Richard and Linda Podcast Transcript
RICH:
Welcome to another episode on the rich mix. And I'm really fortunate to have a really good friend of mine, Linda Kemp on. So welcome, Linda.
Welcome to another episode on the rich mix. And I'm really fortunate to have a really good friend of mine, Linda Kemp on. So welcome, Linda.
LINDA:
Well, hi, it's so good to see you. It's been a while. I know, it's been a while.
RICH:
And even though we see each other on the screen, it's awesome seeing your face again, you know? Yeah. And no, so thank you so much for coming on board. And look, the reason I've got you on board because you have an amazing history and experience.
And I know you're retired, you know? So you've been an entrepreneur pretty much most of your life and a business owner. And a lot of the people that listen to rich mix are aspiring business owners or managers or, you know, looking at starting their own business. And they love listening in to get some ideas and get inspired by people like yourself, you know? So tell us a little bit about your journey.
Obviously you've got an accent, English accent. And so when did you migrate to Australia? What made you come to Australia?
LINDA:
Okay, so I originally came over here a long time ago in 1973. I was really close to my sister and she had emigrated to Australia in 71.
And I hadn't seen her for like two years. I was only 18 or 19 and I really missed her. And my then fiancé and myself were both in the travel industry.
So it was so cheap to fly because you'd get agents discount. So I came over to visit her and I just fell in love with Australia. It was just wonderful.
She lived just in the inner Western suburbs. And I was supposed to go back to get married. And my fiance, I said to him, you've got to come over and visit.
So he came over as well. We went back and got married in the December and we came back and we lived here on and off for about two years. And we went back to England.
Back then in the early seventies, if you were British, you didn't need a visa. You could just grab your passport, jump on a plane, come over to Australia. And that was it.
When we went back, which I think was in 75, they had changed that to come back, you had to have a visa. And my personal circumstances changed. We separated and it just like, I got really involved in life back in London again.
And I just stayed, I just stayed in London. And mum and dad knew I would always end up coming back over here. Cause I was always raving about what a wonderful lifestyle it is and how great it is, which it is.
And so they actually, very late stage, they applied for, you couldn't emigrate at their age, but they applied to come and live in Australia. And so they came over, my brother was here, my sister was here. So I came over to visit in 1979.
And again, I just felt like I had come home, which I had really. And Jim, who I was then, you know Jim. So I was married to Jim by then.
And he rang me up that day before the age of mobile phones. He rang me up on the landline to make sure I'd arrived safely. And I said, I don't think I'm going to want to come back.
So he put everything into storage and he came over for a holiday. Very long story, I'm sorry. Oh, that's all right.
And when he arrived, because his sisters lived here, who were his only close family. And we used to come to the Blue Mountains for weekends to visit his sisters. And it was just, yeah, we just loved it.
So we applied for residency. And at that stage they had an amnesty going for, we weren't illegal, we had visas. But they had an amnesty going because there was so many illegal, they called them illegal aliens, but you know, illegal people staying in Australia.
And we applied, it took two years. We were allowed to stay for that time, but we got it and we stayed here. And that's when life began for us, really.
It was wonderful. By the time we got residency, we were expecting Michael, my son, our son, our first child, yeah.
RICH:
Back home in the UK, before you left, were you still working in the travel industry at the time then?
LINDA:
No, no, I'd actually left the travel industry.
I'd decided I didn't want to work in travel anymore. And I was walking along, actually, I was walking along Regent Street in London. And there was an employment agency.
And back in those days, they used to have job cards in the windows with jobs that were available. I was just having a look around. I'd literally left my job.
We were walking down the street trying to decide what I was going to do within half an hour. Saw this sign in the window and it said, are you standing out there wondering what to do with your life? Why don't you come in and have a cup of tea and have a chat with us about a career in recruitment? Yeah, wow. Never thought about that before.
So I had got jobs through recruitment companies before and I thought I was dealing with people. So I walked in and I said, I was actually, I think I was 21, I think. I walked in and said, look, I don't know about a job in recruitment, but I'd really love a cup of tea.
And they gave me a cup of tea and they gave me a job. And that's what I started.
RICH:
Yeah, wow, awesome.
LINDA:
And yeah, I've been in it ever since. Yeah, so 50 years in recruitment. So when you came to Australia, did you actually work for someone in recruitment or you decided to go, look, I'm gonna start my own business? So the most recent time when I came over with Jim, back in 79, no, I didn't have the confidence to start my own business.
You know, I was still in my early 20s. I started working with a very, very big recruitment company called Centacom. Yep.
And I ended up being a manager of their executive division and then, yeah, I was in Martin Place and I worked with them until Michael was born. Yep. And then when he was old enough, I went back to work, I think I worked with Manpower for a while.
Yep. And then with- Manpower, I actually worked- Worked with a couple. I used to work for A&P years ago and a lot of our trainees, all the guys we used to get, trainees as assistants, were all came from Manpower, you know, at Circular Key.
Manpower was a really good company. They had fantastic systems, really good screening systems. Yep.
Long before most other companies had them. And, you know, I wouldn't like to say that I stole any ideas from them, but when you're opening a business of your own or even when you're working for somebody else, you want to have the best systems in place. 100%.
And if someone else has got it, why not? Yeah. If you've worked with companies and, you know, you see what works and what doesn't work, you tend to adapt. Yep.
Adopt and adapt what you know works really well. And so by the time I got the confidence to, you know, to open up my own company, I really had some great sort of systems in place that, and some of them were ones that I'd sort of created myself that, you know, that I found really worked well and saved time. And you just want to have the best systems that you can.
