Simon Waller (03:40.526)

Well, welcome to the Future with Friends, the very first time this has been recorded in front of a live audience.

Simon Waller (03:54.582)
Yeah, that’s a microphone. Don’t bump the mic. So this is the Future with Friends. This is my friend, Stef. Do want talk a little bit about how we met, Stef?

Why did we meet, Simon? Well, first of all, that actually is really clear. It just came to me. I have a co-working space, Coco Place, which we are all sitting in tonight. Yeah. by the Thank you. Ten years old, ten years young. And, yeah, one day this guy, this tall guy, wandered in with his voice and wanted a desk and he was very quiet.

Yes, delightful space as well.

Stef Koster (04:32.152)
didn’t really tell us what he was doing. I said, we must have been in a kitchen. And I’m like, well, what do you do? Like, I’m a futurist. That is cool. I have no idea what that means. But now I’m like in awe of this really intelligent person sitting next to me. And I think I then ignored you for the rest of the day. I thought he might catch me out. So yeah, you joined our community.

Hahaha

Stef Koster (04:59.66)
Yeah, was wonderful. So I’ve started to sort of become interested in what it actually means and intrigued and the idea of the School of Coco to come out of COVID and let’s not mention that word, it doesn’t exist anymore, bring people together again, not learn online, gather and share knowledge and feel the energy of others and that really ups lifts us and that’s all community to me. And I

wrote down this strategy and I actually wrote a list of who’s going to speak and I wrote down and then I was too scared to ask and then I bumped into you in the community. So thank you. Yeah. Become friends and children at the same school and all these little serendipities now.

Yeah, and we know over the last little bit, we’ve had a few conversations that are related to the topic today. And we’ve kind of found some shared passions we have in terms of our involvement in things like community sport. But even as I said, like this place itself, CoCo, as an embodiment of community.

Can I ask, I’ve never actually asked you this, what actually brings someone to open a co-working place? Because you did it before it was cool as well, like you did this back in what 2015 or something?

Yeah, 2015, no one knew what co-working was. Quick backstory, I had a diverse background and every organisation I seemed to work in used a hot desk. Remember that? Yeah. I was in this real corporate environment and we would hot desk, pack up our computers and our notebooks in a locker and then we’d come in the next day and find a desk and log in and dial up.

Stef Koster (06:43.474)
and logged in. And then I found myself managing an advertising agency and from the ground up we worked on a new airline launch and we were just in an empty warehouse in Flinders Lane in Melbourne and every week employing people from pilots to engineers to government to producers, creative directors and it was just awesome.

Goose bumping stuff every day and I really learnt that you learn more with different minds around you. moving down to the peninsula, I, this is going to sound awful, can I be honest, moved back to the peninsula when I’ve got three kids and the first one was 18 months old and I was pregnant. And that was a long time ago, there wasn’t much going on in Mount Martha.

Yeah, sure.

Stef Koster (07:39.438)
there was like one cafe that sold really good banana bread, was about it. And I went to my first mother’s group and I’m like, I’m out.

I thrive on talking about ideas, not people. And that’s not judgmental, but I felt like I was dying inside and was commuting to Melbourne to try and find like-minded people and use my creative brain, but it was just too hard. So I started working out of the Milkbar, which is like our local talk about community, that’s where we…

have our chats. There’s a few people in here that I meet up at the Milkbar bar and we talk about life. And we started, I invited people to work with me on the back table. And I missed working with men and talking to men and ideas and people from different industries. So took the plunge and got a warehouse and within six weeks, opened the doors and had to tell people what co-working was. And then it became a real thing.

And it’s not co-working anymore. So effective spaces is, and I actually cry when I actually say this, it’s community. So Coco originally was co-create, community, collide, but Coco now has just formed its own little energy of his or her own. And we all call it the Coco effect. So it’s that.

that sharing of knowledge, working around others or you’re isolated on your own, that we all know what that’s like, but day in, day out, working beside people, having a great day or having a really bad day. You just do more impactful work. You just see the most amazing, real collaborations and it just touches your heart. And it’s a very hard thing to sell or describe, but…

Stef Koster (09:39.01)
we’ve formed, it’s just this natural commute.

So this is interesting. We’re going to explore this a little bit further through your scenario. But one of the things that really came up is this idea that we have community at all different scales. Because the other kind of serendipitous thing that happened was I think I came in one day talking through my frustrations as the president of the basketball club about our inability to get volunteers. And you were like, I just happened to run a campaign for Tennis Australia where we got a bunch of volunteers like, yeah, wow.

And so there’s kind of these people, think these community groups are really struggling at the moment to try and develop the level of civic participation we need to make those entities sustainable. And I think this idea of how does that play out, and you’ve experienced similar things in tennis, how does that play out if we look five or 10 years into the future, which kind of now comes close to what we’re going to be talking about today.

Yes, so when Simon you set the challenge for me to write a scenario about a future that means something to me, I thought I’d write about work and working with others. what really, I’m a very emotive person and I follow what comes. And I started to really fear something. And through my experience, I’m a referee in tennis. I have no time to volunteer at all. I mean, does, but…

But it’s the joy it brings. And they say that it’s the happiest people in the world give back. yeah, I’ve witnessed going around to regional Australia and to many clubs. But also the biggest fear for me is you only see a certain generation helping. And I’ve got three beautiful kids, one’s here. But I don’t see them volunteering one day.

