Bubbles and Benevolence with Marisa Vecchio
Marisa Vecchio in conversation with some inspirational people we have met through Hanworth House. We wanted to create a place where we can collect and share their experience, knowledge and advice to you. Talking all things business, family and fundraising.
Bubbles and Benevolence with Marisa Vecchio
Wanderer to Whitsundays - Katelyn Aslett talks travel, creativity and combining great food and philanthropy
Get ready for an unforgettable chat with the amazing Katelyn Aslett - a woman of many talents and a flair for philanthropy. You'll be amazed as we unravel her remarkable journey embracing diverse careers in travel, textile, and costume design, her adventures in self-sustaining living and bait-to-plate dining, and her philanthropic endeavours that are making waves in the world.
We kick things off with a toast to Katelyn's passionate involvement in the fundraising initiative Dancing CEOs, a cause that supports the Women's Legal Service. You’ll hear all about Katelyn’s humble beginnings in Townsville, where she discovered her entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for cooking. We also bond over our shared experiences as ambassadors for Women's Legal Service and the immense success of the Dancing CEOs campaign. What's more, Katelyn has some fascinating tales of her daring adventures in Africa and her mastery of felting in a sheep district in New South Wales - you won't want to miss them!
Our conversation wouldn't be complete without discussing Katelyn's fashion design journey, including a runway parade between the twin towers in Kuala Lumpur and her ingenious idea, The Giving Table. The Giving Table is a platform that allows people to host dinner parties and donate the proceeds to a charity of their choice – an idea that’s as creative as it is generous. Katelyn's life is an extraordinary tale of adventure, creativity, and generosity. Hit play now – you won't regret it!
Register your My Giving Table Dancing CEO Event now for your chance to win a free Bait to Plate dinner.
See ‘Drop and Go’ locations to re-home your second hand designer items here.
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Welcome to Bubbles and Benevolence, the podcast where we pop the bubbles to success and dive deep into the benevolent hearts of those who have achieved it. In this podcast, we'll sit down with successful business leaders, philanthropists, non-profit workers and more to discuss their journeys, the lessons they've learned along the way, and how they're using their success to make a positive impact on the world. So grab a glass of bubbles and join us as we explore the intersection of business and benevolence and discover what it truly means to be successful.
Speaker 1:Welcome to another surprising episode of Bubbles and Benevolence as we welcome a true powerhouse, the one and only Caitlin Aslet, prepared to be blown away as we delve into the story of her extraordinary journey that will leave you in awe. From dynamic careers in the travel industry, textile and costume designs to her venture into the world of self-sustaining living and the concept of bait-to-plate dining, you'll wonder how she's managed to do it all and, on top of it all, introducing my Giving Table. This incredible not-for-profit endeavor is the heart and soul of Caitlin's philanthropic vision. It grants everyone the remarkable opportunity to host fundraising events right in the comfort of their own homes, by passing those hefty venue and catering fees. Get ready to feel inspired as Caitlin's passion for giving back shines through in every word. We hope you enjoy this heartwarming interview with Marisa and Caitlin.
Speaker 2:Caitlin, it's so lovely to have you here today. Thanks for making the time to pop in and particularly as you're this woman bearing a wonderful gift and a wonderful bottle of bubbles. So tell us a bit about what you chose today and why.
Speaker 3:Well, marisa. Thank you, number one for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I picked Bollinger today because I was feeling it's a lovely special day. It's a lovely time of the afternoon and I think Bollinger has a beautiful butteriness that just feels lovely in a more relaxed setting. So I thought that we deserved a glass of Bollinger.
Speaker 2:Oh, that sounds wonderful, and I'm surprised these days how many people just love champagne, and in fact I think Australia is one of the biggest champagne drinkers per capita in the world.
Speaker 3:I know we're having another lovely person.
Speaker 2:No, I'm sure I've done my fair share as well. It's actually my daughter and my husband's favorite champagne, so you've done very well to bring that in today. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. It's a special day You're here with us, and it's a very special drink to toast that. So cheers to the podcast, cheers, cheers, looking forward to a conversation Now. Caitlin, we met each other. I can't quite remember how many years ago it was, but I think it's probably got something to do with the Dancing CEOs.
Speaker 3:Would that be correct? That would be correct, I think it would have been 2017. That, I think, that year of the Dancing CEOs.
Speaker 2:And we just recently had the finals for this year, so I don't think we've talked about the Dancing CEOs on the podcast, so can you tell us a little bit about what it is and basically why you did it?
Speaker 3:So the Dancing CEOs is it must be, I think, the highlight of the Brisbane calendar for giving and philanthropy. It's a beautiful cause raising funds for Women's Legal Service, who offer incredible help and support, and very practical, real and meaningful support to women and families going through domestic violence. I think the Dancing CEOs it's number nine year, I think, so we're number 10 coming up, which is a big one, and I think it was a very clever brainchild because it brings in a whole lot of wonderful people that are incredibly giving and also successful CEOs and business professionals For charities. You need to keep expanding the people who know about you and your reach and your I guess, your footprint, and so whoever came up with the CEOs concept, it was a pretty smart one. Basically, we end up with a group of amazing giving people who dedicate their time to learn to dance and get up on the stage and, in some cases, embarrass ourselves dreadfully, but all for a good cause and, as a united whole, what that achieves is phenomenal and incredible.
Speaker 2:And I mean I did it in 2017, I think was that the same year that you did it.
Speaker 1:We did it the same year, or were?
Speaker 3:you 16?
Speaker 2:I can't quite remember now.
Speaker 1:But I mean the.
Speaker 2:Thing the point I want to make is that once was so enough for me, and but no, no you. You decided to do it twice, and I want to know what on earth possessed you to have to go and do. It is a phenomenal experience, but it is very, very nerve wracking.
Speaker 3:It is nerve wracking. I guess I tend to have always had a call that I just have a thick brain, that I don't often think of how much work or how much effort something will be. I just think, oh, I've been asked to do something, I'll say yes, and I then dig myself out of holes afterwards and but no, I've never regret being involved in the CEOs. And the second time is lovely because it wasn't a solo performance. I think when you carry it the first time and it's a solo performance, everything's right. And I had no idea, and in fact the year that I said yes, it was because someone else had dropped out.
Speaker 3:So I was asked very late in the piece I think I was asked in in February or month. Like it was really ridiculous how little time I had to fundraise and also how little time I had to learn to dance. So it was quite. You know, I guess it was all over before I had time to think about it. And when they asked if I would like to be involved in a little alumni group, I just thought, well, that'll be more fun because it's not me carrying all the load and we had more time to do it. So it was. It was wonderful.
Speaker 2:So I have two questions before I leave the Dancing CEOs and delve into your deep, dark past. The first is what were you doing at the time that allowed you to be asked to be Dancing CEO?
