[Will & Kate] (0:05 - 0:24)

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 - 1:05)

A Bonzaar, welcome to all listeners out there. I'm Stevan Lay and this is the Burners of New Zealand, Australia and Asian Regional Podcast. A burner-centric conversation show about communities and networks in the Asia Pacific region.

In this episode, we profile the Burners Without Borders, BWB network and global communities and talk about the Civic Ignition Grants and past CIG recipients. So on this discussion panel, we have Cris, PY, Shannon and Jessica to give us a brief history and background of BWB and also a quick chat about the Burner scene in Canberra, ACT. So welcome everybody.

[Shannon] (1:06 - 1:06)

Hello.

[Cris] (1:06 - 1:07)

Thanks Stevan.

[Stevan] (1:07 - 1:08)

How's things going?

[Shannon] (1:08 - 1:09)

It's cold. It's winter.

[Cris] (1:10 - 1:10)

Pretty good.

[Jessica] (1:11 - 1:12)

Yeah, good.

[Stevan] (1:12 - 1:28)

I do miss the winter solstice burn. I'm going to talk about that later. Get some more updates about what's happening.

So let's start with some intros. So let's talk about some of the roles and contributions to the Bonza community. So Jessica, would you like to start off?

[Jessica] (1:28 - 2:38)

Yeah, sure. I'm Jessica. I'm the regional contact for Burning Man Project for the ACT.

Also the president of the Capital Incendiary Authority, which is our not-for-profit incorporated association in the ACT. That is our burner organisation for the ACT and Surround. It's also the legal entity that looks after the Canberra burner winter solstice, which we usually do around the winter solstice each year.

We are having a hiatus from that at the moment. And also wearing my regional contact hat, have been supporting Shannon with the Burners Without Borders programme just by doing a little bit of inculturation and just supporting the Civic Ignition Grant process for Bonza for this year. Yeah.

I originally came into the Australian burner community around 2014 by attending the first ever winter solstice event in Canberra. I very quickly met some amazing burners from Sydney and Wagga area and joined up with Swing Dog Circus and went to Burning Seed in that year. And I've been involved in different aspects of burn community ever since, including running greeters and then being an entry facilitator for Burning Seed and then a regional contact for ACT.

[Stevan] (2:38 - 2:42)

Awesome. And for you, Shannon, you're the BWB representative, ambassador.

[Shannon] (2:42 - 4:29)

I am for Australia. It was passed to me by a fellow burner friend of mine when he had been doing it for many years and he's moved on to different challenging things. I started burning at Burning Seed and was part of kids camp for a very long time.

And also a programme I started at Burning Seed named Junior Rangers for the under 18 year olds to get some ranger training with my children. I found it to be remarkable and that burning has changed all of our lives. And I wanted to teach the principles to the younger ones from as early as I could and incorporate the principles in a fun way and them participate meaningfully in part of the festival, the event, even though they were under 18.

I enjoy that project very much. What else? I'm on the board of BOSS, Burners of Sydney and Surrounds and help with the DECOM and other projects and art grants that we run every year and Burners Without Borders.

I'm super passionate about my favourite principle is gifting and the humanitarian efforts that Burners Without Borders does around the world are so inspiring that I feel very blessed to be able to participate in anything and the civic ignition grants and the awareness and igniting people to that there are people out there that they can join with and really make change for others that need it and work together in the burner way. And it's not just the parties, but as Jess was saying earlier, it is about what we can contribute to the humans and create together.

And I really believe in that. So I feel very fortunate to have found Burners and burning and raise my children with it. And yeah, today I've got my Burners Without Borders hat on.

So thank you.

[Stevan] (4:29 - 4:33)

Awesome. Hello, Cris. Welcome back to the show.

How's it been so far?

[Cris] (4:33 - 4:46)

Yeah, no, I'm good. Life is good. Yeah, I'm very happy to be here today with my as a recipient of one of the grants a few years ago.

And yeah, can't wait to share about that experience.

[Stevan] (4:46 - 4:56)

Yeah, cool. So let's let's get into the history of some background about Burners Without Borders. It started in 2005, I believe.

[Shannon] (4:56 - 5:35)

It was right when Hurricane Katrina started and they went to help. So yeah, I mean, my I've heard different stories, but I know that that is in fact where it started and they had boundaries, you know, where only first responders and first aid and Blue Cross and people could get across the border. And so I don't know if this is factual, but I like to roll with it because it's so cool is that's how they came up with the name Burners Without Borders because they had to have a name to get across the line to get in to help people.

And they were all burners. So they're like, well, we have no borders because, you know, we're going to go and help. And that's how the initial ignition happened with them helping the survivors.

[Stevan] (5:35 - 5:42)

So the name Burners Without Borders actually came from people being restricted to enter the disaster zone of Hurricane Katrina.

[Shannon] (5:43 - 5:46)

I'm actually not confirmed that, but that is the story I heard.

[Stevan] (5:46 - 5:47)

And that's a cool story.

[Shannon] (5:47 - 6:04)

Love that story. But I do know that is in fact, the first thing they've ever done. And that's when they came together and created this entity that we now call Burners Without Borders.

So I don't know if they came up with it on the site or later, but that's definitely their first humanitarian effort that they made as this now Burners Without Borders.

[Stevan] (6:05 - 6:11)

So besides humanitarian, what else are some of the projects they're into? Environmental, grassroots collaboration?

[Shannon] (6:12 - 8:14)

Yes, absolutely. So they do gardens. There's a garden in LA that I'm going to go visit next month that they do like a neighborhood garden so people can come and grow food.

I mean, everything you can think of from building houses to, I mean, anything you can think of, I don't even know where to start. And at Fly Ranch they're doing next week, Fly Ranch is doing, which is a property owned by Burning Man. They are doing, I think it's four days of the working meeting where people come in from around the world, artists, scientists, just burners, doers, and they come in and they collaborate and they work on this property that is called Fly Ranch.

And what they do besides taking it from nothing is now it grows gardens. They compost all the food at Burning Man that they feed the crew. They bring it back to Fly Ranch and turn it back into food.

Then they grow the food and they bring it back to Burning Man the next year and feed the crew. So it's this, they're working on solar, water, everything on this beautiful property that was desolate and is now thriving. And they do this once a year as a summer event.

And that's happening next week. So all the things you can imagine from environmentalism to humanitarian work to yeah, everything you could imagine, but is I call gifting, my gifting principle, which is also activation and all the things that we do as burners. But for me, again, that's my favorite principle and everything that Burners Without Borders does, I feel is in.

I often feel that, you know, I wish that world would run on our gifting principle because we all bring what we're good at and what we enjoy. And then all of us can collaborate together and make a meaningful, beautiful process from bringing what we're good at. And imagine if we weren't just, you know, how life is now for most of us working for someone else doing something we don't enjoy when we could all collaborate together and gift and grow food and, you know, build panels or whatever it is that is your fancy.

Imagine if we could all do that together. And that's what they do.

[Stevan] (8:14 - 8:25)

I saw that there was a great video introducing BWB and it talks about the regenerative projects that it do. So Fly Ranch is used as a prototyping space.

[Shannon] (8:25 - 8:25)

Yes.

[Stevan] (8:26 - 8:30)

They also do civic engagement and community resilience work.

[Shannon] (8:30 - 8:30)

Yes.

[Stevan] (8:30 - 8:37)

Yes. And some of the ideas and some of the projects that we've, you know, some of the past recipients is, is about civic engagement.

[Shannon] (8:38 - 8:55)

Absolutely. So one of the winners, grantees of the grant this year is Jess, you can speak to this too, is the New Zealand grant that was a workshop based. So there, if you want to elaborate on the conversation, I don't know how much we can share, but the conversation of what this is going to enable.

[Jessica] (8:56 - 12:03)

We had two winners this year. Yeah. One was focusing on youth led community activation and providing a space that is youth friendly.

That's run and facilitated by youth at the Nimbin Fringe Festival to enculturate the principles and encourage, I suppose, agency and leadership within the youth of that community. So that's one form of civic activation. The other winner was from New Zealand and I won't, I won't even attempt to pronounce the name of that grant.

I always say it wrong, but essentially it's a woman who has done workshops at KiwiBurn and at Northern Burn in New Zealand, who was using traditional weaving techniques to create art and then to create, to share that knowledge. So keeping traditional art forms alive through workshops to create this Papanui, Papanui (Pūpūrangi), I think it is, a sort of like a Nautilus type snail that is endangered and native to New Zealand in the North Island. And then do a treasure hunt with those woven snails that also involved education about the protection and cultivation of those snails, as well as about the traditional craftsmanship of how to create them through that workshop.

So that was sort of a twofold, I suppose, like positive civic work in that it was helping to keep alive some traditional knowledge that is dying out and not very well known in those Northern areas. And I think it's specific to one particular tribe of the Northern Island of New Zealand, but also doing environmental protection for an endangered species that is becoming more and more endangered in the area near where the Northern Burn takes place, not where the Northern Burn takes place. So that was really interesting and exciting to see, not the really different civic ignition grant applications that we get every year, and just the breadth and range of how people can help their communities through the Burner principles and do things like protect native knowledge and skill sharing, as well as providing advocacy and spaces for youth.

There were some other applications that weren't successful, that also really engaged in that sustainable technology aspect of civic ignition as well. And looking at regenerative technology, such as solar trailers or water and liquid pumping systems that could be used by emergency services in communities that are facing environmental emergencies such as flood or fire. So really exciting to see a lot of the different approaches that people have to how they can apply the civic ignition grants and just some of the broader work that BWB can do on a local scale outside of their general work through that civic ignition grant.

So yeah, really exciting to see what can be done. And there's no barriers to people applying to, that's the important thing. Organisations that are already doing important work can also look at applying for those grants and utilising the principles.

And then it works as a double edged sword, like it enculturates about the Burners Without Borders programme, as well as the 10 principles and the Burner ethos. At the same time, utilising those networks and skills to give back to local communities and just making our culture so much stronger along the way.

[Shannon] (12:03 - 13:02)

And that's great.

Thanks, Jess. And I'd like to add to about the very first. So even though we've been around for 20 years, Burners Without Borders, the first grant wasn't actually given until 2012, the inaugural grant process, which was in Chicago, and it was given to One Heart, One Soul, which was a group focused on providing art resources and classes to homeless teens, and they received the first grant. And so that I kind of started the whole thing.

And then the civic ignition grants are from then from the next year on became regionally focused. And so we do ours in Australia, they do them all around the world. But even though, yeah, I just wanted to say that the grants have been running since 2012.