RICH:
So what was the trigger that made you want to start your own business? What made you want to pivot there and go, you know what, this is the time?
LINDA:
Oh, there was a few. I mean, sometimes it's when you're working for somebody else, no matter how senior you are in that company. And, you know, I was actually, you know, virtually running the company, but there's always somebody else's decisions that are, they're not influencing, they're telling you what you have to do.
And sometimes that really goes against the grain, especially when you feel it's not in the best interests of your client. Yeah. The client being the company that's paying the money to hire somebody.
Yeah, yeah. And it's sometimes definitely not in the, you know, it's definitely not the best thing for the consultants that are working for you, because at the end of the day, you know, the company you're working for is wanting to increase profits all the time. And that often means that you have to reduce the quality.
Yeah. And to me, I've always felt that if your client's really happy, if you're doing a great job for somebody, and this goes for anything, not recruitment, but everything, if you've got really, really happy clients that are getting a fantastic service from you and it's working, then you don't need to sell. Well, you need to sell a little bit, but your client's word of mouth is the best.
Oh, 100%. And for 30 years, I mean, I've placed people in jobs sort of 30 years ago that ended up going through the companies and becoming management themselves. And so when they were in a position where they could decide who they wanted to use, they would come back to me.
Come back, yeah, because you have that relationship.
RICH:
So going back again to that beginning, that raw time when you first started, how old was Mickey then? How old was Michael? When I opened- Yeah, your own business. This company.
LINDA:
Yeah. So I did have a company previously, but I was in a partnership because I was never really confident enough to, and I didn't really think I had enough sort of background of money to start a business up. So when I actually started Complete Recruitment Solutions, that I started on my own.
And let me tell you, don't ever go into partnership if you can manage it on your own, because you don't have to go by somebody else's decisions. You just, you know, it's your decision. And if it works, it's your decision.
Give yourself a pat on the back. If it doesn't work, give yourself a slap and say, well, don't do that again. But it's always your decision.
You're not relying on other people and you can't blame anybody else. So when I started Complete Recruitment Solutions, Michael came to work with me after a while, because I started just on my own. And the reason I started Complete Recruitment Solutions was because I had been in a partnership with another company.
We'd sold that company. I had, as part of the deal, I had to stay on and help them run it for a couple of years as part of the contract. And so in that time, you know, I sold what had been a fantastic business, become virtually like a shareholder business where it was more money, more money, more money, you know, less wages, more profit, you know.
And also, I was having to travel around the country a lot. So I decided that, no, I was getting older. You know, we were living in the Blue Mountains.
I didn't really want to be traveling all around Australia. So I think it was in 2006. I resigned from there.
And I thought, I'm just not going to work. And I wasn't going to work. And then I really missed it.
Yeah. It's become a way of life. I've been doing it for years and it's a very social thing.
It's hard work. Yeah, 100%. So I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to open up my own little recruitment company, just looking after a really small group.
I couldn't, because of the contract, I couldn't actually deal with any companies I've dealt with before. I had to start from scratch. So did you have a bit of savings then to start up? And- We owned our house, you know.
So I've almost owned the house. The bank owned this much, we owned that much. So I just drew back.
But you know what? I didn't need nearly as much money as I thought I would need. You know, I rented a small office in, I looked in Penrith. There was nothing really in Penrith that was small enough that I could afford.
And my accountant at the time was Craig Hill in Kingswood. Amazing guy, very, very supportive. And he said, Linda, there was a recruitment company had the building next door to me and they've moved out and they've left all the furniture there.
RICH:
Wow, awesome.
LINDA:
It's been empty for a year. Why don't you see about that? So I did.
And it was 50, I think it was $55,000 a year. And I thought, oh my goodness, I can never afford that. But you know, I spoke to the bank manager and he said, you've got so much equity in your house, just do it.
RICH:
Just do it, yeah.
LINDA:
So I did. And I thought, I'll just do it on my own.
And then Craig's daughter came and worked for me as a receptionist. And I really thought it was gonna be like three or four days a week in the office and the rest from home. And I think the office was something like, I don't know, 80 square metres.
And I thought, God, I feel like I'm a pea rattling around inside a drum in this, you know? Yeah. And it had a little kitchen and bathrooms and two offices and an open plan area. And I couldn't believe it, within six months, we had to move into bigger premises because just, yeah.
And you know what, that was all driven by you because you literally got that machine moving to grow the business so quick, you know? You had such great drive. And that would have been challenging being a mum as well, you know? Yeah. Coming home.
Well, the kids were in their late teens. Yeah, okay. Yeah, they'd sort of grown up a lot by then.
And yeah, I mean, Liz was still at school. Michael was working already. He'd left school.
But I asked him to come and work with me and he hates working in an office. I mean, he'd always been in sales or, you know, working, running restaurants or whatever. So he's always been on his feet, out and about.
And he came and worked with me and he was doing sales, but then I needed him to look after some of the jobs that he was bringing in because so much work was coming in. He just wants to pick up the desk. He just wants to pick up.
Just to let everyone know. He does. I mean, I can imagine him just, you know what he's like, sort of holding the desk above his head doing the same thing with a few of the candidates probably as well.
But he was excellent, actually. He was really good. And he brought in a lot of clients and he was really popular, but he just found he couldn't, yeah, he couldn't stand working behind the desk.
So after a little while, I, you know, I reluctantly let him go off and do whatever he wanted to do. But yeah, by that time we had quite a few staff. And then Liz, my daughter, who you know, she then came to work with me as well.
RICH:
Yeah. And what was she doing prior to working with you?
LINDA:
So when she left school, she actually wanted to work in the hair and beauty industry, not hair, but more beauty. And she went to work for a very, very upmarket company in, oh, I think it was in Dubbo Bay or somewhere called Vinostos.