Speaker 3:So I was working at the time for Adagode Aviation, a, you know, a premium private jet charter company doing a lot of work in the in the defence and government space as well as in the private charter, both within Australia and internationally. I was their market or new business development manager and was working internationally quite a bit and in developing new markets and new business for them, and so I was seen as I wasn't actually the CEO of the company but I was seen as a I guess you know, a senior corporate role, and I think it was because they were. They were scrapping the barrel, someone had left and they just needed someone silly enough to say, oh, I'll do that. Why?
Speaker 2:not Right place right time, or maybe wrong place right time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't say no very often If it's something that seems fun and adventurous. My first is, oh yeah, let's just do it. And then it's like what do I have to do?
Speaker 2:I love that. My second question was what was your winning dance move?
Speaker 3:Oh, gee, it was, it was. It was like one of a bit of a John Travolta one thing, because I did a little bit of a disco and I did a couple of flips. So I think that actually the flip I can't. I can't do that again now. But there was a flip that I particularly liked as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I do remember that you were very generous to support both at not once but twice. So I know that Women's Legal Services a cause, a deity to both of our hearts.
Speaker 3:So we might we're both ambassadors Correct and that is a privilege to be asked to be an ambassador for a charity that is so, so well respected. I guess you know they. They do things very carefully and correctly and I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely correct and I did speak recently at the Dancing CEOs evening and with the amount that we raised quite recently, I think the Dancing CEOs campaign has now raised over $3 million for Women's Legal Service in nine years. And so that is an incredible effort of not a whole lot of individuals who embarked on a fundraising strategy. And not only that, put themselves out there with great backup dancers from Madd Dance House to actually perform in front of hundreds of people at Brisbane City Hall. It's an incredible campaign.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's, it's. It's gruelling and roots and fundraising is difficult, fun, you know you've got to go to the same people and friends and get support, you know, and it can be. It can be a real challenge and yeah, it's, it is incredible Over $3 million is just remarkable.
Speaker 2:It is incredible. But we were both very happy to do that and I'm sure Dancing CEOs to come will be equally interested to to see how they can further such a great cause. So that is how we bond it. I think that's how you came into the trajectory of Hanworth House and very happy that you did. But I think that you've got an incredibly rich and diverse past and that started in Townsville, I think. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:I yep. I was a little girl born in the late 60s in Townsville to very loving parents and a beautiful, wonderful extended family up there. My parents were small business owners. My mum was an incredibly entrepreneurial. I think before you know, before the word was really used mum was a really, I guess a real shining beacon of of just how you just get on and do things and and she had a beautiful kitchenware shop. So at the time David Jones wasn't in town, so mum had all beautiful you know Maccasa, fine, you know dinner sets and beautiful glasses. So I grew up in this beautiful environment of all these wonderful knives and plates and dinner. You know lovely things like that. And my grandmother was an incredible cook and my mother was. They're just stylish, beautiful, giving people I think, yeah, so a world surrounded by the adventures of the kitchen.
Speaker 2:Were you a good cook?
Speaker 3:I was always into everything, so I did love cooking, particularly a chocolate cake. I can remember being, you know, five or six and I knew I had a chocolate cake recipe. So anytime I was I needed something to eat, I would make a chocolate cake.
Speaker 2:Did that recipe come through the family or it was my grandmother's, my?
Speaker 3:grandmother had very good basic, you know. She taught me those principles of proportion, of you need this many eggs to this much flour and sugar, and really, then you can just go for it and do anything. So then, since then we don't really follow recipes, we just use that, and so you grew up in Townsville.
Speaker 2:Yep grew up in.
Speaker 3:Townsville.
Speaker 2:And do you think this kind of being surrounded by the creative energy of your mom and your grandmother did that sort of send you on this pathway, Because I think you were destined for a career that kind of led you through a creative streak in terms of art and design?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess I'd. Always I was very different to the rest of my family, everyone. They were all quite. They were quite more conservative and shy. And I came along as the last child of both my parents were the last children, so I was sort of the youngest cousin and the youngest and I was the bounciest, noisiest, most adventurous, was always getting into all sorts of things and no one could ever repress my thirst for adventure in life, I suppose.
Speaker 2:You ignored his, just well.
Speaker 3:No, I wasn't. I wasn't naughty because I just didn't follow anyone else's rules.
Speaker 2:That's a different issue of naughty.
Speaker 3:You know, I always figured if someone was imposing their ideas and values on me, I had the right to veto them and just do as I thought was right for me.
Speaker 2:Sounds like a very relaxed North Queensland upbringing.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think my mother once chased me with a wooden spoon, but that was the closest I came to any sort of major punishment.
Speaker 2:She would be a package and sell it back in the shop, probably.
Speaker 3:I think she probably did.
Speaker 2:So I think you must have got this love for creativity and art from somewhere. Were you good at art at school?
Speaker 3:No, I think I failed art. You know, I don't think I can remember doing some art assignments. I was always creating. I guess I was one of those children that was always making, building, constructing, playing, doing I don't know where my creative, I don't really know where that. I just was always a doer and I loved. I just loved making and doing things.
Speaker 2:So what did you pursue?
Speaker 3:after school. Where did you go from there? So after school I had a very strong. Right through school I had an urge to see the world I had. I grew up actually, so there's a I could backtrack a little bit. It's a bit of a strange story and I don't know where exactly, but it was a pivotal story.
Speaker 3:So, being such an adventurous young you know, toddler I guess as I was, I'd explored my grandparents' fish pond very early and pretty much came close to drowning, and I've put in the future a lot of the major things I've done in my life. It's made sense when I understood that I had this experience of being 18 months old, being so curious that I've jumped into the little fish pond. Everyone else was asleep, but the sun's only just coming up and I've pitted, padded out and I'm exploring the fish and I'm down in the water and I wouldn't have come up except my uncle pulled me out. And I still kind of remember that sense of I mean, I was unconscious and I needed reviving. So I was obviously very close to no longer being here and I think at that point I had this sense of number one everything's okay, You're not that important anyway, so just live by your own spirit, if that makes sense. So when I've looked back and at the time I thought everyone was unencumbered in a certain way, that they just were able to live with pure sense of wonder and joy. Because I really my whole childhood, I would overwhelmingly say I just have had that wonder and joy.
Speaker 3:And as an older person I've gone through different trials in life and faced different points when you could go one way or the other, or different points where you could have self-doubt, or different points when you isolate yourself from people, probably for good reason, and you have to be strong enough to stand in your own presence and space. I just have always come back to that sense of it's not about anybody else, we're actually, we're here for a short time, nothing's a given, there's no guarantee that you've even got the next day. That taught my spirit to not take anything for granted. I've never wasted time on jealousy or coveting what other people have. I've never thought, oh, I deserve this or I should have that. I've sort of not. I just haven't and I thought that that was normal.