So for all of those years, I wonder if I could find out exactly how much they've given. I'll look it up. But you know, they've done so much good work.

Oh, right here. No, that's a micro grant programme. I'll find out how much they've granted.

But since 2012, it's been doing good work with these grants.

[Stevan] (13:02 - 13:11)

And Cris, you've had an application that you or some ideas that you had in mind. How has the BWB helped you with understanding about network and communities?

[Cris] (13:12 - 17:37)

BWB, the ignition grant helped me at a time when I was organising a co-housing symposium. And co-housing is an amazing kind of communal way of living. It's not quite a commune, everyone has their own separate dwelling.

But the way it's laid out on a plot of land is meant to encourage connection, daily connection with people, you might have like a hopefully a shared communal space that has a large industrial kitchen. And so you can have a roster of dinners every night or a couple of nights a week sort of thing. And people can come home and get together and have dinner together and just connect.

And it's a connected, supportive way of living. And yeah, being a bit of a hippie, I've long thought that that was a good idea. I was a solo parent to my daughter and we lived in an affordable house and land package in Fathersgun, Garland, which is as far close to Sydney while still being in the ACT as you can get.

And it was quite isolating. I was very happy to have a house and a roof over our heads, but I was separated from my friends who lived closer into the city. And yeah, it's a bit isolating.

So I think the ACT government was running a three-minute pitch competition through the innovation network, Canberra Innovation Network. And they were after ideas that would make Canberra a better place by 2040. And I put in a suggestion that co-housing would be great.

It's not a new suggestion. It's been around since the 1970s from Denmark and it's spread all the way around the world. But I thought that would be great if we can make it happen in Canberra.

And yeah, I was selected to participate in a workshop on how to give a three-minute pitch. And I think I was last or second last out of 14. And they gave me some money, some prize money, which was amazing.

So I was one of three winners that day, which was great. And the judges suggested that I should do a symposium to get people together to talk about co-housing. And so that's what I did with the support of my work, which was at ANU.

We put on a one-day symposium, invited experts from around the country and they all said yes. And it was great. It was just after the pandemic, so people were a bit nervous about getting together, but it was an incredible day.

And what happened with the Burners Without Borders grant was I decided that it'd be fantastic to video their presentations and then we could have them to share at Burns or other community presentations, but also just to have them online. And so we had this, yeah, I applied for the grant to do that recording and was successful, which was amazing. And so yeah, we had a professional come in and do the recording and now they're featured on YouTube.

So if you head to YouTube and search Canberra co-housing symposium, the videos are there. And there's also like an edited sort of three-minute little clip that will tell you all about it. And you might also go to my YouTube, which is hosting the video and you can see my three-minute pitch as well from a few years ago.

So yeah, so that was amazing that that sort of could help prolong the coverage of that amazing bunch of people who came together. And actually co-housing is happening in Canberra, which is not, you know, it's just a little bit maybe to do with the symposium and a lot to do with some people who've been working for it for 20 years. So it's really exciting.

Yeah. There's a co-housing development happening in Watson, which is in the north of Canberra. And I think it's apartments.

I think there'll be around 30 apartments or so. So it'll be a really like lovely example of co-housing and they've got the whole shebang. So they'll have sort of systems of governance and, you know, systems to work out conflict resolution and all that kind of thing.

So yeah, it's really, really exciting. I'm not, unfortunately, a part of that. I'm hoping to do my own co-housing thing in the next five or so years.

But yeah, it's very exciting that that happened and very grateful to Burners Without Borders for the grant and the support to share that with the Canberra community and beyond.

[Stevan] (17:37 - 18:11)

So all this great work and initiative doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from culture, the Burning Man Project culture that we all love. So let's talk a bit about, I mean, with the culture, it's the creative alchemy of the culture and it's harnessing that skills and bureaucracy of this unique culture.

So let's talk about, it also speaks to what BWB is all about, the purpose of it. Jessica, you talked about how Burning Man is transformation on multiple levels, right? So personal, communal, societal and global, but it's not just all about the pretty lights, shiny lights and the parties.

[Jessica] (18:12 - 23:03)

Yeah, that's right. So as part of our presentation for the Bonzer Summit this year, I sort of, we have one side that sort of tried to tie in the theme, which was the art of becoming for the, you know, annually for the, both the ELC and as a, something to think about for BWB. And for me, like Burning is very much about creativity and art, yes, and events.

And that does guide a lot of what we do. So art as its core is transformation. As a culture of creative alchemy, Burning Man embraces and offers the potential for transformation on many levels, personal, communal, societal and global, each informing and amplifying the other.

As community organizers and change makers, we inspire positive social transformation, human connection and re-imagination of society. Rather than recoiling in fear of change, the Burning Man community celebrates transformation as an ongoing creative practice. The art of becoming points to continuous development happening within our leaders, communities, networks and the broader Burning Man ecosystem.

I'm now in its 40th year and it is the perfect time to look to the future together and ask, where do we want to go from here? How can we continue to create positive change and how might we become more impactful than the sum of our many genre and boundary defying parts? And then following from that, speaking to the work that Burning Without Borders does, they've been doing that for the last 20 years in the background, trying to separate to the spectacle and party, utilize the networks and collaboration and direct action to channel it into altruism, into the outside world and sort of use those skills, the people that aren't there for the party, the people that are there for community. And of course we all enjoy letting our hair down and partying when you're at a burn, but it's so much more than that. It's sort of overcoming challenges together, problem solving on the fly, utilizing all the different unique skills that we have and experiences and perspectives to collaborate, to make something better and things that couldn't happen just with one or two of those people.

It requires everyone in the room to participate in order to be able to affect that change. So for me, I think from an RC perspective, the potential for Burners Without Borders in local communities to be able to enact that change is massive. And we see it with what happened with Chicago when it was first started with them coming together and creating food packages for homeless people, collaborating to try and do disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, coming together when there've been other issues in other regional communities around the world, such as Peru after the earthquake, to be able to create temporary housing for people on the fly, create solar power generators and bring generators in and utilize those skills that they learned from constructing art on the playa or from collaborating with different personalities outside when they're doing theme camp organizing or doing art collective organizing throughout the year to apply all of those skills to helping the broader community in a time where they're vulnerable, they're fragile, they're not necessarily going to have the skills to be able to help themselves.

Often the bureaucracy of governments and even some other organizations can have very rigid thinking or there's a lot of red tape and bureaucracy into applying the help that's needed on the ground in immediacy. And I think Burners are uniquely primed to be able to enact that and be able to turn up at the drop of a hat and send out messages to each other and will be there within a day and bring the resources they need to be able to help where they can without inhibiting the important work that other rescue or safety and recovery efforts are going underway. So for me, I think it's important that altruistic arm of the Burning Man Project that Burners Without Borders fulfills and it's a really important part of enculturation as well.

I think people understanding and knowing that there's this whole other side of burning other than the party and the spectacle of Burning Man, the big in the smaller regionals and the things that they're doing in the regional communities, they're holding their events in, being camps, art collectives, performers year round, people who are part of what we would call DPI in Australia, but has other names around the world who are involved in building the infrastructure for Burns, particularly those teams, teams like Rangers, who we often have a large proportion of the volunteer makeup of teams like Rangers being from an emergency services or military background because they have those skills. And then they're applying them to a burn, but then they're also the ones that are often thinking, well, how can I apply this external to a burn as well?

How can I collaborate on burn projects that are civically minded and not just event based? So yeah, really, really important part of our culture and one that doesn't necessarily get a lot of optics, especially in the media. And hopefully we'll change that over the coming years and make people more aware of the important work that Burners Without Borders is doing, but a really, really important aspect of our culture that a lot of people actually are drawn into our culture and attracted to.

[Stevan] (23:03 - 23:13)

So what does it take for someone to join BWB or wants to engage in more civic work, regenerative programs?

[Jessica] (23:13 - 25:51)

Well, the first point of call is any of the regional contacts in your local city can wear a BWB hat in helping facilitate projects, helping with networking, with joining up with other people who might be interested or have the skills to enable those projects and also directing them once they do have a project in mind and have got at least a concept by going through either the Civic Ignition Grant program at Bonza each year, or teaming up with someone like Shannon who can then get them in touch with Burning Without Borders in America to do more, you know, larger scale projects or get support for sort of bigger picture projects as well. But yeah, first point of call is reaching out to either Shannon or one of the RCs in Australia and we can help them, I suppose, guide, offer feedback and advocacy and a little bit of project management support and networking support in order for people to get their projects off the ground.

Things that are small scale and local in scale, like Leave No Trace projects, like moop cleaning days where you go to a park or river and pick up moop. It can be as simple as that. Inspiring, lighting the flame, if you will, for people to want to be able to, you know, enact a direct action, civic action in their local community.

And it can be as simple as that. Hosting a barbecue catch-up where everyone then goes and does a moop sweep for an hour and picks up all the rubbish. Or I know after, during COVID, we had some crafternoons in Canberra where we made masks and shipped them interstate to other burners that were already in lockdown.

So we had sewing bees where we sewed 250 masks that you could put a disposable mask inside and then ship them to Melbourne, ship them to Sydney, as well as gave them out locally. We did a few drives where me and some others in a lot of PPE gave them out to some homeless people so that they had protection while they're living rough from the additional risk of COVID that they were facing. After the bushfires, we had some local projects where we made tiny houses for microbats, little houses that could be put up in areas where a lot of the trees were burnt down to create a home for them.

Little things like that, they don't necessarily have to be super in scale, but if it's something that's important to you and it's enacting meaningful change, there's no barrier to what you can do. And if you're unsure about how to start that, then the first port of call is contacting Shannon as the Australia BWB person or your regional contact at a burning pub or via their Facebook group page or via email. And we can help put you in touch with others who share a passion for that or help you get a project started and the groundwork underway so that you can then be able to manifest that.

[Stevan] (25:52 - 25:57)

Yeah, so it's as simple as just caring about something and taking action with the community around you.

[Jessica] (25:57 - 25:58)

Exactly.

[Stevan] (25:58 - 26:01)

Because there is an actual network behind it, a global network.

[Jessica] (26:01 - 26:39)

Yeah, that's it. And I think a lot of people, it's hard in the current society we live in where everyone is so isolated, people often forget like, no, you're part of a bigger community, you're part of your local community, but the crossover is of that is you're part of a local and a national and a global burner community who, you know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, can stand on the shoulders of giants and people who've gone before with different skills and, you know, collaborate and cooperate to be able to achieve things that are important to you. And you'll often find a lot of people have the same feelings and also want to do good in the world. It's just making those connections and having the conversations to get things started.