Stef Koster (11:37.198)
So my big, this fear rose up. was like, what does community look like in sport and particularly community clubs in the future? Because if we don’t have the volunteers and we don’t have the youth helping, what’s going to happen? Like, it’s a real problem that everyone’s talking about and everyone says it’s too hard, there’s no solution. So I challenged myself to.

So we’re about to find out what happens. So yes, so you’ve chosen a topic, you’ve chosen the future of community. And as part of the challenge, you have to write this scenario set at a point in the future. And my only kind of requirement is it needs to be at least five years from now so that we can envision something that’s different from today. But you can choose what you want. So you tell us what timeframe you’ve set your scenario in.

It’s seven to 10 years, 10 years.

10 years from now. And is there any significance of the timing of this?

Yes.

Simon Waller (12:35.086)
Should we just keep that secret for the moment?

Yes, and again, I took this on as a challenge and it really scared me, can I be honest. Like, just think it’s, to even think this way is really incredible, but it surprised me what came up, which you’ll see, what came up as we would consider a positive in the world, but actually, could actually be a negative that could decimate community thought.

Mmm, ooh, ooh. All right, I think we have ramped up the pressure. I think we’re gonna go to it now. Are you ready? Okay, so what’s gonna happen now is you are gonna read your scenario from the beginning to the end uninterrupted. Now everybody, you would have been found a little scroll on your seat. You do have your own copy of the scenario that you get to read along with Stef as we go.

I’m ready.

Simon Waller (13:33.038)
That is yours so you can also mark it up, make some notes, whatever you like with it. Turn it into a paper plane. Everything’s legit. But the microphone, Stef, is about to be yours and you’re going to read your scenario. All I have a little glass of red. Yeah, a little glass of red. Cheers. Cheers to that. To the future. To the future.

Please to the future.

Simon Waller (13:54.444)
Okay. All right, Stef, share your scenario with the people.

An Aussie tale of community comeback. There was a season when the lights went out. Not just on the oval, but in the whole town. The grass grew wild, the nets sagged, the change room smelled of dust and old tape. No whistles, no shouts, no smell of steamed dimmies from the canteen.

The kids and the mid-week ladies didn’t stop playing because they wanted to. They stopped because the club, their second home, was gone. The locks rusted, jammed forever. Their community, broken.

The Brisbane Olympics had eaten away every last dollar meant for grassroot sport. New stadiums sparkled in the cities while regional ovals cracked under the sun. Volunteers burnt out. They walked away. Committees dissolved. Parents focused on their real paid jobs. The quiet was worse than any grand final loss. You didn’t just lose a game.

You lost your people. You lost the glue. Towns lost spark.

Stef Koster (15:21.71)
Len, oh Lenny, Len felt it like a weight in his chest. 82 years old. Coach Len for half a century, now there was nowhere to go on a Tuesday night. He’d still walk past the oval sometimes, but it was just long grass and silence. Rabbit holes everywhere. That’s when he stopped shaving, stopped talking much too.

The shift didn’t come from government policy. It came from people who couldn’t stand the quiet anymore. Their hearts yearned for what once was. Cass, who ran the netball club, Luke, who’d coach the under 12s before he had kids, Marley, 14 years old, shy as anything but handy with a camera, they started meeting underground in borrowed spaces, the corner of the cafe,

back of the library, the park benched beside the river, and they built something new. They called it the Commons, a shared home for sport, work, art, culture, and cross-generational connection. Where no one volunteered anymore, everyone was an uplifter.

The game changer? Community currency.

You gave an hour, you got a credit, not just a pat on the back, but real value. Coach a junior team on a Saturday, gain three credits, enough for fresh fruit and bread from the Commons pantry. Help fix the nets on a midweek night, one credit, swap it for a coffee in the local cafe. Run a financial literacy workshop for teens, five credits. Book the community electric car for the weekend.

Stef Koster (17:18.882)
The commons currency was accepted by the IGA, the petrol station, gyms. It was the kind of system that made helping out feel worth it, especially for people who had no time or cash to spare. And can I add youth?

Barney, the local 18-year-old uni student, built an app to track the Commons currency. Think of it like an AI blockchain. By 2040, the Commons had gone further than anyone thought possible. Games streamed to hospital Commons, so no one missed out. Solar panels and community batteries powered half the town, and hydroponic gardens growing right

on the grandstand roof. A skills cloud app where you could swap an hour of your drone refereeing for a pickleball lesson. Tutoring for your kids or a box of vegetables. And something almost unbelievable, the government jumped on board with a Nationals Commons Cup where every community hub competed not just in sport,

but creativity, sustainability and contribution. Winners didn’t get trophies, they got funding to start a brand new commons somewhere else in the country. By then, clubs weren’t saving communities, they were building them from scratch, simply by uplifting.

And Len, Lenny, he never logged one single credit. But every Tuesday you’d find him back on that old timber bench fixing the scoring drones with his farmer hands. Willow would sit next to him, now teaching a new kid how to cut video highlights for the club socials. As club elder, Len made sure generations knew how to be human.

