Episode 49: Celebrating Meaningful Inclusion in Business

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EPISODE 49  Celebrating Meaningful Inclusion in Business

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[00:00:02]

Carers Qld announcement

Choice and Control is a podcast celebrating meaningful inclusion of people with disability in our communities. Brought to you by Carers Queensland, your NDIS local area coordination partner in the community, each episode provides a conversation space for people with disability, their families and carers to share their stories with you.  We also hear from members of the wider community, local businesses and community leaders who share information, ideas and possibilities to give you more opportunity and more choice and control in your life.

Every year on the 3 December, people around the world take part in International Day of People with Disability, a day to celebrate the contributions and achievements of people with disability and promote awareness, understanding and acceptance in our community.

In this episode, we continue our celebration of International Day of People with Disability and talk to three speakers who share their experience of running successful personal businesses.

Laura Scurr is an experienced accountant, bookkeeper and business manager who runs her own online virtual assistant business, and after many years of experience in the business sector, now shares her skills in her role with Y Connect, a branch of the YWCA. We started by asking Laura about the beginnings of her career and how her journey led her to managing a resort on a small island off the coast of Brisbane.

[00:01:34]

Laura

After finishing high school in 2005, I went to Uni and studied the Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Business. So got through that okay, did reasonably well with my marks, and then started looking for a graduate accounting position. Nothing radical, considering what I'd studied, the marks I'd gotten. And then after that, I started looking for jobs. After 170 job applications for graduate accounting positions, I finally landed a job as an executive assistant for the SKG Toowoomba.  So not an accounting role, very much an administrative role, providing support for the organizers. It was a not-for-profit business.  They essentially ran out of money in the wages budget, shall we say about two months before the event. So I continued on, most in a voluntary capacity. I'm the sort of person, once I start a project, I can't just leave it. I need it through to the end. And during the event period, I was working 70 hours a week for about 21 days straight. So any seven day period in that 21 days, I did about 70 hours. Great experience, but as a young 20 or year old, I wanted to go out and find paid employment.

So I went back to applying for jobs for a short period, got really dissatisfied and disgruntled with the responses I was getting from employers.   I'd learned a little bit about the Australian virtual assistance industry.  So I started doing a little bit of research, found out that unlike the overseas industry, the Australian industry charged what I considered at the time to be a sustainable hourly rate for their services. Found that there was a demand for that sort of service.  So I set up my virtual administration business women, business Solutions, through N.I.C.E, and that was in 2015 to providing a range of admin services. I do meeting minutes, I do document editing, a wide range of tasks, really.

So I was happily doing that. And I looked into getting my bookkeeping license to expand my business.  And I needed 1000 hours of bookkeeping experience, which I either had to get as a paid employee or as a volunteer. So I started doing my uncle's book work. He'd had an electrical contracting business. Since the early 1980s, he'd been running successfully. So I started doing his book work. I got a job with a local bookkeeper and did that part time whilst also doing my business.

And then one day my uncle phoned me up and I just thought it was to do with the book work that I've been doing. And he gets on the phone and he says, hey, Laura, remember when you were a young child, about eight years old, and you wanted to own your own restaurant?  And I said, yeah, John, I remember that. And he said, do you still want to own a restaurant? And having no idea what was behind what he was asking or said, yeah, John, but I'd have rocks in my head to open one in torment, because it was when they'd recently done a major shopping center redevelopment in Toowoomba, and they were literally opening 50 restaurants a week. It had been in the local newspaper about a fortnight before. I think I can't do it in that environment, he was living in Redlands, John cooked him up for some background.  He said to me, I'm not asking you to have one in more details.

And he says, Well, I've recently moved to Coochie, as you know, and the local restaurant is on the market.  I'm not really sure you want to research it for me with the view of going into business with me.

[00:07:55]

Tracy

And how do you react to that proposal?

[00:08:01]

Laura

I said, yeah, sure, why not?  For another challenge. Yeah, anyhow, to cut a long story short, now, I did some research, we begun negotiations, and six months later, John and I became the owners of Red Rock Cafe, which was a fully licensed cafe on Coochiemudlo Island. So I began commuting from Toowoomba down to Coochiemudlo. I started off thinking I'd only have to go down, like, once a week to collect the banking, and the majority of what I could do could be done online from home, like all of the book work and the rostering and the ordering, et cetera.