[Stevan] (26:39 - 26:52)

I like how you asked, how can we become impactful beyond the genre and boundary to find parts? So yeah, how do we the inspiration for that? What kind of local stuff have we seen through BWB locally?

[Jessica] (26:53 - 26:54)

Shannon, did you want to talk to that?

[Shannon] (26:54 - 28:40)

Sure. We haven't seen a lot like lately in Australia of activation. I think a lot of us are doing our own thing in communities, like all the things Jessica just listed that they did out of Canberra.

I do a lot of, um, things where I live when the fires came through, you know, we, we went out to the bush and, um, made tubes to feed the animals water. And then we hung like hanger things with fruit and things on them out and, and, you know, where everything was burned down and still smoking and to, uh, we did a lot of that kind of work. And it's, I think that, um, for me it's, uh, challenging to wrap because I am a burner in my blood.

And so I do these things anyways. So it hasn't, and I haven't, I haven't physically done a, uh, an application for a civic ignition grant, but I've helped lead people in finding their way, um, in networking with the right people and filling out the grant forms or, you know, along those ways. But, um, personally I have not done anything under the BWB banner.

It's just something we do already because we're burners and we're, we're doing the Shelly beach cleanups and we're doing the annual animal rescue and we're doing the masks and we're doing all these things already. So yeah, we have to, for me, I have to learn how to translate that into showing everyone through BWB that we are doing all of these things because we are, and when we talk about it and we group and we collab and yeah, um, I guess that's my answer. It's still a learning process for me to translate it under the BWB banner because we are all doing it.

[Stevan] (28:40 - 28:56)

Are there any ideas out there where you thought we should really, you know, focus more on this, um, such as, uh, the housing situation, the housing crisis that we're having, Cris, um, something like, you know, like we, we need to target these little, little spots of areas of the community.

[Cris] (28:56 - 29:46)

Yeah, I think, um, I would love to follow up, you know, the having these videos from the symposium online by actually doing a bit more community work and, and spreading the word and just letting people know about the concept and how it works and the support systems that you put in place to help people live together. Cause, you know, I mean, quite often these days on social media, you see a lot about people saying, Oh, my friendship group really want to buy land. We want to live together, but you know, it's actually quite complicated to do it legally and to put in those systems in place to help people get through conflict and that kind of thing.

So yeah, I, I think that would be great. I would love to do a bit more of that, um, especially at Burn spreading the word because I think Burners would really be into the concept. Yeah.

[Jessica] (29:46 - 33:32)

Just circling back to the compartmentalization and, you know, I suppose going beyond our, our unique individual projects that we're doing and how we can expand more broadly, I suppose like some of the previous Civic Ignition grant winners like Cris and, um, the first one that we did in Australia at Bonza Sparkhaus is a really good example. They created a maker space. They got a small amount of seed money to set up a legal entity for their maker space.

They've had a few co-contributors that space over the time, but it's created a community hub for, for workshops, for learning skills like welding and woodworking and things like that, that are often inaccessible to some people who think, especially for women, for example, like they've done some workshops that have been female based as well as, you know, just for everyone and open access, but uniquely targeted at the things that people utilize in the Burn communities for art projects, but also things like leadership skill development. And that has really broad impact, I think, for the wider communities around them. People are feeling they have more agency.

They're able to use tools with confidence and know that they're doing it safely. They're then able to apply those skills to things outside of Burn life. And I think that creates a wealth of knowledge and skills for a local community having those things there.

And Sparkhaus has evolved over the years as well. So that's a really good example of some things that are happening locally. Just an aside to that, a good example of that is Leanna, who got the grant and facilitates that workspace.

Her and her partner work in a medical field and during COVID, her husband was, he's a doctor, I believe, was part of establishing a ventilator that could be reproduced and spread all over the world in countries that were having shortages of ventilators. And I mean that they utilize Sparkhaus to build that, got a lot of media coverage at the time, but that saved countless lives around the world. Like there's just, you know, trying to measure the impact that the projects can have can be really difficult, but I think that's a really good example.

Like if Sparkhaus didn't exist, would that ventilator have been created? Would all of those lives have been saved? Really important not to understate the little things.

Co-housing is a thing now in the ACT. And although Cris is like, Oh, it's probably not part of my symposium. I would, I would go, you know, counter that.

Actually, I think it is. I don't think there'd be a lot of awareness about it in the ACT if it wasn't for that symposium. And then people being able to find those videos online and learning about it and realizing it's an option and that there's a prototype for a system that can work to achieve those kinds of housing scenarios that are separate to unit titles or stratas where you really, you know, you're not co-housing, you're just sort of living under a strata scheme.

But yeah, I think it's really important that those projects have that platform and they do affect meaningful change in the world. And it's important not to understate the meaningful change that they have because it's still happening. They evolve over time and they plant seeds in people's hearts and passions and inspire them in other ways.

Even if it's just for something completely different, that's not related to that particular grant or project, it inspires them to have the confidence to try. So I think that's, you know, really important that that is the work that BWB is doing. Even with the small civic ignition grants, it's giving people that little bit of a start that they need, even if they're required to get co-funding from another organization or an entity or government to manifest that.

It's still, it's providing that little bit of a platform, but also a little bit of a grounding anchor in the ethos of the projects by saying, does this tie into the principles? And the principles are very altruistic in their basis. And I think that helps ensure that a lot of the projects that are being funded by BWB are doing that good in the world, as well as enculturating from a perspective of spreading those principles and the good that they can do through our culture.

[Shannon] (33:33 - 34:53)

I really appreciate that, Jessica. Thank you for highlighting that. I forget because I live in a very small rural town and no one has heard of Burning Man until I moved here.

And, you know, I'm a Burner. I am passionate. I talk about it all the time.

I do food rescue every week. I do all these things with like-minded people who have never heard of Burning Man, but now they have, and they're doing the same kind of things that we are all doing, and we all do them together and teaching people, you're right, planting the seed and creating awareness and talking about Burners Without Borders and all the beautiful things and educating people that it's not just a big party, but in fact, we do amazing things like the people that I work with and volunteer with do every day. So they can relate to that, but no one has ever told them. They just see these, you know, fantastic videos on their social media, you know, Barbies and in Nevada or whatever, and don't understand of all the other things and the principles.

And so thank you for highlighting that we are planting seeds in whatever it is that we're doing and Cris with your symposium and, you know, and Stevan with your podcast and Jessica with the multiple hats that you wear, like we are planting seeds and I'm really proud of us. Thank you for saying that. It's true.

[Cris] (34:54 - 34:55)

Awesome. Yeah.

[Stevan] (34:55 - 35:16)

Can I just give another shout out to Leanna and Hamish and the SparkHaus team. So some of the art that was at Pilotburn came from the workshops and, you know, the people going in there to SparkHaus and fiddling around with things and stuff like that. So it was amazing.

They were also recently featured in Burning Man Journal about Makerspaces. So did you guys read about that?

[Shannon] (35:16 - 35:16)

No.

[Cris] (35:16 - 35:19)

Yeah, I did. Yes. That's a good write up.

[Stevan] (35:19 - 35:51)

It was amazing. So I just want to quickly read out what Leanna, her, some of the quotes were.

So she said that with a lot of burners spunk and a couple of grants, we became residents of an experimental artist collective. And that's what actually happened. So amazing.

Our greatest asset is our brain's trust. Being part of something bigger than yourself and creating with a whole bunch of other creatives with different skill sets. That's where the magic happens.

And she also says it's given me the courage to set up, to step into adult skin. We're doing great things because we're passionate about it. And that's contagious.

[Shannon] (35:51 - 35:54)

I love that. Contagious.

[Stevan] (35:54 - 36:02)

And that's what being part of, like helping others and giving your time, your generosity, like you're mentioning Shannon, that's the gifting principles.

[Shannon] (36:03 - 36:03)

Yes.

[Stevan] (36:03 - 36:04)

Comes to the fore.

[Shannon] (36:05 - 36:12)

Absolutely. And participation. Yeah.

Heaps. You know, it's just truly amazing. I love Leanna's quote.

Yeah.

[Stevan] (36:12 - 36:19)

So you mentioned those principles. What about those two that highlights it out for me is communal effort and civic responsibility.

[Shannon] (36:19 - 36:20)

Yeah, absolutely.

[Stevan] (36:20 - 36:25)

Which kind of encompasses what the whole Burning Man project and BWB is about. It's the network.

[Shannon] (36:26 - 37:04)

Yeah. Everybody resonates differently for their own personal reasons. And it's very interesting when you deep dive into why. And maybe it's because I've been a mom for more than half my life.

Like gifting resonates so well with me because I've been a mother and caring and like looking after other people and bringing what I'm good at and what I'm natural at. The gifting thing really resonates with me. But everybody has their own personal story and it reaches all of us.

You know, it's really interesting to think about that it resonates, different things resonate so deeply with each of us for our own personal reasons, but they do always resonate.

[Jessica] (37:05 - 39:14)

Yeah. I feel like it's really, even though, I mean, there's some principles that I, I mean, depending on the time of life or the year or what's happening that I can resonate more towards. But for me, like it's that intersection of all of them that inform the others.

Like you can look at a principle on its own, in its own light, and they all have benefits and good. But when you look at them all working together, which sort of provides that framework, you can't have radical self-expression without radical inclusion, for instance. Communal effort, yes, but also civic responsibility.

You don't want to cause burnout in the people that are volunteering in your team. Participation, but also immediacy. Like you also don't want to get bogged down in bureaucracy or deadlines or shifts or timelines.

It's important to still keep that sense of play and joy and immediacy in the moment in what you're doing. And it's all of those things working together that I think make the social experiment work. And it's all of those things working together that result in things evolving from the culture, like the Burners Without Borders project.

And yeah, I think often we apply a lot of them more than we think, even probably subliminally, as we're working through challenges and doing projects. And I think it's an important, they're not necessarily rules, but they're a sort of guide and a framework within which you can sort of create order out of the chaos of that immediacy when you're working on projects out of Burn or in your local community or just dealing with challenges that have arisen. But yeah, definitely, I think a lot of them are incorporated, particularly decommodification and gifting.

People aren't charging for their time. They're taking leave from work. They're going out on the fly, either to participate in events or volunteering in events or to do projects in their local community or to do larger scale emergency work when there are disasters.