Stef Koster (19:24.224)
Now the solar lights flicker on as the sun dips, the oval hums with matches, markets, music and life. It looks different, but the feeling is exactly the same as it was for Len when he was a boy, even though the robots cut the grass. The heartbeat is back, and this time it’s built to last.

Simon Waller (19:51.95)
What a great scenario. Yeah. Yeah, so we’ll talk a little bit about how you went about writing this, but that was one of the conversations that we had. Like on one hand, you initially wrote like a very, similar to this, like quite an optimistic scenario. There’s a challenge with scenarios though, where if everything’s too optimistic, it’s almost unbelievable.

I’m very optimistic.

Simon Waller (20:15.618)
Like we almost need to see the optimism as a response to something else. What I thought was really interesting around the choice of the Brisbane Olympics as being this dystopian thing.

You know, on one hand, it gets celebrated in, you know, as a national thing and what a privilege for us to, you know, to host it. And we kind of forget about the billions of dollars that get sucked up into that and taken away from other projects, you know, in this case, community sport. But there’s really beautiful how you found like almost like this as a response to something. It’s almost we need it. Like we need something really bad to happen before we can come together in such a way to create something new.

So do you wanna talk through a little bit about what were some of the signals or the ideas that you went through in creating this?

Well, I actually was way too optimistic and I thought the Olympics might help. And I thought, can’t volunteer at the Olympics unless you come from a club. But once I looked into a bit of research, like the London Olympics, there was a completely affected community sport. It’s meant, Olympics meant to be a legacy, but there’s a real gap because…

Yeah, the funding gets paused from grassroots, goes to the big stadiums in the big cities, but what about everyone out in the country towns? And also then the funding, you know, I’m assuming, goes towards elite sport. But what about our grassroots athletes and our participation in the country? So I thought, the more I thought about it, I’m like, is the Olympics actually what it’s it’s already happening? Yeah.

Stef Koster (21:57.836)
We already see clubs merging with other clubs. So like in South Australia, I think it was 100 clubs have merged in AFL and that affects culture, it affects history. You know, and as we know in community, some clubs, the footy team is everything that brings them together. So what I saw was if we focus too much on the elite sport and

funding in the cities, know, obviously the clubs will burn out, but also…

volunteers, like the decline in volunteers. We could say that the Olympics might help spike it. So I’ve got some wonderful ideas for the government. But we won’t go into that now. But I just thought it actually made sense that potentially Olympics maybe is even the beacon to we need to make change because it’s happening is systemic. But what is it?

And maybe it is the Olympics that will actually look down really at the grassroots level and saying, these clubs are actually being affected. And are those venues going to be empty once the Olympics is gone? You know, what happens?

Yeah, and so, and this is one of interesting things around kind of futures thinking is like this story or the scenario you’ve written, it’s not true. This will not happen exactly as you’ve written it. But it still can contain elements of the truth. There are parts of this that may play out and it may not play out exactly how we said it, but as you said, there could be different catalysts for this to occur. And it could turn out that the Brisbane Olympics is a boon for volunteering, but…

Simon Waller (23:44.174)
It also may not be. And in some ways, part of this approach is to be able to understand what are those variables that are going to determine the future and can we be prepared for multiple outcomes. This is just one future that we might want to be prepared for. But I feel that there’s certain elements that ring really true for people who are currently in sports clubs.

You know, this inability to attract volunteers, know, challenges I know from working with local government as well around funding for sports facilities. And at the moment, there’s still this kind of almost expectation within society that every club will get its facilities. There’ll be the facilities for the tennis, but there’ll also be the facilities for the pickleball and for the baseball and the this and everyone’s equal, right? We all deserve it equally, but there’s just not enough money to go around.

And yet at the moment it feels like there’s not a willingness for people to compromise. That’s what we love about this. There’s almost like a forced compromise amongst all these sporting codes. It’s almost like we had to take everything away so that they could come back together and go, all right, so if we want anything, we’ve got to do this together.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the idea of everyone coming together, I mean, as you were talking at the start, there’s lots of different communities, but especially in regional areas, bringing them together. Think about declining volunteers if we shared the resources in admin across clubs, but also do get rid of committees and look at skills-based roles and…

What if I’ve only got an hour a week? Fantastic. I can go on the app and tick that I’m happy to do a TikTok video for the kids. Or, you know, Len could go fix the drones that aren’t working. But also the, sporting clubs, the governance now and the child safe laws and you know, I’m not going to be all negative doom and gloom, but it’s reality. and…

Stef Koster (25:38.774)
it’s not going to get better unless we all pull together to cover the admin. Like you literally need to be a lawyer as a parent to even contribute to a club. Like to be able to deliver all the policies and everything. Like you can’t just, you know, be the mum that wants to sit behind the canteen anymore. So I think also the community, committee, as scary people are getting stuck in roles.

So why don’t we flip that funnel and look at skills-based model and sharing like we do in work now and hybrid work and let’s share our resources. You know, there’s so many different topics and layers here we’re talking about.

But this is a really interesting one. So I do feel like there is this sense of competition between clubs. Like we’re competing for players and we’re competing for funding and it creates this us and them dynamic where we’re almost unwilling to find ways to like compromise.