As time went by, I was going down two or three times a week. And it's not really like just down the road. It's a two and a half hour car journey, plus a ferry ride, et cetera, et cetera. I spoke to the local real estate agent and I said, I need a rental on the island.  So I got an accessible rental on the island and I moved over on the Tuesday, got the keys on the Tuesday. And for John and I, the resort was sort of a good thing because it wasn't being run as well as you might have hoped. And a lot of the clients that stayed there, even though they had an on site restaurant, they come and eat with us, we provide a good service.  So the resorts closed. So John and I decided we should go and talk to the freehold owners to find out what their intentions were.

Now, my uncle is a brilliant man, but he has a downside. And that downside is that he doesn't always make quick decisions, right?  He's certainly not known for making quick decisions. So we go into this meeting with the freehold owners, and we're sitting there talking numbers, and I'm sitting there knowing what the rent for our cafe is, et cetera, and they're telling us what the rent will be for the resort, et cetera. And I'm sitting there thinking, this will be a nice little challenge for someone knowing the market, et cetera. Lo and behold, my uncle opens his mouth and out pops the words, we want to take it on. Can you please have the contract drawn up?

[00:11:45]

Tracy

Okay, so you've gone from a cafe. Now to a resort.

[00:11:49]

Laura

And I'm sitting there thinking, John is too far away to kick under the table, probably. Thankfully for him, I'm sitting there in front of the owner sort of saying to John, John, do you want to talk about this? And then we can go to the next step, because obviously you can't have a frank and honest conversation in front of the owners.

So overnight, we became managers, literally overnight, but this wasn't even on the radar when I woke up. We basically committed to taking on this additional business with ten holiday units, a separate villa and bunk house and a separate restaurant, swimming pool, the lot. So it takes usually about eight weeks for a liquor license to transfer, which we knew from Red Rock.   We weren't given those eight weeks of luxury. We got an interim license. I think the contract was about four weeks and the place had really been running to the ground. The rooms were absolutely filthy beyond belief. Took professional cleaners two days per unit to clean it. They quoted me 4 hours, I think it was, and it took two days per unit. The restaurant took about a week to get it cleaned.

[00:13:48]

Tracy

So, Lauren, you took all of this on? As the manager of it all.

[00:13:57]

Laura

Yes. We had no contact with the previous owners. We couldn't transfer the phone number. We had to get a new phone number to recreate the website.  It took months, literally months, to sort out booking.com and get control of that.  Thankfully, we still had accommodation guests through ring-ins and new advertisements. So, yeah, I've been running both of the businesses.  We changed the format slightly to Red Rock Cafe. We ran through the day, breaking lunch five days a week and then five nights a week we did meals up at Oasis.  All was going well. I turned it around, we had a reputation. We just done a wedding for 90 people up at Oasis. Really brilliant wedding, completely gluten free menu and then COVID hit about three weeks after.

[00:15:19]

Tracy

Oh, yes, the dreaded COVID.

[00:15:23]

Laura

We hung on as long as we could. The lease came up on Red Rock and we didn't renew the lease for Red Rock. We'd have it closed during the takeaway only period because although there's about 700 residents, it really is a tourist destination and we relied on the tourists to cover our costs.  So we closed Red Rock and decided to focus on Oasis.

That was in the January. We closed that in the March. I got whooping cough and it didn't get diagnosed for about a month. And I kept going to the doctors, coughing and saying, something isn't right. They kept telling me I had asthma and asthma isn't contagious. So I just kept working.