Yep. And she was only 17. And she used to have to be there at eight o'clock in the morning.
So Jim was so protective as his father, he wouldn't let her get the train because she got the train once and she got sort of, you know, bothered by people on the train, especially coming home late at night because some nights she didn't finish till eight o'clock. He used to drive her down to wherever it was, I'm sure it was Dubbo Bay. Yeah.
And then he used to go and pick her up on the night time. I think she got paid about $150 because she was an apprentice. Yep.
And I think it cost him about $300 a week in fuel. Yeah. To drive down there.
So she lasted a while. And I mean, it was great. I mean, cause she was doing like, you know, Nicole Kidman and people like that.
Just, she was an apprentice, so she wasn't doing treatments, but she was sort of looking after them, greeting them and everything. But yeah, it just was too much. So she ended up coming and working with me as a receptionist.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I should say, after she left the beauty industry, she actually went to work as a vet nurse.
Yeah, cool. And she absolutely loved that. She was doing brilliantly with that.
And yeah, but then she had an allergy to the penicillin. She got a penicillin allergy, which is, in veterinary science, they don't have tablets, they have powder. Yeah.
So the powder's always in the air. So she had a couple of really bad allergic reactions to that. So she had to leave there, which was my blessing.
Yeah, that's good. Really, cause she's been with me ever since. Yeah, that's fantastic.
RICH:
And so what is running the business and obviously the growth, has there been some particular like challenging times through the growth?
LINDA:
Oh, are you kidding me? What has been probably one of the most challenging times that you have to go through? The biggest challenging time for me, when I really, I have never, ever felt so much stress and pressure in my life. It was a big surprise for me to actually have those feelings was the recession that we had to have in. So we opened in 2006.
We really, really grew. And we stayed, it was late 2006. And then in early 2008, we moved to much, much bigger premises, which is where we are now.
So the rent was double. I had about 15 staff, internal staff at that stage and lots and lots and lots of clients. And yeah, we hit the recession after me, signing a massive long lease.
And we had dignitaries came and opened up the office and it was a massive event and everything was brilliant. And within months, yeah, within months, it was, I think it started, I remember Liz got married in the November, we'd moved. We were moving and I was away in England for a few weeks.
And during the move, something happened with Telstra and our phones didn't get connected. And I was away and I was ringing the office and I couldn't get through. And when I got back, I said, what's going on with the phones? Oh, the phones have been really quiet.
I said, have you tried ringing? Oh no, this wasn't my daughter, this was staff. So I rang the phones and yeah, none of the phones were ringing. So that was really bad.
And then in the middle of all of that, the recession hit. We got the phones fixed, the recession hit. And- Did you have to let go of staff? Or did you have to let go of staff at that time to get through it? I did.
I mean, I sat down and had discussions with staff and gave people the opportunity that, because everybody was on really high salaries. I don't wanna let anybody go. We can look at reducing salaries and members cut back on your hours so you can stay or you can choose to go or whatever.
So I think we ended up being in the end about five of us. But before that happened, what happened is a lot of our clients, we were specializing in, or I had a specialist division dealing with telecommunications. And we also used to, we got a contract with a company that put a computer on every student's desk.
Contracts throughout Australia. And I used to supply them with electricians all around Australia. And they weren't getting paid by the government.
And so consequently they weren't paying us. And, and they ended up going into liquidation and they owed us hundreds of thousands of dollars, which we never got. So when you running a recruitment company, people don't often realize, but we did permanent work where we charge clients a fee for finding the right permanent person, but we also supply temps to companies.
So if you've got a company, that's got a contract for six months, they don't want to be putting permanent staff on. And they often need people at really short notice. So they can't go through the whole recruitment process in time.
So we had, oh, we had a couple of hundred electricians, really good electricians who specialized in audio visual on our books that we had working in various different companies. So we could source people at short notice for them. So we would pay the people's wages and these people are really highly paid.
So I said, these people were getting $2,000 a week. We would be paying that. We'd be paying the payroll tax and the superannuation and the workers' comp and all of those things.
And then we'd be charging the client all of that plus a fee. And people never pay the day they get an invoice. You're lucky if they pay a week or two weeks or three weeks.
So if you've got a hundred people earning $2,000 a week. Oh, it's a lot of money going out and you've got to foot the bill prior to them getting paid. And then if it's a month, you multiply that by four.
So that's the sort of payroll that we were running. And then if all of a sudden that company goes broke and owes you three months worth of invoices. So it was very, very difficult.
And I didn't know whether we would actually get through it. And it wasn't because we'd done anything wrong or we were all working ridiculous hours, but it was really hard. But I looked at, okay, so what companies aren't being affected by what companies aren't being affected by this global? Because it wasn't just Australia, it was worldwide.
RICH:
What companies, what type of industries aren't being affected?
LINDA:
And I looked at that and don't ask me which ones they were, because it was very hard. And I just sort of, I suppose, threw myself into those industries. And yeah, and we got by.
RICH:
Yeah, fantastic.
LINDA:
More recently, I think the I'd already stopped working, which I'll talk about later on. But more recently, the big thing was COVID.
You know what, if somebody had said to me, five years ago, or six years ago, in fact, when my daughter did say to me, because my daughter runs the business brilliantly. If anybody had said to me, you know, you can run a recruitment company without actually seeing anybody, without actually meeting anybody, and be successful, I would have said, get real. There's no way, it's a people thing.
You've got to sit down and talk to these people. But you know, they put things in place. And I mean, Zoom, obviously, is a big thing.