So all of it really ties into each other. And radical self-reliance is another really important one. We have the community, but also we have to look to ourselves regularly and check in with ourselves regularly during those processes to make sure we don't burn out and we're communicating effectively with everyone around us.

So yeah, to me, I think they're all equally as important as each other, particularly in relation to Burners Without Borders.

[Stevan] (39:14 - 39:32)

Cool. Okay. Let's talk about some of the applications and some of the previous CIG winners or applicants.

I can chime in with some of my thoughts about the submission grant, the Bonza Summit. PY, how was your experience with your submission, with your application?

[PY] (39:32 - 40:12)

It was very good. It was a very positive experience. I felt that the application process was very clear.

I felt that the criteria was very clearly spelled out. And because the judging of who was going to get the award happened at the summit, I think it was good for me to be able to be there and present in front of the audience, as well as having the more comprehensive written application to back that up. So overall, it was a very positive experience, I felt.

[Stevan] (40:13 - 40:17)

And Cris, for yourself, how did the Bonza Summit turn out when you won it, when you got the news?

[Cris] (40:18 - 41:40)

Actually, when the application was being considered, I think that was the year we were all online. So it wasn't an in-person thing. And it was kind of weird, because we were put into groups in a Zoom call to consider the applications.

And I was in the group that was considering my application. And I was just like, oh no, this is not right. So I kind of left the whole of the Bonza thing at the time.

So that was a bit strange. But it was just an online thing. And I think it probably hadn't been considered super well.

It's not the usual. But yeah, I liked the process of applying for the grant. I like grant applications.

It's something my brain really clicks into. And it helps me kind of actually cement my ideas further. So I love the process of writing it down.

And everything just kind of slotted into place for me. And it helped me actually deliver the event probably better by having that experience. And of course, being granted the money was just amazing and an incredible help.

So yeah, it was a really positive experience, apart from just a little weirdness with it being online. Yeah.

[Stevan] (41:41 - 42:39)

Yeah, my situation was different to most people. I submitted an application, but was not the winning recipient. So the process that I went through, what I got out of it was actually crystallizing the idea of this Bonzaar podcast project that I had in mind.

It wasn't my intention to do this whole podcasting thing. But after submitting the application and understanding how the purpose of BWB and also receiving that kind of encouragement from the community as well. So that led to sort of like formalizing a business plan out of the process.

So yeah, they put pen to paper and crystallizing some of the strategies and some of the frameworks that I need to put forward so I can start this project, start this podcasting project. So I love that experience. So yeah, it actually gave me the confidence.

[Jessica] (42:40 - 42:40)

That's amazing.

[Stevan] (42:41 - 42:42)

Is that how you guys felt?

[Cris] (42:42 - 42:45)

Yeah, that's definitely how I felt. Yeah, it was a big help.

[PY] (42:45 - 42:58)

Yeah, I felt the same. It helped to crystallize the idea, made me think through it pretty carefully. Without going through that process, I don't think the concept would have been so strong.

[Shannon] (42:59 - 43:49)

And just to add to that, I think, thank you for teaching me again. I'm always learning that us participating in whatever capacity, we're learning new skills. And so I haven't applied for a grant, but participating in these forums, and I've been in hospitality my whole life, office work is not my thing.

And I'm learning all of these things from meeting, collaborating, and working with BWB and the applications and the process. We are always learning through our experiences. So that's another thing that working with BWB is gifting accidentally, actually, is learning how to do all these new skill sets and communication and de-escalation with possibly when we're discussing the grant process.

And yeah, it is also teaching me life skills in the process.

[Stevan] (43:50 - 43:52)

Yeah, it was having, sorry, Cris.

[Cris] (43:52 - 43:53)

Oh, no, you go ahead. Sorry.

[Stevan] (43:53 - 44:10)

I was just saying that was just like having that light bulb idea and then transferring it, and then stretching it out and putting into like an action plan, and then actually going in step by step and creating it. So from concept into a whole kind of operations kind of thing.

[Shannon] (44:10 - 44:12)

To reality. Yeah.

[Jessica] (44:12 - 45:49)

It's really exciting to hear that even as a non-successful applicant, you're able to get the benefit, which is, I think, what the idea behind the process for the Civic Ignition Grant is that we provide feedback to the non-successful applicants on how they did or didn't.

I mean, obviously, they're being reviewed at the workshop, they are valid applications, and they're meeting the selection criteria, but that consensus decision making of the groups can provide live feedback in real time on the fly on how they think it could be improved, or how to tweak it better, or how to better sort of nut down on the concept. Having access to a lot of those different people in the room with different skills that can give feedback in real time, again, as part of the process on different perspectives on how it's being received, or different ways that you could manifest it that might be successful if applying for grants elsewhere, or even again through BWB. And then that project management side of it as well, like having that support, both from BWB and the community around you to be able to still be successful with your project.

Just amazing to see, and really exciting to hear that the grant helped facilitate that. I think that's what their intention is, based on following the progress and the whole process that they have this year with their toolkit that me and Shannon sort of are privy to. That's their intention.

They want people to be successful, even if they don't get the grant, and they want to help provide support or communication or resources, whether through Hive or through the networks and community around us, to be able to see those projects go ahead regardless, even if it means through funding, through alternative means. So that's really exciting and inspiring to hear.

[PY] (45:50 - 46:16)

So just on that, in terms of those additional benefits and projects being able to go forwards, Stephen, I think in your case, your grant application was a good example of that. You weren't the recipient of the grant that year, but because you'd given that presentation in front of the community, you were actually able to secure non-BWB funding for your project. Isn't that right?

[Stevan] (46:16 - 46:44)

Yeah, that's right. Yes. It came from the community. And the whole process, the whole incubation stage, when we're all discussing this just as an idea, just as a concept, was really exciting. It was inspiring as well. So I think this is where most startups, I guess, is experiencing at that initial stage, the whole Hive mind, the whole inspirational, trying to make it into reality.

[Cris] (46:44 - 47:16)

Yeah, being at Bonza when the applications are being considered is a wonderful experience. I'm not sure what it was like this year, but last year, I just loved it. I loved hearing your concept, PY, and also there was the one by Chau, his idea for a burn for the Eclipse in a couple of years, and just all sorts.

So yeah, it was really incredible to be there and everyone was very excited. It was really exciting to hear it all.

[Shannon] (47:16 - 47:30)

It is amazing to be in that powerhouse room, isn't it, where everybody's just so excited and coming together and creating and sharing what they've done and what they're going to do, and such an inspiring. I think that it's probably one of my favorite weekends of the whole year, actually, now.

[Cris] (47:31 - 47:31)

It's a good one.

[Stevan] (47:32 - 47:39)

Can we also talk about some of the local previous winners, like Margo, the Pizza Oven? Was there any feedback from that?

[Shannon] (47:40 - 47:43)

I did not get in touch with them for this interview.

[Stevan] (47:44 - 47:46)

What are the previous winners we can talk about?

[Cris] (47:46 - 48:23)

The year that I applied, there was just me and one other application, and I can't remember the name of the other applicants, but their idea was they were traveling around Australia, I think, and they had been cooking food and giving away food to people who are in need, and so that's what their money was going towards, was buying food so they can continue to do the good work. They were successful as well at the time and managed to keep up that amazing work as they were traveling around Australia, which was pretty cool.

[PY] (48:23 - 48:37)

I thought that Pizza Oven was a particularly nice idea. It had some good, obvious kind of community value, but it was also just fun. I mean, putting a pizza oven on a trailer and driving it around, it just kind of had a good feel to it.

[Cris] (48:37 - 48:40)

But who was that one? I've missed that one.

[Shannon] (48:40 - 48:45)

That was in 2021 when they won, and they're based in Brisbane, Queensland.

[Cris] (48:46 - 48:47)

Oh, awesome.

[Shannon] (48:47 - 48:51)

Yeah, it's a portable pizza oven that drives around the paddock and serves pizza.

[Cris] (48:51 - 48:53)

That's a winner, hey?

[Shannon] (48:53 - 48:57)

Yeah, who doesn't love that when you're standing in line for coffee or whatever?

[Cris] (48:58 - 49:00)

Totally. Yay.

[Stevan] (49:00 - 49:09)

And the assessment criterias for the Civic Ignition Grants, should we go through some of these criterias?

[Shannon] (49:09 - 49:13)

Sure. Jess, do you want to, or do you want me to take it?

[Jessica] (49:13 - 51:52)

You can take it, Shannon. I was just going to preempt it by saying the main framework for the whole process outside of the selection criteria itself is the process at the workshop of the consensus decision-making, which is a really important part of how the grant is decided and the funds that is decided.

It's the methodology for how we decide the winners. The exception of doing it at all, like the creation of the Civic Ignition Grant, was actually decided by consensus decision-making at the Global Leadership Conference, which is the global Burning Man conference that used to occur prior to the European Leadership Summit and Bonza existing. It was by that consensus project that they decided to create these separate grants, the Micro Grant Project and the Civic Ignition Grant Project, and spread them around through the other leadership summits when they diversed.

It just means that the whole process itself is supposed to be impartial. So we have the conflict of interest announcement prior, where we had a little bit of that obviously technical gremlin hiccup in Cris's year where she had to exit the whole meeting so as not to be involved in the virtual breakout rooms. But generally, we get people who are biased or directly benefiting or directly involved or an applicant themselves in that project to recuse themselves from the decision-making and the discussions regarding the comparison.

But just the process itself, it fosters radical inclusion and equity of all people and marginalized voices who might otherwise be alienated from that process. It fosters better problem-solving on the fly between people and communication effectively. It creates a community-building atmosphere where the different people who might not have had a lot of history working together have to do that communication.

Often how people are seated during this in-person process is also quite random. You often get people from different events and different states sitting at the same table. So it fosters those connections and that effective communication between them.

And it opens up dialogue as well between the participants on the pros and cons of each and benefits of each project, different perspectives from people's different experiences. So I think the process itself shouldn't be understated. I think it's a very important aspect of how the Civic Ignition Grant is determined.

And yeah, it creates a discussion where it might not otherwise arise if it was just being decided by BWB directly or by a small group of people looking at the selection criteria and then just going, we like this one. It becomes a participatory activity and I think that's really important.

[Stevan] (51:52 - 51:57)

There has been some heated debates about some of the applications and projects over the years.

[Shannon] (51:57 - 54:53)

There has been. If you'd like me to go back to that question about the mission statement of why BWB does this. So the mission statement and all the grants that apply have to meet the first guideline is that they meet the mission statement.