And yet weirdly, like that’s one layer of community at this club level. Yeah, we all exist within another layer of community, which is our kind of our local area. And so somehow we have this and almost like the, you know, on one hand, you know, clubs, especially when you talk about like say your professional clubs, like AFL type clubs, you know, they are dedicated. They want you hooked as a supporter. They want you to be die hard and prefer your club over all other clubs. But the stronger that in group,

then the stronger your feelings against the out group. And so weirdly in this idea, we want to create an identity for our club, we want people to really believe in it, but in doing so, we actually potentially weaken the bonds of community at another level. I mean, that’s an interesting challenge that almost, as I said, in your scenario, it almost requires us to dissolve clubs altogether and start from scratch, right? If you don’t have this, you don’t get anything. Do you see other ways that could unfold?

Stef Koster (27:41.538)
What do you mean in terms of the actual bigger community?

do we get a sense that we are part of this bigger community and can see past the micro communities that we’re a part of?

So this is where I think community currency is interesting. back in the day, that’s how everything operated on trade and barter. But sport initially brings people together and cultures together. But there’s the bigger community from that. So say the community currency and I’m helping, you know, umpire on a weekend, but little Betty needs her lawns mowed, you know?

and it goes up on this app in the community and then I can tick a box and I can go mow her lawn and then you could even take it to another level. There’s this whole talk about micro credentialing and profiling as humans and the human skills and giving back. Surely AI is clever enough to actually take this concept and do you know what I’m saying? And use it as a bigger community where instead of saying I need help, we need someone to do this.

It’s like, I’ve got you. That’s easy. You know, I can help. That’s the problem. A lot of people don’t know how to help or they haven’t been asked.

Simon Waller (28:58.327)
Yes.

Even I think one piece of advice you gave me, which I went back and shared with my club was, if you’re to ask people for help, you need to be super specific about what you’re asking for and that you’re asking them. Like, it’s almost like I need you to come in and help us with our social media. So I heard you have some social media skills. It’s almost like anything less than that direct ask. They’re like, are you sure you mean me? Yeah. I’m not sure like I’m really cut out for that type of thing. And again, even the other one, which still sticks with me as well as like, find another name, like don’t

call it like the marketing officer or the committee member, find another way of actually then to go, okay, this sounds like how was a friendlier term we could use.

Yeah, be relatable. I think too, like, storytell. Storytell, like, why do we volunteer? It’s emotion, it’s how we feel. Like, share those stories. I’m a big believer in that.

Yeah, so this is when you, the stuff you share with me about what you did at Tennis Australia. You wanna share a little bit just about how that campaign, like what it looked like. I think it’s really worth the audience hearing, because I think, as I said, it’s so deeply rooted in the concept of storytelling.

Stef Koster (30:09.58)
Yeah, well, we have the problem where competitions are growing and more events, but we don’t have enough officials. So we had to get about 150 officials in a year and we did it in six months. But it was because it’s all about the why and we hear about everyone’s purpose. But I came up with a campaign, Serve the Game, with the team, Tennis Australia. And I didn’t tell anyone, but I said, hey, can I film you?

and just put a camera on them. Didn’t tell them what I was going to ask. And I said, why do you serve the game? And they hadn’t even heard the concepts of the game and the, and the emotion that flowed, like, and just, we just put the camera on it and film their story and the heart and why they do what they do. Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, we’re talking about so much here.

That’s right.

The conversation will go exactly where it’s meant to go. And so, yeah, we’re bringing it back though. That’s interesting. So super powerful project for Tennis Australia that makes people even more like, yeah, we love tennis, right? Like, and in doing so potentially has the chance of eroding other forms of community. So that was the one thing that I really, really loved about this scenario was that you started in the genesis of it is in that sense of community.

but you very much made this actually a bigger conversation around community. Because that’s one of the challenges even, like, you know, we put the call out to volunteers at the basketball club and we’re kind of like, you in a position to volunteer? And people say, well, most people say no. But you don’t have to say no because they’re actually already volunteering at the life-saving club or they’re, you know, a single mom.

Simon Waller (32:02.376)
and they just really do not have the capacity between two jobs and the kids they’re looking after. Or whether they’re just kind of doom scrolling on a Thursday night and really could have easily given you an hour. Like you don’t have an easy way of telling the difference between those things. And on one hand, I’d like completely legit that people are volunteering elsewhere. That as much as I have this community of the basketball club, you know, we are all part of another community and we need to be able to support those things as well. But I really want to know the people who are just watching Netflix.

Yeah. The other ones, I wanted to be to go to them like literally all I want from you is a show a week. Like one show, one hour show. Give that to me. I only need an hour a week. That’s all I need from you. So I do love that, that you captured that in this in the sense that first of all the clubs had to come together. They wanted something, but also that they also had to find a way of growing the concept of community to be bigger than sport.

Was there something that fed into that for you or was there… I know that we have some scattered around the room, some of the signals that both you identified and I identified. I think actually one about a town in Western Australia, I think it’s Puroongarup, where the locals came together and bought the pub, the petrol station and the local supermarket. And they’re like, we can’t survive the town without those three things. We’re just going to buy them, we’re going to own them and they’re going to be ours.

the communities now. And that’s almost what I heard of a bit in what you’re proposing was like this bigger sense of ownership. Was there things that you have seen or articles you’ve read or conversations you’ve had that kind of triggered that for you?