But yeah, so they're the two major, really major things. In the time of the GFC, something like 75% of recruitment companies close their doors. Yeah.
RICH:
Especially right now, in the current state, the amount of businesses going in salt, you know, running in salt, closing down. Yeah, it's really sad, you know. So yeah, so, you know, literally put your hat up to yourself for, you know, for, for keeping it and saying keeping that business for so long, and still running a successful business is awesome.
LINDA:
You know, so thank you for that, you know, and just to go back with us to marketing strategies in that business. A lot of it was through word of mouth, because from great service and referrals.
RICH:
And what type of other marketing did you have to do? Was it mainly like, yellow pages? Because online?
LINDA:
I suppose the yellow pages comes into it in the fact that, you know, if you don't know somebody's phone number, but you know, you want to contact them, you need to, you need to get their number from somewhere.
And that gets harder and harder. It used to be really easy in the old days. I know.
It's fine. So now, yeah, you got to Google everything, you know. You Google and it takes you to all these different things that you're not interested in.
Yeah. But yeah, look, it's a chicken and egg situation, because you think, you know, do you find the candidates first, and then the clients? Or do you do the clients first, and then find the candidates? And I've always gone with both. And, you know, if people know what you do, they say, oh, you know, they have somebody who's looking for work, and they get them to ring you, or they ring you and say, can you help a friend? And so you always end up with candidates first, when people know what you do.
And so I would just, the really good candidate, I would never market out a candidate that I thought wasn't going to be a good employee. Because, you know, you don't get a great reputation for introducing a poor employee to a company. But if I had, it's like looking at making sure you've got quality, it sounds awful to say stock.
But you know, if you've got a quality piece, this is a Robert Linnegan mug, which cost me $90. And it's a beautiful collector piece, but I use it because I use everything. So I would easily sell that to somebody.
But I would find it really hard to sell a paper cup as something that was durable. You know what I mean? So if you've got a really good candidate, I would just look at what industries they've worked in. And I would just bring up companies in that industry, you've just got to get on the phone and do it.
There are people who have absolutely brilliant ideas, and great personalities, and they could do so well. But something stops them from picking up the phone. And it doesn't matter what industry you're in, if it's a travel industry, if it's, you know, if it's recruitment, whatever, people don't know you're there unless you pick up the phone and tell them, you know, yes, you can put banners out and you can advertise and you can do all of these things.
But the thing that if you're, if you're really sincere about what you want to do, you've got to pick up the phone and do it. So it's like, because and then you have to, so really, your business is like a dating employment business. Because you're gonna match people in a way, you know what I mean? A perfect match.
RICH:
Yeah, perfect match. You just gotta match them up. And then you have to expand into different categories, different industries as well.
Did you think, okay, well, new industries are popping up because even now there's so many different new roles, new kind of jobs out there that were never out in the market before. That's true. It is so true.
LINDA:
I mean, look, I've been in the industry. I'm not in it now. Well, I'm in it, but I'm not actually actively working.
You know, how things have changed in 50 years. I mean, you know, nobody's ever heard of a KPO, which was a key punch operator, which was the pre, you know, the precursor to data entry operators. And now everybody's data entry operator.
I mean, everybody, even, you know, CEOs are on their computers. Things are totally different. You don't have typing tools anymore because everybody does their own typing.
And yes, I mean, I can remember when closed circuit TV first came in and I was already doing electricians. Well, you know, so I also added on to that, you know, I would be doing security tech. And when Foxtel and the like, you know, cable TV came out, you know, I got a contact with a big company called Vision Stream to, I think I had 170 people working there doing, you know, cabling.
RICH:
Yeah. I used to work for Optus Vision long, long time ago. So when it first started, cable TV first came to Australia.
So, and then I think Vision Stream, we ended up getting Vision Stream contractors to help as well. Yeah. You might've been getting my people.
Yeah. It was a long time ago before my business. Yeah.
I left A&P. I was a high-rise building engineer eight years ago and I left A&P and, you know, I wanted to get out and about and study electronics and yeah, end up, you know, working in a van and with Optus Vision. It was great.
LINDA:
You know, it was good getting out and about learning new skills and meeting a lot of people, you know. And you learn so much terminology as well. I have never, ever dealt with a company without going out and doing a full tour of the place from my very early days, you know, going back into the seventies because I've always felt that, you know, if a candidate asks me a question about the company, I don't want to say, Oh, I don't know.
Sorry. I don't know. I mean, I'm looking at putting this person potentially into a new career.
I need to be able to answer their questions. So I would, I've always, you know, gone out to the company, done a full inspection of the company, done a workplace health and safety inspection, make sure that everything's okay from that point of view. And met people in the department that that person was going to be working in.
And what is fantastic about that is because I've always believed that I shouldn't just look after one type of staff. If I look after your company, Richard, I want to look after every area of it. So, you know, if you hire, if you have, you know, a factory and a warehouse and an accounting division, and I want to look after everybody in that company.
So I look after the whole thing and not all consultants can actually look after every division. So I've always made sure I've had staff. I've always had an industrial division, an accounts division, you know, et cetera.
And, and so whilst the client has a new, you don't have to deal with a million people from day one, you deal with a specialist in each division and going out to these companies and looking at every division. I mean, I remember when I, when I first started with Manpower, they do the same thing. They go out and look.
I remember going out and watching potato chips being made and to make sure I understood it totally, I rostered myself onto a Saturday shift and I worked in the factory on the Saturday so that I could understand exactly what, I tell you, it's hard work. It's hot work and it's smelly work because you've got all the hot oil coming in. It taught me an awful lot that I could tell candidates I was putting in there and I would know who would fit and who wouldn't fit.
