to you and you can do your job and I can do my job. But yeah, the welcome home to me is seeing all these people that I don't see all the time for maybe fundraisers or meetings or something is to give them a hug and to say hello and that sort of thing.

[James] (38:51 - 38:53)

Yeah, the welcome home is the people, eh?

[Dani] (38:53 - 38:54)

Yeah, definitely.

[James] (38:54 - 38:55)

For me too.

[Dani] (38:55 - 39:44)

Yeah, the greeters was great and it meant a lot and I love the storytelling, but yeah, because I've always come in from a different angle. Yeah, it is. It's the people and seeing everybody all together all at once is really good.

And the night before we open and the night after we close where everyone sort of gathers up at the big shed and has a meal together is usually on point because you still might not get to say hello, but you're waving at people across tables or that sort of thing. So that's the big thing is the people and yeah, getting that contact. But then there's people that I actually see at the petrol stations going into blaze that I don't see for the whole seven days that I'm there.

So as much as we're all around, you don't necessarily see people. So yeah, the day before and the day after is the best.

[James] (39:44 - 39:54)

You go to greeters and they say welcome home and it's like your flatmate saying welcome home when you've been at home for the past fucking six hours. You're like, yeah, I've been here, but thanks.

[Stevan] (39:57 - 39:58)

And James, your origin story.

[James] (39:59 - 41:10)

So I got into KiwiBurn, I moved into a flat with friends of a friend, didn't realize until a time and I was like, man, these people are so awesome and so cool and they've got such great stories. And then over time, it turns out that they're like a big contingent of the MPW and crew that builds KiwiBurn. And then my partner who was one of them that we started dating and she's like, oh, you got to come.

And I was like, you know, already convinced because, you know, we hang out most nights on the weekends and they got all these stories and they're awesome people. And so I was like, I got to go. And so the first time I went, I went for the build crew.

So I was there for two weeks on my first burn and I was there as a fluffer. Me and my partner were doing the fluffing and I was like, yeah, I'm a fluffer going around proud as like it was so awesome to go around. Knowing everyone's dietary requirements and getting them sunblock and hydrolyzed and, you know, rolling their joints or whatever they needed.

And then like a weekend, my partner was like, I just found out what a fluffer was. I was like, yeah. She found out the definition of it and she was like, I hate that.

And I was like, oh, I'm being really loud and proud, like knowing what it was. So I was crew support for my first year.

[Luci] (41:10 - 41:14)

It's the best role. It's the best role.

[James] (41:15 - 42:24)

It was the best for me. Introduction as well. Yeah, it's the best introductory role for me because I was, you know, I knew a couple of people, but they're all kind of working.

But, you know, you're going around, I mean, the effigy crew and the temple crew and the NPW or DPW. And then like you meet these people and you make friends during the build. And I really wasn't ready for when it all happened and the event started.

And I was like, wow, and so much happened. And then I'd find myself going into theme camps and I'd walk in and then there'll be someone who'd be like, yes, James, the fluffer. And I was like, yeah, and I've been giving them such like a positive, you know, every time they see me, they were happy because I'm bringing them something, you know, that they need or that they didn't realize they needed, you know, to try and make the day better.

So then they turn around and want to give me the best experience of their camp. And so it was just like an amazing, amazing thing. So that was like my first year.

I did that the second year. I also went back doing the same thing just for a week. But then there was like a theme camp for like the NPWs that they did called Skull Fuck, which they hadn't been there for 10 years.

And there was like their reunion coming back. And then after that, I'd like broken up with my partner. So I joined another theme camp called MCC, which is Mint Country Club, which is apparently from an eastern burn, I think.

[Stevan] (42:24 - 42:27)

Yeah, they got a burning seed. Yes, yeah. It's a multinational theme camp.

[James] (42:27 - 48:30)

Yeah, yeah. So I was like part of MCC. I've always wanted to always wanted to go to seed to go and join MCC there.

I love the color green. I hate gin, but that's fine. I love MCC.

Did that for a few years. Did Ignition as well. So I was part of Ignition for one year.

I did the games team, which was maybe we can talk about it later. But you know, organizing a lot of games because there wasn't a burn that year. And it was like a more overarching theme with the event.

So I was a part of organizing that. Then did MCC there. So Ignition runs every second year.

And Kewburn runs every year. And so I was, you know, doing, then I did some theme camp stuff, MCC. Then I found my real home, which is the Rusty Joint, up the rust.

You know, those are my people. They're like big theme camp. It's like a bogan living room.

We just play a lot of drum and bass and give out heaps of alcohol. It's a fucking great time. I was the bar lead there for a few years.

And then from there, just wanting to do more and give more. I've heard a lot about the other people here, their motivation for doing more. And I'm a really practical person.

I'm not much of a creative person. And I think that the burn needs both. But I don't really have, you know, a creative bone to flick so much.

So I found myself being like, well, what can I use to my skills? And moved up into joining EXCOM at Kiwiburn. So I was the safety facilitator at EXCOM, which was a vacant role at the time.

I don't know that much about safety or anything. But, you know, by that time, I'd been doing it for maybe four or five years and realize, you know, talking to a lot of people involved in the organization that you learn a lot and you get taught a lot through. So you don't actually need to know everything as long as you're committed to doing the thing and fulfilling your role or whatever.

So I did that. I had no handover coming into that. So that was fucking crazy.

It was the same year that there was this whole change in the organization of Kiwiburn where the event management, EXCOM became involved in the event management. And that was just real fuck up. And there was a lot of work for us.

And I burnt out the first year I was in EXCOM at Kiwiburn. Fucking crying in my van, throwing the fucking radio away. But I can't do this is too much.

And I actually got the best word of advice. And I said to all my volunteers from the chair of Kiwiburn, Andy, money daddy at the time, chair and treasurer. And he said, if you don't do anything right now and you just put everything down, the event's going to run and everything's going to be fine.

But I was taking on so much pressure on myself. You know, I felt like if someone died at the event, it was going to be my fault and all this stuff. And he really, those simple words.

And it just really made me like release a little. And I've taken that on board until now. I did the safety facilitator for another year.

And then me and my partner moved to Australia, to WA in 2024. We moved over here, got settled. And I was like, oh, what's the burn event here?

And they're like, Blazing Swan, it's on in two weeks. And I was like, I can't, I can't make that. It was a bit short notice.

But then after the event, then I went and looked up. I was like, you know, what roles do they have? And there was this role assurance manager.

And I looked at the job description and I was like, that's exactly what I was doing at KiwiBurn pretty much with a few extra teams attached. But, you know, I felt like confident to take that on. And they said, oh, there's no one in the role beforehand.

There's no handover. I was like, mate, done that before. That's fine.

Like, you know, I kind of did a handover myself knowing what the role would kind of be expected. So I jumped in there and met a lot of people, which is awesome. And had to, you know, because we knew how the events worked.

I was like, look, I need to find a theme camp that plays drummer bass because me and my partner, we love drummer bass. We love to dance. That's like the main thing.

I couldn't, you know, if they're going to be playing fucking music all night, it better be music that I like. So I joined this camp called Abode, which has got the best sound system on the camp. It's on the paddock.

It's a real like lounge feel like Abode, you know, it's a home. So like it's like a house party theme. The main room is like a kitchen.

That's where the DJ decks are like on the kitchen bench and stuff. And then there's a side room off the side called the cone zone, you know, which is like the lounge where people can get high or whatever they do in the house party, you know. But yeah, so really came over here, joined Blaze, like knowing what we're up to and got straight into a similar kind of role and a similar theme camp, you know, going from being a bogan living room to a house party where people get stoned.

I mean, is that the same fucking thing? But yeah, I don't know. I feel really blessed to have this experience in two different halls.

It's really cool to come in and see the way that Blaze runs compared to the way that kiwiburn runs. Kiwiburn is really old. I think like the year I left, it was like the 25th year of Kiwiburn.

And I came to Blaze and I meet people that I've been here from the start. Oh, you're so young, though. And it's like, oh, 10 years.

Like I went to kiwiburn 10 years ago. You know, this fucking wasn't, you know, like when we talk about this. Yeah, the people that I went to Kiwiburn was still a burner.

Yeah. The people I went to Kiwiburn with, like in the DPW, like in that Skullfuck camp, like one of the guys in the Skullfuck camp, they're all the kids of the people who started Kiwiburn. Like his dad was Kiwi, who was like going to Burning Man in the 90s.

And he bought Kiwiburn over in like 99, I think was the first year. And so, yeah, funny that he called it Kiwiburn as if he's just going to burn himself. But yeah, it's the first regional burn Kiwiburn.

So it's very storied. It's very old, but I think that's also why it's got a lot of problems. But like, I think it's stuff that maybe we, you know, they're the canary in the coal mine and we can kind of where we are now, Burns, now we can look at that.

And I think there's a lot of a lot of knowledge and experience in the org at Kiwiburn that we could use to help learn ourselves, which is another reason I was really sad that there was no one from Kiwiburn representing at Bonza this year. I found myself representing Kiwiburn and I would say, oh, Kiwiburn's got this and they've got that and people are, oh, can you get that? I'm like, well, I'm not actually part of Kiwiburn.

I just know that they have these things we could use.

[Luci] (48:30 - 48:32)

Yeah, we need that resource.

[James] (48:33 - 48:33)

Yeah, exactly.

[Luci] (48:34 - 48:35)

We can help them and they help us.

[James] (48:35 - 48:36)

Yes, exactly.

[Stevan] (48:37 - 48:42)

Yeah, that's amazing. Blazing Swan is very lucky to have you on, James, on the org team.

[James] (48:42 - 49:30)

They surely are, especially the committee. Maybe I should bring this up because I've said a few times now, like the committee, it's like a big point of mine. But I think it's a part of the dichotomy.

It's like operations. Someone working the operations is the committee and the operations have to pull, you know, how Danielle's like, you know, we want to make sure we're spending things in the right way. And I'm like, well, we need to spend more money to make things safer or better or, you know, whatever it is.

I think that's a natural dichotomy to have. You've got to have the push and pull. And it's somewhere in the middle where we're going to find the common ground.

But I've got this reputation. I've got my own Slack channel called James Fights the Committee. But I've got a reputation for just, I don't know, standing up to the committee out of principle, even if I agree, like someone's got to, you know, every hero needs a villain kind of thing, you know.

[Dani] (49:31 - 49:34)

You will be assimilated, James, one day. You'll be on committee.

[James] (49:34 - 49:37)

Yeah, one day I'll be on the committee obviously fighting myself.

[Luci] (49:37 - 49:39)

I'm so excited to fight you.

[Dani] (49:40 - 49:42)

It's fun. Makes my day.

[Luci] (49:43 - 49:43)

Yeah.

[Stevan] (49:43 - 49:51)

Let's take a break. We'll come back, take a quick break or something. We'll come back when we get into the presentations and the topic of discussions around those.

[James] (49:51 - 49:52)

You don't want me to talk more? Okay.

[Stevan] (49:53 - 49:55)

Yeah, if you're still recording, go for it.

[James] (49:55 - 49:58)

Yeah. I'm just joking. Yeah.

[Stevan] (49:58 - 50:11)

Let's get into the presentations on the Summit. But before I do that, there was quite a few online chatter happening about the Zebra situation. Do you guys know what's going on with the Zebra?

[Dani] (50:11 - 50:14)

I had no idea. And I actually had to ask.

[James] (50:14 - 50:21)

Yeah, it was an inside joke. I was too scared to ask about it. So I asked someone in person, not in the group chat.

[Dani] (50:22 - 50:22)

Yeah.

[Stevan] (50:22 - 50:24)

So what did you find out? What was the story?

[Dani] (50:24 - 50:48)

About it being an art project submission a couple of years ago where someone wanted to bring a Zebra, but it was going to be a painted horse or something like that. Like once I heard it, it's like, yeah, it's definitely an in joke. You had to be there.

So, but I went from feeling quite anxious and is this something we have to know or is it really important to going, okay, let them have their fun and we'll create our own.

[James] (50:48 - 51:09)

Yeah, we'll make our own Zebra with hookers and coke. Yeah, I heard about it. But then I was like, what's the problem?

Maybe it's because I'm not like a creative person. And in my opinion, I couldn't see anything really so dangerous house and safety wise. And I was like, just bring a painted horse.

[Dani] (51:09 - 51:29)

I think it was the actual presentation that they'd given at Bonza that particular year. That made it really funny from what Shaz told me. Everyone was just essentially rolling around crying.

They were laughing that hard. And, you know, in hindsight, when you don't get it, it's just like, yeah, whatever. I'm not going to take away from them.

[Paul] (51:29 - 51:31)

It does sound like a fun story.

[James] (51:32 - 51:43)

It is a little bit like not non-inclusive to be to put a damper on the parade. There was a bunch of us who were like, okay, we don't get it. But I guess everyone else is getting it.

[Stevan] (51:45 - 51:50)

Yeah, there was a presentation from last year with the Dragon Burners. They presented what happened at their burn.

[James] (51:51 - 51:58)

I thought it was just like they got a submission and they denied it. This is the grind. And how much money did they give them?

[Stevan] (51:58 - 52:07)

Everyone just loved the whole story and the whole theme that it carried on to this year was Zebra. So it's an in-joke. It's an ongoing in-joke.

[James] (52:07 - 52:14)

So yeah, the thing with in-jokes is you can't get more people in on the joke. It's only ever going to be those people who are there.

[Dani] (52:15 - 52:17)

Yeah, but it still doesn't make me laugh.

[James] (52:18 - 52:23)

I wasn't there. I didn't see the presentation. I'm not going to make Zebra jokes because I wasn't there.

[Stevan] (52:25 - 52:28)

Well, we've got to get the Dragon Burners to tell this story. We've got to get a podcast out of them.

[Dani] (52:29 - 52:32)

So maybe we can start James against the bonza inside jokes.

[James] (52:34 - 52:35)

How long are you going to milk this?

[Paul] (52:35 - 52:37)

We've just got to get more Zebra events.

[James] (52:38 - 52:38)

Yeah.

[Paul] (52:38 - 52:42)

If we bring a Zebra to a blaze, then we'll all be in on it.

[Dani] (52:43 - 52:45)

That'll be our joke, not theirs.

[Luci] (52:45 - 52:46)

I'm on it.

[Dani] (52:48 - 52:50)

Are you going to dress up as a Zebra, Luci?

[Luci] (52:51 - 52:51)

No, no, I'll bring it on.

[Paul] (52:51 - 52:52)

Use it for the jousting.