And the mission statement is, we are interested in funding projects that create collaborations, produce direct actions, utilize several of the 10 Burning Man principles, are reproductible, and creatively tackle local social problems. This grant allows anyone to submit a collaborative, creative, and principle-focused project. The grants are awarded by local leaders to local leaders.

And if you'd like, I can go through the actual submissions. Sorry, the submission rules. So the grant criteria.

So the very first rule, as I said, was does the grant fit the program's mission statement, which I just read. How well does this project leverage volunteer resources and community resources against a relatively small injection of money? So with that, it can't be a project that requires $100,000 to go ahead.

So the BWB grant has to matter. The $1,500 if they are voted to receive the entire amount. It has to be enough to make a difference, which was a lot of the reasons why the last few years, we've had some applications that have these giant budgets that are unfortunately eliminated because the seed money from BWB isn't going to make a difference to these projects.

Okay, the next one was, does the project seem reasonable, feasible, given the budget time frame and volunteers who are available to complete the project? Has a project leader successfully completed other projects? How much support will they require from others to make the project successful?

Is this project likely to get funded by a different donor? So like we had some submissions that we felt were more beneficial to the actual event. So maybe the event could do the funding because it was just really, it wasn't more of a thing that they could share with the wider community, but was more based on just helping the event.

What other funds need to be raised for this project to be successful? Are they likely to raise these funds? Again, there is a limit to what they can ask for, for the entire project.

Will there be any income from this project? Of course we don't do, or de-commodification is one of our principles, so there can't be any income earned from it. Unless, okay, well, there's a little, if so, how will any profits be used in service of the greater community?

Yeah, we haven't had any applications as far as I'm aware that have been income earners. So I don't know if you know any different, Jess, but I thought that basically if it was an income earner, then it was disqualified.

[Jessica] (54:53 - 55:35)

But this says- Yeah, I think there's some maybe minor exceptions based on the resources that I was reading, but the general rule is no, it's a de-commodified sort of not-for-profit project and the funding needs to be meaningful to affect that. And if there were any incidents where there was any additional money that that would need to be accounted for in the reporting back to Burners Without Borders and then reapplied and funded back into the community somehow. Otherwise, potentially, maybe the grant money might need to be paid back if it was deemed to be for profit after the fact, I think.

But yeah, interesting question. But no, I think generally as a rule, no profits to be made. It can't be a commercial venture or it will be disqualified as an applicant.

[Shannon] (55:36 - 56:57)

It does say in the things we don't fund, fundraising events, walks, races and tournament standards, et cetera, are things that they do not fund. So that goes along with that. Salaries, tips and rewards, projects with a total cost of over $10,000.

So again, we want to create real impact. And capital campaigns, BWB does not fund. There's another little community engagement and impact I should let you know of as well.

Is the project interactive and participatory? Does it engage the broader community beyond the grant recipients? Does the project bring together a variety of stakeholders or communities?

How many people will this project touch and in what ways? How does this project promote diversity, equality, sorry, and radical inclusion? How will this project after the community affect the community over time?

What impact will the project have after the grant has been given and the initial project is completed? Does this project fulfill a specific need? Is a community inviting this project?

Does this project promote community leadership in what ways? Is the execution of this project likely to be engaging and fun for volunteers? So those are all our guidelines that we look at when we look at the applications to rule out ones that don't qualify and then to vote on the ones that meet this criteria the most.

[Stevan] (56:57 - 57:06)

I guess a good question to ask is for you, PY and Cris, is how do you write a successful one? How do you guys convey your ideas?

[PY] (57:06 - 58:42)

I think just to follow on from what Shannon was saying there, I think one of the key parts is to really address the criteria very carefully. And a lot of what Shannon just said was to do with community, broader community, engagement in the community, larger community, etc. I mean, the key is in the name.

It's burners without borders. It's not burners. So it's about how we reach out beyond the burner sphere and have an impact in the broader community.

And from what's sort of top of mind at the moment, from what I saw in terms of some of the applications this year, they were great projects. They were really interesting projects, but their scope was quite burner-centric. It was to do with things in the burn community and things on Paddock.

And they did have great potential to go into the broader community, but those weren't really articulated in the grant criteria. So I think the key is to really look at that criteria carefully and think about, okay, this is not just for us in this community, and if your project is for us in the community, maybe there's better funding sources for that. Maybe they should be funded from in the community, from orgs, through fundraisers, etc.

But yeah, to think how can we take our skills and resources and go out, push our little burner bubble out a little bit further. I think that's really the key.

[Stevan] (58:43 - 58:46)

Yeah, that's a great point. Cris, did you have anything else to add?

[Cris] (58:46 - 59:38)

Well, I mean, I am just thinking about my application, which was a few years ago now, so it's a bit of a while ago. The only thing I can really think of is that I think I was just fortunate that what I happened to be doing at the time, which was organising this symposium when I heard about the grants, and it just happened to slot in perfectly with such a community-minded project. So it's kind of a lucky thing, really.

But I remember reading through the things you had to sort of apply to, and it was all just slotted into place really easily. So I don't know if I can add anything to that, only to say that the process really did help solidify what I was doing and why, and the possibilities, actually, of what we could do afterwards, after the symposium, which was really important. So yeah.

[Stevan] (59:39 - 1:00:21)

Yeah, I was looking at my submission recently as well, and reflecting back on it, I think it's exactly the frame of mind that I had at the time, PY, was what you were talking about. It was more narrow, so when looking back at it, and I've actually seen some of the languages and some of the ideas I've used on the application transferred onto, say, the mission statement of the podcast and the project. It's interesting.

So if people can really think more broadly, I think that's the key. I think that was where I kind of went with my understanding of the application. Yeah, to think more broadly is where the hack is, I think.

[Jessica] (1:00:21 - 1:02:39)

I think, too, we were having a bit of a debrief yesterday, and yeah, not to go into all what we were talking about at that debrief for BWB, but one of the things that was highlighted was we don't get a lot of applications from community organisations outside of the Burner sphere, and that's something to think about. I know we have a lot of people who work in that duality of working in community organisations that aren't part of a Burner organisation, or local government or arts groups and things like that that are affecting positive change in the community, and maybe a part of solving that problem with the sort of Burn-centric applications we received this year is the optics, like getting a little bit more awareness about the Civic Ignition Grant and actually what it is, and we did try to do that with a lot of posting this year, but I think by sharing the mission and the Burners Without Borders project, as well as the Civic Ignition Grant and the work that it's trying to do outside of our Burn communities, Burn-adjacent communities and just general community, but obviously by having them go in line with the ethos and the principles, but they don't need to be based. They don't need to be benefiting Burns.

They don't need to be benefiting Burn events. They don't even need to be benefiting directly a Burn community. I think the whole idea is that they're going to be reproducible by the wider public to meaningful change, and they're going to have meaningful impact in the local community, and that can be really broad.

That can be youth spaces. That can be homeless outreach. That can be anything, really, that people think their local community needs in order to affect meaningful change, and I think it'd be really good to see other maybe community organisations that are already doing work in that space look at maybe taking advantage of the grant in a way that can co-fund, similar to what Cris did with the symposium, things that are going to have impact and meaningful change, and that little bit of money is going to go a long way to spreading that impact like it has with the video recordings of that symposium.

They're now accessible to anyone in the world who's interested about it. Yeah, so I think just a different perspective and maybe trying to share the project in a much broader sense with our local communities outside of our Burn communities.

[Shannon] (1:02:39 - 1:03:25)

I agree, and I don't know how to facilitate that more in Australia, because if you look at the BWB pages and the worldwide pages, they are doing stuff around the globe that isn't necessarily burner-related, you know? I mean, if you just open their page, they're doing stuff in Brazil. They just did expanded food growing efforts.

They do, I'm just going to scroll through, a school mural that was funded. I posted about this, the BWB Vancouver, Darkness Until Light. I mean, they do stuff around the world that you wouldn't think is burner-related, but it's being done by burners.

And so just increasing the awareness here in Australia, how we get to that is where we need to be, absolutely.

[Stevan] (1:03:26 - 1:03:29)

And how do we get more increasing participation?

[Shannon] (1:03:29 - 1:04:24)

Well, we got a lot of applicants this year. I think we did really well by just our posting and smashing social media and increasing awareness. But I mentioned earlier, I don't know if it was part of the recording, but the regionals had talked about adding it to the webpages and, you know, but again, these are burner pages, so like KiwiBurn and the other burns and putting a page, a link that goes to Burners Without Borders on all their pages.

So increasing awareness about Burners Without Borders, but yeah, absolutely, those are still burner pages. So how do we get it out? We just, we have to share our message as humans.

Like I said, I volunteer and work with people doing this work already that have never heard of burning. And so just talking about it and sharing and bringing it to the community personally, I guess, would be how we start. Do you guys have any other ideas?

[Cris] (1:04:24 - 1:05:15)

I know a lot of my friends who I'm connected with on Facebook do see, I don't know if they've liked the Burning Man Canberra page or what, but I'm quite often surprised when friends of mine or people I know talk about stuff that's been posted on there. So I don't know, there's also, you know, there's Bonza, like you could next year, you could, I don't know if you did it this year, but you could say like, just encourage anyone you come across to apply. I think, you know, there's ideas like at a burn, Shannon, you could be the MC for a show or something and just be like, hey, you know, just by the way, I'm just letting you know about Burners Without Borders.

And you could have little ad breaks in the show that you MC or you could get someone else to do that if you didn't feel like it, you know, like just a word of mouth, I think is a good idea. I don't know.

[Shannon] (1:05:16 - 1:05:17)

I love that. Thank you.

[Jessica] (1:05:17 - 1:07:33)

One of the strategies we had at our last RC meeting was potentially having, because all the RCs can help facilitate and project manage and try and inspire that first incubation period of local projects, doing like a designated burning pub for Burners Without Borders style projects or just civic projects throughout the year and trying to organise something really like simple, not a lot of effort required, but that everyone can participate in such as like a Leave No Trace moot picnic day or a crafternoon or something like that where it's going to have a meaningful output.

But I think by having the burning pub, because they are, they're sort of usually in a public local setting and they're open to the public. Hopefully that'll create a little bit more of an avenue for other people who are just coming along to find about burning to also find out about Burners Without Borders at the same time rather than just an event. The other idea that was floated was maybe like a film night where we show things like the 20 year anniversary film and there's some other really amazing, I'm trying to think of the channel, I think it's from Dust.