Yeah, because you understand the environment that you're putting them in, you know? And when I pick up a pack of chips now, I look at that and I know what's, what has gone in behind the scenes. Yeah. I remember one shift, it was a shift that I went in on Saturday and somebody put their hand in the machine to clear it, but it was still going and they chopped a finger off.
RICH:
And you didn't get finger-flavored chips that day. The whole factory had to shut down and had to be totally decontaminated. And there was no, there was no production for like 24 hours.
LINDA:
It's just amazing. I really learned a lot. And I did that for every company I ever serviced.
It's actually quite exciting because you learn about different things. I learned how glass was made, you know, going to ACI glass. I learned how windscreens were made.
You know, it's, it's really, really, really fascinating. Yeah. I remember when I was at school, we used to go on excursions to, to companies so we could see how things were being made.
And there's television programs on now about, you know, how things are made, but going out and doing it as part of your job, it's really interesting and it makes you better at what you do, you know, and better able to know who would fit that type of work.
RICH:
Now, when was the time where you got, you know what, I want to hang up at least one boot, you know what I mean? You're still kind of involved a little bit. When was the time, what was the critical moment in your life? Can I tell you, I never made a decision that I was going to hang up my boots.
LINDA:
I really thought, I really thought that I would be working until in my, in my company, Complete Recruitment Solutions. I really thought I'd be working in that company until the day I died because I sort of, you tend to think you're irreplaceable. Yeah.
And let me tell you, nobody's irreplaceable. You're not. Things won't be the same, but they'll, they'll be different, but they won't be worse.
And they won't, sometimes they will be better. Yeah. But no, I, I had had a lot of time off because my sister-in-law had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
So I was looking after her. I was sort of looking after her full-time and working remotely, still running the business. But Liz was really running the business, you know, on, you know, ground zero.
And then Denny passed away and I started working just part-time a little bit. And then in the January, I, yeah, I just, I discovered that I had cancer. And so it literally was like, that was it because when I got the diagnosis, they said, you've got to start treatment immediately.
It's massive. So yeah, I, fortunately Liz had already been running the business more or less for six months and she is the most amazing daughter and person. So yeah, she, she, she was running the business and she was coming to chemo with me and yeah, so it wasn't a decision.
RICH:
It was something that was enforced. Yeah. Best thing that ever happened.
LINDA:
Yeah. I mean, if that's an odd thing to say about, you know, getting a, what we thought might be a terminal illness, now that I'm a hundred percent better because last month I got the all clear and it's totally, I'm totally clear. Yeah.
Sort of several years later. Yeah. Now I, cause I was working 80 to a hundred hours a week and I was in the car driving around and I was, as, as you know, I was on a lot of boards, you know, I was on the, I was the vice president of the Penrith Valley chamber of commerce.
I was on the, I met you on the board. Yeah. That's how we met.
I think at that stage I, I'd actually started treatment and I was sitting next to you bald as a, I don't know if badges are bald anyway. And I think even doing that, there's so many events that you have to do after work. Cause it's not just about working.
RICH:
It's you're networking all the time going to these, you know, commerce type events and other events and whatever people are doing. So that takes up a lot of your personal time and you know, as well. Yeah.
LINDA:
That is so true. I mean, when the, I mean, I'll talk about Penn Valley chamber of commerce because I was on the board there for probably well over 10 years. And so, you know, you have your, your the board meetings which are once a month and then you have you have a lot of subcommittees that look after, you know, maybe one looks after membership, one looks after, you know, different things because different people have different strengths.
And so the people who have strengths in certain areas form subcommittees and it's really good. And chamber of commerce is fantastic. But you know, I would be involved in a lot of the subcommittees and then you'd have the network nights.
So there's a network breakfast. And then there was the network night once a month for very small businesses, you know, for like micro businesses. And then there was a network night for all businesses.
So, you know, you had small businesses and big businesses. So that took up, you know, a couple of nights a week. And then, you know, I was on quite a few charitable boards as well.
And we'd have those board meetings and, and they were all things I felt really passionate about. So, you know, and I loved everybody who went to them and, you know, very social. Yeah.
It's very time consuming, especially after you've been working, you know, 12 hours a day. Yeah.
RICH:
So now we're looking at today.
Now you've obviously been retired now a while. How's life? How you been? I am absolutely flat out. Life is great.
LINDA:
I've got heaps of grandkids and I love that. And I look after them sometimes during the week. My youngest is 21 months now, Molly.
And she's Michael and Kirsten. And she's Michael and Kurt's daughter. So she's the youngest.
And then, you know, Bella's 13. I've got Noah and I've got Tilly. Yeah.
And that's fabulous. But I mean, when I started getting better from not bad, but, you know, once I started recovering from chemo. Yeah, I needed something to do.
And I wanted to do something that was really creative. So I started lots of different things. I started the first thing I did was a candle making course.
And that was amazing. And I still do that now. I teach candle making.
Yeah. And yeah, I love that. I teach that from my studio downstairs.
I've had done quite a few courses with Debbie O'Connor's at the Creative Fringe. Yeah. But just transporting everything down to to Jamestown is, you know, I'm in Wentworth Falls.
It's a lot to take down and put back. So I mainly run workshops from home for that. I took up wood carving, spoon carving.
I did a course down in Canberra. Jim and I both went down to Canberra and did a course there. I still do spoon carving and I have sold a lot of wooden spoons, not from timber I buy from shops, but green timber from, you know, maybe a fruit tree that's come down.
I use a brand. You know what you need to do? You need to make the big old, remember the big old spoons that we used to have in the 70s? That on the wall, big spoon and a big fork. No, thank you.