[James] (52:55 - 52:55)

Zebra jousting.

[Luci] (52:55 - 53:01)

Zebra jousting. Oh, that's pretty good. Oh, yeah.

[Dani] (53:01 - 53:04)

See, look, we've just created our own Zebra joke. Yeah.

[Stevan] (53:05 - 53:11)

So with the presentations overall, what are your thoughts? And did you have anything that resonated with you?

[Luci] (53:11 - 53:56)

I thought the keynote address, which was about transparency, and listening to it, it was a really good presentation, but I actually didn't agree with a lot of it listening to that presentation. But the way that that one tied into many other presentations and chats throughout the weekend, I had my views and ideas changed quite eloquently by my fellow community. So yeah, it was a really good.

I think it was a really excellent start, even though I was listening to it thinking like, I don't agree with this. But she was really well spoken and very passionate. It seemed a little bit even attacking and personal at times.

[James] (53:56 - 53:56)

Yeah.

[Luci] (53:57 - 54:09)

Which I was just a bit like taken aback by this early start of this presentation. But there definitely is a lot of points there that we all had to learn from.

So that was great.

[James] (54:10 - 55:01)

Well, coming from the perspective of someone who was in EXCOM at the time that Shelley was talking about all these issues of transparency, I definitely felt it was a little attacky. Maybe it's that whole thing that was mentioned about trying to separate the person from the role or what the issues were. But yeah, it brought up a lot of old wounds for me.

Definitely hearing that I was just like, Oh God, I've really... As much as it's good to share that stuff. But yeah, I think a lot of people were like, Oh wow, this is interesting.

I was just sitting there like, Fuck, not this again. This is fucking two years of my life at EXCOM, but this is a major issue. And it is an important thing.

But it was hard to sit there and not be like, Well, we tried this and we did... Hearing someone have an argument against you, but you can't reply kind of thing was my personal experience at least.

[Luci] (55:01 - 55:14)

Well, you did very well to sit through that. It would have been hard because even I found it attacking at times and I had nothing to do with what happened. It's hard sometimes to sit through these things, isn't it?

[Dani] (55:14 - 56:59)

It accounts a lot for tone though, I think. I felt the same that her tone was more attacking than the content of the actual presentation. But for me, from a committee point of view and also coming from a corporate business background, transparency is a really fine line that we have to struggle with.

I think where it's really good to let people know what's going on, but sometimes that can cause negativity or a reaction that becomes detrimental. And sometimes too much information isn't good. And sometimes we're so busy from a committee standpoint or a management standpoint or a lead standpoint that we really don't have the time to turn around and go, Oh, I'll just let everyone know this.

And even as John eloquently sort of remarked, just let people know you're working on it. That to me, in my experience has opened up floodgates of people going, What are you working on? Question, question, question, question.

When you're trying to get an answer that doesn't necessarily make everyone happy, but lets everyone know exactly where we stand. And again, we could go back to Blazer's diesel issues this year. For a few weeks there, we were, is it on, is it off as a committee?

So we're struggling and you don't want to let people know that it might be off because then they may panic and then they'll cancel and then they don't organise what they need to organise. And we want it to go ahead and everyone wants it to go ahead. But yeah, and that's just an example where you might need to find that fine line that you've got to walk to say, Well, it's not a great place to be transparent right now.

We've got to do our job and get on with it. So it is something that I agree with, but then I disagree with it equally as harsh sometimes as well.

[Luci] (56:59 - 58:00)

I think it's just like what a lot of the chats and what they came through to in the end, you know, was like just acknowledging that there is an issue and that everyone's doing their best to solve it and the information will come as soon as it can. You know, we did that. Sorry.

And I'm not saying that that didn't happen. That's just like what the discussions and chats amounted to in the end, you know, around transparency. And then being really transparent with our decision making after, you know, as much as you can during and then afterwards, you know, it's a very powerful thing, you know.

And like the guy who started burning seed, I've forgotten his name, you know, his one comment really struck me was, we practice radical inclusion. You know, what about radical transparency? And like, hey, why don't we just try it out and see what happens?

We're an experimental community. If it doesn't quite work, that's OK. We can learn and wind it back to something better.

But yeah, something to think about.

[Stevan] (58:00 - 58:01)

That was Phil Smart, yeah.

[James] (58:01 - 59:08)

Yeah, that was one of my favorite comments from the whole weekend. Maybe this is the time for me to retort because like going through all that, I could give a list of a dozen reasons why things weren't transparent at any particular time. You know, we had no secretary or the secretary was sick or like the main problem, it keeps happening with Kiwiburn and it's happening with Kiwiburn.

Now it's the reason why there's no one that bonds it is there's not enough volunteers. There's not enough people going for these big roles. There's, you know, Kiwiburn has its ticket numbers limited to getting a certain amount of volunteers until they release the next amount of tickets because it really struggles to get people in the org to the limit where they can run the event.

And we were struggling with that at that time. You know, we had a chairperson and a treasurer at the same. There's the same person in both roles because we couldn't find a treasurer and no one had 2ICs.

And I came into my role without a person who was in the role before. And there was a lot of things going wrong. These people saying transparency, transparency.

And we were like, OK, well, can someone do that? Can someone join and do the transparency then? It was like a big thing.

[Luci] (59:08 - 59:15)

That's the beauty of burn. So, you know, when someone's crying out like, oh, we need to do this or we need this at the burn.

It's like, I can't wait to see.

[Dani] (59:15 - 59:16)

Yeah, exactly.

[Luci] (59:16 - 59:26)

Yeah. So, you know, I think, you know, it's we are obviously never going to be perfect, but we can just try, you know, and be gentle with ourselves when we miss the mark.

[Stevan] (59:26 - 59:38)

Yeah. And transparency is not about having the solutions, right? It is just about coming forthright, you know, coming out to, you know, sometimes you have to say that you're not even sure that you don't know what the answer is.

And that's transparency.

[Luci] (59:38 - 59:38)

Absolutely.

[James] (59:39 - 1:01:59)

But I think this also came up in the conversations and it's like, well, there is also things that you're talking about on the committee level, which is not everyone needs to know or be involved. Or like, you know, like Dani was saying, you know, you're talking about if the fuel is going to be there or not. And if you say there, if you're too transparent at the wrong time, it might actually, you know, affect a lot of people in a negative way.

And so one of the things we're struggling with is having a person with the capacity, this is at Kiwiburn at the time, having someone with the capacity to go through and, you know, look at what needed to be shared and what didn't need to be shared and to even just to physically upload the things that also ties in to a problem with KiwiBurners is the committee, which is, you know, the governance is the same as the operations, you know, the people doing stuff. So, you know, as a safety facilitator, I had all these operations things to do and I didn't have more capacity to do governance stuff and, you know, in terms of thinking about transparency and going through the notes, I had practical things that I needed to do to make the event happen.

And those got prioritized because that's what people want. They want the event to happen, you know, is yeah, transparency is a big thing to the point where I think it needs to be, you know, its own role or it's a lot of work for someone. And then it's whether there's enough people to step up and do that.

And then also whether, you know, you have enough volunteers who are willing to step up, like the smaller, these smaller burns that were there, you know, third degree and Aurora, like every person that was there, they've got three or four roles. They're already wearing all these hats and be like, okay, now you need an extra two or three hours a week on top of your 10 hours to be transparent about stuff. Like it's, I don't know.

There was also a thing about EXCOM at KiwiBurn before I joined, because I started with DPW and it's, I don't know, it's funny because when I was on the committee, I was like, it was like people fighting James instead of James fights the committee in the opposite role. But it's like, you know, before I was even on EXCOM, you know, there were these big bad people in the ivory tower making these decisions that no one knows about. And then it's until you're in that position, you're like, these are just people with the best intentions, trying their best and giving so much of their time, you know, like as much as transparency is important, fucking you do it then.

It's hard. It's a hard, it's a big role. We need more people.

[Stevan] (1:01:59 - 1:02:05)

Many people talk about transparency in terms of there is transparency on different levels.

[Dani] (1:02:05 - 1:03:12)

I believe that transparency also comes from our, we have over 500 volunteers at Blaze each year, which is absolutely huge and fantastic that we get that support. But again, like, I suppose, if we look at an org chart list, if say committee makes a decision on behalf of the org, we feed that down. So if we say it goes to James, the decision has been made that affects James and his team, that we would feed that information down to James and then James would then feed it down to his lead who would then feed it down to their teams of volunteers.

So that in respect is transparent, you know, and rather than going all the way out to everybody for people who don't need to know that information. So I think as long as we can keep the flow of information going to the right people, we're doing OK. But again, then you get the people that want to know everything without having any input or without having to do the volunteer role because they just want to know, then we're wasting our breath trying to make them happy. So again,

[James] (1:03:12 - 1:03:59)

Yeah, I think they're having the bigger org structure, the bigger the org structure, the more information is disseminated and it's less of a, it's less of an issue, you know, because then, you know, someone on my teams will just ask me something and I just know because it's passed to me from committee, you know, it's not like committee has to do this big press release or whatever, like knowledge dump of these things that have been done. And it's also a pathway of like asking, you know, someone wants to know, like a volunteer, they can ask their lead, which will then, you know, then they'll ask me and then I can go to the committee.

And it's a lot, I think it's a lot easier as well than the committee dealing with a hundred requests. You know, they deal with, you know, five or six requests from, you know, the five or six, like the department manager, the manager, the heads of department. I hate the name manager, but you know, it's like they deal with five or six requests.

[Dani] (1:04:00 - 1:04:01)

So just accept it.

[Paul] (1:04:03 - 1:04:54)

It does have pros and cons, I think, because you have that structure because like committee makes this decision. And yeah, in theory, we pass that on to the head of department and they pass it on to the lead and they pass it on to the volunteers. But if one of those steps breaks because someone forgets, then we don't necessarily know that that's happened and it hasn't been passed on.

So, I mean, I try to just, my ideal thing would be we post in the relevant Slack channel. So if we make a decision about medical, rather than just one of us goes and tells James about it, one of us just post it on the medical Slack channel. Yes, right.

That's the ideal way that things should happen. And that way James knows about it and the medical lead knows about it. And everyone in committee can see that that has been communicated.

So we don't have to check. We don't have to say, hey, did you tell James about that? That's my preference.

[Dani] (1:04:54 - 1:04:55)

But that's still the chain of command.

[James] (1:04:55 - 1:04:58)

Me too. That's still, that's why.

[Dani] (1:04:58 - 1:05:03)

We're still there. We still flow down from it. And we're lucky we've got an event manager.

[Paul] (1:05:03 - 1:05:15)

But that's a more transparent thing.

It's like, in theory, the same number of people know about it, but it's not just, it's not just that we all know. It's that I know that you know, and I know that, and we all know.

[James] (1:05:15 - 1:06:07)

It's common knowledge. It's also transparency over time. Like, that's why my Slack handle is James in brackets, in-channel-chat-enjoyer. Because the amount of times that someone has asked me a question and a direct message on Slack, and be like, hey, you know, when do I need this done by?

And I'm like, well, I know when it is, but why don't you ask it in the channel? They'll ask it in the channel. And it's just a question to me.

When is this done by? I tell them when it's done by. When they're no longer the lead, someone else comes in as a lead role.

Maybe they didn't get a handover. They can just look in Slack, go back in the channel, and it's there. The question has been asked.

The answer's there. It's all there. And maybe someone who just is interested, but doesn't need to know, can also lock and look on the channel when it's there.

And I think it's a really good version of transparency, but that is also just transparency within the org or within volunteers.

[Luci] (1:06:08 - 1:06:47)

That's just ops. That's transparency. And that's great that we have that.

And I think we're getting better at it. It sounds, these are good things. But in the greater scheme of the whole community and cultural decisions and big moments, that's where it gets tricky and is really important.

And that's something that we can be better at. Everyone can be better at. James mentioned all these reasons that it's really difficult, but it's just something I think that we really need to remember and work out ways that we can be better at it.

We're never going to be perfect at it and be gentle with ourselves and not being perfect at it. But also just remembering that we got to keep trying to be really fucking good at it.

[James] (1:06:47 - 1:07:24)

Like that quote, we're an experimental society. Why don't we try being radically transparent? Yeah, because that's the thing when people talk about if we should share this or that.

I'm one for just being like, let's just fucking tell people. Let's see what happens. You know, with Blaze this year, it's like the tickets were oversold and there was this thing and it was going on in the ops or people were talking about like, what do we do?

And people were asking on the Facebook and I just started replying to people on Facebook posts and be like, the tickets were oversold. And then someone messaged me like, oh, you can't be posting that on Facebook. And I'm like, fuck, why?

Well, I wasn't allowed to and I got silenced. The fucking committee silenced me.

[Luci] (1:07:24 - 1:08:06)

And yeah, that's one example where we can be better. The committee could make that decision and be like, no, just be honest. We've made a mistake.

Tell the community. Hey, guys, we've made a mistake. This is what's happening.

Here's what we're doing to rectify it. Here's our decisions we've made, how that happened. You know, it loops into that chat that the ranger gave that what happened at Aurora Burn, you know, it was incredible accountability and transparency.

And he was just like, this is the mistakes we made. Here's the things we've made to make it not happen again. Here's everything we did afterwards.

Here's what worked, what didn't, you know? And that was beautiful transparency and like, you know, after the fact accountability. But like transparency is easier after the fact and harder while it's happening.

[James] (1:08:07 - 1:08:17)

It's hard to make the call of when to be transparent, you know, like Dani said about the fuel thing. Like if you say like, hey, guys, there's no fuel. And then in two days you're like, oh, actually, there's fuel.

Like we're just being transparent.

[Dani] (1:08:17 - 1:08:19)

It's like, well, that's exactly right.

[Luci] (1:08:19 - 1:08:33)

Yeah, no, for sure. You can't, you can't, you can't say, you know, things like that are just silly. And that's just not going to help anyone, you know, but exactly what you guys did was just be like, you know, we, it is a problem and we are absolutely working on it.

[Dani] (1:08:34 - 1:09:00)

You know, there's a problem. I suppose if we use the diesel as an example, there was a problem in the whole of Australia, in the whole of the world. So people should know that there's a problem and that we are working towards fixing it without us having to say, hey, there's a problem.

It's like, of course, there's a fucking problem, you know? So sometimes it's like, I don't know, be radically self-reliant about it. Yeah, I mean, I did have that issue.

[Paul] (1:09:00 - 1:09:02)

No, I mean, it turned out it wasn't really.