Yeah, actually, there’s someone in the audience here, actually, who has a group that started off just going for walks, mateship, and they didn’t support each other. Just go for a walk, women walk and talk. We’ve got our support. But Merv, he just was like, I’m going to be, there’s the Milkbar again, at the Milkbar , at six o’clock on Sunday every month. And he’s got this whole crew of men that…

Stef Koster (34:09.548)
that walk and they support each other. And what’s come from that is the coffee chat. But the signal there for me is they now have pulled together their skills and they go and help community projects. So they do a working bee at the local youth centre. They’ll go to the food bank and pack up food and move it. So they’ve actually…

within their little micro community where they were just helping and supporting each other without even knowing it. They’re now helping others. And I think the more, as you said, the micro communities blend into the bigger, bigger, bigger, you get this flow on effect of, you know, receiving, giving and repeat. And it just becomes then a new system and a new mindset.

Mm.

Stef Koster (35:01.27)
and a new way of life and culture. there’s a lot of us, a lot of us here are probably really big givers in our communities. But the more that we all do it, I think that’ll just have a wave effect. But I think it’s interesting you mentioned, the micro community, what would that be called where the micro just keeps growing into the macro?

Yeah, and so, I mean, I don’t know the answer to that particular question. I know this is awkward. Is it Holarchy? Like we have a hole, like holes are part of a bigger hole. What, yeah, so one thing that did come up for me in this is you kind of have pitched this scenario inside a country town.

You’re really smart.

Stef Koster (35:35.627)
Never heard it.

Simon Waller (35:51.378)
And it almost feels like a little bit believable because within the country town at least we know where the border of the town is. Yeah. You know, like, so we know people who are in the town and we also know people who aren’t in the town and we can do this in our town. I kind of imagine that in a place like where we are in in Mornington, where Mornington kind of bleeds into Mount Martha or on one side and then Mount Eliza on the other and then into Frankston. And there is a where would the border be?

You know, like there’s still this issue of like the community gets bigger, but in some ways as we spread ourselves thinner, we lose some of the power of community, which community I am a part of. And I’ve definitely had this conversation working with different local councils where the council very much sees the end of the community as the end of like the border of the LGA. Right, like the border is they’re the people who are in and the people outside of that, they are out. You know?

But like the people who live on the border don’t see it that way. They see the people on the other side of the street as being the people on their street. And so I kind of wonder, like, if you were to take this concept and apply it in a space like a place like where we are, what do think the challenges might be in transferring it?

think it depends where you live. There’s a bit of snobbery between suburbs and quarters and I’m not going to say where, but go and help here. think…

You might have like an exchange rate between commons. Like yeah. And now Martha comma is worth at least two morning two commons.

Stef Koster (37:26.862)
That’s where I feel we need to embrace the AI technology and as I said the currency app of create a blockchain. I have no idea I just said it. But why not? Like maybe the future in 40 years is I have all this community currency that I went and helped down you know 50k’s away when I was traveling but it actually is worth value.

Hahaha!

Stef Koster (37:56.722)
Like how cool is that? We could have our own currency crypto. But you know, it’s not a bad idea. Like really, I did do a little chat GPT on that and said give me an example back in history when this happened. Because obviously in Africa and countries there’s a system but why not?

Yeah.

Stef Koster (38:18.798)
But why not? I mean, schools these days, educators are talking about micro-credentials to get into university to get a job. know, back in the day, I did a secondment in HR with PwC. I was a trainee and my job was to read through resumes and give them a score out of 100. Before the recruitment people even read it, you got someone who’s just out of school summarising the resumes.

But the first thing I had to go to was a volunteer section and give them 10 points. So that was a long time ago, well not that long. But maybe there’s something in that. Maybe there’s our own blockchain of volunteer and how great. again, youth, are they gonna help? What if we gave them a profile and a score that they could go to uni?

that was, and they could go for a job and it was actually certified and it wasn’t just school giving it. So actually, they’re actually getting something more valuable than just a Maccas Sundae for their work, but it’s actually gonna help them down the track.

Yes, I find this interesting. So first of all, the first thing my mind went into about currency is that the currency doesn’t have to be a monetary thing. Like even someone can have currency because they’re the person who shows up. Like you can actually apply it to the individual without any type of token or anything attached to it. I’ve always worried though that the risk of assigning value to something that is perceived to be a monetary value.

that in some way also has a negative impact. Like it takes away from the intrinsic reason why I did things. And, you know, one thing that we’ve had as a conversation in our club a number of times is, you know, if we start paying people to do jobs that we really believe should be the jobs of volunteers, then when do we stop? Do we pay all the jobs?

Simon Waller (40:26.882)
then do we pay all of the committee? Because if I was on a board, I would expect to be remunerated for my time. At what point do we actually erode the intrinsic value of being a part of the club? even, and I love, one of my favourite parts of this whole scenario is that Len didn’t take any money. Right, didn’t take a currency. In some way you’ve alluded to the fact that there is obviously other people who feel in a similar way. But even though Len has made that decision,

The fact that you even put the currency on it in the first place. know, like it’s a tension, right? Like on one hand, I get it and I love the premise of it. I like the fact that the community comes around this thing. But then there’s also this weird thing. It’s like, oh, why do we have to have, why do we have to put a, like, why do we have to put a numerical value against your time and make it tradable? You know, in a pre…

Like I’m gonna say in a pre currency world, like we go back to real tribal premp, like tribal beliefs, how would this play out? Like you would almost like you would have like an obligation or like there’s honor attached to this. Like it’s almost like what made me think about in terms of this, terms of applying it to a club is almost the idea of like, well actually no, no, you can’t be a member of our club unless you volunteer.