That would be a lot of work. And then what else did I do? I did mosaic. I still do mosaic.
I've done watercolour for a long time, but then I discovered that I like pottery. Pottery. Yeah.
Yeah. Rob Lennigan mug here. And I started pottery wheel.
RICH:
You've got your wheel
LINDA:
its the first thing I bought after I started doing pottery classes, started doing pottery classes. I was still, you know, having I mean, having radiotherapy and things like that. And then COVID hit.
Yeah. And so all the classes started and YouTube became my best friend. Yeah.
Awesome. I would have YouTube on and I'd have my wheel and I'd be looking at that and started being able to throw pots there. But mainly I was doing a lot of hand building because I found that I really quite liked hand building.
Yeah. And and then I had a really bad fall and broke my shoulder, so I couldn't do pottery for a while. And then that got better.
And then I had another fall and broke the other shoulder and my fingers. That got better. And now I am absolutely addicted.
RICH:
Did you buy a kiln as well? Like you're buying a kiln.
LINDA:
I bought a kiln just before COVID because we've we've had to cancel a lot of trips overseas like we we booked because I haven't been able to travel while I was having treatment. Yeah, I we've had to cancel a lot of trips for various reasons.
And I thought, you know what? We're not spending any money on travel. We're not spending any money on this and that and the other. I'm going to buy myself.
I really love pottery and, you know, making things at home and then transporting them to somebody who's got a kiln. There's a big breakage percentage. So I did.
I ordered a kiln. And it had been they said it would take about six to eight months because they build them for you. And yeah, halfway through them building the kiln, COVID hit and they had to close their factory.
This is Woodrow kilns. They're in Picton. They're fantastic.
And yeah, so eventually, after about 18 months, I got my kiln. Yeah. Yeah, that's going every week.
So is that a three phase or a 240 volt type? I got the largest of the single phase.
RICH:
Yeah.
LINDA:
Which is the same size as the smallest of the three phase. OK, cool. And it is pretty big.
So a lot of my friends use my kiln. You know, I yeah, I just charge them for the costs of, you know, the power and also maintenance, because every so many hundred firings, you need to replace your elements and to replace the elements on my size kiln will be about eight hundred dollars. Yeah.
RICH:
Wow. So it's an expensive hobby. Yeah.
LINDA:
But, you know, what else are you going to do? And I found my my I hate the expression. I found my tribe, but I'm just about to use it. I'd find my tribe because I met there's a lot of workshops go on.
And there's three ladies who I've become really friendly with who started a group called the Blue Mountains Clay Collective. Yeah. And I met them because they had advertised a workshop.
It was a raccoon and a bar workshop. And I'd always wanted to do that. And it was done at Springwood at Rachel Larkins.
And Rachel Larkin and Charlotte Whittingham and Sharon Mountain are the three ladies who started the Blue Mountains Clay Collective. And they'd only started it less than a year before I met them. Yeah.
And anyway, they invited me to go on the board with them. The board. Yeah, it was a very small group.
And we we've grown a lot. It's been less than a year. We've incorporated we're in the process of having a website built.
We've got a great Facebook page. And in this first year, we decided that we wanted to do something really big for the community. Yeah.
And we had before that, we thought we might put on a big exhibition or something. But there's a lot of groups that have exhibitions in the Blue Mountains. I mean, there's a massive Blue Mountains Pottery Fair that takes place at the School of Arts just around the corner from here.
And the Blue Mountains Creative Arts Centre down in Glenbrook, they have exhibitions a couple of times a year down in Glenbrook. We Sharon had heard about empty bowls. I don't know if you've ever heard about empty bowls.
So there's a there's a movement called I'll call it a movement called Empty Bowls that started off in 1990 in Michigan, in America. And there's a group of students who wanted to raise money for their local soup kitchen. And they approached their head of the art department and said, look, you know, have you got any ideas what we can do to you know, we really want to raise some money for this for the homeless and for this this food, you know, food resources for people who are going hungry, for people who need.
And he said, I'll tell you what, go away. All of you make a bowl, get all your pottery friends, you know, your friends who do pottery to make a bowl, put on a lunch for the school, for all of the staff. And we'll all contribute for the food.
And that'll be a way of doing it. And that was in 1990. Yeah, that very first one.
And they they called it the Empty Bowls because, you know, you're buying it. They provide an empty bowl and then they put food in it. And the money going and the money that they raised for it.
Was going to fill empty bowls, you know, people who were homeless and people who were in need. And I'd never heard of it before Sharon told me about it. And I did a lot of research on it.
And Sharon was the driving force to do the empty bowls. And then the rest of us, the rest of us on the board, you know, got behind her and started doing this. It had never been done in the Blue Mountains before.
And I checked with New South Wales. There's a couple have happened in New South Wales. The biggest one in Australia is in Perth.
Yeah. And we as a board, we spoke to Dee, who runs the one in Perth. And they started about 23 years ago.
And they their first one, I think they had 100 bowls that were donated to them. Yeah. This year they got a thousand bowls donated.
Something like I don't know. There is about twenty eight thousand dollars for a local food place. So this is our first one.
Yeah. And we've been planning it now for several months. And we we basically cried out to all of the tapes, all of the, you know, pottery groups that we could think of.
And it was very slow to start off. And I approached people like Rob Linnigan. Yeah.
Rob Linnigan. And, you know, Steve Sheridan, Susan Macon, Robin Gur, you know, very famous Blue Mountains potters that are not just famous in the Blue Mountains, but like Australia wide and some overseas as well. And yeah, we've we've at this stage, we have over 400 bowls.