[Dani] (1:09:02 - 1:09:16)

Yeah, we said unleaded was OK to bring on site, but then the shire said, no, it couldn't. No, safety reasons, no. Because it's like, oh, you said we could, but now you're saying we can't.

And then you've got this big argument of people just not being able to comprehend the legality.

[James] (1:09:16 - 1:10:23)

Well, then another aspect of the whole thing. Yeah, but also you just tell, or like I've got two things. One thing you tell people, hey, we're waiting. Hey, this could go either way.

We don't know yet. We're waiting. And then the other thing is like how we're being transparent because it was posted, you know, it was gone like, yeah, you can bring unleaded fuel.

And then it was posted again. Actually, you can't bring unleaded fuel. And then when I was stepped in because the medical lead dropped out, then I stepped in to help with that.

And the medical volley is like, hey, we can bring unleaded, right? And I was like, no, you can't. Because it had been shared on Facebook and not everyone's on that platform.

That's, I think, one of the hardest things, especially in our community. We've got a lot of people who don't want to run in these common media channels of Facebook or whatever. And even moving to Telegram, like you're only capturing, or Discord, you're only capturing an amount of people that want to go to that.

And that's like another whole point of the transparency that's hard is you need someone to post it on Facebook, send an email, put it in the newsletter, put it on Discord, make a Telegram. It's just, it's got to go everywhere, you know, to really capture everyone.

[Paul] (1:10:23 - 1:10:36)

That's a whole, that's kind of a separate thing as well. Like comms, that's getting more into comms and transparency. And we've got a whole comms department and Bruce is doing a great, amazing job with that.

And we, we did make it.

[James] (1:10:36 - 1:10:50)

We have a comms department. Again, it's the thing about what I'm saying is it's a big role. The whole transparency thing is a big role.

And it made me realise with, at Bonza, these, a lot of smaller burns. And if we're saying, hey, you need to be transparent.

[Paul] (1:10:51 - 1:10:51)

They don't have a comms department.

[James] (1:10:52 - 1:10:58)

Exactly. They don't have these people who can take on these things. We just need a fucking simple one-click solution.

[Dani] (1:10:58 - 1:12:33)

One thing that I found this year, which really surprised me, was the amount of year-round volunteers that we have in Blazing Swan that actually don't live in WA, that didn't come this year to the event, but they live interstate and they're doing stuff for us. Like our ticketing person lives in Melbourne, you know, and it just really blew my mind. I don't know their background, whether they used to live here and they moved and they're still involved.

But I think there's something really important to understand that it's easy for us while we're sitting in Perth and we do have Zooms and all that sort of stuff, but we're a very big org as well. And the Burner community is a very big community that is spread out over large states and across borders as well. I mean, look at you, Stevan and you, PY, you're all here together with us now, but we're all separated by state borders.

So it's, again, we're volunteers, we're putting in all this time and the expectation sometimes feels overwhelming. And it's something that, yeah, as much as we're talking about transparency and everything, we have to understand that, yeah, we are just people and we put pressure on ourselves as Luci said, but other people put pressure on us and we are allowed to push back too, I think, which is something that I've found that if people start demanding stuff right now, it's like, well, we have to prioritise our time between our life and our jobs and Blaze and our volunteering to, you know, this isn't as important to me as it is to you because I've got other more important things to do, so.

[James] (1:12:33 - 1:12:53)

But this is another thing that Shelley touched on as well, is it's like you've got to separate the person from the org because like, you know, the instant knee-jerk reaction is like, well, fucking you, you know, when the transparency be like, look, I'm not trying to hide anything for you. I'm doing this for you. Like I'm doing this for everyone.

Yeah. Like, but so it is hard.

[Luci] (1:12:54 - 1:12:58)

I think it's a beautiful problem. We're going to be better, but, you know, we'll never be perfect.

[Stevan] (1:12:59 - 1:13:14)

Yeah, one of the counter arguments that we've been hearing is to trust the community more. So like you said, radical transparency and I've heard some great examples how that worked, how that worked out. You know, once you trust the community and the community will bring the solutions most of the time.

[Luci] (1:13:14 - 1:13:22)

That's right. Being transparent with the problem you have and next, you know, the community is like, well, here you go. I've got a solution. I've got a solution.

You know, so there are.

[James] (1:13:22 - 1:14:19)

Yes. So I can give an example that at KiwiBurn, you know, there's been this big issue and people had a problem with the transparency and the structure of the org and people in the KiwiBurn community joined together and they wrote a whole new, you know, structure and basis. I can't think of the actual word now, but, you know, like a massive document, like a legal document of, hey, we can restructure in this way.

And it was just all community people who cared enough, people who wanted this transparency, the people with the loudest voices stepped up and they did it. They did the thing, but then it wasn't really reviewed or taken on board by the committee, which is another issue. But yeah, you're right.

Like the people who, the people who care this much to be like, hey, where's the transparency? They will actually step up and do it. And one of the biggest people in KiwiBurn when I was there at EXCOM, who was yapping on about the transparency, joined in to be the transparency lead.

I mean, I don't really know where that went because I kind of left and it sounds like nothing fucking happened.

[Dani] (1:14:19 - 1:14:21)

He went invisible, maybe, because he was so transparent.

[James] (1:14:22 - 1:14:26)

No, he's a pillar of the community. Hippie Tim, Hippie Tim.

[Luci] (1:14:27 - 1:14:29)

Yeah, shout out to Hippie Tim.

[James] (1:14:29 - 1:14:49)

But yeah, you're right. People in the community, and we should trust the community. And that's what I tell my team leads when they got volunteers, is trust your volunteers.

You know, you're not a babysitter. Like they are people and they want to be here and they want to give. They want to be a part of this community.

That's why we're all here, right? It's, you know, let people do the thing.

[Luci] (1:14:49 - 1:14:51)

Yeah, we've got to trust them. I love that.

[Stevan] (1:14:52 - 1:15:16)

Yeah, going back to Shelley's presentation, I found it fascinating how it kind of relates to also Liana's talk about transparency accountability. One of the things she asked Shelley's question was that how does your community treat transparency? So with Blazing Swan, such a big community, one of the biggest burner community in Australia, how do you guys, how does the Blaze community treat information flow amongst the community?

[Dani] (1:15:16 - 1:15:28)

Yeah, well, I think we sort of addressed it. We have the Slack channels and we within the org and we flow things out and we have our comms team that feeds into our socials.

[Stevan] (1:15:29 - 1:15:34)

What's the first process? Is it to go to Facebook and then filter that all the way down? No, we emails.

[Paul] (1:15:34 - 1:15:35)

It's all on Slack.

[James] (1:15:35 - 1:15:41)

Paul probably knows the most. There's Slack, there's stuff posted on Facebook. There's now a Telegram channel that's gone up as well.

[Paul] (1:15:41 - 1:16:18)

I mean, there's there's a few levels of transparency, like there's transparency within the volunteers when we're actually doing stuff. There's transparency to the members who they're the ones that essentially they own the event, right? It's the event exists for the members and the committee asks the members and that we really need to work on.

We we don't. I think that's the hardest one. I would say the hardest one is communicating to the community, which is the comms and Facebook and that they do a great job.

The comms department, we made it kind of difficult for them this year because the community didn't want to be transparent about these things. Some of the stuff, I know.

[Stevan] (1:16:19 - 1:16:24)

Most of the stuff that happened wasn't even on the bingo card, right? You guys had a Blaze bingo card. It wasn't even on that.

[Paul] (1:16:24 - 1:16:32)

Yeah, I mean, like and some of it is good problems have like the ticketing thing. It's like, oh no, we sold too many tickets. I don't know.

[James] (1:16:32 - 1:16:35)

If only we had an Mathematician to count how many tickets we were selling.

[Stevan] (1:16:36 - 1:16:40)

If only we had a platform for volunteering, a ticketing platform.

[Luci] (1:16:40 - 1:16:40)

If only.

[Paul] (1:16:41 - 1:17:09)

Yeah, all those things. Yeah, so there's three different aspects of transparency. And I think we do pretty well at the volunteer stuff.

We could probably do a bit better. The Facebook kind of the general community stuff. But in general, I think we handle that pretty well.

And the members thing we really need to work on because we just we haven't been doing that properly. We need to get, you know, push the minutes out and have more kind of question and answer sessions and stuff. Like I want to start doing that more.

[James] (1:17:09 - 1:17:13)

I was in the Blaze org for a year before I even knew that fucking members existed.

[Paul] (1:17:14 - 1:17:24)

Yeah, that's a common thing. I hear that a lot. So it's yeah, we need to do better with that.

It's usually like just before the AGM is when we start talking about membership and stuff, but it should be a bit more year round.

[Dani] (1:17:24 - 1:17:26)

It's on the webpage if you go and do all the drop down boxes.

[Paul] (1:17:28 - 1:17:29)

See, that's it.

[Dani] (1:17:29 - 1:17:51)

And I think the transparency will also it floats down to the social media aspect and how we get information out. And because everyone's so disjointed with how they interact with the community, it's really hard to have this one place that we can just dump the important information for people to go and find when they need it that aren't in the org. You know, so.

[James] (1:17:51 - 1:17:56)

KiwiBurn has a newsletter that goes out every two weeks and it's got updates and stuff, which is a good thing.

[Dani] (1:17:56 - 1:18:13)

It goes out to emails, you know, so if you have an email that you buy, they also have a burner profile, which is something we had that we're we're looking at reinstating. So if you just sell through humanity, we thought if you go through humanity, Paul's a staunch opposition.

[James] (1:18:13 - 1:18:23)

It sounds like a good segue. Man, how do we have burner profiles? It's almost like we need a whole platform for ticketing and volunteering where people can sign up.

[Dani] (1:18:23 - 1:18:43)

But yeah, I mean, it is. It's something that we we again, we identified this year through different things. And yeah, it is.

If we could, if someone came on to write the newsletter for us and sent it out, that would be fantastic. But again, do people read these emails? But at least we can say we we gave it a go and tried it, I suppose.

[Paul] (1:18:43 - 1:18:44)

I think they do.

[Stevan] (1:18:44 - 1:18:57)

Yeah, it was great listening to the updates of KiwiBurn as well as Burning Seed, Sunburnt Arts and Pilot Burn. The whole situation there, what happened in the last few years and it kind of created this topic of transparency that we just had.

[James] (1:18:58 - 1:19:09)

Oh mate, jump on the KiwiBurn Facebook page. It's a fucking dumpster fire, bro. It's so entertaining.

There's so much drama there. It's great. 25,000 people for a 3,000 person event.

[Stevan] (1:19:09 - 1:19:12)

Well, apparently they're archiving it and they're moving on to Hilo.

[James] (1:19:12 - 1:19:20)

Oh, not anymore, because they tried to archive it without fucking consulting the fucking community. Anyway, get on there. If you want some drama, mate, jump on.

[Dani] (1:19:20 - 1:19:24)

They're all like you, James, aren't they? They all just like arguing for the sake of arguing.

[James] (1:19:24 - 1:19:35)

No, I think it's the thing that comes with being an old burn. You know, there's people who went there 10, 15, 20 years ago and they're like, it's not like that anymore and they've got very strong opinions. Anyway, we can move on.

[Paul] (1:19:36 - 1:19:37)

We've had that since the second year.

[Luci] (1:19:37 - 1:20:26)

One last thing. I think we could tie in two of our issues we just spoke about with people not knowing about membership and not getting enough info to membership and transparency.

You know, we could advertise to people that if you want to know all the things that are going on, then signing up to be a member is the best way to do that. And then you can have the access of our newsletter that comes out once a month or whatever it is we want to do. Otherwise, you're just going to receive the minimal output from the Telegram channel.

And that's, you know, but if you're really interested and care about community, become a member and you'll be receiving the newsletter, you know, and I think that'll probably help us maybe boost our membership numbers. And if they don't become a member to get that, then... And you get swag as well.

If we had a newsletter, we've got to actually start doing a newsletter first. You know, of course, just saying three ideas.

[Dani] (1:20:26 - 1:20:37)

A newsletter is pretty easy in the big scheme of things, you know, start off small and it just gradually increases. So maybe that's something that we can look at from the new committee post AGM as well.

[Luci] (1:20:38 - 1:20:38)

For sure.

[James] (1:20:39 - 1:20:39)

Good one, Dani.

[Stevan] (1:20:39 - 1:20:48)

All right. Let's talk about the presentation of the volunteering and ticketing system. Unpresent...

What is it?

[Dani] (1:20:49 - 1:20:49)

Undiscovered.

[James] (1:20:49 - 1:21:00)

Oh my God. One thing I have about that is he talked about it for like 20 minutes and I was like, what is it called?

He didn't say the name of it until he brought it up on the screen.

[Luci] (1:21:00 - 1:21:00)

TBC.

[James] (1:21:01 - 1:21:06)

And then the name of it was Undiscovered.

And I'm like, is that the name or he hasn't come up with a name?

[Luci] (1:21:09 - 1:21:28)

You can't be that smart and also be able to name things like that ticketing platform. Absolutely. And volunteering thing blew me away and I can't wait to use it for my own small events that I throw, like, you know, small couple of day events and stuff.

Like it was incredible and that he just built that to gift.

[Stevan] (1:21:29 - 1:21:29)

Yes.

[Luci] (1:21:29 - 1:21:37)

Basically, you know, he could monetize the hell out of that, you know, like he could sell it to Google if he wanted, but he just wants to do good and help.

[James] (1:21:37 - 1:21:47)

I personally think he should monetize it so that he should monetize it for us so that we can use it in a more structured form.

[Luci] (1:21:47 - 1:22:17)

He does it in a very small way. I was talking with him after his talk about that and saying, you know, like having a year long memberships that you can sign up to pay him, you know, so sign up for a year. That way, you know, actually keep this in growing.

It could be such a game changer.

[James] (1:22:17 - 1:22:26)

But also if we're going to have all of our volunteer information on there, our rosters and stuff, it's a lot of information we're loading on there. And if we're not using it for ticketing, he's getting nothing.

[Dani] (1:22:26 - 1:22:47)

And it's almost like, you want to give him some money as a form of like a contract to be like, hey, I suggested that to him that that could be a way that we go with that if we don't use it for ticketing. Yeah, that way. And again, it's how he breaks his system up.

And yeah, this is how much it will cost you for this particular year to use it for your week long event.

[James] (1:22:47 - 1:22:49)

You know, so what was his name again?

[Luci] (1:22:49 - 1:22:53)

Ryan Johnson. I guess the biggest issue.

[Paul] (1:22:53 - 1:22:54)

It's a great take.

