Tag: storytelling

Agriculture wanted better storytellers. Then we blew up the model that made them

 

I am about to spend World Peace Day talking to a group of 10 to 15 year olds about curiosity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration. Which is slightly confronting when you start looking around at how adults behave.

Before the workshop, the students will answer a short survey. They will answer the same questions afterwards. I am interested to see what changes, and I am also realistic enough to know they are unlikely to walk out several hours later transformed into world-class collaborators who calmly interrogate every assumption before breakfast.

That is because people do not change overnight. Oddly, we seem to forget this every time we organise a workshop.

How many times have you spent a day learning some marvellous new way of doing things, walked out thinking, “This is excellent” put the folder somewhere safe and carried on exactly as before? I have.

We have somehow developed a culture where learning is treated as an event. Book the facilitator, find the room, provide lunch, learn collaboration, home by four. Job done.

I learnt the limitations of that model the long way around.

When I came back into agriculture, people decided I did not look like the stereotype of someone they expected to see representing the industry. Apparently that was useful, so I was pushed out the front and into the media.

This was all very new to me, and I was not remotely comfortable with it, so I demanded training. Then more training. Then more training.

It took me about 15 years to feel comfortable.

The other day I gave a presentation and a number of people told me it was the best presentation they had ever seen.

They should have been at my first one.

It had 127 slides.

I wish I were exaggerating.

That experience changed the way I thought about developing other people. When I started the Young Farming Champions program, I wanted people to have what I had eventually learned I needed, time, repetition, feedback and somewhere safe to keep practising.

The Young Farming Champions model was built around ongoing development. Once you joined, you could remain part of the network for as long as you wanted, continuing to build your skills over time. During COVID, we ran workshops every month, so people could say, “I want to feel more comfortable doing this,” and we could focus on exactly that. We brought in outstanding Australian and international experts, then gave people repeated opportunities to practise, get feedback and keep improving.

That is how confidence grows.

Then agricultural bodies looked at what we were doing and decided they wanted something similar. The young people were already there. The Action4Agriculture team was already training them. What changed was the desire to have the program sit inside their own organisation.

This is where I became increasingly frustrated with the way institutions behave. We talk endlessly about collaboration, but the system often rewards the person who can point to something and say, “That was my idea. I built that. That was my result.”

Once that becomes the prize, curiosity becomes inconvenient.

Nobody asks, “Why is this working?” or “What could we add to what is already here?” The question becomes, “How do we create our own version?”

And that is how duplication starts to look like achievement.

The result can be beautifully efficient.

Train them on Saturday.

Face of the industry by Monday.

It is a wonderfully efficient system, provided human beings work like software updates.

Recently I have been spending time with collaboration specialist Stuart Waters, and he has been subtly  dismantling several things I thought I knew. One of them is my GPS model.

I have used it for years. Goal. Problem. Solution. Where are we trying to go? What is getting in the way? What is the solution? Perfectly sensible.

Except Stuart pointed out something rather inconvenient.

If we knew the solution, we probably would not have the problem.

With complex problems, the solution is rarely sitting there politely waiting for someone clever enough to notice it. Stuart talks instead about steps, experiments, things we can try, learn from and adjust.

So perhaps GPS survives. Goal. Problem. Steps.

I rather like that. It removes the requirement to stride into every complicated situation carrying The Answer.

It also exposes another habit we have. We are often in an extraordinary hurry to solve the problem before we have worked out what the problem actually is. Something goes wrong and we deal with the bit we can see.

People are not collaborating. Students are dropping rubbish. A community is not engaging. A candidate loses an election.

Right. Fix that.

Except those things may be symptoms. The interesting questions sit underneath. Why is this happening? What assumptions are we making? Who knows something we don’t? Who sees the situation differently?

And the question I am finding increasingly important in some other work I am doing is this.

Have we actually spoken to the people most affected?