Or maybe we gamify it. So to answer that, if you’re finished. The reason I got to there was because I was fearful of the youth. I was fearful that kids these days expect something back. My kids won’t help around the house without wanting money.

I could keep going by the-

Stef Koster (42:12.098)
Like, OK, that’s probably a reflection on my parenting. But it’s real. And so when I travel around, I don’t see the kids sitting with their grandparents anymore helping pack up at the end of the day. You don’t see it. You see them sitting on the iPads eating their food and mum and dad are still out there and they… Do you know what I mean? So my whole thought was maybe we need to incentivise the youth. But you just gave me an idea. We gamify it.

and they get streaks.

This is straight. I’m back at the dishwasher streak

So maybe it’s maybe their currency is like, I don’t know, some sort of social recognition, like seriously.

I mean we have the same conversation with our kids as well like and and it’s like no it’s just kind of what you got to do like you’re in a household you’re part of a community contribute something to be honest we’re not asking much of you to contribute but like they like so there’s certain things like again we should have another episode called the future of parenting because I reckon this could be super exciting

Stef Koster (43:18.286)
Don’t put me in that one.

But I do think, yes, on one hand we have attention as parents about we’re trying to prepare our kids for the real world and jobs and we kind of use kind of money as an example of how do you save and all these things and prepare yourself for the capitalist society that we all live in, right? And yet the other part of this is that if you think about it, families are the most socialist structures in the world.

Like families are entirely socialist. In a capitalist world, the family is the most socialist thing in existence. Like one person goes out or two people go out and they earn all the money, then they share it evenly with everybody, right? And no one complains about it. So there are other elements, as I said, I think there’s other elements, whether it be kind of honour or obligation or something that needs to come into this.

I don’t know, like in a world which is increasingly capitalist, it feels we’re losing sight of that other thing. You know what mean?

totally agree with you, but I have no…

Simon Waller (44:17.966)
That’s right. audience will solve this for us after the break. But maybe, yeah, and again, I don’t know, like, because there’s maybe something around the size of the tribe where we feel that obligation on a personal level to all the people in it that allows it to work. And maybe it doesn’t scale. Maybe that level of obligation doesn’t scale after a certain point. But we always go,

That’s true.

Simon Waller (44:47.448)
You know, we risk and what I think probably may be really interesting to explore in this scenario as you go deeper into it is something around how things are valued in this microcosm, in this commons. So, you know, is really, you know, a monthly subscription to Netflix worth the equivalent of, you know, a week of fresh fruit and veg?

Like in a world where we’re genuinely short of cash, like, well, there’s no trade. That’s not a trade that anyone would take. So maybe there’s something in this about putting greater value on things that are actually of meaning and putting less value. you certainly just cannot buy with your comments. You know, like they’re not, like you can’t buy a Netflix subscription with a comment. That’s ridiculous. okay. Yeah.

Well, who knows? I don’t know.

Yeah, but you could buy maybe a ticket to the local theatre. Yeah. Yeah.

That’s nice. Well, you’re again going to another community.

Simon Waller (45:53.07)
Yeah. The other thing that actually struck me about this, you said in here that you were quite surprised, almost shocked, that the government would get behind this. And I was like, I reckon the government will be all over this. Yeah. Are you going share it? Yeah. OK.

Well, yeah, I’ve even got an idea for them.

Ready? Flex for good. For youth. Isn’t that like the buzzword, flex? For good. So what you were just talking about, flex, but for the good of others. And then you will receive good.

Flex for good.

Simon Waller (46:26.83)
So how would this work, or is it just a tagline so far?

Great tag one. But the government will share stories of really great use around the country that are giving back and what they’re getting back for it. And guess what? They’re the ones that get to volunteer at the Olympics because they’re already giving back to their community clubs. But then we raise the stories, we tell the stories about those community clubs and the more that volunteer, the funding’s going to go back there too. But it’s about celebrating community heroes at the Olympics.

You maybe you have, OK, I’m just making this stuff up now. This is what I do. Flex for Good at every podium at the Olympics. You also have your Flex for Good volunteers in the same presentation. So you it actually is helping sport across the globe. Flex for Good. We’re actually celebrating volunteers throughout the entire Olympic journey. I just thought I’d throw that.

No, I like this idea. I reckon that you actually have like a multi-tiered set of podiums. Yes. And the volunteers go on the higher tier because ultimately the other people wouldn’t have been there with

Present the medals. Yeah. Yeah, the winners. Yeah, I it.

Simon Waller (47:33.518)
Yeah, I do think that this you know, there’s a something I did a little bit work in in a regional rural council and one of the things is that like so The the council itself doesn’t have the resources to say like mow the median strip so what they’ve done is they provided the lawnmower and the petrol and they’ve left it in a shed and Then the locals can just go and use it whenever they want to mow the median strip if they want to mow it like it’s up to them, right?

But then the council come round and make sure the mower’s fixed and there’s petrol in it. But it’s almost like I think there is such a cost pressure on local government, they would fall over themselves to support an initiative that saw clubs take greater ownership of their facilities.