[Luci] (1:22:54 - 1:23:47)

Yeah, the biggest issue and the only one that I really could see, and I'm not a huge tech person, but with security, you know, I think it would have to be like, you know, for us to use it and really have it be safe. And, you know, if servers dropping would be having our own servers running it, you know, and keeping our own information of all of our people, you know, looking into the future of, you know, well, that's why I think bonding it with a contract we're paying for would actually, you know, because if something falls down, it's like, hey, it's not in the cloud and using someone else's servers. It's like having, you know, his own servers or our own servers that hold that information actually makes this perfect.

Yeah, but I love the way he talks to a lot of people about what is needed and what things they're lacking in this area. You know, he didn't just like, oh, I've got this idea. I'll build this thing.

He's obviously talked to so many people to create that, which is, I think, quite beautiful.

[Stevan] (1:23:48 - 1:24:09)

Yeah, it's a system that we're familiar with in the East Coast here. It's been used by a lot of events and orgs, the burner orgs. So it is mainly targeting for like mid-scale, small-scale events, 500 people, 1000 people less.

Yeah, scaling it up. Like a fundraiser. Yeah, but scaling it up to like a blaze event, you know, that's going to be a challenge.

[Paul] (1:24:10 - 1:24:40)

Yeah, I was thinking that. I think like the whole time I was listening to that talk, I was like, oh, this is great. This could be exactly what we need because we've been talking about building one and we've been kind of, like currently we use Cognito forms, which is not really built for that, but it's meant as just like for building forms. But we've kind of, it has a lot of kind of programming capacity.

So I've kind of built these structures into it. So that's the main thing that we use for the volunteer management. And then just humanitix for the ticketing.

[Dani] (1:24:40 - 1:24:44)

We don't have any set volunteering roster system or anything.

[Paul] (1:24:44 - 1:24:47)

No, that's it. We don't have a roster system for everyone.

[James] (1:24:47 - 1:24:48)

What do you mean? Random Excel spreadsheets.

[Paul] (1:24:49 - 1:25:04)

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, every team uses their own thing. I think Mo is one called, I believe Leave No Trace is one called Noe, which is from, I think, someone, some guys in France.

Yeah, but half of that is still in France. And that was pretty good. Yeah, that's it.

[Dani] (1:25:04 - 1:25:14)

Yeah, and it's a, it's an odd one. I had a look at it and I wasn't overly impressed with it when I've seen Excel spreadsheets work better as well. So yeah.

[Paul] (1:25:14 - 1:25:45)

And I think that as well is similar to this Undiscovered thing, in that it does the ticketing and it does all these other things. But it wasn't quite what we needed. But this new thing, Undiscovered seems like closer to what we were thinking about building ourselves.

And we'd probably, I think we might end up using it. We're going to, we haven't really talked about that yet with community. But if we do, is that we'll end up probably adding to it, maybe or trying to, you know, we would like to add stuff to it because there's tech guys plus make it better.

[Luci] (1:25:45 - 1:25:48)

Telling Ryan what we needed and paying him for his time to do it.

[Paul] (1:25:48 - 1:25:49)

Yeah, potentially.

[Dani] (1:25:50 - 1:25:56)

Well, he works with people and they come up with something bigger and better that's joined or something.

[Luci] (1:25:56 - 1:25:58)

Well, he was very open to that.

[James] (1:25:58 - 1:26:14)

Yeah. The week before Bonza at the All Leads meeting, there was Peter, Peter from the committee at Blaze put forward this proposal to build like a system like that, not and it's already built. So maybe Paul could talk about that more.

[Paul] (1:26:14 - 1:26:17)

I don't know if you want to go into too much detail.

[James] (1:26:17 - 1:26:24)

Yeah, right. Something that people were like talking about or has been mentioned already. And then something that's been already done.

[Paul] (1:26:24 - 1:26:53)

And it does relate to the profiles thing, which is that's kind of a separate issue because it's about requiring profiles from the general campus. It's not just about volunteering. And that's it's a lot of people who've been talking about that lately because of culture things.

It's just they see it as a way to kind of like improve the culture of the event and make sure that everyone understands what they're getting into. And I kind of like like I'm in two minds about the burner profiles idea because you hate it.

[Dani] (1:26:53 - 1:26:58)

This is where I fight Paul James. OK, this is Dani fights Paul on this one.

[Paul] (1:26:58 - 1:27:29)

No, I mean that literally. I actually like I like some aspects of it. And I do think it's important to the culture stuff.

But part of me is like the like I said before, I'm a bit of a fundamentalist about the principles and the radical inclusion principle says like we there are no prerequisites. There are no prerequisites to being participating in our community. And a profile is is a prerequisite.

And I know there are already prerequisites, but I see adding a new prerequisite as risky territory.

[Dani] (1:27:29 - 1:27:56)

But when we get into I'm open to it. But yeah, I think when we get into data collection or feeding information out to the community under transparency, it having these profiles of people, whether it's just a name, a date of birth and an email address or whatever we ask of them and their their little induction into the principal tick box. I think it's we still benefit from that as an org.

So we know for sure who's coming in and we benefit.

[Paul] (1:27:57 - 1:28:07)

Yeah, yeah. But a lot of people but there are people that will just don't want to do that. A lot of people in the community are really adverse to having extra data out there about themselves.

[James] (1:28:07 - 1:28:23)

I could just from a safety perspective, one of the main issues we have is trying to get emergency contacts from people, especially emergency contacts for people who aren't at the event. And that really is that kind of covers that, you know, that's a really good way of having that. And that's yeah.

[Luci] (1:28:23 - 1:28:27)

Not only will it help our culture, but we need it for safety.

[James] (1:28:27 - 1:28:35)

Yes, it's like a it's something that we are currently lacking or if we find it really hard to put your next of kin details.

[Paul] (1:28:35 - 1:28:37)

Because people will always put down an emergency contact.

[James] (1:28:37 - 1:28:44)

Yeah, they put the emergency contact for someone else who's already at the event. Yeah, it's like, oh, you're camping at this camping level, you know?

[Paul] (1:28:44 - 1:28:53)

I mean, we could we could do that. We could run a check. I mean, it would be some extra programming, but we could do that with humanitix.

I didn't realize that was an issue, but we could.

[James] (1:28:53 - 1:28:59)

Well, that's something that comes up. It's it's yeah, it's something that's a lot of inductions.

[Luci] (1:28:59 - 1:29:01)

Let's roll back to the to the talks, eh?

[Paul] (1:29:01 - 1:29:01)

Yeah.

[Stevan] (1:29:02 - 1:29:09)

The way I see a burner profile is that it is your good faith that you have for the community to show that you are part of the community.

[Luci] (1:29:09 - 1:29:10)

And you're willing to be part of the community.

[James] (1:29:11 - 1:29:41)

But so I can speak on this as KiwiBurn has burner profiles, right? And it was really it's a really good thing for when you have volunteers joining and, you know, they want to volunteer for a certain role and then you can see what they volunteered for previously. And then if someone didn't turn up for their shifts or something, it can be kind of put on their burner profile.

So not so much as don't include them or don't let them sign up, but don't give them the discounted ticket until they've done their shift or something like that. You know, it's yeah. It's a way of sharing.

[Paul] (1:29:42 - 1:29:42)

We do have that.

[Dani] (1:29:43 - 1:29:49)

We have separate lists. We have our blacklist and our graylist and everything, and they're not all in one place.

[Paul] (1:29:49 - 1:29:51)

Let's not get into blacklist.

[James] (1:29:51 - 1:29:51)

Yeah, we don't have blacklist.

[Dani] (1:29:51 - 1:30:18)

You know what I mean? They don't link to a particular person. You have to go and look at the different lists that people have in each different area before you can tell.

So there's a lot of research, I suppose. So, I mean, there's pros and cons for it. But I personally think that, yeah, having a database of this kind can only benefit us from an org safety data collection type of perspective.

[Paul] (1:30:19 - 1:30:20)

It looks like a great system.

[Dani] (1:30:21 - 1:30:21)

Yeah.

[James] (1:30:21 - 1:30:21)

Yes.

[Paul] (1:30:21 - 1:30:23)

Yeah, I'm really excited.

[Stevan] (1:30:23 - 1:30:40)

Yeah. OK, let's move on to the next presentation. We talk about his accidental leaders and other desert creatures presented by Shazcat, aka the best presentation.

Because it was it was short, simple, quick and to the point.

[James] (1:30:40 - 1:31:04)

And I'm still very relatable. Maybe just for like the kind of people, you know, it's like playing to the audience. I think everyone at Bonza really related to being an accidental leader.

I know that I did it, but like almost everything she said, people like, yes, preach, you know, every word, every line, you know, it was I think it was the best sideshow as well.

[Dani] (1:31:04 - 1:31:06)

I really like the sideshow.

[James] (1:31:06 - 1:31:20)

And funnily enough, like the most apprehensive presenter, the person who wanted to present the list. And I was like, you know, after it was a talk to Shazcat jokes on you, you didn't get it done with.

[Stevan] (1:31:20 - 1:31:26)

But it was a quick talk. For you guys, you guys have seen it personally as well. Her transformation, her leadership take on.

[Luci] (1:31:26 - 1:31:36)

Yeah, absolutely. I think it was a really, it was a really good talk. And I'm actually interested in doing a talk going back to Bonza about intentional leadership.

[Stevan] (1:31:37 - 1:31:37)

Opposite.

[Luci] (1:31:37 - 1:31:56)

The opposite. Yeah, yeah.

Because like as much as what she said is so true for a lot of people. But like for me, like every step into leadership roles has been absolutely intentional, you know, so it was it was amazing. And like lots of people do fall in to just like accidental leadership.

But I think, yeah, I actually believe in intentional leadership as well.

[James] (1:31:57 - 1:32:08)

Yeah, intentional leadership is important. And I think that's a problem that Kiwiburn has right now is that it only has unintentional leaders. And, you know, you can only get so far with that.

It's a really great thing, especially when your org is big, but.

[Dani] (1:32:08 - 1:32:56)

I think though unintentional or intentional leadership can also lead into unintentional leadership where we all want to step up and take on a role and do the best that we can and support our community. And then people keep unintentionally or they intentionally load you up with other tasks that you unintentionally take on. So I think it sort of splits down.

Yeah, sometimes I'm just like, yeah, don't don't look at them. Don't don't don't open your mouth. Don't raise your hand.

Don't do anything. I hope they don't notice me because I've got too much on my plate and I don't want to do it. And that's exactly in committee.

And I reckon on committee, there's a few of us that do that when we go, well, who wants to do this? And we all put our heads down. And it's the quietest we'll ever get committee because no one wants to do it because we don't have the time.

[James] (1:32:56 - 1:33:05)

I feel like the talk was more just sorry, I was just going to say to thank unintentional leaders as it was the way it was.

[Luci] (1:33:05 - 1:33:14)

It was just it was a beautiful it was a beautiful shout out to all the unintentional leaders who have fell into roles that they never thought they were going to do or and finding out that they're actually very powerful.

[James] (1:33:15 - 1:33:21)

I think a lot of people might have realized they were unintentional leaders while watching that talk. That's me.

[Luci] (1:33:21 - 1:33:23)

I think a lot of people in the room.

[James] (1:33:23 - 1:33:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stevan] (1:33:24 - 1:33:27)

Especially in a like a volunteer organization.

[James] (1:33:27 - 1:34:16)

I think also I know with the Blazers, I personally have felt a lot of like imposter syndrome or whatever. Like I took on my safety facilitator role at KiwiBurn. I'm no safety expert.

Like the safety experts in Blaze, you know, safety shares and dangerous day. They're like, that's what they do for their job, you know, they're actual safety experts. And I think people I think this is maybe something that came out in the Ops talk as well is how to get more volunteers.

And as I think people don't realize how low the barrier for entry is, you know, to be in a not that kind of sounds bad. But it's like you don't actually need to have that many skills to be involved. You just need to want to do it kind of thing, which is, I think, unintentional leaders, you know, someone who just wants they want to do something.

They want to give a bit more of their time. And then next thing they know, they're running a team of, you know, seven team leads.

[Dani] (1:34:18 - 1:34:24)

I reckon imposter syndrome is a true indication of a good leader as well. I think.

[James] (1:34:24 - 1:34:25)

Oh, thanks. You're welcome.

[Dani] (1:34:25 - 1:35:08)

Yeah. Well, the whole thing is that you don't you don't have the ego behind it. And when the ego and overconfidence comes into it, you just leave from a different place.

And I think, yeah, most of us, even if you're like dangerous day, for example, with the safety, he does it as a job. But I know that he was still so unsure half the time of what he was doing, even though he did have the power and the confidence in his outside world. I think most of us do have that imposter syndrome or worry that we're not doing it right.

And that's great because, again, it's about community and community puts their hands up and says, yeah, I'll help. And like you do before you know it, you're actually leading the way rather than just helping.

[Luci] (1:35:09 - 1:35:24)

Absolutely. I think you just like with leadership, even if you are really knowledgeable and confident, it's just making sure that you're leading from the heart space in these communities, you know. Yeah.

And always coming back to that and why you're doing it and just you want to help, you know.

[Dani] (1:35:25 - 1:35:26)

But it was the best presentation.

[James] (1:35:27 - 1:35:32)

Yeah. And I can't wait for the next presentation and every presentation for the next years to come.

[Stevan] (1:35:34 - 1:35:42)

What about the one from Lumos where he talks about how do we burn without actually burning anything? So James, you said you had an interesting story to tell.

[James] (1:35:42 - 1:39:39)

Yeah. Well, I don't know. I feel like, I mean, Lumos talked a lot about ignition.

I've been to a burn where we didn't burn anything. And I would argue that ignition isn't so much of a burn, which I don't know if people know ignition is like a burn adjacent event that popped up in New Zealand, maybe 2018, 2019. 2019.

I think they had one before COVID and the first year they burnt. And then after that, because of, you know, the council regulations and stuff and the time of year was they couldn't actually have a burn. And so instead of that, you know, they had this big thing is what can we do instead of a burn?

And that's what Lumos talked about is, you know, alternatives to having this, you know, big Saturday night burn event where everyone, you know, gathers around the fire and does whatever. And what ignition does, what ignition did on that year was everyone that bought it, the theme was pest control, right? And so everyone who bought a ticket, you were either a rat, a rabbit or a chicken.