It is astonishing how often the answer appears to be no. Reports get written, programs get designed, conclusions get reached and entire narratives develop. Meanwhile, somebody sitting right in the middle of the experience is thinking, “You could have asked me.”

And then I am preparing to stand in front of children and put this on a screen.

Stay curious. Ask before you assume. Understand the problem before you solve it. Listen to learn. Share the thinking. Try something small. Learn what happens. Keep going.

The children are not the only people who could use the reminder.

I am also going to ask them something I have found unexpectedly difficult myself.

Who do you know who does this? Who stays curious when everyone else has already decided? Who asks another question? Who listens because they genuinely want to know the answer? Who can say, “I don’t know”? Who can discover something new and change their mind without behaving as though they have suffered a humiliating defeat?

I can think of a few people. Stuart is one.

What I notice when I talk to him is that having expertise has not made him less curious. Quite the opposite. He keeps asking questions. What is the actual dilemma? Who else sees this differently? What could we try? What might we learn?

Perhaps that is what expertise should look like.

Knowing enough to know that you probably don’t know everything.

There is another uncomfortable question sitting underneath my student workshop. We spend a great deal of time telling young people they will need curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration to navigate the future.

Who are they watching do it now?

Because one workshop will not do it. Not for them. Not for us.

A workshop might introduce an idea. It might give us language for something we had never noticed before. It might even make us uncomfortable enough to rethink something.

Then comes Monday.

That is when the learning starts.

How often do your forget to ask the right question?

All my communications training says the same thing. Have three key points. Include a call to action. Reinforce the points. Then reinforce them again.

For the last twelve months I have been presenting to local service groups and doing my very best to stick to the rules. And I have learned something important. No matter how impressive the talk is, nobody takes up the call to action. My presentation is usually followed by lunch and I invite people to come and talk to me about it over lunch. What I get instead is “wow, your presentation was great.”

After each talk I kept asking myself the same question. What is wrong with me? Why is nobody sitting down to talk about the call to action?

Then I finally woke up. It’s the audience, Lynne. They want to be entertained.

How old do I have to be before I start asking the right question first? Who is my audience? What do they want from this presentation? The reason I keep getting invited to present is that people talk about how entertaining the talks are. Facepalm.

It took me a while longer to see what the answer meant, and it started with admitting what I am actually there for.

I am not in that hall to win commissions. I talk about life story writing because I want people to create living memories, the kind that last well beyond the last person who remembers them. The lunch invitation was never the real call to action.

The real call to action happens later, at somebody’s kitchen table, without me. An entertained audience goes home and tells someone about the talk. And somewhere in that retelling, a son or a daughter decides to capture a parent’s story before it is too late.

If that happens at one kitchen table, the talk has done its job. Nobody needs to ring me. The memory does not need me to survive. It needs a family who decides it is worth keeping.

So the training was half right. Three points, yes. Reinforce them, yes. But the call to action belongs to the audience, and this audience’s job is to enjoy the hour and carry the idea home. If I do my job well, they do theirs, and I will never see it happen.

The number one question for anybody doing anything is this. Who is the audience, and what do they want from me? Not what do I want to tell them. What do they want from me. I have spent a working life in communications and I still needed twelve months of puzzled lunches to learn it.

This is the point where I would normally give you a call to action. I know better now.

Why Data Doesn’t Save the Nice People

One of these anglers is going home with dinner.

An infographic came through my feed this week, shared by one of my more thoughtful followers. You’ve probably seen one like it. “The Facts About Migrants in Australia.” Beautiful design. Sydney Harbour Bridge across the top. Pink graduation cap. Treasury figures. Census data. Sources properly cited at the bottom.

I fact-checked it. It’s accurate. Migrants really do pay more in taxes than they take out. They really are younger, better educated, more likely to be working. The numbers stack up.

And it will change exactly nobody’s mind.

Because while the well-meaning people are making infographics, Pauline Hanson and Angus Taylor are telling a story. And a story beats a bar chart every single time.