You know, I think we’re still in a state like, again, like there’s, you know, been basketball on the, like, I think they’re short seven indoor basketball courts on the peninsula. And by the time they build them, they’ll probably be short another five if they ever get built, because no one’s got the money for it, But we’re all, everyone’s in that situation of I want this, I want this, I want this. No one’s going, hey, you know what, we should do this. We’re going this.

And it’s not funding, it’s not the conversation. If we don’t have the community and the people to, even if the funding comes, we don’t have the volunteers to support it, there’s still no club. It doesn’t matter how fancy the facilities are. You still don’t have the people and the culture and it’s so, so great Aussie. I mean, I’m being biased, but I’m pretty sure it’s pretty special to Australia, our community clubs.

you think it’s different here than say other places? All right.

Stef Koster (49:16.162)
Yeah. I think it’d be more commercial in other places.

Yeah, well, I think about, you know, know for a friend of mine who’s from the US, so supporting an NBA team is almost cost prohibitive. So most people, if you’re a basketball fan, will have a college team that you support, because you can afford to go to college games, you just can’t afford to go to NBA games. So I wonder like, if that trickles down, you know, what happens to the point where like, well, we can’t afford to go to the big

the big smoke, to the AFL, but we can go and support our local teams. So I think that that’s a really interesting premise as well. We talk about the idea of the elder in the…

Yeah. This is actually a story, Len. I actually met Len. I hope he’s still alive. This is actually, again, I pull on what I’ve felt and feared in my own experience. So Len is 94. He lives in Mildura and he’s been volunteering and playing tennis, I would say, over 70 years. And he still goes to the club.

every Tuesday and Thursday and has a hit with his mates. And I met him and it was 38 degrees. He was just out of hospital so he didn’t play but he was watching. And his daughter brought the scones down and the lemon slice and they’re all playing and it was everything to him. And these six guys that were sitting along the fence, this rusty old fence out the back near the river, the back court was like court 34.

Stef Koster (50:58.382)
They talked about how they survived because of the place. And you do, like when you spend, and I do spend a lot of time in the country towns, it’s my favourite place to go and work, is the volunteers are everything. And it is their lifeblood. And I can’t see, I’m getting emotional that I think what’s going to happen to them?

You know, when scoring drones are already a thing, you know, we’ll have robots bringing out flipping sausages at Bunnings soon. what about these guys? You know, so for me, Len, the opportunity for clubs is to make them the elders. Why? Because our youth need to learn how to be humans. So soon…

The coaches are going to use AI tools and probably avatars doing skills within the next five years. But we need Len there to tell you as a coach how to deal with a tough parent, how to deal with poor little Johnny that, you know, didn’t get enough court time and he’s really sad. The elders know what to say, but are you going to know how to deal with that human?

Creating elders within the club, think, is the glue to humanity moving forward when it’s obvious that tech is starting to play a big job in sport. So it’s the humanness. I go,

brings up the

Simon Waller (52:38.158)
It brings up for me, actually the last episode I recorded with a friend of mine, Anton, we were talking about the future of immigration and we were talking about how long it takes though for you to become settled in a place, like to feel a sense of belonging. And he talked it through the lens of an immigrant who’s come to Australia but I understand the stats are like even if you are like from here, say you’re multi-generational Australian and you move from one suburb to another suburb, it still takes you

five years before you feel a sense like I belong, right? I’ve always had this… Ten years. I think if you’re in Rome, it’s multi generations before you can be considered a Roman. Yeah. But I think the other thing is we’ve become so fleeting, like we all move so often that we actually take away that chance to belong. And I want and I need to sort through it in this moment about this concept of like, you know, like even I mean, I’ve been down on the Mornington Peninsula for now nearly 10 years.

Ten years here before you’re a local.

Stef Koster (53:36.222)
nearly a local party.

Yeah, we’re not a local from Mount Martha though. Yeah, I’ve only been four years in Mount Martha though, so, you know, I can have the kind of the shallow, the border party. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, but like, but when you talk about, you know, your community and you talk about the elders in that community.

The Border Party.

Simon Waller (53:58.178)
But if people are moving away from that community on then and coming back again, again, we’re kind of breaking some of those bonds that we need. Like I really believe.

Lin could like beat every new member, make them feel welcome.

Yeah, yeah. As long as that’s tough a though, as well, if you think about it, having that responsibility to be that for everybody. Like it should be a shared responsibility and there should be a mutuality with it. Like the Lend, like Lend needs that for him the benefit comes from seeing the growth and development of the youth. To know that he’s passed on that club to the next generation. It’s gonna be looked after, that other people will have the experience that he had. You know?

I think you’ll find out much I would learn about this.

Yeah, I like it. Good idea though. I can actually see like beautiful rugby jumper. them? Rugby jumper. The elder. Club elder. Badge.

Simon Waller (54:49.602)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (54:57.794)
So we’re kind of towards the end of our conversation with this. And one I think I’m really, I find really interesting is in doing this exercise, there’s some stuff that you learn yourself, which we’ll touch on in a sec. But there’s also, I think it gives you a clarity about almost like what you want for the world.

