08: From Trauma to Charity
Content warning: In this episode we reference family violence. If you need to talk to someone, call 1800RESPECT.
In today's episode, we're joined by Kristine Hewitt from the charity Adamus Nexus, aimed at supporting women who have experienced domestic, family, and sexual violence. Kristine shares the challenges and successes of running a charity, which is really similar to how we start our own businesses. It's a really powerful discussion with some laughs along the way (including how 3 of us learned to type on a typewriter the weight of a small car). We hope you enjoy listening.
Number of fucks given in this episode: 23
Mentioned in this episode:
Hanx Writer, the Tom Hanks typewriter app
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Episode transcript
Chris: Welcome to the fuck around and find out podcast where your hosts, Rah Emily, and Christine were three women who have built and run our own businesses and are here to shoot the shit on everything about women in business and running your own business. In this particular episode, we've decided that you've heard enough about us.
So we're actually going to get stuck right into our fabulous guest of the week. Our episode . Welcome Christine Hewitt from Animus Nexus. So, we're excited that you're uh, joining us tonight, Chris.
Kris: for having me. I'm very excited to be here as well and shoot the shit with you.
Chris: Oh,
Kris: great.
Chris: absolutely. And because um, we do report on how many fucks are given at each episode, don't worry. Be afraid.
Em: Just
Kris: I won't be afraid at all. No,
Em: before we even know we've said [00:01:00] them.
Chris: Absolutely.
Kris: that's right. Look, people always think that I'm some kind of goody two shoes until I drop the F bomb several times and then they realize that they can just say it as well. So it's great.
Em: Oh, it's,
Rah: And I'll just say fuck yeah to that.
Em: yeah, it's hilarious. I love a good F bomb. To the point where my children are now saying it regularly and it's becoming an actual issue. My four year old likes to spit it out a lot.
Chris: Yeah. And they get such joy, really, um, saying it with a funny smirk on their face. Well, that's what I remember my son used to do,
Em: Well, tell us
Chris: So.
Em: Chris.
Kris: Tell me about. Okay. Okay.
Chris: tell us in our audience about you and what you
Rah: are you? Who, who, who, who? Yes.
Kris: is Christine Hewitt. Um, I have been in the I. T. Industry for all of my career information technology pieces behind the scenes. But about, I don't know, it's probably about 10 years ago now, a girlfriend and I were trying to figure out how we could get out [00:02:00] of the day to day working for other people side of things because we were kind of over it.
Em: Feel that.
Kris: And we, um, we came up with some ideas and, um, one of the very first businesses we started was actually working with, um, a law firm to try and do an online will kit, and we had to set up a, we had to set up a business name. So we actually came up with J F D I. So if you know the, um, you know, the Nike one it's, you know, just do it.
Well, we would just fucking do it. Right.
Rah: Yep.
Kris: It was hilarious
Em: So much better.
Rah: Yep.
Kris: because we had to sign this agreement with this law firm. Right. And they're like, Oh, JFDI, what does that stand for? We're like, we
Em: Woo!
Rah: ask questions you don't want answers
Kris: you can find that out for yourself a bit later, which he did. Anyway, we, um, we did a few bits and pieces like that, but in about 2017, we decided we wanted to try and help women who'd been through domestic family and [00:03:00] sexual violence. So we set up a support group for post crisis. To allow people to come into a confidential environment, a safe environment where they could share and support each other.
So that's my passion project, really, that I've done, um, set up with my co founder and friend, Karen. And you lovely ladies are supporting us in the background with your lovely administrative skills, which we are very grateful for. Great, bring it
Em: Woo!
Chris: you know what? It's, um, it's been, you know, without sounding sucky or anything like that. Seriously, it's a privilege. It's, it's, it's, um, a huge education piece. Um, it's a learning curve. Um, and. And it can be confronting at times, and I'm only, you know, in the space periodically through the week. Um, but given especially what's going on in New South Wales at the moment with the reports, [00:04:00] um, and the news, um, geez, it's an important piece of work, isn't it?
Kris: It is, sadly. I mean, we'd love to not have to exist, but unfortunately, it's something that just does need to be there. And that was what we found when we were thinking about how we could do something in this space. Um, it was, there's lots of in crisis services now, you know, pretty much since Rosie Batty had her son tragically killed by his father, um, back in 2014, it's much more openly talked about, which is great, and that means that there's a lot more services there to help women get out of the situation, which is amazing.
Plus, we've got a lot that are trying to do prevention, early prevention and things like that too. But when we looked, there just didn't seem to be anything but afterwards. And it's not like the trauma just disappears as soon as you leave the situation. Some people, it's childhood, um, domestic violence. So, you know, they can have been out of it for 40 or 50 years and still be traumatized.
So
Chris: Yeah.
Kris: when we couldn't find anything, we were actually [00:05:00] pretty shocked. So we thought we would, um, set something up sort of loosely based around 12 step programs like Al Anon and AA. And, um, yeah, it's been running twice a month, pretty much regularly for six years because this is our birthday month.
Rah: Hey, happy birthday!
Kris: Which we do give a fuck about because it's important. So yes.
Chris: Yeah. Yes.
Em: and such a milestone too for six years, you know, and not without its lack of blood, sweat and tears that you guys have both put, put heavily into this as well. So it's like, that's a huge achievement. I know that when, you know, Chris and I get to that point in our journey, it'll be fucking singing it from the hills.
Like you guys
Chris: Oh my God. There will be balloons and party pop it.