Here’s the thing nobody wants to admit.

Taylor and Hanson aren’t stupid. They’ve got staffers. They’ve read the Treasury paper. They know the average skilled migrant contributes about $200,000 over their lifetime while the average Aussie-born citizen costs the budget $85,000.

They just don’t care. Because they’ve worked out something the infographic-makers haven’t: the fight isn’t actually about the numbers.

The fight is about who you are, who’s on your side, and who’s making your life harder. Housing costs are through the roof. You can’t get in to see a GP. The roads are choked. Your kid can’t afford a house in the suburb you grew up in. Something’s gone wrong, and somebody needs to cop the blame.

You don’t beat that with a pie chart. You really don’t.

Why data doesn’t work on social issues

This pattern shows up everywhere once you start looking for it.

Crime stats have been dropping for thirty years. Tough-on-crime campaigns still win. Why? Because the fight isn’t about the trendline. It’s about whether you feel safe walking to your car at night.

The climate science is settled. The politics isn’t. Why? Because the fight isn’t about radiative forcing. It’s about whose town shuts down when the coal mine closes.

Same with guns in America. Same with drugs. Same with nuclear power. When the data is clear but the politics is loud, it’s almost always because the data is answering a different question than the one people are actually asking.

The migration infographic answers: “Are migrants good for the budget?” Yes, they are.

But Betty in Blacktown isn’t asking that. Betty’s asking: “Why can’t my daughter afford a house? Why does the bus take an hour now? Who’s looking out for me?”

And if your answer is “well actually, according to Treasury modelling…” you’ve already lost her.

What 20 years of running a charity taught me about this

I spent two decades running Action for Agriculture. Australian agriculture had an image problem with young people. Kids thought farming was boring, dirty, going broke, finished.

 We made infographics. Plenty of them. Good ones. But we never led with them.

We led with people. Young farmers, sharp, funny, articulate twenty-somethings doing extraordinary things with technology, sustainability, animal welfare. We called them Young Farming Champions. We put them in front of school kids. We ran the Archibull Prize where kids made art about agriculture after meeting these young farmers and hearing their stories.

Then, once the kids were hooked, once they’d met Cassie or Sam and thought “hang on, this is actually interesting,” then we’d hand them the infographic. The GDP figures. The export numbers. The sustainability stats. The careers data.

And by that point, they actually read it. Because they’d already decided they cared.

That’s the bit the pro-migration crowd is getting wrong. They’re handing Betty the infographic on the first date. Before she’s even sat down. Before she knows why she should care. And then they’re surprised when she walks out.

So what should the pro-migration side actually do?

Same order of operations.

Lead with people. Not “migrants” as a category. Specific, named, photographed humans. The Filipino nurse who looked after your mum in palliative care. The Indian engineer who fixed your suburb’s water. The Sudanese kid in your daughter’s class who’s just been picked for the rep team.

Get Betty curious. Get her invested. Get her thinking “hang on, that’s not the story I’m being told.”

Then, once she’s hooked, bring out the Treasury numbers. The 56% with tertiary qualifications. The $200,000 lifetime contribution. The employment rates. By then she’ll read them, because she’ll already be on the journey.

And here’s the bit the nice people really struggle with. Acknowledge what the other side is getting right. Housing pressure is real. Infrastructure lag is real. Wage pressure in some industries is real. If your pro-migration message pretends none of that exists, you sound like you live on a different planet to Betty, and she’ll vote for whoever doesn’t.

And the hard truth. The people making these careful, accurate, well-sourced infographics aren’t wrong. They’ve just got the order wrong.

Hanson and Taylor lead with story. Threat, identity, who’s on your side. By the time anyone gets around to checking the numbers, the emotional work is done and the data bounces off.

The nice people lead with numbers. And the story never gets told at all.

If you care about social issues, migration, climate, reconciliation, whatever your patch is, make your infographics. Make them beautiful. Make them accurate. But understand they’re the second move, not the first.