And part of that is in this. And I don’t think even what you want for the world is the currency of the commons, right? It’s about what that enables. So what do you think, what is that thing, if you were to try and articulate it, what do you want for the world that you have tried to capture in this scenario? And then the second part of question is, if you wanted more of that, what could people do?

What would be almost like, like if people were here listening today or listening this later on online and you wanted to nudge them in that direction just slightly, what would you suggest?

Firstly, I feel really sad for anyone that doesn’t feel connected. That I hope the currency is not monetary and giving is just a way of life and it’s kind of like our default, not a chore.

Yeah, so that was what we want for and then the second part of it is, if the people listening, what’s that almost like the micro actions that you could take? And I know it was like the easy one to say is just go volunteer, right? Like, it feels like

Stef Koster (56:32.184)
Dip your toe in. Find what lights you up. And it doesn’t have to be sport or anything. It could be you don’t have grandparents anymore or parents. Maybe you just go and have a cup of tea with someone down at Retirement Village. what lights you up or what are you missing out on in your life that would fill your bucket up a little bit more? And I say to people,

It’s not don’t give it a go, but you have to experience it to feel those intrinsic benefits of being a part of a community and giving back and volunteering. It’s not something you can just sit and witness or read about. actually have to, you actually do.

Yeah, that’s almost the paradox of it, isn’t it? It’s like you can’t, you can’t know what it is until you’ve already done it. Yeah, but there’s high level of trust required almost like a faith. Yeah, it doesn’t need to be a faith in volunteering.

I think you’ve still got to love it. So it can’t be, we need someone to run the boundary line on the weekend. Yeah, it doesn’t light me up. Not going to make me feel great when I go home. You know, I’m going to be muddy and sweaty and, you know, not me. I’d love it. But I think you’ve still got to love it and it’s still going to make you happy. Don’t just tick the box because you’ve been told to volunteer and help out. Like it has to, it has to feel good. You’ve got to really challenge yourself as to the why and what.

what you need and what’s missing and what can you give? Like everyone’s got a skill. Everyone’s got something amazing about them. Just amplify that and that’s going to amplify others and bring back so much more to you. If you amplify what you’re good at and what makes you happy, it comes back at you. That’s just the way it well works. I would be like really, really think hard about what it is and have a go.

Simon Waller (58:23.126)
I imagine there are websites you can go on and use volunteering opportunities in your local area, but I almost want like…

I do the work with libraries. I’m still on the board of a library corporation that runs 20 libraries. I’ve always seen libraries almost as a place where can we physically go to find out what’s going on in our local community? Like, because they don’t have a vested interest in anything. They’re just like, hey, cool, we can connect you. Awesome. But almost like here’s places where you could just go and volunteer. And I do think like, you know, one of these things that’s going on around this kind of sense of loneliness in the community, there is almost like it’s the antidote to so many things. And you’re trying to get people over that

of just experiencing it for the first time. But also I suppose part of that is maybe, you know, for the people like, you know, myself and others here involved in clubs, how do we actually make the first volunteering opportunity special?

Yeah, that’s a whole nother podcast. There is research on this and we did research in tennis, but if your first experience isn’t wonderful, they won’t come back. So if you make sure the right elder or someone is with them and they have a wonderful first experience, you’ve probably got them for life. Once you’ve got to volunteer for a year, you have them for life. So it’s about the experience.

It’s about lack of volunteers.

Stef Koster (59:43.874)
Yep, it’s the president’s fault you’ve got to make sure the journey’s good.

Last question is about your own experience. I’ve loved doing this with you by the way, Stef. Your enthusiasm for it, from the beginning, I’m marked with, balanced with some trepidation, but your enthusiasm for the process. I think the trepidation was to do with this part of it, where we had to sit in front of an audience and talk it out. But your enthusiasm for the process has been so beautiful to witness.

What’s it been like? What have you got out of it yourself having done this?

like I actually do, well, I thought I did. I actually write strategies for a living, for communities and brands. And I thought I knew what I was doing, but no, I’ve learned so much to just really stop and think. I naturally, I’m very optimistic person. So I think when I originally did it, it was like way, way too good. And you said, give me some dark.

But just the process of signals, you know, I didn’t know what you meant by that originally. But what, think about the future that you want, but then what are the signals along the way, or what are the signals showing up in life that are making you want to think about this future? But is there a big event that’s gonna cause that to drop? And…

Stef Koster (01:01:15.246)
I’m really excited to go away and actually do that in business and life. Actually go, okay, what do I want from this in 10 years or five years or 20? What could that look like? And that’s super exciting. So thank you. It’s a gift learning how to use the brain in that way.

One of the things you’ll find leaving this, spent this amount of effort on it and going and having this conversation is you’ll start to see signals related to this everywhere. You’ve now almost tuned your antenna. Like buying a new car and so you see the car everywhere. It’s like having done this, you’ll be spotting this and it’s like, oh, is that a signal? Ah, interesting. Yeah, it’ll haunt you.

Thank Carl.

Simon Waller (01:01:58.606)
Yeah, but that’s so beautiful and there’s so many insights in there which we’re going to unpack a little bit further soon. But for now, I just want to thank you so much for being a part of this. even, you know, given the trepidation that you had. But that is all for this episode of The Future With Friends. Please tune in again soon and please join me in thanking Stef.

Stef Koster (01:02:26.712)
It was fun.