Speaker 3:And it's not till I've gotten a lot older that I realise a lot of people have these voices of jealousy and jealousy holds you back, or of regret and regret holds you back. Or of fear and fear holds you back. And I luckily had, and I think it was because that early close to death moment taught me that there's nothing to fear I might not have tomorrow, so live with integrity and honesty and joy today, and that that means not living by what anyone else wants you to do. Yeah, on reflection, I think that was one of those moments in my life where I was very blessed and fortunate to learn a lesson of don't take things too seriously, live with abundance and love, and that's helped me in pretty good stead, I think.
Speaker 2:So, caitlin, I'm just thinking, but do you remember that moment when you were 18 months old?
Speaker 3:I don't know whether the memory is what I've created of the memory, but I do. I have, I do have a sense of it, just this free flow and the overwhelming essence I have is just no fear of that moment. You know, it's a yeah, so it's a str-. It's a strange thing, did you say, was it?
Speaker 2:your grandparents' property.
Speaker 3:Was that my grandparents' property? So how did?
Speaker 2:they feel after the incident. Um, Was it always talked about? It was not. No, it wasn't really.
Speaker 3:It wasn't really ever. It was sort of just as I said, I was the youngest and I was you know. I think it was. I don't really remember it much being talked about after then.
Speaker 2:Isn't it amazing how something when you were so young can still have a profound influence on your perception of things in your life? You know, I remember being left at the City Hall Child Care Centre by my mother because she was going up to Channel 10 to do a cooking show. And no one believes I can remember that day, I couldn't remember that feeling.
Speaker 2:I was born, so I would have been over 12 months, but not much over, maybe about 16 to 18 months old, and I remember screaming and crying and my mother was asked to come back to collect me. Now and I don't think people have talked about it that much, but I don't remember a whole lot of stuff after that day, but I do remember that day and what it looked like and the fact that I'd probably never been left before, and so I was just hopping back to my recollection of that when you were talking about an incident, probably about the same age that I was, when I can remember that incident.
Speaker 3:And memories are really. It's incredible what memories do. They can be a trick and they can. I think you know that sounds genuinely like for you. That was a moment where it was your first consciousness of your mother. Has gone and that connection and you're like, and so it is a strong memory, which is it's really powerful. It is.
Speaker 2:It's really funny because I could never, ever, sleep over at a slumber party, for, like even when I was at school, I had to be collected, and I think I'm going to blame it now on the City Hall incident. Really, I should remember that one. You're an abandonment. Oh, it was the only slumber party participant that had to be collected before midnight.
Speaker 1:And school camp. I couldn't go to school camp.
Speaker 2:That means I had to stay overnight. Such a wuss I am honestly. And so where did you? So you were saying that this was our delving back into your past to come up with your little adventure.
Speaker 3:I think this might have been an adventure that took you off overseas, so basically I was quite, I guess, socially engaged and aware, or politically, socially, you know. I kind of had a wanting to understand the world more because I knew I was from little, old, safe, old North Queensland and I guess I always felt bigger than just home. A lot of people are quite happy when they're in a home and they feel safe. I always wanted adventure. So during my school years I all I knew is I wanted to travel, but I wasn't someone who wanted to travel frivolously or just as an observer. So I learnt that there was an operation rally it was called. It was a set up where young people from all over the world could raise money and then go to all sorts of different parts of the world.
Speaker 3:I picked Africa because there was an expedition coming up.
Speaker 3:I left Townsville and came down to Brisbane and worked for a year and saved money so that I could pay my way to go. And so when I was 18, I had my passport and I left Australia and I can remember sort of my neck was craning as I saw Western Australia, thinking oh, I'm really, I'm out on my own now, like nobody knows where I am. And I landed at four o'clock in the morning in Zimbabwe and again, no one was there to meet me. I had to find my way through because I was actually meeting everybody in Kenya. So I had to spend a couple of days in Zimbabwe and there was men with guns and I was in a bus and there was, you know, bikes and chickens. And I can just remember. I can remember sitting there just laughing, thinking, oh, you've got yourself on a real bit of fun here, and I just it was, yeah, it was amazing. And I think when I look at my children and I think I wouldn't really want them to be disappearing off into deepest, darkest Africa.
Speaker 3:We had to write letters. You couldn't just phone, so I would write letters home and it would take weeks for a letter to come back to me so I wouldn't know what was going on and nobody would know what was going on over there. But it satisfied all of that sense in me that I didn't know the world and that I wanted to know the world and I knew that I had privilege by being in a beautiful, you know, middle class family with safety and security and food and flushing toilets, and I wanted to put myself where I would understand what it was like not to have that. I guess I just always had that. Yeah, I've always had that urge to understand what other people's lived experience is, because we only know our own lived experience.
Speaker 3:And Africa was just incredible. We built schools and dispensaries and we did a rhino rescue station and there'd be children that just had school under a tree, you know. They literally had a little rock they were sitting on and before school they would come and help us carry all the different materials because we're making it all on site and it was, all you know, very rustic and very raw. We certainly weren't under the way they built things in Australia and the kids were so keen to get a school that they were sheltered from the weather it was 40 degrees and not a blade of grass or a chair or you know and they're just in these little huts. It was just lovely to see and they were so keen to help because they valued everything that was done for them. And again, it was that thing of thinking, would you? So often in the West we've got to go to school. We forget how lucky we are to have what we have, and I guess that was, yes, I loved it. The Africa was incredible.
Speaker 1:Was that a year that you spent there? About six months.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was only about six months. I was just thinking about your poor parents.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is, I mean, it's just the kind of era I grew up. I mean, not only were you going overseas and no mobile phone, but you were going to Africa. I mean that would have been almost terrifying to arrive in that country. Obviously, you regarded as an adventure, but I would have thought, you know, even knowing how to get from one place to another, when you were young and without the benefits we have these days of the internet and mobile phone, you wonder how you did these things, don't?
Speaker 3:you in retrospect. Yeah, I look back and I think, wow, gee, and I kind of think the part of it is that I've just always had a bit of a thick enough brain that I don't worry about things, and it's probably more from Stupidity, really.
Speaker 2:Ignorance is what they say, this will be fine. So how do you think did that impact on what you chose to do next when you returned? I guess you were there for a certain finite period of time. You knew you had to come home at that stage. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Well no, I travelled then to about 30 other countries before I came home.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, just a short detour before you got back home. I just kind of wanted to tick a few more.
Speaker 3:So I just I travelled through Europe and worked for a while in the UK and in Wales and then travelled across and spent time in America as well. So I sort of because this the expedition we were on, there were so many nationals from all over the world and I thought, well, I don't want to go home in a hurry, I might as well. So I extended as long as I could, working a little bit, travelling and just visiting as many of the people that I'd been in Africa with. I ended up in Prague before Prague was opened, before the wall had come down. We crossed. I had my American friend. His mother was a psychologist and had somebody who was the advisor to I think his name was Hoffman, the Prime Minister or the President of Czechoslovakia at the time, and so it was still behind the iron curtain, but we had this contact so we were able to get dropped off in.