Hook them with a human. Seal it with the data.

That’s the order. We had it right at Action4agriculture. The pro-migration crowd needs to figure it out before the next election.

I write life stories. Here is one about a pair of mittens.

Most life stories are almost lost. They live in one person’s memory, in a few photographs, in a parcel kept in a drawer.

Every life carries small objects that hold whole histories inside them. A photograph. A letter. A pair of hand-knitted mittens. This is the story of one such object, and the journey it led to.

When I sat down with her, she brought out a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string…

Inside was a body belt made from a flour bag, stitched into little pockets for a soldier’s belongings. A small Bible. A notebook and pencil. A cigarette case. Cigarette cards. And a pair of hand-knitted mittens.

The mittens had her grandfather’s initials embroidered on them.

She told me she had wondered about those mittens all her life. Had they come from home? From a Red Cross parcel? From some kind woman who would never know where they had ended up? Had Martin himself stitched those initials, sitting somewhere in Belgium, thinking of the wife and two little girls he had left behind?

Martin Henry Collins was a bombardier with the Australian Field Artillery. He was killed in action in Belgium on the 21st of September, 1917. He was twenty-seven years old.

He left behind a wife and two little girls. One of them grew up to be my client’s mother.

That parcel was almost all her mother had of him.

Her mother’s great wish, all her life, was to visit her father’s grave. But her health was poor, and the journey was beyond her. So her daughter promised that if her mother could not go, she would go for her.

In 1980, she made that journey.

She told me about arriving in the small Belgian town. About how quiet it was. About the British War Graves Commission directing them to a florist before driving them in an official car. About the endless rows of white headstones on either side of the road.

About finding her grandfather’s grave, with a small posy of wildflowers already laid on it, placed there by local schoolchildren who choose particular graves to care for.

She told me about the daily service at the Menin Gate. The town falling silent. The bugle sounding. The six thousand, one hundred and sixty names of Australians with no known grave, recorded on the walls.

And she told me about the long drive back to Brussels, thinking about what she had done. I had gone for her. I had stood where she had longed to stand. I had seen the grave of the father she never really knew.

She is in her eighties now. The parcel still exists. The mittens are still inside it. And until we sat down together, the story of the parcel, and the journey, and the schoolchildren laying flowers, lived only in her memory.

Now it is written down.

That is the part of this I value most.

A life carries hundreds of small moments like the mittens. A flour-bag belt. A grandfather’s initials. A promise made to a mother. A bugle at dusk. Most of those moments are never said aloud, let alone written down. They live in one person’s memory until that person is gone, and then they are gone too.

When I sit down with someone to write their life story, my role is to ask the questions that bring those moments to the surface, to listen carefully enough to hear which ones matter, and to put them on the page in language that does them justice.

I do this for older people who want their own story preserved for their grandchildren. I do it for families who want to capture a parent’s or grandparent’s story before it’s too late. I do it because these stories are the inheritance one generation gives to the next, and once they are written down, they are safe.

If there is someone in your life whose story you want preserved, I’d love to talk.

More at synergyscape.com.au/work-with-me

The story that waited for me

I’ve been commissioned to write a book. That still feels extraordinary to say. Not because I didn’t think I had it in me – but because this book has reminded me of skill sets I had tucked away. Some I’d forgotten. Others I never knew were there.

I can’t give away the title, and I won’t walk you through the plot. But I can offer glimpses. .

A barefoot child on a dairy farm. A marriage that unsettles the whole village. A funeral, too soon. A son who breaks. A woman who does not.

The book is set in the Jamberoo of the early 1900s -back when the land ruled daily life, and community reputation could make or break you. It’s a chance for me to write about the complexity of family grief, the silence that follows a child’s death, and the way small towns handle trauma. It’s also letting me reflect on the burden of stoicism, the quiet strength of women, and the weight of religious and cultural expectations.

At its heart, this is a story about forbearance. About the kind of dignity that doesn’t ask for applause. About how people endure the unthinkable and still show up to milk the cows.