And so when you bought your ticket, you got to sign one of those rolls when you got an email that had, you know, you're a chicken and this is your secret handshake. And they also had like an attachment of like a PDF where if you print it out on A4 paper and you fold it along the lines that would make a little chicken face so you could print out that you could get the piece of paper printed out, fold it and it would make a chicken mask, you know, out of paper. And so everyone was like, so some people had that and they had the little handshake thing.

And then when you turn up, you had a different colored armband, like wristband, sorry, when you go in. And it was really cool, you know, it got people involved throughout the whole event. It was a really good like icebreaker, like whenever you met anyone, you know, you're like, and instead of, the first thing you ask is like, chicken, rabbit or rat, you know?

And if you're a chicken, well, I was a chicken, obviously you're the best. Chickens are the best. They fucking won because they're the best and I was a chicken.

So like, you know, you meet someone, they'll be like, you're a chicken? They're like, yeah. And you're like, fucking chicken, like a big little handshake and stuff.

It's like the best icebreaker. And so instead of a burn, like throughout the whole event, over the few days, they had like different competitions and stuff. So I was a part of the games team where we're coming up with games each day.

Instead of an effigy, they had a thing called the nest. So it was like a, like a semicircle, kind of like a bleachers of like seats with like an open area in the middle. So anyone could go there and do like people doing acoustic performances there or like impromptu events and stuff were held there.

And also a lot of like the games that people were playing, the games would be like naked twister or like, like foam, like fighting, or there was a bunch of games that we played. And if you won the games or participated, you could win like the same kind of chicken mask or whatever, but made out of plastic, you know, so a bit more solid and a bit more representative. And then there were like more games where you could get like, they made a few like LED light up masks to give to people and stuff.

And it was just so throughout the event, you know, you're part of a team or something, a culture thing. And then instead of the actual burn on the Saturday, there was a giant procession and it was a big dance. And so everyone was like getting their masks on.

And so the people who had like got a mask throughout the week, they were like proud to wear their masks that they had worn with these, they had these giant, like two meter tall masks with these professional dancers wearing them. And they had like a crowd of people following them around and do a procession through the whole event leading up to the nest. And by the time they get there, everyone's at the nest hooping and hollering and dancing like a burn.

But instead of a fire in the middle, it was a bunch of people dancing and, you know, being a part of this like bigger, like, I don't know, this bigger like thing, like something bigger than just themselves. Like what I think the burn does, you know, it kind of strips away your individuality and you become this, a part of this massive naked people running around the fire. Except this time you're a part of the fucking chickens bucking it up and dunking on the rats.

You know, it was another way of doing it. It was really, it was really cool.

[Stevan] (1:39:39 - 1:39:45)

Yeah, to replace that off fire element, the ritual, the burn, it's quite difficult, isn't it?

[James] (1:39:45 - 1:39:46)

Very, very.

[Stevan] (1:39:47 - 1:39:56)

Challenging. I mean, some of the things that there was some of the ideas thrown around was tree planting, water ceremony, even like a potluck, bringing people together. Anything that brings people together.

[James] (1:39:56 - 1:40:45)

I just think it's really hard to capture that same energy as that effigy burn, you know, was the anticipation and you're building up and you get there and you find like a few people around you like, oh, hey, hey, hey. And you're like, oh, and you get excited. And it's such a hard thing to to replicate, you know, I think when you can't have a burn.

And that's why I just speak about Ignition so highly as I found that whole dance procession at like ticked all those boxes, you know, like you're like, oh, you've got to get there. It's happening. And you see people walking towards there and they're all dressed up in this special way.

And, you know, you find your people and you're doing your thing. And it was this came up to a big climactic thing. It was really, really awesome.

You know, it's like as a community that builds our events around this one central thing, it's hard to imagine it without it, you know, without the burn. You know, that's.

[Paul] (1:40:45 - 1:40:54)

Yeah, I think it would be hard for us to do it because we're so much bigger. If we couldn't burn for some reason, I don't know if we could organize something different.

[Luci] (1:40:54 - 1:40:54)

Chickens.

[Paul] (1:40:54 - 1:40:55)

Like the chicken thing.

[James] (1:40:55 - 1:40:59)

Well, that's the thing. Ignition, this was all planned pre-event.

[Paul] (1:41:00 - 1:41:01)

Yeah, yeah.

[James] (1:41:01 - 1:41:04)

But there was a whole department, you know, that was a part of it.

[Paul] (1:41:04 - 1:41:05)

So they had a whole team.

[James] (1:41:06 - 1:41:10)

Yeah, I was a part of the games department. You know, it's a lot of effort.

[Paul] (1:41:10 - 1:41:16)

You know, I guess we could do something like that. But you can't just replace the effigy team with a different team.

[Dani] (1:41:17 - 1:41:18)

But it's got to be pre-planned for.

[James] (1:41:19 - 1:41:23)

So that's what the talk is about. It's like, what are the options? Yeah, it's hard.

[Luci] (1:41:23 - 1:41:35)

I liked that they, when they spoke about people, different people, what they did for their temple, not being able to burn a temple, you know, and they had communal paintings or they had.

[James] (1:41:35 - 1:41:37)

Yeah, the totems and stuff.

[Luci] (1:41:37 - 1:41:58)

The totems. Yeah, that was cool. They were all a part of creating and they were there every year.

And, you know, I thought that was an amazing way to create a temple space that's communally active together and still having that ceremony space and a space that you go and be like, yeah, cool, this is our, you know, a space for ritual and connection and still having that. I thought that was really cool.

[James] (1:41:58 - 1:42:19)

Yeah, I think especially from a temple's perspective, like having the temple there the next year would be really reflective, you know, and you could look back on where you were. You know, you go and I would love to go and see temples that I've been to previously and be like, oh man, and it'll make you be like, it'll reflect on where you were then. And then, you know, by proxy where you are now, you know, it's.

[Dani] (1:42:20 - 1:42:25)

The deterioration would be nice too to see from the weather. But one thing I found.

[James] (1:42:25 - 1:42:26)

The doors, they had.

[Dani] (1:42:26 - 1:43:48)

In the four years that I've been there, there's only been one burn put off and that was due to high winds. So for us at Blaze, it's always going to be weather on the day type of scenario or pick up. But what I bought away from Bonsar is exactly what Lucy said.

I'm coming from a perspective of Blazing Swan and seeing pictures of Burning Man. So these really big, massive burns that you need to be way away from because the heat and everything like that, whereas the smaller burns have these beautiful little temples or effigies that are made by people there and then on a whim or whether they're designed or not. But the burn doesn't have to be big.

And I think as a Blazer who hasn't experienced other burns or gone to Bonsar and had this interaction, you can get lost in the bigness of it. Whereas the smallness sometimes is just as good. So if we can't have a big burn for whatever reason, there's no reason why we can't pivot within a couple of days or 24 hours or that day and construct something much smaller and still as meaningful as well, I suppose, as an option.

But it was just really nice to see that not all burns have to be big and have to cost a lot of money and take weeks to build. They can be equally as beautiful and as meaningful smaller as well.

[James] (1:43:48 - 1:43:53)

I think a lot of people as well don't realise how close to not burning a lot of events come.

[Dani] (1:43:54 - 1:43:54)

Yes.

[James] (1:43:54 - 1:45:47)

Especially if you're not part of that. You know, those are my team's health and safety fires, stuff like that. It's honestly like knife edge every time.

I mean, this year for Blaze, it was insurance was a big thing up in the air. Like a lot of the time, it's only being decided on the day that it's happening. And this is another thing that got brought up is it's actually a lot of pressure on the people who are making the decision to burn it when there's no alternative.

That's why I think having these alternatives is good because there's no alternative to it. If they're saying, hey, it's unsafe to burn and then but there's no alternative. It's like, well, we have to, if we burn, if we don't, there's nothing.

You know, and so I think that we're, I mean, obviously the people making the calls, the professionals, you know, was that the fire and emergency services Australia or the fire and emergency in New Zealand team. But they're professionals and they make the call. But I do believe that there's a lot of pressure on them.

And yeah, maybe there's been times when there's been burns, not that I know of, but I imagine there's been burns, which were probably not the safest and maybe shouldn't have been burned, but were done because that's what everyone was there for. And I think having this alternative or an option for alternative is really important. Like maybe I'm just speaking from a safety perspective, but it's the biggest, most dangerous part of the whole event.

You know, it's it's it's, you know, you see overseas like in Burning Man where there's breaches. It's the time where people die and people are the most out of pocket. And and it's, you know, it's in the most whipped into a frenzy.

It's the time where people were the most not themselves. And we have the biggest hazard on. It's like taking the pressure off these people who are making the decision that we will burn that is made sometimes a couple hours before, but usually on the day, you know, 10 hours, eight hours beforehand, taking more pressure off them to have an alternative, I think is really, really important.

And I don't think it has to be this big, massive thing, but just an option so they don't feel like it's all on them.

[Luci] (1:45:47 - 1:46:05)

You know, there's a, I think the reason we love them is because it's a ritualistic moment that we share together. A ritualistic moment doesn't have to be fire. It was proven by these other guys that are doing these other moments.

And we can, you know, like I'm going to come up with a couple of cool ritual ideas that we can do in case we don't need to burn.

[James] (1:46:05 - 1:46:06)

And there's another round of jousting.

[Luci] (1:46:07 - 1:46:30)

There's so many beautiful things that we can do in ritual that to share with people and together where we can still have, you know, that feeling.

So, yeah, it's not, I don't think it's the be all and end all that we all think. I know we feel like it is, but like, yeah, there's more things that we can do, you know, that we can create There was a great example made by Bea about Burning Seed 2023, how they couldn't burn.

[Stevan] (1:46:30 - 1:46:37)

So what happened was they had a mud party. We got all the fireys to just hose down all the hippies.

[James] (1:46:38 - 1:46:44)

Well, that's what the hippies want, right? They just want to be naked and covered in something like mud or ash or whatever.

[Luci] (1:46:44 - 1:46:47)

This is still a shared, beautiful ritual moment together, you know, so.

[James] (1:46:47 - 1:47:13)

Because that's the other thing as much as planting a tree or something is nice for a temple. I think the thing with the effigy it's a massive, like, harnessing of energy or release of energy. And so without this thing, that's why I think the dance party was really good or like the mud spray because they can get covered in mud and run around is good.

But you need some, it's such a build up that you need some kind of, you know, release at the top of it. And there's probably a lot of things we could do. You know, having an option would be good.

[Paul] (1:47:13 - 1:48:08)

It's something that Blissfest does really well. There's a little, a small festival in WA called Blissfest. It's run by Passan, who used to be Chair of Blaze.

And they have surprises throughout the event. So they'll come up with these amazing ideas. Like one year we kind of wandered off and wandered into this clearing and there's this like spaceship that they'd built that we had no idea was going to be there.

And this spaceship opens up and there's this alien DJing and we have this dance party there. So there's definitely, like, there's heaps of things like that that these guys have done. So there are, there are like definitely moments that I've had that are like, OK, this is a similar vibe to a burn in that we're all, we're all here, we're all excited to do this thing and we're all going to do this together.

Yeah, I think we could, we could try to plan something to do instead of a burn. Like just have it ready to go, just in case.

[James] (1:48:08 - 1:48:18)

Just the hard thing with a burn like Blazing Swan Size is it's like, what, you know, we're going to have a backup whole team of people to... Yeah, probably not the whole team.

[Luci] (1:48:18 - 1:48:18)

Just me and you, James.

[Paul] (1:48:18 - 1:48:18)

Yeah.

[Luci] (1:48:19 - 1:48:21)

Honestly, I feel like...

[Paul] (1:48:21 - 1:48:24)

But you could have a, you could have two or three people.

[James] (1:48:25 - 1:48:27)

Yeah, or the Sentinels or something. But yeah, yeah.

[Luci] (1:48:27 - 1:48:29)

Yeah, it's totally doable. And it's something...

[Dani] (1:48:29 - 1:48:39)

I think they've, I think Shaz said that once they'd actually rebuilt Effigy or Temple down in Frio one year when they couldn't burn. But again, I think you lose that whole...

[Paul] (1:48:39 - 1:48:40)

Was that the Kraken event?

[Dani] (1:48:41 - 1:49:12)

I don't know. It wasn't my time. But it was, yeah.

You lose that immediacy of it. And then the three and a half thousand people or how many people can't all be there. And I mean, sometimes I actually feel quite sad when you see all the work go into these beautiful art projects and they're massive.

And then they just burn it. And they burn. And I'm just like going, it's not the money.

It's like art should be there to be admired. And it would be nice to come back and see another Temple or another Effigy. And again, with the landowners, you have to, yeah.

[Luci] (1:49:12 - 1:49:17)

Art supply is the most beautiful when it's transient. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the beauty of life, right?

[Stevan] (1:49:17 - 1:49:37)

Talking about transparency, one thing I experienced at Pivot Burn was the communal art making, which is what Bea Pierce presented about. How we all kind of built the Effigy. Like everyone had little stick figures and just pile them up into the campfire.

And we burnt that. And that was great because it gave a lot of purpose for people, right?

[James] (1:49:37 - 1:50:01)

Because I think it's a good way to think about it. Like why don't things burn? And a lot of the reasons why things don't burn is because of the weather.

But that just means you can't have a 20 metre high fire. And it doesn't mean you can't have a, you know, a two or three metre high fire like you guys did it. So I think that's also a good alternative.

You know, it doesn't need to be a non-burn. It just needs to be a non-huge fucking burn kind of thing.

[Dani] (1:50:02 - 1:50:03)

A burn, a swan burn barrel.

[James] (1:50:04 - 1:50:06)

Yeah, don't get me started on burn barrels.

[Luci] (1:50:08 - 1:50:10)

Well, let's move on quickly then James.

[Dani] (1:50:11 - 1:50:14)

That wasn't a presentation. So we'll leave that to the wayside.

[Stevan] (1:50:15 - 1:50:23)

But let's talk about Snark. Felipe's great presentation. Snark and Gatekeeping. Luci, what do you know about Snark? Some of your comments?

[Luci] (1:50:24 - 1:52:15)

All right.

This was actually, sorry Shaz, this was my favourite one. I just thought his talk was so, he was so passionate and spoke from the heart really well. But the whole talk was just, it was really about, you know, the people attaching their identities to being a burner.

And like, I've done this much stuff or I've been going to this many burns. And like, I see this in our community so much, you know. I see it when, you know, someone brings up like, I just got back from Burning Man.

I was amazing and I had so much fun. And, you know, someone else in that group will be like, oh, how many times have you been? They're like, oh, it's my first.

And then they'll be like, oh, I've been seven times. And, you know, it's said with this like real, like I'm better than you energy because I've been more times. When really like if you've been to one burn, you're a burner.