Kris: And look, it's one of the things we actually spoke about it at the last meeting that I hosted for, for the support group was the fact that we don't tend to look back to see how far we've come. We just look forward to see how far we've got to go, which can sometimes feel like it's going to go forever and you're never going to [00:06:00] get there.
But we have to try to remember to look back and see what we've managed to. Get through, get over, get past, change, update as well. So yeah, the looking back is important. So as you say, six years, I wouldn't have, you know, if somebody said to me how long I've been going, because of COVID, I'd probably have halved it and said three, right?
Because COVID's just warped the whole thing. Yeah, six years and there's not been very many meetings that we haven't run. We do pretty much two every month.
Em: Did you start out physically? Did you start out physically in person? Like, was it a physical, right?
Kris: yeah, we started in in the ACT, which is where we both lived. So we started with one meeting in a physical location. And a lot of people would still like us to go back to face to face because.
It's a different vibe. It's a different connection. Uh, but the online gives us the opportunity to go, go anywhere in Australia, basically. And people can be sitting in the comfort of their own homes like we are all doing right now,
Chris: [00:07:00] Yes.
Kris: cat on their lap and their cup of tea and their woolly blanket or whatever they need in a really comfortable place.
Rah: Yeah.
Kris: We will get back to doing face to face. We just need to expand more because at the moment, I'm the only person that hosts the meeting and I funnily enough.
Chris: No, no, you can't.
Kris: You are. It's not possible.
Rah: not have the technology yet.
Em: Give it time. AI is
Kris: the transportation devices. They just haven't watched enough Star Trek
Rah: I know. Right.
Kris: so that we could just be anywhere we want to go.
Rah: Yep. We need to beam me up, Scotty. Yep. Where's Elon Musk for that? Like,
Em: He's too busy just scrolling around with Twitter.
Rah: Oh God.
Chris: I've, I've always maintained for years. I sometimes feel like I just need to clone myself. and all will be well and
Kris: then I think to myself, is the world ready for a
Em: Honestly, the world is not ready for one of me, let alone two of me. Like, could you imagine? Definitely
Rah: chaos. It'd be great chaos,
Em: Well, mate, [00:08:00] I'd be, um, yeah, it would just be too much. Well, I'd be too much for myself.
Kris: the things we did do is From the very beginning, we did all of the, the building of the business, because that's effectively what it still is, even though we're a charity now. We did everything. We built the website, figured out how to change the code in the back end. You know, we worked out what marketing system we needed.
We did our own logos. We've got them printed. We did everything ourselves to start with, because We didn't have any money.
Chris: No, and that's what you do, isn't
Kris: But we were prepared to put in. Um, so yes, we, we learned things and it was, it was bloody hilarious. We would get together, um, usually on a Friday, because both Karen and I didn't work Fridays at that point, and then usually sometime on a Saturday and a Sunday, and she'd go, we'd have been working for an hour or two, and she'd go, Let's just do this one more thing.
It'll just take half an hour and four hours later we would finish. So [00:09:00] there's this standing joke that she goes, Oh, come on, it'll just take half an hour. And I'm like, it never takes fucking half an hour. It takes the whole fricking weekend.
Em: I love it.
Rah: I had a boss who was like that. She would just say, just quickly do it now. It'll take five minutes. And towards the end of working together, I started like poking her about it. And I was like, you know, this is going to take longer. She's like, Oh yeah, but you know, it'll just be quick.
Chris: Yep. Yeah.
Rah: just code for, can you just do it?
I need it off my plate. Yep.
Kris: we had a really bloody fun time doing it though. We would laugh, we would get caught up on words, we'd both get really caught up on wordsmithing and finding the right word, it's like, you know, what's that word that means, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh, I think it starts with an S and you know, half an hour later, we're still trying to figure out what the bloody word is, right.
Chris: And I, and I'll tell
Rah: able to have fun, right?
Chris: Yeah, and to have someone along for that ride, like, you know, that is, that's awesome because it is seriously hard work, but if you can make some fun of it, and, um, you know, to, to creative [00:10:00] minds coming up with a, um, a logo when you're not a graphic designer, it's better. I
Kris: There are
Rah: Fonts are great, but finding the right one is hell. Yep.
Em: font that's like,
Kris: that's a nice font. We've already had a font chosen. Stop it.
Rah: Yep.
Em: I know
Chris: there's sometimes there's just too much choice
Em: it's a total rabbit hole.
Chris: just. Yeah.
Kris: Yep. All that stuff. And, you know, just even something as simple as finding a template to put your business plan into. It's like, what do I need to put in there? What do I need to say? How do we figure out what we want to
Em: I start?
Kris: You know, brainstorm so that we could get out what was in our heads
Chris: Yes.
Kris: and what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go.
So finding those people can be really challenging as well. Yeah.
Chris: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
Rah: yeah,
Em: it helps having someone you can kind of gel with or [00:11:00] that you can shorthand. I mean, something, um, my Christine and I've been talking about a lot, I think this week actually is about, um, How we've just been so fortunate in the last few years to meet people like Ra and one of the other girls on our team who we just kind of just, it just works, you know, like it just clicks and flows and there's no teething.
There's just, you know, we can just, they just get what we're putting down. And it's so refreshing when you have that and it's funny how frustrating it can be when you don't have that as well. much of a difference it can
Kris: it's stuck in here and you can't get it out in a way that makes sense with the other people, yeah, they can be very frustrating.
Chris: Or you don't have somebody to turn it into English. You know, that
Em: pretty much why I have my Chris because I don't speak English very well.
Rah: you guys are, yeah,
Kris: You don't do good work sometimes.
Rah: Yeah.