I was absolutely exhausted, but I sort of just thought, oh, well, they're telling me there's nothing wrong, it must all be in my head. They didn't know –  they didn't diagnose it for a month. I kept working a month in. They sort of said to the doctor, look, there's something else going on. Can you please do a blood test? I want to know what it is. It came out positive for whooping cough. And she said, oh, well, you're a month thing, you're no longer contagious, we can't get any medication, it won't make a difference. You'll be right in about another four weeks, you'll cough for another four weeks. So I went home and I thought, right, well, I've coped for the last four weeks with this now, we're still having lockdowns down in Brisbane, working on school, little stuff. I couldn't get in. I was serving customers, taking orders at night, still running all the paperwork and everything, nothing let up. So I kept going. I thought, I've done a month, only another month, I can do this, I'll keep going, keep pushing through.  The month ended, I was better for about ten days and I caught a virus and that pattern just continued for about another three viruses, more lockdowns.

My main chef had left. I'd employed another cook during all this illness period. He hadn't worked out at all. My barista was having health issues and needed to leave. I'd set up interviews for more staff. No one would show up for their interviews because it's a remote area and at the time there were critical staff shortages in hospitality and I was too run down and worn out to continue fighting it all. And I just had to go to the landlord, who had been amazing through COVID, and they were still amazing when I rung them up. And I said, Look, I'm sorry, we can't do it, we can't get staff, and I'm just too sick to be able to go along. So we closed, which is sad.

I returned home and I lived with my mum in Toowoomba. Mum had been coming over to help me run it and to help with my personal care, et cetera.  We returned home, had a bit of a rest, and the YWCA rung me up. The early stages of establishing the Y Connect program, which is a program for women and gender diverse people living with disabilities to develop their professional story, to increase their professional development skills. So they offer a range of programs from boosting confidence, computer classes, budgeting classes, how to find jobs, how to talk to employers about your disability, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:21:07]

Tracy

And how long have you been with Y Connect for?

[00:21:11]

Laura

So I started at the end, rather at the beginning of end of 21, beginning in 2022.

They invited me onto their organizing committee and it's just snow balled from there. So I run some of their programs. I've been doing peer networking events with my fellow colleagues with disabilities.

So, yeah, we've been running peer networking sessions. I've been developing and running the computer classes for about I think we're up to our fourth lot of them at the moment that I'm delivering now.

And I became a money minded coach through ANZ, and I've been doing budgeting sessions as well, and delivering, yeah.

[00:22:28]

Tracy

And with your work in Y Connect, what's the area that you find your skills are needed the most in?

[00:22:38]

Laura

Oh, interesting question, Tracy.  I think developing confidence in people's skills and abilities, what's really brilliant about Connect, and I wish it had been set up into years ago when I was looking for it, is that we're also working with employers and trying to break down barriers at that end as well. So not only upskilling the people with disability to ensure that they're able to work, but also trying to get to the bottom of why employers don't employ people with disabilities and trying to give them the tools and confidence to go down that path and consider employing a person with a disability.  I think that's really critical.

[00:23:45]

Tracy

And that was Laura Skurr. If you'd like to learn more about Laura's story, visit our website, carersqld.com au/IDPwD

Carers Qld announcement

Real inclusion of people with disability is led by people with disability and acknowledges the diversity of disabilities in our communities.  Be an inclusion ally this International Day of People with Disability and look for books, music, film, TV, podcasts and social media created by people with disability, support events and live performances created by or featuring people with disability. If you can't find anything, ask. Let the broadcasters, publishers and event organizers know there's demand for content by creators with disability. Listen to learn rather than respond, even if what you hear challenges your assumptions and include people with disability in important conversations and decisions for your business club, sports team or community group. Be a part of building a future Australia that is more accessible and inclusive for everyone.

[00:25:05]

Tracy

After completing an environmental management degree, nature enthusiast Matthew Townsend went on to create his own business, Nature Freedom, and is committed to designing and facilitating nature-based activities that are inclusive and fully accessible to everyone, irrespective of their abilities. We started by asking Matthew about what motivated him to start Nature Freedom.

[00:25:25]

Matthew

I recently graduated University of Queensland with the Master in Environmental Management back in 2016 because I have a bit of passion in environmental sustainability and outdoor space.  From there when I graduated uni and I struggled trying to get employment where I'm really passionate about because that's a part of my career journey.