I think it's from Dust. It's a production company that's run by Burners and they do documentaries about really meaningful projects, art collectives. There's one really good one I watched a few months ago about this art collective that are all welders and blacksmiths and the art that they create, but also the work that they do outside of that in teaching people welding skills and providing infrastructure for other camps as well and some other teams.

But there are some really good ones on Burners Without Borders as well and some of the projects that have done particularly from that Chicago group who were the original incubators of the project. So that was another idea that was floated potentially like a Burners Without Borders film night where we could curate something at an RC level or with Shannon or get BWB in America involved to send us some more resources as well and then have it like a roaming, a burning pub in Sydney, a burning pub in Melbourne, a burning pub in Canberra where it's an actual film showing rather than just a regular burning pub and then have a Q&A after that might engage some ideas or incubate some inspiration in people where it sort of ignites them to start thinking about what they might want to do locally, but also hopefully spreading the word about the Civic Ignition Grant and getting more people to apply.

[Shannon] (1:07:33 - 1:07:41)

I love that because they're already gathering, so why not use that resource? Absolutely. That's great, Jess.

[Stevan] (1:07:41 - 1:08:02)

I've got two thoughts. So most of the applications are submitted by individuals, like someone's idea. How about say, what about like a groupthink idea, like a submission, encouraging more and promoting more like, you know, coordination or collaboration between two different people rather than just an individual submission?

[Jessica] (1:08:03 - 1:10:33)

Anyone can apply. I think this year's submissions, most of them were more than one person. I think the Pūpūrangi, Hidden Pūpūrangi Snail Crafting Project was, I think that was a sole person, but she did have some collaborators.

The Green Room by Nimbin Youth, that's not really an organisation, but a collective, like a youth group collective. But yeah, a lot of the other applicants were individuals, but they did have collaborators in some aspects, whether it be another burn entity or a group that would be helping with the project management or a little bit of funding as well. But no big orgs, like no burner orgs, no external community orgs.

So it'd be interesting to see, it'd be really nice to see places like where Shannon's from down in Eden, which is beautiful. My in-laws also live in Can River, which is just over the border near there. And being involved in those small communities, you see how much there is a need for funding for projects in those areas, because New South Wales state government, and similarly with Victorian state government, just don't fund projects in regional areas.

They heavily rely as community orgs on grants or food bank programs or fundraising in order to affect events or projects or upskilling for their local community. And there's just not enough to go around. And a lot of the time it's focused on the vulnerable people, but not necessarily looking at the creativity aspect of it or the community aspect, which is where I think things like the Civic Ignition Grant could really benefit people who are already doing work in those areas, but also help bring projects that are more in line with the ethos and more inclusive and more focused on some of the other principles in decommodification and upskilling and youth and creativity and skillsharing. So yeah, it'd be interesting to see hopefully some more regional maybe organisations look at applying as well, who, again, that enculturates youth in those areas to being really inspired by and having a positive experience with burning from their first encounter and seeing it as a safe place that's supportive of them and things they want to do, and a really good way of helping bring in the next generation of burners through direct action projects rather than just them hearing about Burning Man, but through the actual positive change that's happening in their local areas and positive good that's affecting them personally.

So yeah, I'd like to see that. I'd love to see community orgs from regional areas applying. How we get there, I don't know.

Maybe word of mouth. Maybe some more like targeted sharing of the Civic Ignition Grant in community groups. I don't know.

[Stevan] (1:10:35 - 1:10:56)

Yeah, so my other thought was amongst the line of the reaching out to youth is what about local schools or local community groups like libraries or bingo clubs or whatever, just to get people fascinated with the ideas and also generating talking points about helping the community environment.

[Shannon] (1:10:57 - 1:13:18)

Yeah, we'll have to find out. Jess, I am very regional and I do a lot of this stuff already, but I was unaware of all the funding that they already receive. So when I was speaking to Leanna about, well, we have a Men's Shed and we have this and we have that, that I'd like to help support.

She's like, oh, they're a million dollar corporation and they already have all their funding and all their government stuff. And those are the organizations that I currently work with and volunteer for. So I have to deep dive into where the funding does not exist, like Campbell Page and all the resources that we have where I live.

I had to find out where it falls short. And so I think I'm probably in a good position because of the work that I do to find out where there is no funding because there is funding for domestic violence, like everything I've worked with here. So I just, I don't know where to put the burner stuff.

So I have to find that out where there is no local funding. And then maybe, you know, that's for me where I can start from where I, where I live personally. And maybe that's a starting point that I can help teach other people.

And I mean, just on a, on a side note, I brought three virgins to pilot this year that were my daughter's friends and their eyes are still lit up. And, you know, it, and I, it reminded me of teaching the principles and explaining all the things and being self-reliant and, and bringing your own cup. And, you know, they just were so amazed at all the art and all the things, and they will talk about it.

I'm sure to everyone they know. And so for me, that's an easy thing that I've always done is bringing people to Burns and telling them and talking about, um, all the good works that we do and how I live by it and my children have lived by it. And yeah.

And just incorporating the Burners Without Borders more into these small regions, I'll have to find out how to, um, you know, who's not funded and where I can help because we are doing the work, but, and sharing the, and sharing, uh, you know, the, where it's coming from, but, um, increasing awareness. But yeah, that's a interesting point. I'll have to research that and see how I can spread that word.

[PY] (1:13:19 - 1:13:54)

Just, um, reflecting on my own experience doing, um, DPW slash, slash, um, SPAM volunteering. I think if you're on a volunteer team that's there for a few weeks of the year, uh, you end up building a few community, uh, connections anyway, like, um, you know, you will end up going to the local footy club because you're borrowing some tables from them. You end up going to the local Lions club because you'll be donating cans to them.

So maybe that's a good place to start. If we have those kind of, um, DPW or other volunteer team connections with the community anyway, maybe that's a way we can, um, get the word out to those communities.

[Shannon] (1:13:55 - 1:13:56)

I like that. Thank you.

[Stevan] (1:13:57 - 1:13:58)

Any other tips or hacks, PY?

[PY] (1:13:59 - 1:14:08)

Um, no, I, I, I don't think so. I think just, you know, reading the criteria I think is, is the main thing. Um, so you don't submit it.

[Stevan] (1:14:08 - 1:14:09)

Yeah. It's a lot to process.

[PY] (1:14:09 - 1:14:21)

Yeah. So you don't submit a grant that asks for $80,000 or anything like that, which, um, which is a little bit beyond the scope of, of, of what the ignition grant is about.

[Stevan] (1:14:22 - 1:14:27)

Okay. Jess, let's talk about winter solstice and Canberra burn. Can we get an update on what you guys are up to?

[Jessica] (1:14:27 - 1:21:29)

Yeah. Um, so just for some background, um, the winter solstice burning Canberra first started in 2014. It was inaugurally at an actual, a venue, the Strathnair Arts Community Centre.

Yeah. Sorry about that. Organized by our regional RC, um, at the time there.

Um, and it was a joint fundraiser for CIA as it stood then, which was not registered at the time, but, um, our community organization for the ACT and AWC theme camp. So they used to split whatever was left over after the costs and AWC would use that to help fund them taking their theme camp to burning seed. And the remainder of the funds would go into providing art grants to people for the next year's event, um, and overhead things like, um, insurance upfront.

So if we needed to do that upfront, we had funds there. So from 2015, we turned into a purely a community art fundraiser and we're no longer a theme camp fundraiser. But then all of the money went into the next year's event or art grants to either take art to burning seed or another regional event in Australia or for the next year's solstice event.

And we continued that all the way up until 2023 at Kowen Forest. We went from a one day event to a two day burn event. It was a camping event where we had a large heated marquee to help from people freezing to death in the minus five conditions and would have a lot of people come from interstate as part of a sort of survival dynamic of a different kind.

So rather than trying to survive in the desert, it was the braving of the cold and also a bit of a hat tip to the original starting of burning man, which happened on the summer solstice in the Northern hemisphere, sort of in homage to the humble beginnings of burning man itself. We also had a lot of participation from performances as well. So, um, theatric, I was part of a avant-garde theater group before I joined burning shadow house pits were, um, the theater cruelty.

So we did a lot of Buto, a lot of theater that would make you uncomfortable. So we did have a lot of my community from that community come along and do some roaming performance as well as some live music a few times with a saxophone player and a trumpet. One year we had a flame thrower thanks to Hurricane.

I don't know if insurance covered that, but it was fun and it was fun safety third. But also, yeah, it was, um, it was very exciting to have that there and be involved in the lighting of our effigy that year. Um, as you may know, I had a baby in 2024, um, about a month out from when we would normally be holding solstice.

So we took a hiatus from 2024, but that year we also registered the capital incendiary authorities. So the proceeds from the previous solstice, we had a vote with all of the participating members of the unregistered org at that time, decided to use those funds to actually register not for profit incorporated association. Partly just so I, myself and Rodney, the other regional contact in ACT weren't taking on the personal liability for the event and having a new child, having a baby takes most of your bandwidth.

And although we are still heavily involved in helping with burn projects and providing advice and supporting community as region take a hiatus for the last two years, just because there wasn't a lot of interest in running the event themselves, even from other members of our org, but also in community. We had done a lot of training in the lead up to me going on like mat leave from winter solstice, but there just wasn't a lot of confidence within the crews there to put on by themselves without the energy of us there. And also our funds were obviously drastically reduced when we registered the organization.

So we're back to sort of square one where we're building up our membership, building up our funds to get to a position where we can healthily and safely put on event again. All of the solstices that have ever been held have been completely legal with permits and insurance. And that's really important part of solstice and part of also civic responsibility for us, like we'd never put on an event that wasn't completely legal.

So it's important that obviously we get back to a healthy financial position before we attempt to do that again, particularly in light of insurance costs having gone through the roof in the last few years. So this year we're looking at doing a hard launch of CIA. So the first step is to finalize polishing off of our website, which is live, but isn't in its final incarnation.

So hopefully that'll be updated within the next few months and then be ready to take live and we'll start doing some social media posts and potentially a launch party in the warmer months once we get to spring or towards summer. And that will hopefully attract more of our interstate burner community to come and support as well, because it won't be as daunting as traveling to Canberra in the middle of winter for sub-zero temperature camping out. And potentially just a one day rather than a camping event, perhaps like a day party is what we're floating the idea for at the moment.