Chris: Well, well, we were having some, uh, issues with, um, a, um, some support work for us. And, um, [00:12:00] Emily was just, um, typing up the, drafting up the email and there was a lot of if bombs. Um, I, in fact, there were three fucks given, um, in this email draft and it's like, okay, I'll just put it into English now and I might remove some
Rah: the fox,
Chris: think we just shouldn't send the email with those
Em: I might've signed it off with,
Kris: was obviously
Em: I mean, it was, I don't understand why, like I signed it off as, um, fuck you and good night. And I can't see why that wasn't acceptable. I thought it was hilarious and on, on, on
Rah: but it is important to get those feelings out.
Kris: out, so you specifically did that, which
Rah: draft is the first draft. Yep.
Chris: well, that, that's right. Yes. And I
Rah: Chris, this is where your writing skills comes in. Yeah.
Kris: And the pounding on the keyboard I find really helps as well.
Rah: especially when you pretend you're on the old school typewriters and then you go
Em: Yeah.
Kris: Yes, you can slam it.
Em: I'm [00:13:00] sure app for that. You could just be like with your phone and like,
Rah: Uh, Tom Hanks made an iPad up for that.
Em: oh, clever. Very clever.
Rah: Cause he's obsessed with typewriters.
Chris: Hmm.
Kris: The typewriter, I did learn to type on a
Rah: Same, yep.
Kris: those things. So,
Rah: Had to change the ribbon, got all over me, yep.
Kris: yeah, good old IBM Selectric typewriters.
Rah: my god, how good were the electrics when they came in?
Chris: I remember doing work placement when I was doing my event management hospitality strand training back in the day and I was down at Milton Park Country House Hotel in Barrel. And I had to load the wine list into the Canon Typewriter. The wine list was a fully typed A3 size page when it was printed out.
And of course you had to type it with all the spaces and all everything to get it to store. So then when it's like, so you just print me up five [00:14:00] line lists, you could just put the paper in and it would print out.
Kris: Mm hmm.
Chris: I tell you what, it was great because then when I got my first proper job, what did I have? A Canon typewriter where all the contracts We're loaded in and it would pause.
So you could type in Raga, know, and
Rah: Could it, could the typewriters do that?
Chris: Yeah, that's what it did. Canon. I
Rah: I had an Olivetti, I don't think that was that
Chris: Oh, it's a long way ago. We're going back into the dark ages there.
Kris: Oh, yeah. The 80s and 90s. Yeah. Yeah. As I said, I was thinking about the other day, the first computer I used was a terminal attached to a mainframe. So it was a green screen, basically, you know. It wasn't a PC, um,
Rah: Mine was the size of an Esky.
Kris: word processor was also a mainframe based word processor, processor. So, yeah, it's, um, technology has come a long way.
It makes me feel very, very old.
Chris: certainly does. I was actually, oh my
Kris: This used to be multiple [00:15:00] machines in this huge data
Rah: it's in your pocket,
Kris: phenomenal.
Em: I am young enough where I did have a family that had the one PC that all fought over the dial up internet back in the, like I, we had like.
Kris: Yeah.
Em: What was that original messenger? We
Rah: MSN messenger.
Em: that's it. And we had a MySpace page and you had to find the HTML code to like put your music and get your colors and your backgrounds right.
And like,
Rah: And pick your top eight friends
Em: you had to like, you know, it was a real thing. You weren't cool if you didn't have a good MySpace page.
Rah: new.
Kris: was, this was Karen again whenever we were doing websites and we could never, we always seem to have this idea and we could never find something that was quite fitted. We always just, we're like, I don't know, the square peg in the round hole every time. She's like, come on, let's just go into the code and fix it.
Um, so we went over the code. We copy out what it was so that in worst case scenario, we just copy that back in and go reboot. [00:16:00] But yeah, we would just, we would just screw around in there and figure out how to do things and Google till our fingers bled.
Rah: Yep.
Chris: you've been fucking around for ages, haven't you?
Kris: Often all we wanted to do was like change the color on that particular word on that thing and we just was the only way to do it was to actually go in and update the code. It was ridiculous. But what took us hours. Somebody probably could have done in five minutes, but you know, It was, so we really did really build it, I guess, from the ground up, you know, everything that we've done, even though we've now got the polish and the administrative assistance and all that sort of stuff, we know that what started, um, was us, which is really nice.
Chris: yeah. It's nice to start that kind of like journey and, um, you know, we talk about having our big girl pants on. On, you know, having an office and things developing. We've just got our version two of our business cards. You know, they've got a nice line feel and all of this, and it's just nice that whole journey.
And just to say, like you were saying [00:17:00] earlier, looking back, you don't often do it, but you, it is good to actually look back across all bits and pieces of you in business and, and obviously you in life, but just to look back and see how you've grown. Um, in yourself and growing in as a business and obviously now grown as a charity, um, the growth is phenomenal and I think it's always good to, to be reminded of how far
Kris: Yeah. I agree. I agree. Absolutely.
Chris: Yeah.
Kris: Yes.
Chris: So, so how do, how do people support you? Like, how do people support Adamus Nexus? Um, because you are a charity, um, and doing important work. Um, and you know, it's, it's, it's, It's, you know, in our business we go find a client, we do the work for them, get remunerated, that kind of thing. How, how do you go and [00:18:00] find the funds to, to sustain the charity and the work you do?
Kris: Yep. It's um, it's a good question. So I guess one of the things we did originally when we were starting in the ACT, first of all was we went and sat down face to face with a lot of those, um, DV services so that they understood that we weren't just fucking around to be quite frank. We, um, we were here for the long haul.