Something like I turned hobby into job. So what happened back then? I see this lack of understanding about my disability when I was applying for jobs and getting interviews and all that kind of stuff. So even understanding from the employer perspective that I need skilled and experience. So I have acquired that. During my study I did internship, paid work experience and lots of volunteers and all of that. So I thought I was on track for that. But when it coming down to understanding about neurodiversity, it wasn't really much of a thing back then. So that was come down to the barrier for me to access to employment. So not until 2017, I just decided to start my business Nature Freedom, because people were thinking about why not hire yourself and then that turned out what happened today, but down the track.

Meanwhile, Ross turned this becoming more ambitious because one having track record a bit in expand and more couple consultation job and I have relating to accessibility and I have proven that I am more employable than I was leaving university. So I had a couple of jobs, I was in local government and Queensland government in the early days and that were my traction of my credibility. Part of your resume has been built since then, so I'm still able to maintain that at the same time.

Running Nature Freedom at the same time. So all that work experience does help me to build more experience. For all the other jobs I applied for, it turned out I have not faced any challenge of getting hired. I find it really interesting because the same time employers actually have more sympathy and understanding where you're coming from, who is your disability. They had an understanding your disability. That's what I learned about being authentic about who I am, especially in my application interview. That's what have changed. And of course it's about experience as well.

My first job was 2017. That was the Brisbane City Council working in the Environmental Management Team.  I was a part of that experience. So this role was quite temporary because it's not a cover, it's just approach your time. And then I ended up working for Department and Community Services just as a couple of years later, just the end of 2019. Before COVID it was another temp job. It's nothing to do with COVID So I work with disability services.  Disability Connect?  What they used to call that. It's different now. Working on reviewing training program industrial awareness for disability. Working in employment targets with All Agency Department of Queensland Government and Disability Action Plan. So yeah, unfortunately I ended in my contract one week earlier because of COVID come really rampant at the time in March that year. So I wasn't employed again until later that year. That was the very early day that started Jigsaw there.

I was the part of additional team trainer in there helping people with disability to be more skillful in their roles and experience. So I was part of the Dream Team, what they call because we're the first five training, helping out with that first launch. So I was there for a couple of years. So that was my longest employment experience so far. It was an attempt, but it was casual because I was balancing out with National Freedom Time and then I didn't have any job until earlier this year. I work with Social Trader. It is clickify and social enterprise. So that support the ecosystem of that. That's my role with them to support Clickify social Enterprise member on this experience.

And that's for business and government members to help them understand social procurement and social enterprises themselves as well. So it's my favorite job so far.

Nothing close to environmental kind of background I am involved with and passionate about in my mind. Not so far back into my mind, it is almost close to the mind. So it's the permanent full time, almost full time. It's 0.8 proper salary, my first kind of salary job.

So I able to maintain work between that and Nature Freedom. But the good thing that we got Nature Freedom have grown this year with three team members working together, volunteers around, I think 15 to 20 volunteers. So I feel like I can step back a little bit and let the team do themselves. But I'm still leading the managing side of the business. It's not as much I was responsible on everyone else role over the years because I would do like Mr. Do everything kind of person back then, but not anymore.

[00:32:33]

Tracy

What is it about being in nature that is so beneficial?

[00:32:38]

Matthew

Yeah, so we have a lot of feedback and a little bit of testimonial from our clients over the couple of years because started collecting that information.  It's quite unique themselves about how they share their experience, especially on the bushwalk. It's about connection with our foreign and a fauna being present, about what they see about Koalas, for example. It's get them talking about the Koala, then the field experience. It's a lot about sensory experience, integrated and now an activity.

So it's really helped them to the mental side of the mind is really clicking them because it's about mind exercise. That's usually the program around the world called Nature Bathing. So that's a part of that. It's not therapy, it's really being present, part of the group with other people shared experience together. That's coming social inclusion, it's a part of that equation.  And another one is paddle. When you go on a kayak, it's the same what you feel in the mangroves and the pores and the sand. When we see crab, dugong.  Joking around about a crocodile, but we never expect to see it anyway.