Speaker 3:I think I've dropped off in East Berlin. We walked like in the James Bond movies, where you walk across this no man's land in the middle of the night and you stamp your passport in one and then you've got to walk through because they didn't talk to each other. So it wasn't like a simple passport exchange. So we're sort of walking, and then we went through and got our passport stamped in the sort of Czechoslovakian side, and then we had to walk because our friend wasn't allowed to pick us up near the passport because then he'd be almost like earmarked as having. You know, there was all this, it was all covert. So we had to then walk another couple of kilometres to find his car in the forest where he flashed his lights and we got it and so we spent four days in Prague. You know it was all. There was no McDonald's there then there was no. It was six months or so later that that Prague opened up. And now it's amazing.
Speaker 2:What a great adventure to have.
Speaker 3:I had all these things like that that happened, and actually the Tiananmen Square happened when I was there. So I was watching Tiananmen Square happen on Russian television. So we're thinking what is going on? We've got no idea, because it was all Russian and we were seeing the propaganda from the, from the. So, yeah, so I had a great time of adventures and exploring the world and, yeah, I was very fortunate, really. So what brought you home? Well, I guess I just finally thought I thought coming home would be a good idea and then it was time for that journey to end.
Speaker 2:So you're right back in Townsville. I'm guessing your parents would have been wanting to see you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I arrived back in Townsville and then I ended up down in New South Wales where we set up an organic flower farm because I was quite keen on being on the land and experiencing, I guess, that kind of really rustic, authentic lifestyle, and that was when I got the opportunity to play with wall. So it was a beautiful sheep district and so when my children were young and I was in this beautiful wall region and people would give me bags of wall and we were living in this beautiful mud brick cottage with solar power and growing our own food and it was very very good life for a few, yeah, it was a little bit and again, that was that was that sense of my spirit wanted to.
Speaker 3:I liked to really immerse myself in things so that I live it as much as I can and have a lived experience in that. I don't like to be, I guess, a passive watcher of the world. So, yeah, so we did this whole. It was had its own challenges because we were really creating. We were cooking our own food, you know, creating and growing and and trying to make this organic flower farm, you know, successful.
Speaker 2:I'm having a little moment because we're going to come back to it later. The bait to plate, but it kind of is a similar concept, wasn't it really? In terms of the way, the self-generation of the food.
Speaker 3:And I've just always loved that, because I love the flavours when you've grown something yourself. So there is very much that sense of you know if you grow the tomatoes and the pumpkins, and even when you grow your own meat, it's you know it's been treated well and it tastes better because you know. You do so in my spare time because we didn't really, you know, we didn't have TV and we didn't have shops nearby. We were an hour and a half or two from town, like we were quite, so people would give me bags of wool and I started playing around with it and I learned how to felt in my spare time and one thing led to another and my felting business became more lucrative than the farming business.
Speaker 3:So I would go down, I would regularly drive down to Sydney and I would deliver flowers, and then I would also drive down with some of my felt things and gradually the shops were wanting more of my felt things than the flowers. So I just kept making more of what they wanted and before I knew it I was on this whole different career that I had no idea that I was even expecting or wanting. It was just one of those go down a journey and discover I found it suited me very well because it was I don't know if you know much about felting- Well, I was actually going to ask you how on earth is felt made?
Speaker 3:So real wool felt basically even our hair or any natural fibers have little claws if you look at them under a microscope, and felting is really just the process of binding the hairs together. Now you know you've had a beautiful jump up that you've probably washed incorrectly and it shrunk. So that's really how felt happens. So the wool fibers you get them comfortable and it's a little bit like making a good. You know you stake, you've got to do it, have at the right temperature and if you, you know you can shock it and that sort of thing. So any living organism can either be shocked or comforted easily into where it wants to be. So when we're felting, you're laying the fibers of wool together and you're using shock tactics to shrink them and once they go in they can't come out.
Speaker 3:It was a beautiful process for me because it was physical, so it kept some of my bouncy hyperactivity under control, because when you're making something you're using your whole body. But it was also a beautiful creative process because you're playing with dyes and the color and you know. So I would spend my day dying. You know I would look at, I'd look at something and think, oh, that pink, I just want to get that pink, so I would play around and and make a batch of wool or silk in that color and then I would hand create something with it. So it was kind of I I really don't even know how it happened. I had not thought of making it happen, but I ended up in a career for 20 something years being a full-time felt artist and became I did well over my 10,000 hours so I definitely became an expert in it and got a lot of recognition in different places for what I created. I just loved it because it was.
Speaker 3:I was in the flow, in the state of being a joyful, happy, indulgent child, just living without anybody else's pressure or expectation.
Speaker 3:I was just able to play. We were at an event recently where you know I think it was Kate Miller Hyde who was talking about flow and as an artist, it is the most privileged state anyone can get to, because in that moment you are so connected with your sense of joy and spirit and wonder that no one can. No one can take it or it's, like you know, transcendental law. It's just if I could wish on everybody to experience that at some point, that would be my greatest wish, because there is nothing like the freedom and liberation that comes from just being that happy. And I was so fortunate that literally for 20 years I was in that state regularly every week where I would just get lost in making and I had orders that I needed to fulfill and they kept coming and I knew if I kept making and I could just be in that play state. It was like a privilege and a blessing. I can't believe it.
Speaker 2:Fascinating, tell me about some of the things you made. I mean, I felt artists. You are the only felt artist.
Speaker 1:I have ever met in my life.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to put you in a little like a platform and a statue of your own, because that's incredible. But what kinds of things did people ask you to make? I'm guessing it was commission based, was it?
Speaker 3:So I would get. Well, I had shops that would buy regular, so I had a standard sort of a silken wool shawl that I'd managed to sort of create that if I'd made one of them I made 20,000. So that was my bread and butter. So I knew if I made one of those I could, I'd get paid so much and I had shops around the world that would buy them and so I would just make those and that would cover my bills and my expenses and then from that I would get commissions for things I made for a performance of cats. I made a whole series of the cat headpieces, which was a beautiful commission I made. I had an American woman that got me I'd started selling into her store and she then commissioned me to make these huge drapes for her Lake Tahoe home that were like 20 meters of continual fabric that she used as these beautiful ras wudra. So I had to hand dye and match them all in so that it was. It was just a beautiful. Yeah, it worked as one amazing big piece.