And some swag and bringing in some of the art that solstice has funded in the past to make up part of that day party as well, represent some of the things that the Canberra Burners Winter Solstice has been able to help facilitate. And then hopefully that increase in membership and any funds raised from that launch party event will help facilitate our mission and what we're trying to do with CAA, which is move beyond just providing art grants for other burn events, but help provide similarly to what we do with the Civic Ignition Grant, like funding for upskilling or funding for projects locally that can have meaningful change in accordance with the principles, whether that be further education, hosting film nights and burning pubs that are a little bit more substantial rather than just the sort of turn up ones that we have at the moment, holding workshops where we could do upskilling and potentially pay an artist or a blacksmith or a woodworker to come and do some skill sharing with us or collaboration with other burner spaces where we pay a fee to use their space and then have access to the equipment to facilitate that knowledge sharing, which is also a really important part of building community, I think, and bringing in people who aren't necessarily part of the burner community already, but burner adjacent communities such as art collectives or performance collectives or Hack McFloyd, for instance, which is like a hacker maker space, but very adjacent to our values as well. So yeah, interesting. We're in sort of, I suppose, like a rebirth phoenix situation where we had ten full years of Winter Solstice running its event, doing a fundraiser, making lots of amazing art, helping supporting people to go to SEED or to other events.

And now that we've had a child and we're entering a new stage of our life, the organization hopefully is also entering a new stage now as a legal entity where it can step into its full power and hopefully affect a lot more meaningful change and have access to things as well, like government grants or other external grants as well as a not-for-profit incorporated association, which will better the cause and mission of the burner community in Canberra and the wider community as well.

[Stevan] (1:21:29 - 1:22:01)

Can I just say that with the Winter Solstice, I mean, it does get cold there. We don't have snow in Australia, but it gets freezing in Canberra. But I think the cold is a feature, not a bug.

I enjoy it because it's cold and you sit by the fire and stuff like that. So don't take any crap from people saying, I don't want to go to Canberra because it's too fucking cold. It's true, but it's a great time.

How many people do you guys get at the... Also, is it an official Burning Man status regional?

[Jessica] (1:22:01 - 1:27:27)

We've made the decision a few years ago not to incorporate it as an official regional burn, but we are and we're not incorporated by Burning Man Project in that we're a regional burn event. Similar to Underland, we made the decision early on that we didn't actually see the benefit because we're such a small burn, where instead it's run by two RCs and also part of the constitution of CIA is that an RC is always on the board for facilitating that event so that it can be endorsed in a way to ensure its ongoing compliance with the principles as a burn event. So it is technically, it's a valid micro burn, but we just don't see the benefit of becoming a regional for the amount of work that's required year round, being that also our site prohibits us from having more than 150 people.

Generally, we've capped it at one to 120, depending on the interest. Some years we've sold out quite early, so we've increased it by another 25 people to make sure we had, for instance, adequate trained rangers on site and enough crew to do gate shifts and things like that. And we were like, okay, we'll be willing to release directed tickets specifically for core crew that we feel we need to fluff up a bit and make sure we had good numbers to keep everyone well rested, not tired, not burnt out and ensure a fair and equitable shift load rather than having one or two people trying to do ranger shifts for 12 hours, like no.

But the other reason we always capped it at a smaller number was, I remember Bear telling me of something called Dunbar's number, which is like a social science reference, which basically stated that the ideal number of people in a community to maximize intimacy and connection and reduce the likelihood of conflict is 150 people. So the idea was we'd never go over that amount. And as luck would have it, the site that we found, Kowen Forest, when we left the Strathnance Community Center venue, is capped at that for camping just due to its size and limiting the impact of the environment.

And it is also open for public camping throughout the year, but we always hire it for exclusive use when we use it for solstice. So not only does it have a reduction of carbon footprint and reduction of environmental impact benefit, it also has a social benefit of ensuring as much as can be possible a harmonious burn and maximizing the potential for connection, collaboration and communication between participants on site. And also meaning that it's just a bit safer.

It's safer for the people organizing it. People are actually going to have a meaningful experience there because it's a micro burn. We actually find that it's much more inclusive.

We have a lot of new, I mean, half of board for CIA and NeuroDivergent, myself included, but we have a lot of participants who come who have been overwhelmed at bigger burn, but will come every year to solstice because they enjoy that they're not overstimulated while they're there. They can talk to people around a fire and hear the conversation. If they're a bit cold, they can go inside the marquee where we have heaters and this quiet zone at the back near our hearth, which is our kitchen area, where they can sit down and have something warm to eat or some soup and chat with someone on one of the day beds.

And there's still music and lights going on, but they're at the back and it's much quieter zone. Yeah. So a lot of things like that, I think that are the benefit of having a micro burn and a smaller burn and why we sort of decided to keep it at that level, but also ensures that we get to keep our site.

We have no prospects of growing over 150, which it doesn't really make it include, I don't think it makes it exclusive in that we're always open to anyone who wants to buy tickets. And we just ensure that Bergens either are coming with an experience burner or are properly enculturated before they come. But it means that, you know, the people who want to be there are there for the right reasons and want to be there.

They're not just going because they heard about it on the grapevine. And often, yeah, they're returning and they're bringing new things each year, whether it's a theme camp space or an art pop-up space or a few years, we've had like a gifting wardrobe where it's like a traveling suitcase type thing. People bring costumes and clothes they don't want anymore and go in and into this little marquee space and try on clothes and leave stuff and take stuff with them.

Yeah, just really interesting to see the different people that it's attracted and often people who had never heard of burning before who come along just seeking community and connection. And I've heard through a friend, you've got to come to this event. It's not a doff, it's a burn.

You don't know about burning, but this is a great way to understand. So for us, it's also a really without barrier way to be inducted into burning culture in a way that's not necessarily overwhelming. People are able to have those conversations and learn more in a non-judgmental setting with a community that's quite supportive and embracing around them.

And also see some artwork that might have only cost someone a hundred dollars to make, but you can see the passion in it and the skills they've learned and the things they've bought every year of up the ante each year, or they've then gone on and gotten grants from bigger bands and just taking that out to a whole new level. And I think that too is not threatening to people when they can see, wow, this guy's made this amazing big hope sign out of LEDs and perspex and he just has a basic understanding of electronics, but he got this little bit of money and he's made this really inspiring sign that I happened to see it too in the morning when I was having a challenging time and made me feel good about myself. Like little things like that, I think that inspire people to go, wow, I could make art too.

I can create something too, or be inspired just by the creativity and the ingenuity and confidence of the people around them to then step into that power within themselves.

[Stevan] (1:27:27 - 1:27:35)

Shannon, I know you love going to Burning Man, the big burn. What's your thoughts about microburns and what's your experiences with microburns?

[Shannon] (1:27:36 - 1:27:41)

Well, I personally love them. When I started Burning Seed in 2012 was my first year, there were 400 of us.

[Stevan] (1:27:42 - 1:27:43)

Was that considered as micro back then?

[Shannon] (1:27:44 - 1:29:20)

Well, I don't know what you would call micro. I think 400 is pretty micro and it was my first burn and I met my friends for life. It was amazing.

I met everyone. I was part of kids camp. My kids met other families.

We all worked together, solved problems together, supported each other as family members. I really love the microburn. Absolutely.

It's intimate. There was still plenty to do. My children are very little.

So for us, it was very nice to have a little tiny community of the kids camp to support us and for the kids to play and be in a safe environment, not a massive 10,000 event, a festival or something. Because this was our first burn, we didn't know the difference between a festival or a burn. And because it was so small, I think it really bonded us and we made friends for life.

And it was a beautiful experience. I do go to Burning Man most years and I love that too, but I will often not see my friends. We're in the same place, in the same country, but lots of times I don't see them and it's okay.

It's just a totally different experience and there is value in both. Absolutely. So I guess it depends on what personally suits you.

I'm pretty flexible. I love both because I've been burning for so long. I love the microburns.

I call them family reunions. I get to see my chosen family and really connect. And then I love the big burn for the massive adventure and the art and the things that I'm exposed to that wouldn't happen at any other place.

[Stevan] (1:29:20 - 1:30:43)

Yeah. I've made some amazing connections also at the Winter Solstice. And it's only a quick burn, 72 hours.

That's how the duration of the burns, in and out. So it's quite good. Yeah.

It's a fantastic burn. So I remember going to my first Canberra burn and reflecting back at it and thinking, well, that was way too quick, way too small, way too fast. Nothing really happens there.

We were doing just camping and just sitting by the fire. But it kind of broke my brain of how you still get that washing your brain kind of type of feeling. You still get that whole collective bonding experience as well.

So yeah, that kind of really reimagined my kind of thinking about what is a burn. It doesn't have to be five days and 500 people or 5,000 people, right? It can be just a small, little, quaint, little 100, 150.

And you're in and out just for the weekend. And that's perfect. And that's what I love about it.

And from that, these little connections last and impacts and actually reverberates out to the community as well. So I've made some really, really great connections through that. And all because of this little micro winter solstice burn because of that.

So thanks for the experience.

[Jessica] (1:30:44 - 1:30:50)

Oh, it's great to hear. No, anytime. Thanks for coming along and supporting a little regional burning community.

[Stevan] (1:30:51 - 1:31:03)

The hesitation was the cold, but I think that's the feature. Part of the fun is to rug up, is to come together, whether it's 40 degrees heat or minus five. Yeah.

[Jessica] (1:31:03 - 1:32:19)

One thing it does, I find, teach participants who are used to being in the really balmy climates and warmer burns of like even see much warmer and in the burns that take place in those border seasons like spring and autumn is that, yeah, no sparkle ponying necessarily at a winter burn. It's more about practicality and it really does, you know, bring into play radical self-reliance, but also communal effort. Like if people come and we check them at gate and we make sure they've got ample warm clothes, but if they don't, I know like me personally, I usually bring about 20 hot water bottles every year and just have them in the kitchen area.

And if people come in and they're cold or if a ranger identifies someone's really cold and they haven't got the appropriate clothing, I'll put boiling water in a hot water bottle and gift it to them. And then they learn about the importance of, you know, maintaining body heat in subzero temperatures, but also people will bend around you and come together. I think the challenging environment creates opportunities for people to connect with community and yeah, embrace communal effort, but also yeah, radical self-reliance in their preparation.

So yeah, different burn, smaller burn, but not necessarily any less meaningful burn.