But that's a private experience. They need to feel that because if they don't have that, the problem is they won't learn everything. It's a little bit of capacity building integrated social experience because it's about learning about their purpose. It's really meaningful for them. It's something like could be had a passion in developing marine environment. They want to be a marine scientist or they want to help litter prevention on our beaches and ocean. It's all that opportunity can happen to these people who join us.

Yeah, and it's only people without disability who come along. They learn more about them as well. It's about creating more awareness where people take away to their home or workplace or their own community, share their story, what is it like about them in the community. So it's a very big tick. So that's part of our pitch deck, sharing those experiences.

[00:35:22]

Tracy

And that was Matthew Townsend. And if you'd like to learn more about Matthew's story, visit our website at carersqld.com.au/IDPWD

[00:35:34]

Carers Queensland Announcement

LAC Connect. It's a new way to stay in touch with your local area coordinator, Carers Queensland with everything you need right here on your device. It's a handy app to keep track of your Lac appointments, browse workshops and events, check out information and support, and get the latest news stories and podcasts. It's available on Android and iOS, so whatever device you have, you can stay in touch. Head to our website to sign up@carersqld.com au and look for Lac Connect.

[00:36:08]

Tracy

Gympie musician Aspy Jones is a prolific songwriter who writes tunes about his unique perspective on life, good mental health, and the difficulties he's faced as he's learned to live with autism and anxiety, with the goal to also become a professional music therapist in the future. We started by asking Aspy about his journey so far.

[00:36:30]

Aspy

I've just finished my semester for Uni, just wrapped that up yesterday. So I'm going to have a lot more free time on my hands, which is going to be taken up by mostly getting ready for the new year and doing a lot of planning and stuff like that. But it's nice to finally be done with it's been a pretty hectic semester.

[00:36:52]

Emily

What were you studying?

[00:36:53]

Aspy

So I do a Bachelor's degree in Contemporary Music Practice.  So I need a music degree because what I want to do is a music therapy course. So I have to get a degree in music in order to start the course in music therapy.  I guess the easiest way for me to explain it is because music therapy is kind of like it's under the umbrella of psychology. So technically you're a psychologist that just plays an instrument.

You kind of need to do the same training as well as being good at the music you play, which I understand. But yeah, it takes a lot of people back when I say that, because they just go, oh, you're going to have to do another three years. They're like, yeah, it's not ideal, but it's going to be worth it, hopefully.

[00:37:48]

Emily

So take me back to how you decided to do this. So where does your journey start with figuring out you wanted to do music therapy?

[00:37:58]

Aspy

So I actually didn't know because originally because I started an apprenticeship, once I left high school, I did an apprenticeship in baking for two years. And that was roughly it's, a four year apprenticeship. So I did that for two years. And then after that, I then decided to move to Brisbane from Gympie and just do the course that I'm doing now, just to kind of fill space and kind of figure out what else that I wanted to do. And I didn't even know that music therapy was a thing until we did one of my units. And then I saw that and I went, oh, that actually looks really interesting, looked into it and then decided that that's something that I wanted to work towards and the rest is history. That's where we're at at the time. People who do music like 90% of the time, they either kind of go into the industry or they teach, which is kind of and I'm not a great teacher. I think that was the thing that kind of made me a little bit nervous, was I was there thinking, oh God, I don't have the patience of a teacher. I'm a very patient person, but when it comes to repeating myself, often that's where I kind of get summed up a little bit. So I think music therapy was a great path for me to take.

[00:39:29]

Emily

How did you get into music?

[00:39:31]

Aspy

I've always been a singer, but I've only just been playing guitar since I was probably a lot later. I didn't really pick up the guitar fully until I finished high school. And so I was probably about 1718 at the time. And that's when I picked up guitar seriously. But I've always been singing, but I hadn’t really been like a taught music for a very long time, but I've been a natural, I guess, musician for my whole life. I was self taught at the beginning when I started to learn guitar at 17 and then I kind of rolled on and decided that there was definitely stuff there that I couldn't learn by myself. So then I decided to take actual lessons through playing guitar. And then at the same time I decided that maybe I should be taking singing lessons as well.