Speaker 3:I had the chamber, the chamber music festival. I made a series of beautiful under like reef lights. They had a beautiful chamber music festival in Townsville and they were having an event where they wanted, basically we put what what you would think of is a reef scene made as lights suspended from the big, big top tent. So there was all of these huge light installations that were all in all the colors of the reef, and maybe I wouldn't mind reliving that again now that I'm back in that.
Speaker 3:And then also, one of my favorite commissions was at the Townsville brewery. They were doing that. The brewery up it was the old general post office of Townsville. So it goes back a long time and my family has been in Townsville forever. My grandparents store was nearby, my mother's store was nearby, but they commissioned me to make a series of beautiful chandeliers and that was probably the biggest project I had. It was a six month, six months of work, and it was yeah, it was delightful, and it's still there 12, 13, 14 years later. They're actually all still. The wool is still holding as these beautiful natural fibers, I guess natural fibers.
Speaker 2:You can't get past they, they're beautiful and we were sharing with the a couple of photographs of these great lampshades that you were doing and which look incredible, and I'm very privileged, thank you so much. You've gifted me recently a beautiful tea cozy and for my birthday, thank you so much for that, caitlin. It was very much precious and will be very much accommodated in the Hanworth house office for a long time. But it was very special your artistic streak, but also your sense of genuine empathy in terms of thinking that you know doing something like that for Hanworth was just so special.
Speaker 3:They, the tea cosies, pick themselves, you see. So I didn't explain that when I when, when I gave that to you, but really when you use natural fibers, and I guess they all have these little personalities, so they do tend to pick who they want to live with. So it was kind of like it, it just jumped out and said it needed to be with Marissa, so well, tilly is forever grateful.
Speaker 2:Tilly is the Hanworth teapot, which we've never talked about in the podcast, but we should actually talk about Tilly the teapot one day needs to be and um, and I think from Tilly to Townsville might be a great opportunity if I just have a little break and a little sip of champagne and come back and talk about your current amazing stuff that you're doing in North Queensland wonderful, so see you in there.
Speaker 1:As we take a quick break, I'd like to take this opportunity to let you know that we have a drop and go date coming this Saturday, the 29th of July. We will be accepting designer donations for labels on the lawn, which is coming up on the 7th of October 2023. If you have any designer clothing or accessories you used to love but no longer wear, drop them off at one of our amazing partners and we will find your items a new loving home. To find your closest location, head to handworthhousecomau forward slash L-O-T-L. Now back to our conversation with Marissa and Caitlin.
Speaker 2:It's been a fascinating discussion so far. I knew nothing about felt, except I used to play those little felt boards as a kid.
Speaker 3:you know that's truly the only direct contact I've had, but they're more little synthetting felt.
Speaker 2:Of course I know they wouldn't be made with the Marina Wool from any game Good business idea for the future perhaps so I think two children later. You returned to Queensland and to Brisbane, I think and started delving a bit more into textile and design.
Speaker 3:So yeah, what happened with, because you know the felting just gradually merged into I guess you know other textiles and and other. I guess I was trying to make it a more profitable. Being an artist is is not very profitable and having two teenage children that you're trying to put through school and and survive as a single mother is not that easy. So I was trying to diversify and I was one of the first designers to get into digital print. So I think I had the first collection of original digital prints in Australia at Fashion Week. I think it was at Sydney or might have even been at one of the early Brisbane no, I think it was in Sydney. I still would create the original design and photograph it and print it on the silk. So it was a really revolutionary thing when I saw that that was possible. So I've still got fabrics that were made from beautiful felt artworks that when you look at the fabric you see your picture, you can see the fibres, you can see the wool fibre or the silk fibre in it, and so it gives a depth and an even stronger artistic integrity to the, to the look of the of the fabric, even if it's on silk or synthetic. So but at that.
Speaker 3:At that time I started designing so I'd get prints done and I would have, you know, simple dresses or tops and all sorts of things. And I was doing parades. You know, I think I did the largest parade between the twin towers in Kuala Lumpur. We did a runway parade there and a lot of that was still hand. I would make designs out of wool as well and mix them with some prints. Some, you know, people like lovely Sarah Hudson still has one of my cardigans that you know I used to make these beautiful structured jackets and cardigans that were all hand felted and then mix them with the the print.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's quite a bizarre really, looking back at it, because I've been out of that. I did, I burnt out eventually and I left that for a long time. So it's quite interesting to talk about it now because, yeah, it was quite a quite a journey and I've got. I showed my designs at Gide, usa twice in a row. They asked me back, met all sorts of famous people. You know I did Hong Kong fashion week, I did Singapore fashion week. I had designs go to Berlin fashion week, paris fashion week.
Speaker 2:It's an incredible, incredible journey.
Speaker 3:I can't even think and at the time I didn't really look at it as I didn't really feel like I'll look at me, go on, I great, because I've never really had much of an ego, so I didn't really realize how lucky and privileged I was to actually have all of that.
Speaker 2:Just happen, but you must have also had a very unique product that people were recognizing it and inviting you to do these really interesting things. And I love, I love this podcast in so many ways because it actually, whilst we try to put Hamworth at the center of it, just during our conversation we have covered or ticked off on like four people that I have met through Hanworth that you knew independently. So one is obviously Sarah Hudson at SFH design in Newfarm. She's one of our wonderful collaborators with our biggest fundraiser labels on the lawn. Two, which we'll talk about in a second, the beautiful Will Valor and Sasha Drake, I think had been people that have crossed your path, so we'd love to hear about how, how that happened, both, again, wonderful supporters of our labels on the lawn and wonderful supporters of fashion in Brisbane. But, coincidentally, our gorgeous mutual friend Laura Lee Cunningham and her daughter Steph, who had the happiness place at Paddington you said it was across the road from your studio.
Speaker 3:So when I first moved back to Brisbane, I had a lovely little studio under the Hamptons which was directly across from happiness place, and Laura Lee was one of my you know first beautiful customers that would come in and and buy my hand dyed silk and beaded dresses and different things. So isn't?
Speaker 2:the world just so small when you can think about that. So how did you go from these designs to doing some work with Will and Sasha?
Speaker 3:so well I'd. So Mark and I are both North Queenslanders, so I'd met Mark many, many years earlier.
Speaker 2:We'd been asked to that's Mark Ferguson who owns.
Speaker 3:Will. Valor yes, so we, we met judging, I think, the Ingham fashion festival or something, we can't remember exactly what it's called, but Ingham has a beautiful you know a beautiful pedigree of wonderful seamstresses and people that make incredible designs and you know that real lovely, old-fashioned, good stitching and and good craftsmanship.
Speaker 3:And so Mark and I met judging a fashion event up there and have been absolute wonderful friends since, and, of course, with Emma, mark's beautiful wife yes so as Mark, mark and I sort of had always mentored each other in different parts of the business, because at different periods, when I was selling into America and he was keen to know more, or at different times, I, you know, he was very good at having mentorship in business and I was lacking, you know. So we would get together regularly and just share and brainstorm and and we understood each other's journey. And so several times Mark approached me and said, right, I need a special jacket, like for Damien Rossi. So we did a beautiful I love that, that print. And I did a.