It doesn't matter how many times you've been to the big burn. It doesn't matter how many times you've been to Blaze. Like what matters is that you are part of the community and there's no levels of community.

Like we all talk about, you know, people talk about B grade, this and that. But at the end of the day, we're all the one community. And once you're a part of it, you're a part of it.

And then a lot of the chat too was around Snark, which is like a big cultural thing of Burning Man and how Snark and banter are very different things. And banter is a very inclusive energy. You know, when we're bantering and making fun with each other, it's not, it's not directive.

It's, it's, it's receptive. And that doesn't trigger people's insecurities about not being enough or whatever it is. Well, Snark is very singular in its direction rather than rather than energy that can go back and forth.

And, you know, like our burn isn't, doesn't have as much, but it does have a little bit here and there. But yeah, it was a, it was a really good discussion.

[James] (1:52:15 - 1:52:16)

Intelligent deviant.

[Luci] (1:52:17 - 1:52:20)

Yeah, yeah. We can name a few names, but I'm not going to.

[Dani] (1:52:20 - 1:52:21)

Speak no evil, James.

[Luci] (1:52:23 - 1:52:41)

And so, yeah, just remembering the difference between what and banter and Snark and really anything like is my, is this playful what I'm doing right now? Is it inclusive or am I just being mean and hiding behind Snark? And, you know, yeah, it was, it was such a great chat and, um, and PowerPoint.

[Stevan] (1:52:42 - 1:52:51)

It's interesting. You brought up intelligent deviant. Um, what about a theme camp such as church of belligerents where it is about being belligerent?

[Dani] (1:52:51 - 1:54:04)

I find, I, I, 100% Snark. I don't find church of belligerents to be Snarky at all. I actually find them to be one of the most inclusive and queer orientated camps on site.

And that, I have a lot of friends in there and I find it's mainly based. They, they do it to push fun at everyone who's dancing to DNB and techno and everything. And I miss them this year because it's, it's the place I go when everything gets a bit too much.

And I go over there and listen to music that I like. And I don't like all of their music all of the time, but it's one of the first places. I feel that most of most burners are neurodiverse in some sort of way, shape or form and do suffer insecurities of not belonging or feeling like they fit in.

And I must admit that when you look at someone like intelligent deviant, I've been there when they've been Snarky but it's been that jokey banter Snark and it's really frigging funny and it's really good. And no one's getting hurt. But I've also seen it on the other side when it's just bitchy and mean and that's horrible, but church belligerence is belligerent as they are.

[Paul] (1:54:04 - 1:54:06)

They're not like that at all.

[Dani] (1:54:06 - 1:54:10)

No, this is the first place they would give you a hug because they think that you look cold, you know?

[Luci] (1:54:10 - 1:54:44)

Yeah. Belligerence are amazing. And yes, most of them, like nearly all of them are my friends and I love them.

However, yeah, there have been a few times where I felt personally attacked or unwelcomed because of leaning into, like, honestly, I thought they got trapped in their own bit times, you know, and that made them then be removed at times from the other community. And even myself, like, I went over there one time and being told to get fucked and fuck off. And I was like, oh man, it made me feel terrible once.

But like, these are my best friends who I absolutely adore, you know?

[Dani] (1:54:44 - 1:54:46)

So I just laugh if someone tells me to fuck off.

[Paul] (1:54:47 - 1:55:07)

I mean, like church belligerence is my favourite camp. Like, I don't like saying, I'm not a member of any theme camp. I'm technically a member of their org now.

But they're very loving thing. And the whole fuck off thing, it is just a bit. I know it does, like, obviously not everyone gets the bit.

[James] (1:55:07 - 1:55:12)

So you go into the church and, no, but it's not.

[Paul] (1:55:12 - 1:55:35)

Because I get what you're saying. It's just, it's more a misunderstanding that does happen where people go in and they get told to fuck off. But like, it's so ridiculous that I think most people get it.

And it's like, okay, that's, they see the name and they hear the fuck off. And they're like, okay, this is the bit. And then like, the idea is you're supposed to tell them to fuck off right back.

And then they welcome you in. And they're just really lovely people.

[James] (1:55:36 - 1:56:02)

Yeah, see, Kiwiburn's got the same thing. I mean, that's like Skullfuck. Like, Skullfuck, we had events where we, you know, we'd run the bar, but then we'd tell people they had to pay.

Like, we'd say, it's a cash bar. And they'd come and they'd be like, can we get a drink? They're like, yeah, 10 bucks.

And, you know, people would be like, oh, what? But only if they're like, I'm not fucking paying you. You know, it's like a similar thing. It's, you know, it's kind of a joke for everyone.

[Luci] (1:56:03 - 1:56:14)

But yeah, in jokes for everyone is still playful and fun. You know, having a whole camp bit is still playful and fun because they're running a bit, you know, and the bit is, you know, it is quite well known.

[James] (1:56:15 - 1:56:17)

But it's hard to push the line though, right?

[Luci] (1:56:17 - 1:56:29)

Yeah, absolutely. And everyone's going to cross it here and there. But like the talk was just, you know, I guess like crossing into like the elitism that happens at Burns.

Where people really attach their identity to this burner.

[James] (1:56:29 - 1:56:31)

And you don't know belligerence.

[Luci] (1:56:32 - 1:56:38)

Yeah.

And that's just, that is, it's like, that's ego danger territory that we all need to check ourselves with at times, you know.

[Dani] (1:56:39 - 1:57:08)

I feel funny actually saying I'm on committee or I'm the treasurer when people ask me what I do. Because I don't want to come across as being better. And it's a weird place to find yourself in is how do you describe yourself without sort of them thinking you're better than what you are or alienating someone because of a position that you hold.

So I just find across the board, if you're consistently nice to everybody and treat everybody fairly, you're never going to run into it.

[Paul] (1:57:10 - 1:57:15)

It's important to be proud of what you're doing though.

[Dani] (1:57:15 - 1:57:24)

Yeah, I am. But again, some people who are new and don't know. And yeah, again, I don't, I'm also not the font of all knowledge as well, you know.

[Luci] (1:57:27 - 1:57:57)

I understand what you're saying, Danielle, because like, you know, when I was leading Koasis, people would introduce me like, oh, this is Luci, the leader of Koasis. And I was just like, you don't have to. I'm so much more than that.

I'm not just this thing that I'm doing, you know. And it would then, but then instantly that person would start treating me differently, which I hated. Yeah, exactly.

You know, there is a weird balance between like, I'm really proud of this thing I'm doing, but I can just be proud of it for me. And, you know, because I still want to have normal interactions with people out in the player. But as soon as that happened, it changed the energy of my interaction with that person.

[Dani] (1:57:57 - 1:57:57)

Yeah.

[James] (1:57:57 - 1:58:04)

I'll be interested in Paul's experience. You know, being chair might be like something that probably changes people the most, you know, like.

[Luci] (1:58:04 - 1:58:11)

A hundred percent, a hundred percent it will. It definitely will people, you know, yes. How could it not?

[Dani] (1:58:11 - 1:58:16)

But Paul doesn't have ego either. So you can't, it's harder to see, I think.

[Paul] (1:58:16 - 1:58:16)

I do have an ego.

[Dani] (1:58:16 - 1:58:20)

Yeah, it's not as, it's not as prominent as others.

[Luci] (1:58:21 - 1:58:24)

You've got a very healthy, that's why we're excited.

[Stevan] (1:58:25 - 1:58:27)

And you're not seen, you're not, you're not seen as a gatekeeper as well.

[Paul] (1:58:27 - 1:58:28)

No, that's good.

[Dani] (1:58:32 - 1:58:39)

Like I suppose I do ranges as well. Paul has his form. So it sort of levels us out a little bit as well.

[Paul] (1:58:39 - 1:58:58)

I mean, one thing that I've, I think I do differently, this is completely off topic, I guess, but like I almost never work at the event. Like I don't do any, I don't do any ranger shifts or anything. Like I did one event manager shift this year, the 3IC kind of thing.

[James] (1:58:58 - 1:58:59)

3IC.

[Paul] (1:58:59 - 1:59:21)

But yeah, in general, like I, yeah, exactly. But I, for me, like, and I wouldn't encourage this for everyone because obviously some people have to work during the event and do these things. But for me, it's like, I want to, I want that time for myself and just to enjoy it and be like a fan.

So I can go there and be like, wow, look at all this. Yeah, this is so amazing.

[James] (1:59:21 - 1:59:27)

It's so much better because like, I don't know, why are you doing everything and then you don't burn? Yeah.

[Paul] (1:59:28 - 1:59:35)

So I need, I need to like keep enjoying the event so that I can remember why I'm doing it.

[James] (1:59:35 - 1:59:46)

Well, that might be another thing that you're, that, you know, going back to the talk about how it's like a badge of honour to do all this effort. I definitely know people who've like talked about burning out as like a badge of honour. I mean, it's another thing.

[Paul] (1:59:47 - 2:00:39)

Yeah, it's not something to be proud of at all. But setting boundaries is something to be proud of. Like if you can say like, I'm not doing that because not even I don't have capacity, but just like, I don't want to do that.

That's, that's something to be proud of. Yeah, that's like important because it shows other people that you can say no to things and like, like all of this, all volunteering is optional, right? I keep trying to remind people that it's like everything you're doing, you don't have to do any of it.

I could quit today and like, I'm completely MRS to do that. Like any of us could quit at any time. And it's, it's kind of bizarre that it doesn't happen because we all love it so much and we're actually enjoying it.

So yeah, when people burn out, it's like, why didn't you just stop doing it almost? You can just stop or do half as much as what you're doing and we'll be okay.

[James] (2:00:39 - 2:00:42)

Like, or do nothing, completely quit your thing.

[Paul] (2:00:45 - 2:01:16)

But also like, if you, but also we want people to do more things. But we want more people to come in and start doing things as well. And we want to make room for people to do things.

So if one person is doing all the jobs, like it's actually better for the event if they stop and just do the one thing and let other people do this thing, even if it's not going to be as good, like it gives that person experience. And it's just, it's just way better for the org.

[Dani] (2:01:17 - 2:01:57)

I think Paul said, and coming back onto the topic of snark and like hearing from all of us in all of our conversations, we've got a fairly healthy relationship with the community and how we treat people the way we want to be treated. And I think setting boundaries with regards to snark is to actually call it out when we see it as well. And, and not be scared of repercussions because I think in the name of snark, unless people don't seriously mean to do it, there could be some repercussions in some way, shape or form, but not to be scared of them because the most of the community doesn't like it and will back you anyway and see it for what it is.

So, yeah.

[James] (2:01:57 - 2:02:01)

That's hard though, because if someone's like, well, I've been to 10 burns. You'd be like, so what?

[Dani] (2:02:01 - 2:02:07)

Yeah. I mean, I don't take it personally either unless someone really gets in my face.

[Luci] (2:02:08 - 2:03:10)

In the talk, it was also the psychology of snark and the definition that was given of snark was a blend of sarcasm and cynicism, often used to express superiority or passive aggression. And yeah, that's a good definition. You know, and then defining gatekeeping was controlling access to knowledge or belonging by making others feel unworthy or uninformed.

And it just spoke about how these things actually affect people's brains and the social reaction triggers that you get from receiving these things is actually the same brain areas and activities that is related to physical pain. So like, you know, it's actually very, like it can actually really, you know. Yeah.

So it's just important to remember these things. And like you said, you know, calling it out and helping grow that culture and community that we don't have to, we shouldn't be like that. Yeah.

Ensuring that we're actually, you know, being inclusive with banter and not superior with our snark or gatekeeping, you know, which is easy traps to fall in when you've been doing something for a long time though.

[Stevan] (2:03:10 - 2:03:36)

Yeah. It's amazing how the culture that we've adapted or adopted, you know, from Burning Man, the whole cacophony society, I guess this is where, you know, the whole pranking and the whole, you know, bantering going on, jokingly, cacophony and Burning Man is all part of that. It's all about having fun, is about, you know, lighthearted shenanigans, you know, stuff like that.

But with snark and gatekeeping, it is a slippery slope, don't you think? Like just a little nudge.

[James] (2:03:36 - 2:03:40)

I think the important thing is to, that the other side is in on it.

[Dani] (2:03:40 - 2:03:40)

Yeah.

[James] (2:03:41 - 2:04:09)

Like it's not snark if it's just you, you know, kind of insulting someone. If you insult them and then they know you and they insult you back. But I think I also talked about this at the day.

It also kind of, you can, you know, maybe someone who's all good with the banter on one day, the next day they're actually having a really bad time and you hit them up with the same kind of energy in it. And it affects them, you know, it's not just the person. You've got to like read the situation and kind of.

[Luci] (2:04:09 - 2:04:20)

And checking in afterwards, you know, checking in afterwards, like, hey, like, I feel like that didn't land as it should have. I'm sorry, are you okay? You know, I have to care for our mishit snark.

[Stevan] (2:04:20 - 2:04:24)

Is there such a thing as healthy snark?

[Luci] (2:04:24 - 2:04:26)

No, I don't think so.

[Dani] (2:04:26 - 2:04:30)

Healthy snark would be banter and snark is it?

[Paul] (2:04:30 - 2:04:31)

Yeah, probably.

[Luci] (2:04:31 - 2:04:32)

Yeah, that was kind of.

[Stevan] (2:04:32 - 2:04:36)

There is a side, I guess, an artistic kind of side to snark as well, right?

[Paul] (2:04:36 - 2:04:39)

It's like there's definitely some funny stuff. Yeah.

[Stevan] (2:04:40 - 2:04:40)

Yeah.

[James] (2:04:40 - 2:04:46)

I don't know if I'd call it artistic or just like witty.

I guess if you call like comedy, but like.

[Paul] (2:04:47 - 2:04:47)

Sure.

[Dani] (2:04:47 - 2:05:01)

I mean, if you look at all the memes against Trump, that's, that's snark, but we're all in on the freaking joke, but he doesn't like it. And that's healthy snark for the actual world.

I think when everyone gets up.

[James] (2:05:01 - 2:05:07)

It's healthy for our political stance. It's still, I think, a one-sided thing.

[Dani] (2:05:07 - 2:05:07)

It is.

[James] (2:05:07 - 2:05:09)

The other side isn't in on it, kind of.

[Dani] (2:05:09 - 2:05:10)

No.

[Stevan] (2:05:10 - 2:05:17)

Yeah, the psychology where the other party has to decode the snark takes more energy. Yes.

I thought that was fascinating.