They could see that we had put. Yeah, we've been in business a while, so we'd put a lot of effort into it. You know, we had a business plan, we had insurance set up, we, you know, we weren't just fly by nighters basically. So getting those connections early on was really important and, um, has helped us with things like our SEO, our search engine optimization, because we,
Em: You can backlink it. Um,
Kris: they're out of the crisis before they come.
And we asked them on that. How did you hear [00:19:00] about us? And at some point, not long into it, maybe a year in, I thought someone had put Google search. And I'm like, what? So I went in and I did a Google search and there we are on the first page. And I'm like, how the fuck did that happen?
Rah: I'll take
Kris: But it was because we had all these backlinks.
So that's, that's really important. And that gets us a lot of referrals, which is great. The money we originally, when we set up, we were working as a company. Um, because we, well, we, I guess we wanted to make sure it was all going to keep going was probably the main thing
Em: Yep.
Kris: before we went to the effort of doing the work to get into charity status.
Um, so there were only, there was a limited amount of grants you could go for because you don't have the charity status and you don't have the deductible gift recipient either. So people can, you know, basically claim it as a tax. refund or break. So we're funding it ourselves. At that point, you get to a point where, as you ladies know, [00:20:00] there's a lot of money involved in just having the back office systems, the zoom, the podcast software and that this software and that software and the mobile phone and all that sort of thing.
Em: Okay.
Kris: get too many while we were still a business. But once we became a charity, we were able to get a lot more. So we've had a couple of fairly large ones which have come through which have been great. Um, most of them based out of the ACT just by chance, um, because that is where we started.
But we do, we do run on grants and donations. Um, Not last financial year, the year before was a really good year. We got two grants and we got a big chunk of donations. So that sees us through for a little while. We try to always keep some of the grant money back for the back office stuff.
Chris: Yes.
Kris: Um, and then we will, you know, target like we are with utilizing your services, some specific funds, because when you go for a grant, as everybody knows, you're asking for a specific thing.
And unless you go [00:21:00] back to them and say, we've changed our mind, we want to go down this path. And so that path, you actually have to prove to them that you spent the money on what you said you were going to do.
Chris: Yes,
Kris: In our grants, we always say we're going to put some of it towards back office. I think the next thing we want to try and do is really, um, launch our corporate sponsorship because we did get that set up just before COVID hit, you know, we've got the brochure, we've got, we've got it all branded and beautifully done, but haven't had the opportunity to market it.
And to also just let people know that, you know, it doesn't have to be a 5, 000 sponsorship. You know, if you want to give us, you 250. We will happily take that. It's like give us a 10 a month for a year. We'll take that as well because all of it adds up and you can know that you're giving back. I know I gave you ladies some statistics which I cannot remember
Em: No, I've, I've actually just opened them up cause we were, I was looking at these today. Yeah. I was looking at them today and you've got like, Oh, we can put them in our show notes cause we have show [00:22:00] notes. Um, but like simple things like 33 a month helps one woman attend one meeting. You know, and 200 a month helps six to 10 women attend a meeting, like things like that.
So it's, it's can be as little or as much and everything helps really.
Kris: That's exactly right. That was one of the other things we did when we became a charity was I went to all of these places where we get subscriptions like Microsoft and Canberra and zoom and all the people and worked out whether they could give more of a discount for a charity. So wherever they could, we grabbed those as well.
Just try and bring that down
Chris: Oh, that's good. Yeah, it's nice to know when there are organizations that do have that social awareness piece in their business culture and plan and can provide discounted service rates to organization charities such as Adamus Nexus because it's very important to try and keep all those costs down. [00:23:00] I mean, there's been enough, um.
You know, historical stuff back, you know, in the day about, you know, donating money and it's not going to the, the place where it needs to be. So it's, you know, but everyone knows that it costs money to run any kind of operation. Um,
Kris: Just the host of your website, you know, having a hosting site, then paying for the website and the URL and the domain and the disks and the, it just, I don't think unless people are involved in that side of business, they don't, they have any idea
Em: Absolutely. No comprehension. I just want to build websites for people, building quite a few at the moment. It's just, people have no idea what goes into it and what the costs are involved and it's a bit scary. Um, question, because it's a post crisis support, um, I know it took me a minute to be like, what does that mean?
And really kind of understand at what stage someone hypothetically would be at to be considered part of the, like the right fit. [00:24:00] Yeah.
Kris: sort of means that you're out of the situation and that you can safely attend a meeting. And the safety is probably the main thing for the attendee themselves, but also for other attendees. So we've had People, for example, have said, look, um, we're, we're in the process of getting divorced, but we're still living in the same house.
So, from our point of view, that's difficult for them to sit on a call, um, comfortably, and for people who are also on that call not to be seen or potentially heard. So, it's really difficult. They need to be out of the situation. Um, now that could be a month later. That could be six months later. It just depends really on their situation because a lot of the time they might be going through family court and just having the bandwidth to join might not work.
We actually do have a couple of ladies that have been coming recently who aren't going through family court, which is just freaking horrendous. But, um, um, so yeah, [00:25:00] that's really what it is. It's they're out of the situation. I mean, we cover people who've had childhood, abuse as well, which was me. So, you know, I've been out of the situation for a very long time, but I've still got the trauma.
So we had one lady who had hadn't really received any kind of support for over 20 years. And she came to a couple of our meetings. So, but that's the main thing that they're, in a safe place. It's probably the best way to put it, but they're out of the situation. And the other thing is sometimes on our questionnaire, we've got a couple of questions.