Speaker 3:I had created an original artwork that was, you know, a couple of meters that I was planning to digitally print, and so I made some gorgeous skirts and things and you know, and that same thing where the fibers and the, the textile is so alive in it. And Mark had said, right, I've got to do this amazing jacket for this incredible person, it can't just be ordinary. And we worked out that white and blue and pink you know this it was an amazing floral top that Damien still pulls out sometimes for various different events and I'll give you a kick when he does that every time I see it.
Speaker 3:Look at still, you know, because you feel, I think as an artist you feel so very. They're like you're, you love them like your children. You know you put it, it's like the love you feel for hand with you put so much into creating a space and a and a value to something that it supersedes anything you know. It supersedes money, it supersedes ownership. It's just it's because it's just such a heart thing. Anything that you do where you're, where you're creating and and hand worth is a good example of that too oh, I think I can absolutely empathize with the passion that goes into the creatives process.
Speaker 2:The good talking about that, but the Brisbane festival recently too, about how a life without art is a life half-lived, because it's that is. That is that depth of understanding and enjoyment, that is seeing something but textile design etc. Would be something I've never really thought about. How your art lives on someone else in a very different way to an artist or a sculptor, but the same kind of principle, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 3:yeah, now and it is, and it's remarkable like I still sometimes today will see people. They'll send me a photo of wearing something that I made years and years ago that I've forgotten about, even a Margot um, margot Parker. I dressed her several times and recently she did a post and there was all of these different dresses that I'd hand designed for Margot for different gala events and it was like, oh, look at that, you just forget how wonderful, but they're beautiful to see alive again. And the same with Sasha.
Speaker 3:Sasha was wanting to bring in some different textiles and and had seen my work at through Brisbane festival uh, through Brisbane fashion festival the early days, and um had just asked if I could, you know, come up with some designs that would go on her prints. And again, it was quite a different application because it wasn't doing the hand felting, it was more about just just coming up with color and and and textures. So, but wonderful processes and wonderful to see how other people I admire Sasha so much because she has such an incredible business grounding in all her choices and decisions, and that was something that when I was in full-on creative mode I was. I was definitely not in that, I was in art space. I was in just free, and that's a different and it's a real challenge, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it's like the charity space in terms of making money. It's almost like it's a real gift to be able to combine the artistic nuances with the, the, the sense that it makes a business practical solution. Um, we have a lovely story about Sasha as well, because we are great partners with the girls from Love Me Again markets, and that one of their Paddington centers they were they used to do their markets happened to, coincidentally, be across the road from where Sasha Drake lives, and so I was having this tremendous trouble trying to find a place to park and I heard this voice saying hey, just go up there in the kindergarten, because I was collecting the cast of storeholders fabrics and dresses and stuff to take to
Speaker 2:labels on the lawn and wonderful storeholders were generous enough to say, yes, we bought them here. We didn't sell them, we'll gift them to women's service. And, of course, me and my big car would front up and have to pile everything in the back. Lo and behold, I didn't know Sasha and it after Woods. I went and said thank you so much for telling me where to park. Oh, no problem, anytime, I'm Sasha Drake. And I said oh, sasha, I buy your stuff. Oh, my god, I love you.
Speaker 2:And now that I think about it, her stuff so colorful and so it lives, it's so great for the Queensland climate. But and she's become a wonderful supporter and in fact, this morning we've opened a new warehouse to stock, to store our stock for labels on the lawn 2023, and I must have unwrapped a dozen Sasha dresses this morning. And so, again, it's so coincidental we're having this like conversation today and this morning I would have the label I saw most of this morning was Sasha Drake it must have been from her wonderfully generous donations that I was putting them all up ready for sale this year so the world is so tiny.
Speaker 2:In Brisbane and Queensland you cannot do anything wrong because two people away from you know all about everything. So I want to talk a little bit about North Queensland. Returning to North Queensland, because I think you met Kev. Is that right?
Speaker 3:yes, I did meet Kev, the love of my life. We met because of the my role at Addigold. In that in the corporate world I did several junkets over to China and I was over there on a Queensland tourism Brisbane airport, brisbane, marketing all the various regional tourist boards from from up and down, you know, from cans and Port Douglas down. Kev was there representing Erleigh Beach and I was there representing Addigold. And we were thrown into this situation where where we were going from space after space, where we were going anyway, promoting Queensland, and the first day of course there's always a nice breaker and so we we were being taken to the Great Wall of China and Kev is always first on a bus and I'm generally juggling two or three phones and and emails and I'm usually last on the bus.
Speaker 3:And when I got on the bus I always like to sit up the front because I just feel like I can see everything and I'm not sort of hiding up the back. And Kev was sitting up the front. There was no one next to him. So I immediately thought great, I'm sitting next to Kev because he's wearing a cowboy scarf, which was synthetic, and the cowboys beanie, which was synthetic, and it was snowing on the Great Wall of China and I thought, oh poor little North Queensland lad are you lucky that you met me today he did not have the right gear on for that day and we just, yeah, we straight away.
Speaker 3:Just I guess we, we straight away knew we were kind of peas in a pot to some extent. And yes, so now I am more, more living in North Queensland than I am in Brisbane, but we keep a little footprint here.
Speaker 2:But yes, very fortunate, but you're doing some wonderful things. I had the great privilege of attending, you know, white on White Haven a couple of years ago and and I think you offer a range of corporate and and also that big event that happens in September every year, yep the main, white on White. What an incredible experience to dress in white and be, uh, chaperoned to the most glorious beach in the world. It would have to be it was just voted.
Speaker 3:Number three in the world in it. Well, it should be number one in my estimation, but uh.
Speaker 2:And to enjoy champagne on the beach and Kev's wonderful and your wonderful hospitality, which is second to none, seafood and the best of what Queensland has to offer, and I remember it being one of most remarkable days of my life being out on that glorious sea. And then one of the highlights for me is the boat trip, you know, from Ailey Beach to White Haven. It is just spectacular and it's never the same twice.
Speaker 3:It's never the same. It it is a magic place. And Kev well, I've been sort of throwing myself all over the world and and sort of experiencing all sorts of things. Kev moved to the Whitsundays 40 something years ago as a young um, young chef and ended up managing several of the resorts and things up there and he's he just knew it was home, so he's just stayed. So it's almost like when I left Townsville as a young one, he was already entrenched there. It's like I had to travel around the world, meet him in China to come back and live back, just a stone's throw from where I used to fish with my uncles and my dad.
Speaker 2:So amazing and kind of special. The corollary to that story is that, um, I think we were going to one of your giving table things, which we'll talk about in a second, and my husband, philip, said oh, there's the best rumba in the world in Ailey.