It’s personal work, but not confessional. I’m drawing on history, memory, imagination, and finding in myself a storyteller I didn’t expect to meet again.

This book is not about Jamberoo alone. It’s about what binds all of us, wherever we live. Compassion, endurance, resilience. Love that doesn’t announce itself. Grace in the everyday.

I’m grateful to be writing it. Grateful for the trust, the challenge, and the reminder that even now, especially now, I still have something to say on behalf of the people who came before me .

#TheStoryThatWaitedForMe #WritingJourney #HistoricalFiction #Jamberoo #RuralStories #CreativeProcess #Rediscovery #Forbearance #WomenInHistory #Resilience

 

 

The Power of Storytelling and Digital Legacy

Documenting history matters, not just to remember names but to honour lives fully lived and the impact they had on the world.

Have you ever stopped to think about whose story in your life deserves to be told?

Have you considered documenting your family history?

When we want to learn about something, we turn to Google, but what about the stories that are not there?

The ones that exist only in memories, passed down through conversation but never written down?

My friend Gaye Steel, former marketing manager of McDonald’s and Telstra, once said,

“If you can’t be found on Google, you don’t exist.”

Of course, we know that is not true.

Our lives, relationships, and impact are not measured by search results. But in today’s world, if a story is not documented, it can be easily forgotten. That is why storytelling matters. It ensures the people and moments that shape us are remembered.

Many people throughout history are invisible in the digital space, and I have made it my mission to change that. The National Library has archived my blogs as part of Australia’s digital history, recognising the importance of recording our experiences. But you do not need to be a writer or historian to ensure that the stories of your loved ones are preserved.

One simple step is to label your treasured photos. Add names, dates, and locations to the back of old family pictures. Tell the stories behind sentimental objects in your home. Even a short note explaining why something matters to you can turn an ordinary object into a meaningful piece of family history.

My own family’s history is deeply tied to the Illawarra. My maternal ancestors arrived in Kiama in 1831, and my paternal family settled in Dapto in 1841. The men in my family were well documented, but the women’s stories were largely missing.

My great-grandmother’s obituary, which only refers to her as “Mrs John Lindsay,” speaks volumes about the era in which she lived. It highlights how women were often defined by their husbands with their own identities overshadowed. Despite being described as an “ideal wife and mother,” her individuality, accomplishments, and personal story were left untold. It raises the question of how many other women’s legacies have been reduced to a mere mention in relation to their husbands.

When my parents passed away, I realised there was no public record of them, no trace of their lives online. Growing up, we did not even have family photos displayed in our home. I only discovered a picture of my mother through a Jamberoo Family History Facebook post.

That moment changed everything for me. My cousin, Mark Emery, has been documenting our family history for The Bugle, and through his research, I found my parents’ wedding photo and a beautiful image of my mother at 15. By writing about my parents, I have not only preserved their names but kept their stories alive, ensuring future generations can find them, remember them, and understand their lives.

My own journey has been shaped by storytelling. After leaving home and marrying young, I unexpectedly became a farmer’s wife. Later, I managed a pharmacy, but a series of armed robberies deeply affected me – an event that forced me to re-evaluate my path.

Stepping away from pharmacy, I found purpose in community engagement. I helped establish the Kiama Wine Show, promoted dairy through school programs like Picasso Cows, and was ultimately named Kiama’s first Electorate Woman of the Year. These experiences reinforced something crucial.

For years, agriculture faced negative press, and a friend in marketing gave me invaluable advice. “If you don’t tell your story, others will tell it for you.”

Recognising the need to change this, I  was established a charity to support young agricultural advocates in developing their storytelling skills. Over two decades, the charity worked with top journalists to train young people in crafting compelling narratives, ensuring that their voices were heard and their contributions to agriculture were recognised.

If we do not tell our own stories, others will tell them for us, or worse, they will not be told at all.