I think it's up to about 470 or something. Fantastic. About a month ago, we've been talking to the Blue Mountains Cultural Center and they they suggested because we can only sell a ticket if we have a bowl to go with the ticket, because people are buying tickets.
They're not buying a bowl. They're buying a ticket. Yeah.
Yeah. A ticket will give everybody who attends. A bowl, which is a handmade artisan bowl, which will get full of soup and bread roll.
Yeah. And there's going to be live music and there's going to be raffles and it's going to be a silent online auction and it's going to be a massive event up in Katoomba. So the more tickets we want to sell, the more bowls we have to have.
And we were really worried that we wouldn't get enough bowls. So we were talking to Blue Mountains Cultural Center and they said, I'll tell you what, why don't you put on a bowl making day here? Yeah. Well, we won't sell tickets.
It'll be free. People have to book in for it. So we know how many people are coming.
RICH:
So they will have a ticket, but it'll be a free ticket. And people can come and you can teach them how to make a bowl.
LINDA:
So we started, I think, about 10 o'clock in the morning and we finished at four o'clock in the afternoon.
And during that time, we had like our sessions. Yeah. And 90 people came and each made a bowl.
Wow. You know, 90 people came and got the same amount of clay in the same mold. And we have 90 totally different bowls.
RICH:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a different ways.
LINDA:
And yeah. So we ended up at the end of the day with with 90 green, we call it green, like timbers green. 90 greenware bowls that we had to very carefully transport to our studios.
And we had to fire them so that they would be stronger because before that, they're just basically clay. And then we we glaze when I say we, I'm talking about the board members. We glaze them all and fire them all.
And we had fantastic people like Veronique Salis in Bolivara, who isn't one of the board members yet. We're hoping she will be. But she has a massive studio and she helped me to glaze a whole heap.
And we find some in her kiln because we had 90 bowls to do a lot of balls to fire up of the 400 not balls. We've got 90 came from that people who had never touched clay before. Wow.
So some of those have bought tickets and they want to get their own balls back. Yeah, that's so cool. And yeah, but everybody else will come and they will all the balls will be on display.
We have two sittings at three o'clock and five o'clock because, you know, we're holding this fundraiser for Junction 142. I didn't say that before. The event is being held at Junction 142 and Junction 142 are also going to be the recipients of all the funds that are raised.
Yeah. And Junction 142 is an amazing organization that is at 142 Katoomba Street, Katoomba. And it has.
Just brilliant services for homeless people and also for families in need, because there are people who are not homeless that are in crisis. They're struggling to feed their families. They struggle to pay their electricity, so they may not have washing machines and dryers.
And what Junction 142 and this event is actually on their 10th anniversary, the 10th anniversary of Junction 142. And since they've been operating, they've managed to raise money through Rotary and through the CWA. They can provide hot showers to people, washing and drying facilities, and they've got a locker.
So for people who are homeless, who want to put their personal valuables, they've got a locker system. They've just got everything that people could need. And you know what? The Blue Mountains community, like myself, living up here is awesome.
It's such a creative bunch of people and people have such big hearts as well. You know?
RICH:
Yeah. Oh, they have.
They're really happy to dig deep if they know that there's an event going on. And our biggest challenge wasn't getting bowls. We thought our biggest challenge would be getting enough bowls.
LINDA:
Our biggest challenge is selling enough tickets now because we've got enough bowls. And there are 300 tickets available. And we're very happy that people just turn up at the door if necessary, because, you know, each ticket is $45.
It costs, because of the because of the philanthropic attitude of businesses up here, it doesn't cost a lot to feed a homeless person through Junction 142 because they get fruit and veggies from the fruit and veggie stores and coals and Woolworths. Yeah. They get bread from the bakers.
Yeah. And, you know, they get a lot of the ingredients donated to them because at the end of the day, things that would normally have got thrown away, which is perfectly good to eat. Yeah.
And I'm going to Junction 142. So that $45 ticket could feed 30 people. Yes.
And it'll be great fun. There's going to be a harp player, there's going to be a flutist. So we've got a harp, a flute, guitar playing in the background.
Beautiful music. The raffle prizes. Can I talk about the raffle? Yes.
I love a good raffle. So the raffle tickets are $5 each or five for $20. And again, you know, the generosity of local businesses.
I'm going to try and do it without looking at the list. But if I have to look at the list, I will. So the people that I called out to are people like Sonia Sui and her husband, Paul, who own a restaurant which has only been going for a few months.
And you know what it's like having only been going for a few months. They're doing pretty well. It's called Bang Bowls, and that's in Katoomba Street.
Yeah, cool. And that Sonia made, she's a potter. That's how I met her.
And she made every single bowl that they use in that restaurant. And they do the most amazing bowls. And she's donated dinner for two as one of the raffle prizes.
There's a restaurant called Tempus in Katoomba Street. And Tempus is just beautiful food. And they've donated dinner for two.
Frankie and Moe in Blackheath have donated dinner for two. I'm going to buy a ticket anyway, even though I'm not going. I'm going to buy a ticket.
No, you're not. You're going to buy five tickets. Five tickets.
Yes. We've got gift vouchers for Grow and Co. It went with Bowls.
Pet Barn in Katoomba have donated three puppy packs and three kitten packs like starter kits. Yeah. Blue Mountains Candle Co.
Have donated two reed diffusers and two large candles. But one for each raffle, one for the three o'clock and one for the five o'clock. There's two lunch cruisers been donated by Carol and Crystal Bennett from Nipian Bell.
There's Arabesque in Springwood have donated a bag of goodies and a gift voucher. The Lemon Tree in Winter Falls have donated two hampers of produce. Yeah.
Todaroas have donated two fruit and veg boxes. Yeah. And the CWA have donated two gift packs of homemade preserves.