One of them is, are you safe? Yes or no? And they'll often say yes. But then the next one is, are you, um, out of the situation? And they'll, and they'll say, no, it's still happening. But what's happening is they are separated. but they'd have custody, joint custody. So during handover of children and things like that, there can still be constant problems and controlling issues and stuff like that.
So we monitor that when they put the [00:26:00] questionnaires to us and I'll just have a conversation with, with the person just to find out and make sure that it's good for them. Because if they need to come to us, we don't want to be saying no,
Chris: Hmm. Yeah.
Kris: obviously, but if they're not going to be safe and it's going to put any of the other attendees.
at risk, then we have to say, perhaps you need to leave it for a little bit and come back again at another time. So
Rah: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Kris: post crisis is for us.
Rah: Yep.
Kris: And the other thing is that sometimes people cycle back in, unfortunately, they do cycle back into a crisis situation, which can be challenging. Um, I haven't seen a lot of those with women that we've had.
Um, an example we did have was one lady who's, uh, the perpetrator had been in jail and was getting out of jail and she had started to go. back into crisis. And so we actually recommended that you go to one of the big crisis services again and get a safety plan put in place. Or when he came out so that she could feel she was comfortable.
So while she was doing that, she stopped coming to us because she had to focus her energy on doing that.
Chris: [00:27:00] Yeah.
Kris: But then she, she came back some months later and gave us a bit of an update and it was all good.
Em: It's nice to get that update and to know that she's okay.
Kris: Yeah. Yeah.
Em: What's the biggest challenge you faced doing this? I would imagine it'd be quite interesting to having gone from a business to a charity as well.
Kris: Well, we, I think we, maybe we built up the becoming a charity to be harder than it was because it seemed to happen quite straightforwardly. Um, I don't know whether we. Just had all the right information and just got it in. I'm not quite sure what it was, but what's been the most challenging? Um, our time.
It's always been our time, which is why we're so lucky to have the money to be able to utilize you guys. Because we both work four days a week. And, um, on our Fridays we try to do all the shit that you don't get done on the four days a week. Plus! Do all the other shit that you need to do for this, right?
So, so it's always been our time, and now that, um, [00:28:00] we used to always do things together, Keren and I as well, so we go out and we see people together because, you know, we have different strengths and weaknesses, so it worked for us, right? Keren's really good at asking people for money. I'm not so much good at that, but I'm good at explaining to people what we do and bringing them on the journey, you know, sort of thing.
So we, we balanced each other. Uh, so the fact that I'm living interstate now is making it hard for both of us to be able to kind of do that again. So I think the biggest challenge for me is getting out of my own head and getting out and visiting some of those services in Brisbane, because a lot of services have actually started up in Brisbane.
Like that's just where they were founded.
Chris: Okay.
Kris: So, um, It's been on my list since I've been up here for 18 months now. Um, so that
Chris: always a long list of things though, isn't it?
Rah: Yeah.
Kris: is, there is, and just getting my head around the fact that I was living somewhere else for the first time, you know, in my life, was, was big, so I cut myself some slack there, but that's probably the biggest challenge is [00:29:00] getting out and doing that, because we know it makes a difference when you see people face to
Chris: Yes. Yeah.
Em: Yeah.
Kris: And it's not motivation because the motivation is there. It's, it's getting out of my own head
Em: We all face that imposter syndrome feeling as well. Like it's something that we, I think it's a daily, daily fight for a lot of us as well, what we do.
Chris: and energy. I think to like your headspace and some days you just damn tired, like, you know, especially you're working full time trying to do this around. You're doing the zoom sessions twice a month. So it's it's a lot to add up together. So. Yeah. Headspace and energy. Mm.
Kris: Exactly. So that's probably the biggest challenge for me at the
Chris: Yeah.
Rah: And especially when you have a four day a week job and then you've got this as well. And
Kris: so
Rah: right. Well then. Okay. Okay. Let's just ramp that up a bit. Um,
Em: You didn't need that extra day. It's fine.
Kris: As of yesterday, I'm full [00:30:00] time, but I'm going to hopefully pull that back once I convince them that I'm really good at my job.
Rah: yeah. You're super efficient. You'll be able to
Em: Watch me smoosh it into four days. It'd be
Kris: That's right. Mush. Good word. I thought it was mush. Yeah.
Rah: to juggle that mental load, like, yeah, you're doing it the right way and trying, you know, and not burning out because then you're not going to be able to
Kris: No, that's,
Rah: keep smiling because the, you know,
Kris: That's something that I've had to learn along the way is to not take on more than I can actually do.
Chris: Would you say that I'm thinking about that thing about trying to find somebody else to do run the session so you can run more sessions? And I would presume perhaps that, you know, meeting, one of the meet like is like a long, um, job interview really. Um, because would it be from the group of women, um, in the peer support group that you would [00:31:00] potentially.
Think that somebody might come to help
Kris: That was, I was how I always envisaged it because the, um, the group that I had attended, which sort of gave us the idea was Al Anon. So that's not Alcoholics Anonymous, which is for the alcoholic. Al Anon is for the people around the alcoholic.
Rah: I'm an Al Anon kid. Yep.
Kris: Me too. My name's Christine and I've gone to Al Anon.
Rah: Yep.
Kris: Um, so. It was, um, I've lost my train of thought. Sorry. I
Chris: that's okay. No, we were talking about like, where are you going to identify somebody that might
Kris: Yeah. So,
Chris: up to run a,
Kris: know, at Al Anon, basically, you know, usually at each meeting, it's like, they've just got the, the form that you read is a standard format every time. It's exactly the same. And usually it's like, who wants to do it? And somebody will just say, well, I'll do it. So we always had that plan or had that hope that it would work that way.