Speaker 3:Beach and lo and behold it was situated in fish divine, which is rumba, no less than your Kev. It's Kev's rumba, yes, I mean. Who would have known? No, he's um. You know, he's got a pretty big footprint there in in the Whitsundays and everybody loves him because and I think the reason we resonate and know we're two peas in a pot is that I've witnessed him. He does without even thinking, he does for community and he does for other people and I just always have two. So I see him do things, not by design or by calculation, because sometimes people do good things for others, but you know, it's an agenda or a calculation, whereas I think we both just genuinely serving is in our DNA and we both just love to do things for others.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, we're, we're pretty happy up there so it's little wonder, then, that my giving table has sprouted out of both your creative energy and your sense of uh wanting to give back, and I want to also acknowledge, um, the wonderful Adagold. You know Jet Raffle. Uh, I think one of the things about dancing CEOs is that CEOs want to look at ways in which they can continue to support women's single service, and everyone has a very unique position in relation to how they want to do that. Your unique position is running this incredible jet raffle, with flights to do it Sundays and going to Whitehaven and staying somewhere amazing, and which you've done now for quite a few years, caitlin.
Speaker 3:We're up to number six, I think. So the first one I did was because I was dancing and it was just, you know, a little one that I thought, oh gee, this might be my only chance of fundraising. This is something I can put together. And I asked some fabulous suppliers and it just came together. And then every year, because we've gotten, you know, better at sharing the story and it's it's had better reach, so there's, you know, I think so often in the charity space, people get asked to give things, but they, if you're a business, you can't afford just to always give. You need to be making sure that you're. You know you're either getting publicity or or goodwill, or you know you've got to get something from it, and I've always looked at it from that hat of you know. I know what it's like to be a starving creative. I know what it's like to be a business person, and so you've got to.
Speaker 3:In philanthropy you have to marry all of those competing and and needing requirements, I guess. And so every time I approach people about the Jet Raffle, I always every year it gets better and people's willingness to donate. We've had some incredible, you know, like Paul Darazette from Coral Sea Marina and Resort he donated an incredible amount last year and the beautiful new Yangaro lodge that's only recently been built. They just strayed away and and I always go in expecting that I might have to pay something. You know, and particularly with, with Addigol, whether, whether there's something we're paying to get you know a discounted rate and early on that was you know we really needed to do that to prove it whereas now people are so generous that they say, no, we'll give you this as a full donation. You know, make the most of it. And which really leverages the power when people purchase a ticket.
Speaker 3:So much of it then is actually going where you want it to go. Because at the end of the day, if, if raising the funds costs you almost as much as you make, then you haven't really raised much. But if you're able to have people don't like with, with labels on the lawn, people are so incredible to donate something they've loved and hand it over for it to be re-loved, and that, you know, just from an ethical, from an environmental, just from a giving and a kindness space, it makes it so much more powerful. So every dollar works so much more in that situation and and I love and it's the same with the, with the Jet Raffle.
Speaker 3:We, you know, we will hopefully continue to keep doing it because, addigol, even though I'm no longer there, they really they love supporting dancing CEOs. They're wonderful, they really do and they're happy because they know I do all the heavy lifting. They just have to provide the aircraft and get all the you know, the contracts and things behind the scenes done. I can just go and say, right, who, who can we pull together? Sometimes we pulled super yachts in, sometimes we pull, you know, different accommodation helicopters, whatever it is. But but it's amazing, so we finally, I think, I think we've raised about 300,000 through the Jet Raffle.
Speaker 2:So, of that sort of three million dollars. 300,000 comes from the Jet Raffle, that's like 10 percent. That's pretty good. I know it's an amazing initiative and testament to your relationship, I guess. But you know I loved the way you said um, and some people often ask us. You know, we take great pride, as you do, in terms of having high caliber prices and sometimes you do have to actually give a bit to get those prices and I think a lot of people when they go concocting even a small raffle, think differently about.
Speaker 2:You've got to use what people donate, but sometimes you don't just use that as a starting point to. Then maybe you have to go and buy something else, but you'll get five times that back if the price is good. And so I think you know you've your what your philosophy around getting people to maybe even contribute a bit to get a whole lot more is a really clever and a good makes good business sense and I think it does come back to you know, because we're also, you know, we're very clearly business women and business minded.
Speaker 3:And if you, if you, if it doesn't make good business sense, then people can't keep supporting, and we lean so heavily on small business to do a lot of the heavy lifting. So what I see is we complain about government's not doing enough, but we don't want to pay more taxes, and then we also lean so heavily on small business, but we also kind of don't necessarily support them. I think they need to get any help, and so for me, it's got to be a situation where it's got to be a win-win, because if it's not working equitably and fairly, the community misses out. We all have an obligation. If we've got the ability to do more, we should, and we can't keep blaming the government for not picking up the slack.
Speaker 2:There's only so much they can do absolutely, and it's a bit of a win-win, as you say. So how I'm guessing this is a lovely entree into your newest fundraising initiative my giving table so tell us about that, because I have a feeling that has a lot to do with your wonderfully creative background. I think it's got something to do with your business around uh out of gold and around your textile and design foray, and also what you're doing in North Queensland. Tell us about my giving table.
Speaker 3:It's a wonderful initiative so my giving table began and it did begin before I met Kev, when I was I was working in out of gold and it you know it was, it was a very corporate role and I hadn't really done any. Yes, I'd used my creative skills, I guess, in terms of the marketing and blogs and things that I wrote for out of gold, but I was needing to have another project and I was feeling quite, you know, I was quite stable and secure because, you know, I was in a good role and the part of my brain that needed to come up with something needed to be triggered and entertained. So, and I wanted to, I have, over the years, done, had dinner parties, so I've hosted dinner parties and I've asked people to put money in the hat and raise funds. For example, I had several friends lost homes in the towns for floods, so I had, you know, 20 or 30 people come over.
Speaker 3:We cooked a big banquet, people through whatever money they wanted to, and I then was able to help several of the of the friends and family that had lost everything in the floods and that was really the initiation of it. I thought, well, okay, it's very hard to be number one, you need to have it, I guess, transparent. You can't just have cash that gets thrown at somebody that you then hope it goes to the right place, because I might have shown up with a lovely handbag the next week and someone might have thought, well, gee, did that actually go where it was meant to go, or did it go into my lovely handbag?
Speaker 2:I did notice the handbag today I know I got that from.