[Luci] (2:05:17 - 2:05:18)

That was fascinating.

[Paul] (2:05:18 - 2:05:19)

Yeah, that's interesting.

[Luci] (2:05:19 - 2:05:19)

Yeah.

[Dani] (2:05:19 - 2:05:27)

And it's sad when you have to actually think about your own actions as well, or think of times where you might have actually been in the wrong.

[Luci] (2:05:29 - 2:05:30)

It's so healthy to do though.

[Dani] (2:05:30 - 2:05:45)

It is healthy, but it is. It's quite sad when you actually, it is, it's hard work to do the shadow work as well about yourself. So it is.

I think we've got a really nice community where people do support you when you do make mistakes as well.

[Luci] (2:05:46 - 2:05:48)

That's where the growth is, eh? It's a nice start.

[Dani] (2:05:48 - 2:05:49)

Very much so.

[Paul] (2:05:49 - 2:05:52)

We've definitely failed at that.

[James] (2:05:52 - 2:05:59)

The jokes are, if you make them explain the joke, that's when you can really be like, Yeah, true.

[Dani] (2:06:00 - 2:06:03)

I don't tell jokes specifically for this reason.

[Stevan] (2:06:04 - 2:06:35)

One example I can give is when PY made a little speech last year at the Rangers, how he kind of preemptively nipped the situation in the bud, I guess, by saying, you know, we shouldn't be carrying the rivalry that happens at, say, Burning Man, DPW with the Rangers or with other departments. I mean, it's seen as banter back there, but, you know, if we carried it over, some things could get really personal, could get really snarky, and the whole thing could get into a slippery slope where, you know, it's a clusterfuck.

[Dani] (2:06:35 - 2:07:22)

Us and them doesn't work in this community. And I found that to be in, when I first came to Blaze, I found it quite prolific in some particular areas, which I won't go into. And that's just from an outsider looking in, not knowing anybody on the board.

So I think that us and them has significantly reduced, whether that's just because I'm now included in the groups, or I can see them, or I know them more, and maybe, and people do react differently around different people, I think, too, and are less likely to say things if they know you're going to call them out on it as well. But I'm happy to say that in these particular instances, the us and them is severely dropped, and we don't have it as much. So it's a lot more community and group orientated than segregated.

[James] (2:07:22 - 2:08:54)

Can I just speak on, like, almost a devil's advocate? I think that sometimes snark, like, helps. You know, it's this whole thing of, like, me being like, fuck the committee.

You know, it's, you know, it's kind of like snark, but it actually is a way that I can get points across that I'm frustrated in to the committee, but not in such a way that actually comes off as aggressive. You know, it's in, like, this joking way, in this overarching joke, but it's these things actually do matter to me, and they are important. And, like, the other thing I might touch on is, like, safety and DPW.

You know, like, it can always be like, oh, you know, it's a battle between, like, what we legally have to do and what DPW actually isn't doing. And if we can make a snarky joke about it, being like, fucking DPW never wears their high-vis, it kind of brings it into the mind as opposed to actually having to go to everyone individually every day and say, hey, can you please wear your high-vis when they just don't? You know, it's almost like a, it's a nicer way of approaching these, maybe really confrontational situations, especially in our community, which is, you know, not really a confrontational community.

You know, it's, at least in my experience, like a lot of the things I have to deal with are rules, legal rules that we have to abide to, that I have to communicate to people. And sometimes snark is the easiest way because it kind of sounds like being a little jokey, but you actually fucking have to do this and it's not like a question, you just have to do it. But snark is an easier way to approach it than just to be like the dictator saying, hey, do this now.

[Dani] (2:08:54 - 2:09:04)

It becomes a group snark though, not an individual. So I think that actually breaks it down a lot. If it's group orientated, it makes it less insulting.

Yeah.

[Luci] (2:09:05 - 2:09:05)

It's more of a bit.

[Dani] (2:09:06 - 2:09:06)

Yeah.

[Luci] (2:09:06 - 2:09:08)

Not all DPW, but always.

[Paul] (2:09:08 - 2:09:53)

It comes down to consent, right? Like being chair now, like I'll consent to receiving some snark, like I'm expecting to get a third bit of criticism, like every chair does, and that's fine. And then like some chairs I've seen, they get to a point where like, okay, this is, it's gone too far.

And other times it's like, they're just getting the correct, reasonable amount of criticism. So yeah, I think like snark, I mean, you could say like, oh no, snark is always bad because if it was good, it would be banter. But I don't think that's quite accurate.

I think you can have. It's a good way of getting like a negative point across. Like if you're, if there's an agreement, some kind of agreement that you can be snarky to this person, then that's fine.

[Dani] (2:09:54 - 2:10:25)

I find sometimes it opens a channel of communication as well. Yeah. And I'll just use James with his fighting the committee thing.

Well, that tells me that James can have a joke and he's easier to approach. I have an issue with something because he's openly come in and made this joke with us about it. And it doesn't mean that I take what he says as a joke.

I take everything quite seriously. But sometimes it does make it easier to approach someone when you know that they can have a bit of a joke and all of that sort of thing.

[James] (2:10:25 - 2:10:39)

Well, sometimes it's a conduit. These are some of the things that people have brought up to me and they feel a bit hard to bring up to the committee or something. And so I'm like, yeah, fucking committee, they need to do this.

It's in a joking way, but it brings attention to the issue.

[Luci] (2:10:39 - 2:10:41)

Is it even really snark though, you know?

[Stevan] (2:10:41 - 2:10:45)

One's a form of communication, but the other one's a form of positioning.

[Luci] (2:10:45 - 2:10:54)

Yeah, exactly. And the other part of the big part of the chat though, that I think Blaze has more of a problem with compared to snark would be the gatekeeping. You know?

[Paul] (2:10:54 - 2:10:55)

Yeah, definitely.

[Luci] (2:10:56 - 2:11:47)

And for example, you know, like ways that you can be gatekeeping is like when you're asked a question and you respond with like, that's obvious. Or why are you even asking me that? Or like, just do your research and look it up.

Like that's all gatekeeping, you know, like instead of using things like great question or like, yeah, let's figure that out together. Or here's a great resource that might help you. You know, like that's like, I think that's like for us, we have a far bigger issue with gatekeeping compared to snark.

Like our snark levels are pretty fucking good as a whole, you know? But gatekeeping, yeah, it can be really hard and easily do because we're like, no, you can just look it up and we just get a little bit shitty about it and answer with, you know, I've done it with people, members of my camp. I'm like, man, just fucking look it up.

Read the Slack channel. And really, there's easier, better ways to communicate those moments, you know, that aren't gatekeeping and putting myself as a higher than them, you know?

[Stevan] (2:11:47 - 2:12:05)

Yeah, I think this brings us back to the presentation. It relates to the topic of what Deidre Mansell was talking about with cycle, social safety in leadership and volunteer orgs. So you got the environment and atmosphere that everyone feels safe to be creative, to be responsive and, you know, give ideas and contribute.

[Luci] (2:12:06 - 2:12:10)

Exactly, and then you're going to get the most out of them if they feel safe in those environments to do that, you know?

[Stevan] (2:12:10 - 2:12:17)

Yeah, which is interesting because in Australia, this is the direction we're heading. It's not looking at just physical safety, but social.

[James] (2:12:18 - 2:14:26)

To speak on like our legal obligations, like we can be taken to court for not protecting someone in a like a psychosocial way, you know, it's the same as making sure people wear high visas, making sure that our team leads aren't aggressive and they're helping people, you know, with their mental stress or struggles like that. Like it's another one of these things that we actually need to be doing to be legally holding our events and, you know, the governing bodies that we operate our events in, you know, this is our legal requirement, you know? I found this talk really interesting and awesome, but I think it's something that happens a lot naturally, maybe in some teams more than other teams, like just because of the way that the teams are.

But yeah, I think it's really important. It's like making sure and it's something I've always done because I found it. I got treated this way when I first joined.

I found a lot of support and my leadership was very helpful to me. Like Andy, I've talked about before. He was really helpful to me as the chair when I joined and things like that.

And everyone around me was really supportive and I found that it helped me to deal with the struggles that I had when I had burnout and things like that. And it's something I've always taken with me and the forefront of what I always am thinking about when I'm talking to my team leads and stuff like that and communicating to them about, you know, how they should approach volunteers and stuff. You know, it's just, this is a volunteer role.

We're all here to make something nice. Like it's, you know, we want to be in a safe place so that people can feel that they can express themselves and they can feel supportive. I mean, it's in the structure of our orgs.

We have wellbeing teams and stuff like that. But it shouldn't just be confined to those wellbeing teams. It just needs to be in everything.

It's like accessibility as well. I think it ties in a lot. You know, some people have these like mental barriers, like neurodivergent things that they deal with in terms of anxiety and stuff.

And it's almost like, you know, the same way as providing a wheelchair ramp is you provide this mental wheelchair ramp to allow people to contribute and operate on an equal playing field. It was a really good talk.

[Luci] (2:14:27 - 2:14:53)

That's why it was my favorite talk. Just discussing those things because it's so attached to our culture, you know, and it's like snark and gatekeeping. They're like, they're small moments, but small moments repeated over and over again actually create culture, you know, and so like, you know, just it's not that we have a massive issue or we do these things really badly, but just like having those discussions and helping train our leaders and giving them the support is then a huge flow on effect as well.

[Dani] (2:14:53 - 2:16:20)

Yeah, I think that we also need to be aware when we potentially are having a bad day, like we could always be treating people nicely all the time, but we have a bad day or a bad time and someone catches it at the worst moment to actually stop and pause and think before we react rather than just react out of frustration that can off put. So I think self-awareness again is really big in this area as a leader because again, we're all volunteers. We have to look after ourselves.

We put pressure on ourselves. People unintentionally put pressure on us because they need the answers or they need the leadership and we need to be aware of how we're feeling or how we could potentially react to someone in a certain environment that isn't necessarily psychosocial safe, safe, safe for them as well. And it's something that I've seen happen where, yeah, someone's having a bad day and they're just getting harassed and harassed and harassed and they snapped.

And you know, the minute that they've done it, they totally regret it and they apologize. But sometimes the damage has been done, but it's also you can only say sorry once you got to step back and then revisit it later when you're both in a better head space. But yeah, everyone understanding that it's not how people normally are as well.

It's just a moment in time where things have just collapsed and someone's had to vent in some way, shape or form and it's come out the wrong way.

[James] (2:16:20 - 2:17:52)

So I think going with that, like what Luci says as well, it's like if we're building this culture and people know that it's a safe space, then, you know, people are going to have a bad time and then they know that, you know, generally it's fine right now is a bad time. I think like Deirdre even touched on it on a talk and it was having a hard exterior, but a soft interior. You know, sometimes, you know, it's just letting people know, you know, that you are there to talk, that even if these hard times happen or you have to tell them, hey, this is wrong or this is a mistake that's been made.

Like it's like having them know that they can still come to you with a problem because yeah, it's the thing with a lot of my teams is there are stuff that just has to be done a certain way, you know, and if they're not done these ways, they're kind of like it can be a big problem. But it's just creating, like Luci said, the culture, the culture around knowing that it's going to be okay to bring this up or to talk about it or to talk about the problem or the struggle or whatever. And then I think that can kind of smooth over these times when, you know, we are inevitably burnt out or people are having a bad day because they've been on site for fucking two weeks and there's not enough fucking volunteers or whatever problem has gone wrong and that might be a bad time.

But then if the volunteers know or, you know, the team leads underneath, you know that they can come to you once it's blown over or whatever. And I think that's really important, like knowing that there's the softness behind the hard exterior if that hard exterior is exposed for the time, you know.

[Dani] (2:17:52 - 2:18:13)

I suppose if we do have a culture that is safe in this way, that then for the volunteer per se could then check in with the lead to make sure that they are okay, which is something I suppose as leads, we're always checking in with our team or the people around us that it would be a typical sized thing, which would be great.

[Luci] (2:18:16 - 2:19:08)

It takes vulnerability from the lead to actually say when they're not okay, you know, like in Corosis when I was starting to get close to burnout my first year on the third day, I just stepped up in front of my crew at breakfast and said, hey guys, like actually getting close to burnout, I'm emotionally limited, here's the things I need from you, here's how you can help. And then all of a sudden I had all of these 50 people taking care of me and stepping into those places. So it's actually like really important for our leads to actually say and that moment of vulnerability allows other people to then be vulnerable as well.

And I think we maybe should be also, you know, like making sure we're teaching all of our leads about nervous system regulation. So that way when they know when these moments are happening, they're like, cool, I just need to stop, I need to take these four breaths and now I can move back to it or I need to walk away and I've got these little tools in my belt that I can use to regulate my nervous system again and then I can communicate properly, you know.

[Stevan] (2:19:08 - 2:19:18)

Okay, cool. Okay, I just want to circle back on the question of what do you guys reckon the importance of knowledge exchange amongst communities and what the purpose of Bonza was?

[James] (2:19:18 - 2:20:02)

Well, that is what I got out of Bonza the most. Like just from the meeting, everyone that like what we talked about for the shared trauma, you could say like these, you know, sharing of knowledge from the talk about the breach at Aurora and like transparency at KiwiBurn and like everything, all of these talks all just came down to stuff like, do we have to wait until this one time a year for us to share all this knowledge? It kind of seemed like, what are we doing?

We're like wasting our time not sharing this all the time. And you know, as much as we are busy and it's a volunteer role, I'm really passionate about making this happen more often. And I know this has never been mentioned at a Bonza before, but we should do this more often.

[Dani] (2:20:04 - 2:21:47)

Even if it's on conference calls and stuff, but I suppose I've been in a blaze bubble, I suppose over in WA where Perth is the most isolated city in the world. I haven't been around the burn community very long. I haven't experienced other burns like many other people have.

So it was really quite eye-opening and wonderful for me to get out of the bubble and see it from another perspective or more perspectives because a lot of people have been to blaze. So they have that experience of their burns and our burns and that sort of thing. So definitely the sharing of knowledge is so important because even with Undiscovered, we're trying to build something here, but someone else has already built something.

Why keep reinventing the wheel? And we should be more open to asking and whether it becomes an embers project or something like that, we should be opening these channels so much more. So we're just not wasting our own time when someone's already done it or dealt with it.

Yeah, exactly. So it's not going to be across the board, but it's certainly going to save a lot of time and energy and actually form those interstate and international relationships a lot more from what I understand. There's some Asia Pacific burns interested in becoming part of Bonza too.