RICH:
So there's a lot of prizes there. Everybody stands in really good shape. Are kids available to come as well? Kids can come.
LINDA:
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
The auction, we've got 100 auction items. The auction items, some of them are online auction items, so we don't have the physical item on the stage. But all of the auction items that are physical will be on the stage.
So it would be preferred that children are accompanied by their parents or an adult because there's some valuable items. There's an amazing sculpture by Rosemary Holstein. It's a bronze sculpture that will be up there.
And lots of pottery sculptures. There's a lot of Rob Linnigan's. Rob Linnigan's, I'm sorry, I keep doing that because I love it.
It's a lot of Rob Linnigan's work. One of the auction items was donated by Len Smith, who is an amazing pottery teacher and an amazing man. And he has donated from his private collection of pottery a Peter Rushforth's Japanese tea bowl.
Yeah, and he's donated that and it's in the auction. So there's just yeah, just have a look at the. So the auction is is Gala Bid BM Empty Bowls 2024.
RICH:
Yeah. There's a link to that. If you can go on to Gala Bid and find it, but if you can't find it, there's a link to the auction on our Facebook page, which is Blue Mountains Clay Collective Inc.
So if you go on to Facebook and look on Blue Mountains Clay Collective Inc, you can find you can buy tickets to the event.
LINDA:
There's a QR code on there. You can click on that or you can just find a link to it. And there's a link to the Gala Bid auction as well.
RICH:
Is this going to be a regular event? You're going to do this yearly?
LINDA:
If it's a success, which in my heart of hearts, I know it's going to be massive and it's going to be a great success. We would we look at it afterwards. But I believe that we will probably have this as an annual event.
RICH :
Yeah. And so now we will have a lot more time to to plan it and do it. But I think it's going to be awesome. Yeah. Wow. And it'll just get bigger and bigger.
LINDA:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So exciting.
RICH:
You know, yeah. So happy for you. And I'm so happy for the collective as well.
So there was a lot of hard work has been put into this initiative. Well, it's been a group. It's been a group project.
LINDA:
Yeah. And everybody has different strengths in our group. So each of each of our members have used their strengths where it would have the most effect.
And yeah, it's been great. Yeah. Well, I'm going to be sharing it everywhere.
RICH:
So hopefully thank you. All bums on seats and more tickets sold. You know, that's awesome.
LINDA:
And it's been great talking to you, Rich. I mean, I mean, I know we talk on the phone occasionally, but I think we need to get around to having that lunch when I get back. Yeah, it's going to be awesome.
RICH:
I love the UK. I want to go back. I went back in 2016 and Rachel, I went and I was just like, you don't realize how big it is, but how small it is.
You know, because we hired a car and then went all the way, you know, through like Windermere, all the way up to Scotland and. Really?
LINDA:
Yeah. And we just loved it.
Just. Yeah. Well, we're starting in London, then Bedford, then York, then Durham, then Windermere, then up to where we're going to end up getting going up to Ken Ryan.
Yeah. And we're going to get the ferry from Ken Ryan across to Belfast. And then we're going to go through Northern Ireland and then all around Ireland and then get the ferry from probably from Dublin, I think, to don't know whether that goes to Liverpool or to Wales and then Wales a couple of days, then Liverpool for four or five days and then back to London and then home.
RICH:
Well, that's going to be such an awesome trip.
LINDA:
So it's going to be we're going to need a holiday when we get back. I know.
RICH:
I know. It's like those kinds of trips. Because it's so hectic.
LINDA:
You just want to go with our daughter, Liz and Bernard and their two kids. And of course, Liz and Bernard have never seen England. And they've you know, they've they've heard Jim and I talk about, you know, where he's from, where I'm from.
He's from Liverpool. I'm from County Durham. We lived in London.
You know, we dated in London. We lived in London. And so they want to see all these places that are really our roots.
And and then there's lots of family that they've never met. Yeah. You know, in the Durham area, in London.
And in Liverpool. And Bernard has a lot of his his family came from Ireland. So it's going to be a really an amazing trip.
And amazing for the grandkids as well. It's going to be a great experience for them. You know, it's a good learning curve.
RICH:
I think traveling is the best way to educate young kids. You know, it is. It is.
LINDA:
It is. It teaches them so much about so many things, not just about the geography, but about cultures and, you know. And they might take some of the Australian culture with them.
I don't know if they're taking any Benjamite with them. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome.
RICH:
Well, thanks so much for coming on board.
LINDA:
Oh, thank you. Thank you for inviting me on.
And yeah, for letting me talk about empty bowls, because that's something I'm really passionate about getting out there.
RICH:
And if anybody who's watching this wants to come, please come. Go get tickets.
LINDA:
You can just turn up on the day. Yeah. Yeah.
RICH:
Awesome. And you know what? This will be probably do another one again, you know, about something else. I know we've got a lot to talk about all the time.
Oh, we have.
LINDA:
But you know what would be great is when I get back from the UK, let's have a quick chat about the, you know, the wrap up of the empty bowls and how much money we raised and how many people came and, you know, who got the really valuable and, you know, I'll say this now again, who got the really valuable Rob Linnigan bowls and the really valuable Susie McMeekin bowls and who ended up with one of mine. Yeah.
I mean, there's going to be nice bowls. There's going to be really nice bowls and there's going to be exquisite bowls. I remember at school, I had to make a cup and end up and my dad ended up using it as an ashtray.
RICH:
All right, then. Well, thanks so much.
And I really appreciate the chat and your time. And we'll definitely chat again. You know, I look forward to that.
LINDA:
OK, you take care. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you.