Speaker 3:I love my red handbag, a beautiful handbag, yes. So I guess I've been honing my business and entrepreneurial skills all my life as well as indulging my creative skills, so I've got kind of a I'm a pretty lucky balance of both and I understand that things need to pay their own way. But I wanted to create a way, and it was actually pre-covid, but then, as COVID developed, it all really came together even more because I thought, well, gee, if you can't be going out to, to big events etc, it's, it's a simple concept, so I should get back to the stop waffling and get back to nitty gritty. It's a concept where Marissa might host a dinner party. You'll use my giving table as your little event platform, where. So I'll set up a page and and use the, the terminology that you're wanting, and you pick a ticket price and you send that link out to your friends. They book and register and pay. Then they show up and have a beautiful dinner with you and the funds that then taken from, I've sort of got a, a quarantine bank account that the funds then go directly to the charity of choice. So it's all trackable, traceable, auditable. There was a lot of compliance. I think when I was setting enough, I got up to about 45 000 in legal and financial costs to get my contracting right, to get my compliance, to know that it was was just correct and sound, so that nobody could turn around and say, well, where did that money go? How did that work.
Speaker 3:So the long-term goal? Because at the time when I set it up I was still a single woman, a single, you know, business woman, and I was quite aware that really I didn't have a lot of financial security. I had a great job, but I may well be in one of those risk categories of the 50 year old plus women that get to a point that they don't have housing security. And so when I was, I was looking at my giving table when I set it up and I wanted it to be something that would. So it's a social enterprise and not for profit, so all I need for it to do is to pay its way. But I thought if it grew well enough and I could accumulate money and buy land, I could potentially start to build equitable housing, whether I do it with other people.
Speaker 3:So my long-term vision is to set up small, really well designed, beautiful living spaces for people that are at risk of being homeless. So you know, not just a housing commission where you don't really feel like you know you love and support, somewhere where there's a shared garden and there's a shared quiet space and there's you know you can have. You can live with a very small home. But what also need, if you've got a small home and you've got a community of people that care about you and are checking on you, that's pretty much all we need.
Speaker 3:It's not that difficult. It's not like we need a mansion, it's not like we need super, super, duper cars. It's pretty simple at the end of the day, and so that's the vision that I'm hoping one day will be realized out of what I started with my giving table, but it's initially at its core is just dinner parties, that that give money to a charity and it cuts out again. I was aware of the number of times we go to a gala event where we might pay $150 and 130 of it goes into paying to be at the venue because the venues have.
Speaker 3:Oh, I can't believe how many people think that the venue can just, they can't just give their staff and their venue for nothing. But if you come to my home and I've cleaned the toilet and I've set the table and I'm glad you're going to clean the toilet before. I get there excellent, but but all of those costs aren't coming off the ticket price, if you know what I mean that's, it's expensive to have events.
Speaker 2:I mean, even when we have events, we actually model on the fact that you, we don't make any money on the ticket price because once you've paid for staffing and food and drinks and everything else, there is no money to be made. So I think this is a great way of cutting out the middle man and the middle woman or the middle venue and still enjoying. I've had the privilege of being to three, I think, my giving tables so far. I think we're going to another one this week as well, which I think I'm cooking a course for the one that I'm coming to. Well, I've put myself down for a very special bruschetta that everyone knows is my signature dish, but it's wonderful. I mean, how much fun is it to be to cook that? Contribute it for free to a beautiful table of people that I know all their hearts are in the right place and I know, I think, that we're benefiting from a new disease this week, so it's an easy.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is easy and I think that's the trick. It is about choosing your own adventure, because you can. You know the host can either. You know, at times we do get chefs in and I care about a lot Kev and I will quite often do the cooking and we get asked all the time for that to be more and, as a consequence, I'm trying to find more chefs that will say, yes, I'll, I can donate my time. We can cover the costs of the food if a chef comes in. But so there's some of the dinners will have a private chef come in and they're in your home and that's fabulous and you can charge a higher ticket price. Or it can be as simple as each person bring a different, a different you know part of the dinner and maybe bring your own wine, but you're still coming together and having that, that united sense of caring about a particular topic and being interested in caring about the person you're raising money for. So it creates a different conversation and it is a different giving to just having a normal dinner party.
Speaker 2:I agree. Yeah, it's a great initiative and I remember, I think, talking to you when you were just starting to think about it. So it's lovely to see that it's germinated and it's actually now in operation and, as I said, this will be the fourth one I'm going to.
Speaker 3:I think I'm a alumni, or something.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I might get my 10th dinner for free or something. I'm not quite sure. I think it's very clear, Caitlin. We always like to end on a couple of questions what do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 3:I just want to be a four-year-old. So, to be honest, yeah, I'm quite happy to never grow up Any time I get serious enough that I feel like I'm growing up. To me, growing up would be being in that state of play and joyfulness that four-year-olds are in, because they're not carrying all that burden of criticism and judgment. They're just in that. So, yes, I'm going to grow up, I'm going to be four.
Speaker 2:I love the fact you still play with felt, because that actually could actually set you on the right path for doing that when you're all grown up, and I think I've seen so many examples in our conversation today about true happiness in your life. But if you had to pick something, if I had to say Caitlin Aslet, what is it that brings you happiness? What would your answer be?
Speaker 3:Oh true. Well, there's, of course, the happiness of being with my children, which you can't get past, but true, selfish, indulgent happiness is lying under the stars out at sea somewhere, hopefully on the top of our boat, and looking up and realizing just how insignificant we are. That, to me, is awe-inspiring and wonderful and true, contented happiness, because there's no ego and no judgment, they're just in awe. I think that would probably be my happiest place.
Speaker 2:I can certainly empathize with that and I think, on that note, I love the fact that we can have these conversations and even though we've talked about so much that you've achieved and so much that's inspired you and so much creativity and ingenuity that you've brought to the equation, whether it be through charitable purpose or dancing CEOs or my giving table at the end of the day you say, looking at the stars and realizing how insignificant you are is really a tribute to your absolute humble nature and it was so great to have this conversation with you. And thanks for being in the beautiful champagne from Madame Bollinger's house, another really great woman, who was quite a force to be reckoned with, as I'm sure you are too.
Speaker 3:Caitlin, and it's been fabulous to have you around today. Thank you for coming in. Thank you very much, Melissa. It's been a joy. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Such an interesting story and what an incredible adventure around the world at such a young age. As many of you know, or you should know by now, marisa will be once again dancing in Dancing CEOs, this time alongside Lorelie Cunningham, in the 2024 Dancing CEOs All Stars event benefiting Women's Legal Service. Queensland and Caitlin has an incredibly generous offer for the first person to register a my giving table event benefiting the Dancing CEO for 2024. If you are the first to register, you will receive a free bake-to-plate dinner cooked by Caitlin and Kev in your own home for up to 10 people. So head to the my Giving Table website now or go through the link in the episode description to register your my Giving Table party now, as usual. If you have any questions, you can send them through to podcasthandmarkhousecomau. That's H-A-N-W-O-R-T-H. If you liked today's episode, please rate, review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. We will be back soon with another special guest. Cheers, cheers.