Because at the time when you're a natural singer, you don't really think about it all that much. But if you want longevity in your voice, it's very important to kind of learn how to sing properly instead of just whatever feels comfortable. I see between when I started taking singing lessons and now there's huge differences in kind of not only like the way that it sounds, but the way that you feel.

Because when I started playing music I would play for maybe three or 4 hours and that was before I took lessons. And then after about 4 hours I'd feel kind of husky and it would kind of for maybe like a day or two, I'd be a little bit croaky and a little bit hoarse and whatever. But then after taking lessons, you notice that bad habits that you didn't notice before you start to fix them up and then you don't really feel much of anything when you do three to 4 hours now because obviously because I'm doing it properly and I'm doing it in the way that I should be doing it, rather than just yelling into a microphone, because that's what I think sounds good.

[00:41:55]

Aspy (song)

Look at us look at where we are

From narrow halls to chasing stars and if you find your life you can get back home tonight.

And she'll.  Pass you through a window look at our school where we are there was one bag. Six in a car.  Go cut the head off a mountain if it's what you want. And the Life will guide you home we're growing. Oh… There's no slowing down. It's written in the star tearing me apart.  The days are long and the years are short. That's what I've learned so far.  Look at us. Look at where we are.  It isn't fair.

[00:43:03]

Emily

When you decided to make the change, how did you go about pursuing music full time?

[00:43:07]

Aspy

Because I knew one or two people that went to this kind of it was a pseudo music school in Gympie. It was called the Australian Institute of Country Music.  And like I said, I knew two people that went there and they were just about the same age as me. And that was where it kind of where the idea came from, where we're like, oh, okay, well, if I want to do music, then maybe I should be going here. And that was kind of like the first step because I had absolutely, no performing experience whatsoever outside of high school. None. It was really like, because I didn't even do music in high school, I had no experience with it at all. And it was strange because it just kind of opened my eyes to this whole, I guess, teaching, just being taught what to say on stage, how to look on stage, what to do, and stuff that you would never think of. And that was the first step to doing that. And they had a great program in that same school where they teach you all those things that I just said, and then once they thought you were ready, they'd probably put you with another group of kids and you'd learn to play a few songs together. And then they would take you up on stage and you would play a song at the RSL and occasionally somewhere else, like the Musta, which was a festival they did once a year. But other than that, that was kind of the only experience you'd get on stage. But it was better than nothing. Absolutely. And I definitely wouldn't be in the same place I am now if I didn't do it.

[00:45:01]

Emily

How did you become quite successful in your own right? Playing with your siblings and telling your story through music? How did that all come about?

[00:45:10]

Aspy

I think it came down to I think the biggest strength was kind of finding the audience. And I think one of the greatest strengths I discovered was early on was when I was writing, not the people that were relating to what I was talking about in the songs. It wasn't always people that were on the spectrum. It was people that, whether they're undiagnosed or whatever, but it was people that could just genuinely relate to stuff that might have sounded weird to them, but was totally normal to someone with ASD. And it was kind of just like, oh, they were just relating really hard to how sometimes it's okay to be kind of awkward and what are you going to do when you get older? And kind of just like, learning an experience. And I think that was definitely the I was a big player in how I started off and finding my audience kind of thing, because I like to think that it's very easy listening, and it's one of those things that when you find the right people, that because every type of music has its audience. But I think I was just really lucky to find a good place on the sunny coast and in Brisbane and Gympie that had people that were interested in what I was singing about and what I had to say.

[00:47:00]

Aspy (song)

It doesn't matter where you're going, because wherever you are going is called home.

We're growing.

[00:47:11]

Tracy

And that was Aspy Jones. And if you'd like to learn more about Aspie's story, visit our website, carersqld.com au/IDPwD.

[00:47:31]

Carers Queensland Announcement

Thanks for joining us at choice and control a Carers Queensland podcast. If you've enjoyed this podcast episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review and share it with your community.

For more information about the National Disability Insurance Scheme or Carers Queensland, contact us online carersqld.com au or call us on 1300 999636 or head to Facebook and look for Carers Queensland. NDIS.

Interviews by Tracy Burton and Emily Smith

Production and voiceovers by Tracy Burton