I think what I've had [00:32:00] to do, which was challenging for me was understand that the dynamics of this type of group is different, um, and that it may not work out that way. Cause sometimes. Um, as the host, as I like to call it, you need to, you need to be prepared to be the first to share because sometimes nobody wants to do that.
So there is a little bit more, um, not
Chris: there, I suppose.
Kris: pressure, but you need to have that preparedness to be able to do that if everybody's just sitting there silent because you need that first person and then it breaks the ice. So, yes, we certainly hoped that it would be like that. Um, the other thing is for face to face meetings, you have to have a venue.
And the venue has to be somewhere that's safe, that's got easy parking, that people can find, they don't have to walk too far, that they feel comfortable in, that doesn't cost anything. So when you put all that out there, finding a venue can be hard. And that's where we think some of the support [00:33:00] services who do have offices may have something like that, that they could, um, and then they use our IP effectively to, to run a meeting. For their clientele and it becomes whoever attends, you know, we don't really care. It's not like, Oh, there are people. It's like the more women we can help the better.
Rah: Yeah.
Kris: They've got a clientele that they can, um, you know, host these meetings for and it grows. Then hopefully it helps them from clients that they can bring into their current database, if you like, plus they're helping other people.
So there, there's those sort of two things.
Rah: yeah, wow.
Chris: God, it's a, it's a big jigsaw puzzle really, isn't it?
Kris: I like the jigsaw.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah.
Kris: about them. I have to finish them very, very quickly,
Rah: Do the borders first and then
Kris: But yeah.
Em: I'm the same. I can't leave stuff undone. Like only if I start, I have to finish. I can't just.
Kris: Yeah.
Em: the wall.[00:34:00]
Chris: when, um, when I, so, um, I used to work for, um, a university and there was a big, they were doing a big, um, organisational redesign over a period of a couple of years, which equalled To people losing their job. And I was one of those people who lost their job through it all. But as part of their support for the mental health of everybody is that everyone had like, you know, the common room or a kitchenette or something like that, and they put jigsaw puzzles.
into them. And some of them were absolutely fantastic. Um, and just a group of people that come around and try and put a few bits and pieces together. Some of them were just completely like, what were you thinking? You're doing my head in like, we don't need a black and white gray scale jigsaw puzzle kind of thing, but they are a very good piece.
I've got some good friends who are forever putting jigsaws together, but I also get a little bit OCD in Don't touch it. I'm finishing it. Go away.
Rah: don't muck it up.
Kris: I did,
Chris: ones [00:35:00] that you get, and there's one piece missing, hate them, hate them,
Rah: That's why,
Kris: worked with, did work with Lifeline and um, Lifeline gets given a lot of jigsaws, so they would take them home and do them so they could find that if there were pieces missing, so you could at least say there's two pieces missing, so don't go crazy when you purchase this 10 jigsaw or
Chris: Yes.
Rah: That's
Kris: You're right.
I
Rah: from the op shop.
Kris: Yeah, I was working at a place and they had just put a new office together and they had this big breakout area. And, um, I'd been doing a lot of jigsaws and I thought I'm just going to bring a jigsaw in and see what happens. And it was actually really interesting because what was happening prior to that was everybody would go to lunch, but in their little cliques, in their little groups.
But once the jigsaw was there, you've got this different mix of people. So they were coming from these separate groups and coming together. So it was actually quite interesting. And finally, The government, the government department I've been working in, um, the lady who worked with me and I were on a hunt to find chocolate on afternoon.
And we decided to go [00:36:00] up a level in the building and find one of the tea rooms and there was a jigsaw, so we sat down there and there had chocolate too, which was
Chris: Oh my God. Chocolate and jigsaws. Excellent.
Kris: chocolate was awesome. Um, and yeah, we just sat there doing a little bit of jigsaw. So it seems to be something that people I think are recognizing.
It's, I like, I think of it as like a sorbet for the brain. It just kind of clears, clears your mind. So yeah,
Chris: No, it's, it's really good. Look, I would happily do a jigsaw over playing a game in a monopoly any day.
Kris: monotony,
Chris: know, that's,
Rah: causes riots.
Chris: Yeah. That's me. Monoptony, yes.
Rah: Yeah.
Kris: I did have, I did play a game of monopoly recently, but it was the card game version, which is quite different and was actually quite fun.
Chris: Oh, okay, I don't think I've come across the
Kris: No,
Chris: of Monopoly. Yes, yes.
Em: Gotta love a good Monopoly. It's been a long time since I've played one of those.
Chris: Well, you know, I
Rah: niece, when I play with her, she cheats. So it's very difficult to not get the shits.
Kris: How do you cheat with [00:37:00] monotony?
Rah: Um, I don't know. I think, yeah, she's just, she's very smart and very strategic. Like you can't win any game against this kid. Um, and it took a long time, like for me to tweak that her siblings weren't lying when they're like, she's cheating.
But you know,
Em: Right, so I'm,
Rah: she's also very clever.
Em: feeling like
Rah: when she's not
Em: her to play poker at the casino. Like, one day, like, she might just do better counting cards or something.
Kris: Get out soon. Don't, don't sit
Rah: Yeah, I mean, she's 18 at the beginning of next year, so I've got, I could just, you know, ride her coattails.
Em: Yeah, that's
Chris: you could.
Rah: Hmm. Yeah. I'll message your mother now and just bring that up. Yep. Start our retirement plan. Yep. Yeah. Cause her, yeah. Cause their mother and I, it's my high school bestie. We've got plans on being like golden girls and like moving into our own little house to retire in.