More recently, I made the difficult decision to close the charity I had been running. The challenges of working with schools post-COVID, combined with my growing passion for local storytelling, led me to refocus my energy on my own community.

The Bugle covered some of my community talks, and before long, they invited me to write for them. What started as pro bono work turned into a contract role covering council and feature stories.

The most rewarding part of this work is meeting and interviewing fascinating people, uncovering stories that would otherwise go untold.

Throughout my career, I have learned that awards and recognition are not about personal validation. They are about elevating a cause. Every time I won an award, I nominated someone else the following year, and I encouraged them to do the same. I am particularly passionate about the Hidden Treasures Honour Roll for regional women. Last year, I nominated three local women. They were honoured to be included, and now they are eager to nominate others in turn.

We all have stories worth telling, whether they are our own or those of people we admire. So, I leave you with a few questions.

  • Who in your life has a story that should be shared?
  • Have you considered documenting your family’s history?
  • Would you like to learn how to record these stories?

Let’s make sure the voices of those we love are not lost to time. Whether it is writing a blog, labelling old photos, or simply sharing memories with the next generation, every story we tell adds to the rich tapestry of history.

#Storytelling #DigitalLegacy #FamilyHistory #PreservingMemories #LocalHistory #Kiama #TheBugle #CommunityStories #DocumentYourStory #HistoricalRecords

How I Frustrated My Year 12 English Teacher—And Learned More About Myself Along the Way

Looking back on my final years of high school, I have to admit I must have been a nightmare for my English teacher. In Year 11 and 12, I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a “model student.” I wasn’t rebellious in the typical sense; I simply refused to invest time in studying texts that didn’t resonate with me. And in our English syllabus, there were plenty that didn’t.

Take The Tree of Man by Patrick White, for example. While some found it profound, I found it dreadfully depressing, like trudging through emotional quicksand. And Tess of the d’Urbervilles? Equally exasperating. Despite the supposed literary merit of these novels, I couldn’t bring myself to see the world through their bleak lens. For me, these texts represented an obligation, not an inspiration. So, I did what any self-respecting, strong-willed teenager would do—I avoided them as much as possible.

But then there was Anne Frank. Her story moved me profoundly, and I couldn’t get enough of her writing. Here was a young girl, in the most horrifying of circumstances, expressing hope, resilience, and a love for life that defied her situation. Anne Frank’s words spoke to me in a way no other text on the syllabus could, and I absorbed every word, willingly and eagerly. If my teacher had allowed me to focus on texts like The Diary of Anne Frank, I probably would have been an easier student to manage.

Then there was Shakespeare. Although we didn’t have a choice in studying him, I tackled King Lear as a practical means to an end rather than a journey of literary discovery. I never grew to love it, but I became skilled at wielding its verses in exams. I memorised the key quotes, crafted answers that hit all the right notes, and delivered what was needed to secure a top 1% pass in English. To me, it felt like a bit of a joke—proof that academic success sometimes depends more on strategy than genuine engagement.

Reflecting on it now, I see that my teenage self was driven by a desire to find meaning in what I was learning. I wasn’t willing to fake enthusiasm for texts that felt hollow or irrelevant to my world. My teacher might have been infuriated by my selective engagement, but it was my way of honouring the power of words and stories. Only those that truly connected with me earned my dedication.

In the end, I think my journey through the HSC taught me more than a formal curriculum ever could. It showed me the importance of authenticity and the power of storytelling to capture our attention, inspire us, and help us make sense of the world. And if my teacher (Mr Howell) ever reads this—thank you for putting up with me. I may not have been the easiest student, but I left those years with a fierce appreciation for stories that resonate, and a strong resolve to find and share them in my own way.

#HighSchoolMemories #FindingMyVoice #EnglishClass #Year12Struggles #AuthenticLearning #StorytellingMatters #AnneFrankInspiration #SelectiveEngagement #PowerOfLiterature #EducationReflections  #Mr Howell