So that would be another expansion into areas that none of us have had experience with potentially. So yeah, I'm all for getting together more often or opening the channels of communication because it was actually a really, really wonderful place to be at Bonza and I was really happy to be invited and to have the ability to get there as well. It was great.

[James] (2:21:47 - 2:23:08)

Because isn't that like what we're trying to do, right? You know, I was brought up at Bonza like we're not just a collection of events, right? We're trying to build this community.

It's beyond the event and I feel blessed that I was a part of the KiwiBurn organization and then I came to BlazingSwan and it feels like I feel stupid looking back now. But when I came to BlazingSwan and then there was talk about like, oh, there's been an issue within the org and these two people in power positions had an issue with each other and there was no way to deal with it. And I was like, why don't you just go to the conduct committee?

And someone was like, what's that? And I was like, oh, you guys don't have a conduct committee like KiwiBurn. And then I look back in KiwiBurn and they're like having these issues because the government's committee and the organizations like the operations committee is one in the same.

And I was like, why don't you split that up like BlazingSwan? You know, it's like I can look at both and be like, you're both missing something from the other one. And then I went to Bonza and I was like, oh my God, there's like six others.

Why are we doing this all the time? And it felt stupid going to Bonza and thinking that because I had already thought that going from KiwiBurn to BlazingSwan and it's like, ah, it's just like it's been said like this. Apparently, this gets talked about every year and it never happens.

But I don't know. It's just like there needs to be a person who makes it happen in every event.

[Dani] (2:23:08 - 2:23:32)

And I think internally, though, James, just hearing you speak just now, I mean, you come across to blaze with your experience. If you don't know many people as well and you have this great information that might help, where do you go within to offer this solution? I mean, having a conversation with someone about conduct committee, it could just be a dead conversation that doesn't go anywhere from there.

[James] (2:23:32 - 2:23:57)

You know, I went to the chair of BlazingSwan and I was like, hey, you guys need this thing that you don't have and it's going to solve these issues you have. And I guess I did the exact same thing at KiwiBurn. I went to the chair at KiwiBurn and I was like, hey, you should probably split your committee into governance and operations.

It's almost like we need a specific person.

[Paul] (2:23:57 - 2:24:17)

When I ran for deputy chair last year, I think it was one of my campaign promises that I would create a conduct committee. Nice. And I think like, yeah, it was I mean, it was I got the idea from you, James.

But yeah, we needed some kind of solution to the problem we were having last year. And I was like, look, if you elect me as deputy chair, I'll make sure that all your problems.

[Dani] (2:24:18 - 2:24:22)

Well, so you've got to get it up and running before next AGM.

[Paul] (2:24:23 - 2:24:24)

Well, we created it.

[James] (2:24:25 - 2:24:28)

I will make this committee who will solve all your problems.

[Paul] (2:24:28 - 2:24:48)

Yeah, we created we created the conduct committee. It exists. It just doesn't have people in it.

But now we've got two people in it, which is good. We just think I think I think Andy's just emailed someone about it. And it's supposed to be five.

Selfies looking and who's the fifth person we're waiting on? Oh, Kirk has someone in mind. I don't know if he's asked him yet.

[Dani] (2:24:48 - 2:24:54)

Yeah. But I suppose it's about creating their job roles as well. And what the expectations are.

[Paul] (2:24:54 - 2:26:10)

Yeah, the job roles. I mean, we were basically copying KiwiBurn's documentation that they sent to us and said we can use, which is the great thing about this knowledge sharing, like we don't have to write anything. We just kind of copy that.

And then we say to the conduct committee, like, you guys are the experts. You can use this as a starting point. But then like, create whatever, however you like, rewrite it if you want to.

And just send it to us and we'll like give it a stamp of approval. But yeah, that's I mean, that's the great thing about the knowledge sharing. Like, in theory, we don't have to write anything because like this documentation has already been done by other bands.

And then like, if there's a new band that doesn't have any documentation, they can come to us for us. And we can say, here's something that we did, you know, three years ago. It makes things so much easier.

And like, it's so different from like a corporate world where this stuff would be like, like secrets, like you'd have to carefully guard your IP, because we don't want the competition getting their hands on it. It's completely the opposite of that. It's just like, we want the other bands to succeed.

Like, yeah, we're more of an open source community. Yeah. And it's like, none of us want to do the boring documentation stuff.

We don't want to be writing all this stuff. We do it because we have to, to make the event better. But like, if it's already been done, yeah, let's just get that.

[James] (2:26:11 - 2:26:43)

If I had to write another fucking COVID policy, I would just go to KiwiBurn and I would rip the COVID policy I had to write there. I would not write another fucking one. You know, it's all like, these are all things that people and all these issues that people have dealt with at other bands, they're like, they're there.

And I don't know, I think we start here now and Bonza with us, but then we reach out to bigger bands, you know, AfrikaBurn and Nowhere and Midburn and The Big Burn. It's like, they've all got this amazing stuff. And there's probably stuff that we can share with them.

[Paul] (2:26:43 - 2:26:57)

Most of our original docs were based on Burning Man, like all the Ranger stuff. A lot of our stuff was, obviously, like, the whole thing is inspired by Burning Man. And we took all of the way that it works.

And we just kept adding to it over the years.

[James] (2:26:57 - 2:28:09)

But knowledge sharing isn't just documentation. It's people and it's experience. And that's like, another thing is like being able to know the needs of other bands is, I think, important and not something that I realized until Bonzo. Like hearing these things that they're like, oh, we need this thing. It was like, oh, we've got these experienced people who, you know, surely there's some way we could get them over to mentor your new lead through or, you know, like at Blaze, you know, we're like, man, we need more people to mentor through to be like the fire lead and stuff like that.

And I think it was someone at Modify and they were like, oh man, we've got this awesome guy who just helped train up for whatever. And I'm sure it's going to be like, we should be sharing these resources. It's another thing.

I think when we did the Ops breakout, one of the when we introduced ourselves, the thing that we were asked was what's your least favorite principle? And mine was radical self-reliance, because we're getting to a point now where like being radically self-reliant on everything is actually starting to go like detrimentally against the environment. And it's like, you know, and against our mental health and burnout and stuff like that, like why we don't need to build everything ourselves.

Like that's the whole point of a fucking community, right?

[Stevan] (2:28:09 - 2:28:11)

Community effort, civic responsibility.

[James] (2:28:11 - 2:28:34)

Well, exactly.

It starts to go against these other principles. And so it's whether you look at it in an individual scale or an event scale on a Bonza scale or a worldwide community scale, I think that we could be sharing all of these resources we don't need to be so radically self-reliant in terms of how organizations are structured, you know, the way we run the events.

[Paul] (2:28:34 - 2:28:56)

Yeah, for me, they're not necessarily in conflict, because I think for me, like I do a lot of things on my own and then part of being radically self-reliant for me is like, I need to ask for help. And I'm kind of, I need to find the thing within myself to be able to go and ask for help for something. I mean, which sounds a bit paradoxical, but like.

[James] (2:28:56 - 2:29:01)

The chair of an event with water and showers and fucking power.

[Paul] (2:29:01 - 2:29:02)

I'm talking like years ago.

[Dani] (2:29:02 - 2:29:05)

He doesn't shower for seven days. I can attest to that.

[Paul] (2:29:06 - 2:29:07)

Of course not. Why would I?

[Dani] (2:29:08 - 2:29:11)

He's radically self-reliant and leaves it all for everyone else.

[James] (2:29:12 - 2:29:13)

Sorry, Luci has his hand up.

[Luci] (2:29:13 - 2:29:51)

Ah, yeah, I agree with everything you guys said. From an ops perspective, like that is such a, could be such a game changer for all of us. Bonza, I found amazing just to be able to be with and witness my community members from around Australia and New Zealand and have them speak so passionately and intelligently about these topics that are like dear to their hearts, you know, and really, really actually feel what they're saying.

And there was, you know, some of them being so afraid and getting up there anyway, and speaking from their heart and giving me such amazing talks that we got to digest with them.

[Stevan] (2:29:51 - 2:29:53)

Shout out to all the presenters.

[Luci] (2:29:53 - 2:30:11)

Absolutely, absolutely.

And just share as a group, you know, what they're passionate about or what they're worried about and then discuss those things together was just like so inspiring to hear other people being so passionate about our community and what direction it's taking. And I just love that so much.

[Stevan] (2:30:11 - 2:30:32)

Yeah, well said. I mean, I always get excited when people, you know, discover the community and they get so inspired. And then I tell them, wait until you see the network.

Then that's even more engrossing, more powerful. So yeah, and that's what Bonza is all about. The Asia Pacific regionals.

That's where we're part of. So it was very inspiring and bonding, bonding experience.

[Luci] (2:30:33 - 2:30:38)

Yeah, and shout out to the organizers as well, you know, like, yeah, they did amazing. So yeah.

[Stevan] (2:30:39 - 2:30:45)

Would you consider it as a burning event? I mean, transformational, you know, stuff like that, throwing all these proverbs of, you know.

[James] (2:30:45 - 2:30:46)

Yeah, definitely.

[Luci] (2:30:46 - 2:30:51)

It was some of the most inspired I've ever been. Yeah.

[Dani] (2:30:51 - 2:32:11)

It was nice not to have to do the work for it as well. I mean, I know it's a smaller event. So it's only the few days that we're there and the load, besides the actual people that have been organizing it and putting it on, like the presentations were spread.

So each person only had to do sort of one thing and that sort of, and I love the fact, I sometimes feel really awkward. So I'll sort of sit by my place and I don't really move, but I didn't have to move because lots of people came and sat next to me and talk to me, which I really appreciated. So I went there without any expectations because I really had no idea and walked away feeling like a better person for it, knowing better people and really embracing the burn community so much more.

And I appreciate it because everyone, except for everyone that's been there before, came in in exactly the same boat and walked away exactly the same way as well. And it's always, I always hate going home from those sorts of things as well. You know, you want to stay there for a bit more and get some more out of it.

So it was, I really appreciate the fact that we, that there is a few passionate people that started this and we are able to be involved to continue it forward as well.

[James] (2:32:11 - 2:32:15)

Longer bonza. Seven day event.

[Stevan] (2:32:17 - 2:32:26)

It goes on too quick. Flies by. Usually we end the show with some quick shout out and some gratitude.

So you guys want to do some shout outs?

[Dani] (2:32:27 - 2:32:28)

I think I just did mine.

[Luci] (2:32:28 - 2:32:49)

Yeah. Shout out to Shaz for stepping up to help run it on the last minute. That was pretty tight. Leanna obviously did amazing holding that space down without Justin's support there. So yeah, the organizers did incredible. And then obviously every speaker and everyone who shared.

Yeah, it was really, it's really great. So thank you to everyone who did that.

[James] (2:32:49 - 2:33:05)

Yeah. I want to give a big shout out to the girl's room. Better than the boys room.

The rusty joint up the rust. Big shout out to KiwiBurn. I don't know.

They weren't there. I feel like I was representing them. Like they've got so much to give.

Like there was a big part of me and.

[Stevan] (2:33:05 - 2:33:08)

I think Laura was online. She was part of the online.

[James] (2:33:08 - 2:33:29)

Yeah. Mel was there. She's the kitchen lead and stuff.

But you know, no one from the whole kind of structure or like, you know, the committee kind of structure. But I don't know. Like shout out to everyone who was there and stuff.

But big up, big up the rusty joint up the rust, the boat crew, the girl's room and fuck the committee.

[Dani] (2:33:31 - 2:33:59)

I'd like to shout out to the share gather house because I chose to live in a hotel, which I'm really, really glad I did. But thank you for sharing your space with me every afternoon and evening when I dropped by because it was nice to again, join you in my own time and space and then go home to my single, lonely, unsweetened, nice hotel room away from everybody as well. So I'd like to shout you guys out for being awesome as well.

[Paul] (2:34:00 - 2:34:32)

Yeah, I'll second all of that. Like that was so everyone's great. I shout out to, I guess, all the people that I met there for the first time who were just like really interesting people and like amazing kind of burners and the leads who are doing like, like with all the hats.

I met like four or five people who were like, oh, yeah, I'm running basically this entire burn myself. Yeah, I know they're not really, but they're like, you know, doing four or five hats, different lead roles. And we're like, we have like three people doing each of those things now.

[James] (2:34:32 - 2:34:38)

I think you mentioned that like all of us who came over from Blaze, there was like one person who was all of our roles.

[Paul] (2:34:38 - 2:34:41)

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Dani] (2:34:41 - 2:34:44)

Also, shout out to people that I didn't get to talk to.

[Paul] (2:34:45 - 2:34:46)

Yeah, that, I guess.

[Stevan] (2:34:48 - 2:34:51)

Yeah, it happens at every bonza. So you don't get to meet everybody. It's, yeah.

[Dani] (2:34:51 - 2:34:52)

Nah.

[Paul] (2:34:52 - 2:34:54)

Yeah, no, I didn't meet.

[Dani] (2:34:54 - 2:34:58)

You don't get to meet everybody.

Just the right people at the right time.

[James] (2:34:58 - 2:35:03)

Shout out to you, Stevan and PY running the podcast, keeping things going.

[Stevan] (2:35:03 - 2:35:20)

Well, thanks. Yeah. Thanks to you guys, to James, to Lucy, Paul and Danny for coming on and having a chat and reviewing the whole Bonze experience.

Fantastic conversations and insights. And yeah, shout out to the Blazing Swan crew, Blazing Swan committee. And to all the Blazers out there. My home burn.

[James] (2:35:24 - 2:35:27)

More Asian regional representative at Bonza.

[Stevan] (2:35:28 - 2:35:32)

Yes, yes, yes. The Japanese burners and the dragon burners.

[James] (2:35:33 - 2:35:46)

And if they need someone to come and help run their burns, fucking hit me up, bro. Blaze will pay, mate. Don't worry.

I promised so much of Blazing Swan's money away.

[Dani] (2:35:49 - 2:35:58)

As long as I'm included in the flight to the truth, I'll do it, James. How's that sound? Please, please redact that from the podcast.

[James] (2:36:01 - 2:36:02)

You're transparency, man.

[Stevan] (2:36:06 - 2:36:08)

This episode is going straight to the pool room. Thanks, guys.

[Dani] (2:36:08 - 2:36:09)

Thank you.

[Paul] (2:36:10 - 2:36:11)

Thanks so much.

[James] (2:36:11 - 2:36:12)

Up the rust.

[Will & Kate] (2:36:15 - 2:36:23)

Bonzaar Podcast!

Transcripts transcribed by TurboScribe.ai