Em: Good plan, good plan.
Chris: yep. [00:38:00] That sounds awesome.
Rah: I'm going to be Rose and yeah.
Kris: little communes, little
Rah: Yeah. Yes.
Em: Yeah, honestly, women would do so much better if we just lived in the commune.
Kris: I think. We just need like a central place like the lounge area in the kitchen and then you have your own little bedrooms and your bathrooms and your laundry or whatever. You come together when you want to.
Rah: Yep.
Chris: As long as there's someone making me a cocktail, I don't mind, you
Em: We'll have communal cocktails. Everyone will
Rah: The pool
Chris: parko, the pool boy,
Rah: The pool boy can make him. Yep.
Chris: that's right. Yeah, definitely.
Rah: Yep.
Kris: be there.
Em: We'll have to, we'll start selling tickets. I think everyone will be there.
Rah: Yeah.
Em: Um, so
Rah: A hundred
Em: what was, what, what do you feel, what do you feel was your biggest woohoo or achievement, um, with Adamus Nexus aside from hitting the lovely six year mark, which I think is such a great, a great achievement. Is it where you were like, damn, this is like, we were on this, on the money here.
This is such a good thing. Um, Uh,
Kris: because I was, I was [00:39:00] putting a presentation together for one of the grants we got with the end of last year, and I was trying to remember, um, how many people, well, I was actually trying to remember how we got people to attend our first meeting, to be honest, um, and I, to this day, I still can't really remember, to be honest, but it, it's just seeing a lot of women turn up to the meetings.
Yeah. Every now and then I get down because there might only be four women turn up. And then I'm like, that's four women. If they're helping something out of this, this is great. But when I see the numbers go up, it's, it's a real kick as well, because it means. You know, hopefully we're reaching more women and we're getting new people coming in.
I think one of the things that I really enjoy is when, um, I know that somebody is attending for the first time. And we always say in our, in our, um, forward that, you know, you don't have to, don't feel you have to contribute. You can just sit and listen. As [00:40:00] you'll know Ra, that's very similar to the, the Al Anon and any of the 12 Steps.
Rah: Yeah.
Kris: So what always makes me really, Happy is when they will contribute that very first time because they obviously feel really comfortable to be able to do that. So I think that's 1 of the things that makes me feel really good. And the other thing is every meeting we have a focus word. So it might be blame or despair or self help or joy or. Just to sort of focus the sharing and sometimes you'll get women will come on and say, Oh, I got your email and I saw that it was going to be, we're going to be talking about X, Y, Z. I'm like, that's exactly what I need tonight. So that's why I came and you get a lot of people say, this is exactly what I've been feeling this week, or I've been wanting to talk about this, or I've had a problem with this.
So when you're able to just. By pure luck, help someone because you've picked the right word.
Chris: Yes. Wow.
Kris: That's also really good because you've given them an opportunity to obviously talk about something they need to talk
Em: Yeah.
Rah: Yeah.[00:41:00]
Kris: They're probably the things that I really enjoy. Yes.
Em: the words I find quite interesting too. Like, obviously I've been doing, I've been making reels based off words and the definitions of each and like, what kind of, you know, sticks out to me as well in some instances. I think you could possibly tell which ones I kind of Resonate more with because I feel like I don't know I spend more time looking for the right imagery to back it or something I don't know.
I'd they really they're really interesting things that catch people's day I really make you think just really kind of mull over in the brain a little bit.
Chris: And everyone's interpretation or reaction to a word is different. The same word can mean multitude of things.
Kris: And sometimes it can be used as a positive or a negative. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but um, um, you know, sometimes it's, it's something you think about and someone will share it in a very positive way. And then another person go, Oh, that's not how I see it at all. I see it this way and it's a very negative way or less positive way.
So yeah, it's really good. So they're the [00:42:00] things that I find give me my woohoo.
Chris: Oh.
Em: Definitely worth it What would you what advice would you give someone who wanted to start their own charity?
Kris: Um, do your homework. It's like any business, really do your homework, um, seek sort of mentoring type help, find it, see if you can find someone who can, can help you with what you're wanting to do and yeah, research, making sure that. Yeah, not one of a bazillion out there, because as we've said, it costs money to run these things.
And there's, um, one of the things we found in the ACT is, you know, there's, there's a, there's a pie of charity money and it's divvied up between a very small number of organizations. So when a new person comes in, it's like, hold on, we don't need you because you're going to take a slice of that
Em: Mmm.
Kris: So, yes, you do need to be aware.
That that can be the [00:43:00] case as well, depending on what sector you go into, is that you may get pushback from other organizations who you would think would be open armed, bringing you into the fold. And it's not quite that way at all.
Em: Yes. It's always a bit of competition out there too. I think that's probably very actually quite similar, not aside from the grant part, but it's just business in general don't, you know, you got to really figure out what your point of difference is before you jump into an oversaturated market. And then there's businesses kind of like my cake business, for example, that you could sneeze and find a cake maker.
They're everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. People just shop around with prices, you know, like
Kris: sneezing. That's sneezing. Okay. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Not all over the cake. Like.
Em: depends where you go, you might get a bit of that somewhere too, um, but you know, they're,
Rah: someone asks for a cake for under $150 em's, like, well,
Em: I get rageful cause I'm like, do you have any idea how much time it takes to do these things? Like, um, but people shop around as well.
And you find, [00:44:00] like, I've got people that come to me regularly that, I mean, I don't think I'm any better than the next person. And I've just, you know, predominantly self taught and just how to play. And. But then there's girls like one of our, um, one of my beautiful friends who taught me originally and she's freaking next level, like absolutely next level.