[Shannon] (1:32:19 - 1:33:15)

Can I add too with the micro burn is that I feel like when it's small like that too, that everybody's kind of more on the same page. So in the bigger burns, you might have, like you said, Jess, your sparkle ponies and this and that, but in the smaller burns, I do feel like it is way more communal and way more looking after your neighbor and more conversations and more help or communication and teaching and learning and sharing. And because there's only so many people there.

So you're going to bump into the same person and, and maybe it's not, maybe it like advertises this big party and people that go to these smaller burns kind of, I feel like are more educated and know what they're getting into maybe a little bit more. And so it feels more communal, more tribal. And I really do appreciate that about the little burns for sure.

[Stevan] (1:33:15 - 1:33:20)

Can we quickly talk about the Canberra burner scene? What's your assessment of the scene?

[Jessica] (1:33:21 - 1:39:52)

We have a really quite small community. We have had a lot of the core long-term members of our community sort of move interstate in the last three or four years, particularly Landi, who is the lead of AWC. Halcyon sort of transiently about to move to Melbourne.

She's another one of our like core artists, but we also have had a lot of new people join. Like during COVID, we had a massive influx of new members to our community who found us online when they were searching for connection with community, feeling increasingly isolated from people. And we were at that stage trying to be uber inclusive and do like virtual burning pubs where we'd have a Zoom meeting and all wear a crazy hat and make a mocktail or a drink or you know, talk about ways we could create art and keep creativity and mental health well-being ongoing during these lockdown periods.

And we actually had, I mean, it was a double-edged sword not being able to meet in person in that a lot of our new community members joined without ever having been in an actual burn event. So a lot of it was like theory or virtual burning pubs and things in practice. And although we were doing like craft noons and working bees online.

Yeah. I feel like when we all did finally meet in person, it was a little bit overwhelming for some people, but they continued to come back and their relationship with the burner community grew and evolved and changed over time. And now they're active.

Most of those people are actively involved in many of the regionals. They still reside in Canberra. They don't necessarily always come to the in-person burning pubs due to family commitments or work commitments, but they'll still engage online.

They'll still message us regularly and they come and they turn up and do stuff. They'll come to events. They're not necessarily online talking about burning as much.

They're not doing it for social credit or anything like that or social capital. They're on the ground, quietly doing the work at burn events and building community amongst their friend groups in Canberra. And they'll always come.

Most of them will come to solstice each year and just bring amazing things, whether it be performance art or workshops or crazy dadaist art side quests. I think we have a really broad community, very arts based and very age broad as well. We have some of our oldest members are in their 60s and 70s.

Some of our youngest members like Arlo are two. A lot of our local burners also have children who don't necessarily come to burns per se, but actively are involved in the burner community and will come to burning picnics, make art, come up with ideas for craft projects we could do or workshops they want to see that they're interested in, give us feedback on all ages things they want to see happening in the community that they can come to, such as the burner picnics.

We usually have a little Christmas decom towards the end of the year. That's a free picnic on the lake where we just all bring potluck food and stickers and do workshops, whether it be poi or practice fire twirling and do collaborative craft projects. We have a really broad and varied background community and it's quite small.

I think our really full on engaged active community is about 35 to 40 people, but transiently throughout the year we probably get at least 150 new members to our Facebook page every year, sometimes more. During COVID we had about 400 people join our page who were just actively seeking connection and a friend of a friend had joined and then they heard about us and they joined and they learned a lot about enculturation. It's interesting the dynamics of the newer.

There's a little period of there's a group of people and it's mainly Gen Z that we don't have a lot of people from that generation who have joined our community recently, but it's also something that was brought up at Summit. That generation's focused on digital detox and finding us and I think a lot of our optics are online and a lot of that generation aren't on Facebook and that's one of the predominant methods of getting our burning pub advertising and our events out there and if they're not on that platform then it can be hard, I think, to engage with those people. So yeah, interesting.

I'd like to see more Gen Zs come to the Canberra burn community, but I think that's a me problem, not a them problem. Maybe we need to look at how it can be better engaging offline in non-digital ways in person. Where are they?

Where are they at? Are they at gigs? Are they at art events?

Do we do some flyers? I'm an activist and I know when we hold protests we will post some stuff online, but the majority is you out there with a bucket of paste and a paintbrush plastering posters everywhere to make people aware that you're holding an event. Yeah, so maybe I need to do some poster plastering for burning pubs to get people to come along of that age group, I don't know.

But yeah, I think our community is small but close and we're very much like a family despite all our different backgrounds and age groups and perspectives and some of us are very politically opposite to each other. We all manage to find harmony in the chaos and work together through challenging situations to achieve positive things. So I like to see where it's going next.

Hopefully it'll grow, but I am happy that we have organic growth of our local community and not a massive influx. Having worked at Seed when we grew to a 5,000 person event over two years was very eye-opening and overwhelming and provided a lot of barriers to enculturation. So I think that each one teach one, people organically coming along because they've been changed or inspired or had transformational experiences through burning culture and community, then sharing those experiences with others around them because they want to see that joy in their lives as well, is a good way of enculturating.

And I'd much rather that than just sort of pumping out PR and then having a big influx of people who might not necessarily get it or be engaging for the right reasons. I'm not being cynical, but there's always people who I think have an idea about what burning is and might engage with the community as more of a predatory aspect rather than an authentic one. So I think by doing the organic enculturation and just letting it grow through word of mouth and people finding us organically is a good thing.

[Stevan] (1:39:52 - 1:40:29)

Yeah, I love this conversation of looking at the generational kind of transit that we're, transitional period that we're going through. Usually we like to end the show with some shout outs and some gratitude. So I can start, I'll start with just giving a shout out to the people I met at Pilot Burn, but in particular, all those Gen Zs out there that I met.

So one of them was your daughter, Shannon. So shout out to, and her friends, and I've forgotten her, their friends' names and all that, but shout out to those groups. So thanks for appearing and having those great chats around the, around the burn barrels, around the fire.

[Shannon] (1:40:30 - 1:40:35)

Awesome. Which I had two daughters there, one with long blonde hair and one with colored hair.

[Stevan] (1:40:35 - 1:40:36)

Long blonde hair. Yeah.

[Shannon] (1:40:36 - 1:40:48)

Oh yes. She's gold. She's so wise.

Thank you, Stevan. I appreciate that. Yeah.

She's been burning since she was a nappy. So I'm pleased to hear that. Thank you.

[Stevan] (1:40:48 - 1:40:50)

Any shout outs, any gratitude to end this?

[Jessica] (1:40:50 - 1:41:29)

I just want to shout out to you for hosting this amazing podcast and facilitating a platform that allows us to publicly have these important conversations. A lot of the time, a lot of the burner combos and things, you know, relating to burner life happen in meetings or org structures and behind closed doors. So it's really exciting and important work that you're doing by providing a platform for us to be able to have these conversations and, you know, they have their own way of enculturating and guide some narratives that people in their communities might want to be having as well.

So I really appreciate all the work that you're doing and the opportunities you're providing. So thank you very much.

[Stevan] (1:41:30 - 1:41:31)

Thank you.

[Shannon] (1:41:31 - 1:42:39)

I'll go next. Yes. Ditto all of that, Stevan.

I'm going to copy you Jess. I have so many shout outs. Jess, I want to really thank you for, um, taking on this hat with the BWB and supporting me through Bonza and holding my hand.

Public speaking is not my thing. And I feel much more confident now that Jess held my hand through this whole last Bonza. And, you know, I'm reminded that everyone is my friend and we're all here believing the same kind of things and principles, and there should be no fear or hesitation or anxiety around talking about things that I love.

And thank you for helping me reach that, that, uh, I don't know that, that anchor, that, that position, um, so that I can go forward and, um, continue preaching about BWB and burning and all the things that I love so much with confidence and, um, less fear in a public room in front of my peers. So thank you so much for that.

[Jessica] (1:42:39 - 1:42:49)

Oh, you're most welcome. No, I'm glad to be able to help. You're doing an amazing, amazing job and it's been a tough year and I'm just really glad that I could help you get through that.

And thank you.

[Shannon] (1:42:49 - 1:43:24)

Thank you. Yeah, you definitely helped me. The word I was searching for was crossroads.

Yes, definitely. Cause it is something I'm super passionate about, but it has been a really tough time with my father passing and you guys, even Steven, you guys, you guys don't even know that I didn't know that my burner family was talking about this in their meetings and how they could love and support and hold me. And I had not said anything or asked for anything, but they knew and held this position and then turned up for me.

I mean, how amazing is Awesome.

[Stevan] (1:43:24 - 1:43:25)

Yes.

[Shannon] (1:43:26 - 1:43:29)

Thank you. It's been a pleasure to know all of you. Thank you.

[Stevan] (1:43:29 - 1:43:31)

PY did you have any, shout outs?

[PY] (1:43:31 - 1:44:13)

Um, yeah. So firstly, thank you for Burners Without Borders and the Local Bonzer community for entrusting me with the, with the grant funds, um, a couple of years ago and more broadly, thank you to the people who've been my, my counsel throughout working on this project and other projects. You know, you might be working on a community project or an art project or something, but it does, you know, uh, take a few sympathetic ears, people to, to hear you talk through the problems that you're having, um, and help you sort of shape your ideas.

Um, so to all those people. Yeah. Thank you very much for putting up with my random phone calls and messages and all times of the day.

[Stevan] (1:44:13 - 1:45:40)

Yeah. It's fitting how with this episode BWB, I mean, with, with, without the application that I went through the process. Yeah.

I don't think this podcast would have existed because it actually gave me the kickstart initiative, the, the, the, the whole, um, confidence to, to go through with it. And it was just an idea of, I guess it came from a frustration of not hearing or not having access to much cultural and community news and updates and chatter and, you know, insights and just conversations, um, amongst us all. So just from that became, um, a presentation of, you know, encouraging and promoting the culture and the communities and all your, all your individual voices.

And then understanding that in order to do that, we need to crystallize what we need to do, put all these action plans into place and then actually executing it and turning into reality. And yeah, so this is what this whole project is about, is about, you know, documenting our culture, our community, and also archiving for future generations. So they can understand and continue this, uh, amazing, you know, uh, community and culture that we have.

So thanks very much for everyone. And, um, yeah, we'll see you out in the paddock.

[Shannon] (1:45:41 - 1:45:42)

Thank you.

[Stevan] (1:45:43 - 1:45:47)

All right. This is going straight to the pool. All right. Have a good one.

[Jessica] (1:45:47 - 1:45:48)

Bye.

[Stevan] (1:45:48 - 1:45:49)

Thank you.

Transcripts transcribed by TurboScribe.ai