She made a Rubik's Cube cake that actually spins. Like, she's like, yeah, her, her,
Rah: Hamish Blake did.
Em: yeah, like her level of cake ery is just incredible. And, like, someone like her, I hope is also, you know, being paid a premium for such fabulous creations. But, um, it's, that's a point of difference. She's got such an exquisite attention to detail that puts her well above the average Joe over here.
So, but, and I'm also super fine
Kris: depends what you want, whether you're willing to
Em: Well exactly.
Kris: the thing is, you always have that gradation of what people are willing to pay, so
Rah: Yep.
Kris: you're covered in the market. But yeah, charity, I think the thing to remember is it is a business, and you need to think of it as a [00:45:00] business. and for those people who still think that 100 percent of what I donate needs to go to the end recipient, you know, they need to be educated,
Chris: yes,
Kris: You cannot run any kind of business online or in any way without there being back office costs involved.
Chris: that's right.
Kris: I would, I would just say to people, if you did want to set up a charity, you really need to treat it as a business.
You need a business plan. You need some mentors, you need some backers, you need to have all of that stuff in place before you do anything and make sure that it's going to be a viable concern and that you've got the time and all the other people that you can pull in to actually keep it going.
Chris: Yeah, yeah,
Rah: Yeah. Especially when it comes to receiving a grant, you have to report on what you actually spent it on.
Kris: And well, you've got to, you've got to put it in first. So you've got to have all the time, the knowledge and the details provided and then yes, you've got to report often twice during a cycle mid and at the end about what you spent it on and how [00:46:00] you've gone against what it is, like a lot of organisations, they're not just ticking a box to say, Hey, I gave money to this great charity, but you know, they, they want to be able to say that the money they've given you has been used in an effective and positive way.
Chris: And that's fair enough, you know, because it's a huge thing to be, you know, handing out all these funds. So, you know, you do want it to go to where it's intended rather than just a nice new pair of shoes or,
Kris: I wish
Chris: I know you wish, I know, but.
Em: Not in the real world, you know?
Rah: New.
Em: Well where can we, uh, find you online and, uh, donate? Well.
Kris: thanks to our fabulous administrative people, we're all over the place. So there is our website and um, that's adamis nexus.com. We are on LinkedIn. We are on Facebook, and we are on Instagram. [00:47:00] So that's where you can find us pretty much. Um, Adamis is A-D-A-M-A-S Nexus and um,
Em: I love the actual meaning of Adamus Nexus as well. Like, I don't know if
Kris: Well, that was one of those things where we got very wordy. We were down a word rabbit hole, let me tell you.
Em: Yeah, I can imagine how long it would have taken you to get to that point.
Kris: I'm
Em: But it's such a great, um, it's such a great meaning. Um, for those that don't know, may you please explain it?
Kris: explain. So Adamus is Greek for diamond or indestructible. So we believe that within these women survivors there is a Diamond to be unearthed. And Nexus is connection. So it's all about connecting these women so that they can unearth their diamond, whatever it might be.
Chris: It's beautiful. It seriously is just beautiful. And true.
Em: Very true.
Rah: And yeah.
Kris: Suckery.[00:48:00]
Rah: Yep. Yep. I love
Chris: Oh, goodness me, Chris. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. This has been really good. And I actually think that a lot of the people who are going to be listening, um, to this episode of the podcast are going to quite, uh, find quite a lot of value.
in listening to you and listening and understanding about the charity. And I think there'll be a lot of education around that. But I've got one final question for you. So if I had a box and that box contained everything you had lost in your lifetime, is there something that you would like to find in that box if you were allowed to take one thing out?
Kris: It would probably be, um, to have my mum around a bit longer and to be able to talk to her about her, um, childhood and her family [00:49:00] because she never wanted to talk about it. We got sort of glimpses and every now and then something would be said. Like, I think I was in my teens before I even realized she had a brother.
Yeah, things like that.
Chris: Yeah.
Kris: Um, and you know, we even putting the whole Childhood domestic violence situation aside where there was obviously conversations I would love to have had with her about all of that too, but she's a bit of a, a bit of a black box. My mum, there's not a lot of history or knowledge there.
And, um, I feel like I missed that chance with her because she died so young. So, yeah. Yeah, that's probably the thing I would do. It's out of my box.
Chris: Well, then I wish it was a reality and I did have that box. Yes.
Kris: Yeah.
Chris: But seriously, thank you so much, so
Kris: Thank you.
Rah: Thank you.
Chris: the time out.
Kris: I hope, I hope I did enough saying of the fuck word. I can say a few more fucks
Chris: look, you can [00:50:00] fucking say how many fucks you want tonight. That's
Kris: need me to say fuck anymore, I'll fucking stop, alright?
Chris: Ra's gonna count
Rah: I do count.
Chris: tonight.
Rah: I get the transcript to count for me. How many fucks? Yeah.
Kris: Does F ing count or do we have to have
Rah: Oh, no, full fucks.
Kris: Okay.
Chris: fucks.
Rah: Yep, no skims. We don't skim on the fucks.
Chris: No, no, not at
Em: I love it.
Kris: It's been quite liberating for me to be able to just say it so much. So I do appreciate it. Cause when you work from home and you're just, it's just not something that happens so
Chris: And, and look, the cat's not listening very well, you know, that kind of thing, but you know, yeah.
Rah: are used to me swearing. Yeah.
Em: I love it though.
Kris: thank you ladies.
Rah: Thanks,
Chris: so much.
