EP.019 - Cameron Bray: R-Urban, Sustainable Food Systems, and Learning French in India

(upbeat music) - Hello everyone, welcome to Beez and a Pod. I'm your host Moe. - I'm Cole Hose Mash. - Today we're joined by a very special long anticipated guest, Cameron. - Hello, Cameron. - Johnny, my good to use your full name. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Cameron Bray. - Cameron Bray. - Cameron Joseph Mungo Bray. - One, that's my full name. - Who, Cameron Joseph Mungo Bray. Who are you? - Who, am I? - Oh my God. I don't know. This is a difficult question. - Yes, interview question. - When you say who are you? - Yeah, I mean, we know each other from the neighborhood, from Poplar. I work at a place called Robin, which is around the corner. It's like a garden and other things. It's a good way of describing it. But it's always difficult, 'cause I don't know if that is me. I am a part of Robin. - Yeah. - But who am I? - Well, do you want to tell everyone a bit about Robin? And what Robin do? 'Cause that's a part of who you are. - It's a part of who you are. It's a very important part of our life. - Yeah, yeah. It's an amazing place. I think it's got this aura. It's got an amazing aura. It's worth the visit because when you describe it, it doesn't quite, it's not, you know, you can't describe it very well. And you can't describe it very easily, 'cause it's super complicated. It's lots of different things at once. - Yeah. - But it's a cool spot. It's an old, I guess I'm describing it for someone who's never seen it before. It's an old car park. On the edge of a really busy road. It's a bunch of old garages. And it's like asphalt. Right, so this is what, this is kind of painting a picture of a quite strange place, right? And then within the little car park that we've got, there is a lot of amazing stuff that happens. So there's a bunch of food growing. We've got like 13 residents growing food then. From the Tevye estate, we've got a kitchen, the community kitchen, we run loads of meals out of. We've got places to gather, so we all hang out outside. We've got big tables to kind of gather around. We've got some studio spaces with amazing people in them, doing incredible work and running workshops. We've got a program of workshops that we put on with the people who are in the studios, but also with kind of a wider network of, you know, local legends or people with those of different expertise. That's like a place where stuff takes place. There's like a workshop so you can make stuff. There's a compost toilet so you can make a personal contribution. Just try not every donation has to be financial. It doesn't have to be financial, exactly. And there is, at the moment it's not there, but there is an anaerobic digesto as well. So it's a place where we, it's a place where testing out how you might think about food waste differently. And I might think about a system that's a bit more joined up at a neighborhood level. There's also mushroom farm. Yeah, I love mushrooms. I love your mushroom farm. It's like you're going into a freaky science lab. It's like a space, it's like a sci-fi. It really is. It's like being a sci-fi film. I've got a photo of it. If I remember when I'm editing, I'll try and add it in for. I'll add it in for life. Yeah. That's got that kind of like going in. Yeah, it's got like cool UV lights. Yeah, it's like there's an egg growing in there. Like an alien egg. There could be. And I'm going to testify to the space in itself because obviously this urban is a real side where I used to live. So I've been there 15 years and it's never been used. Like it's always been like a garage space. But even the garage is like I've never seen them in use. It's like some car park spaces there and so on. But like prior to you guys, it's never been in use. There's never been anything happening there. And then seeing how much it's grown, you know, how advanced it's become. And to see even being used by the community, it's such a. I'll testify in vouch for how amazing it is. Yeah, not really. Honestly, we speak about revenue a lot, are there? For avid listeners, they'll know there's been a few episodes where we've spoken at length about you guys. Thank you. Out of the avid listeners. Thanks for listening. Yeah, thank you for listening. Yeah, holla. All three. Yeah. So now it's. You know, I love the innovative nature of urban and kind of where you're trying to head towards. And, you know, there's so many awesome kind of concepts out there and I love that you guys bring it to here. Bring it, bring it to East London and coming up with new kind of adventures as well. And now it's awesome. It's really exciting. I guess that's the idea. It's like, you know, how do we test out new ways of living together? How do we test out ways that might prioritize different things, prioritize people in the neighborhood, prioritize, you know, different ways of thinking about waste or electricity or, you know, all this kind of stuff. Also, ways of gathering and ways of sharing knowledge. And, you know, how do we learn and how can we think about differently but the kind of spaces we can learn in and from and the kind of environments we can create which are actually maybe better for learning. You know, how do you make a more conducive environment than a superformal like classroom situation, right? Were you involved in setting up, Rob? Because I know there's a sister. Is it a sister in France? It's been happening for a long time. It was. I can't remember exactly the order in which things happened. But basically, public works, who I work for. It's a design practice, you know, kind of architects and artists working together, design, critical design practices, of course itself. We're working with a French organization called "Aterie d'Asture de Choc, Otogeré". Well, a-a-a. Ah! And together, they set up a few pilot of these projects. I think there's like three in Paris. They've kind of popped up and closed. I've still not. I've kept on going to one in Paris, you know. I've been in Paris a couple of times over the last years and I'm like, "Let's go have a look." Not after that. Gotta be done. And there was one set up in Hackney Wick as well, in like 2015, I think. And then in 2017, we're going to pop open. But I've only been around working here since 2019. When we moved in, we moved in at the same time. Don't you tell me, Tony? No, it wasn't 2019. 2021. OK. Basically, time is. Last year, you never know. Yeah, that's when things just opened up in there. Yes, it opened up. Yeah, like. Yeah, 'cause that's on sale. On sale, 2019 was COVID. Yeah, when we moved in to the TV Centre, lockdown hit three months later. Yeah. So we just got the contract for the building. We're closed for a year and a half. Yeah, we had a bit of a. But when I first started working, it was kind of weeks. It was in that COVID moment. And we were like, OK. So we became part of this amazing project, which you guys revolved with, and which I mean, it's like. I don't know, one of the most amazing things happening at the moment, the Just Fat Project, with the Women's Environmental Network. And so we had workshops planned. We were able to do loads of things, which we hadn't necessarily been able to do in such a kind of year-long program kind of way in the years before that. So the super amazing moment. But also kind of difficult, because these kind of like, you know, whatever, you and a half a lockdown that people have had, you know, almost come out of the house anymore. Yeah. And so we were like, OK, come on. We're putting on a program, and then, no one's coming into anything. And we had these. We had these really weird. When you had to do, like, you weren't allowed in the same space, social distancing, that's groups of six, whatever. So did these online, like, Zoom workshops? People were clearly just like, so I fed up with Zoom at this point. So no one came. I think Paul Mancreefe, the O.C. who's been coming since they won. He was like, I think he came to something. But this is after we'd done like, you know, big, we'd done a seed drop across the whole neighborhood. We sent seeds to all the households. Oh, that's big. And it was just. It was like a slow, slow burn, a slow starter. But from there, it's like. Flourish. Yeah. It's loads of stuff on there. Every Thursday, you can come along and there's cool shit. They're not. Yeah. Cool stuff. Cool stuff. It's OK. We'll add a buzzer. Sorry, bees. Cool stuff. Cool thing you're going to. So what's your origin story? What's your background? The villain origin story. Yeah. My origin story. What's your story? Why did you get here? Ah! You know what? I love people, man. I love people. And I love people coming together. And I've always been really, really interested in that. And I think that's the kind of maybe the end game for me. It's taken a few weird turns on the way. But I'm trained in architecture. So my background is architecture. I'm not allowed to call you. To call yourself an architect, you have to do a professional exam. I'm not done. So I'm not allowed to say my architecture. Part three. I would be a rubbish. I've not done my part. I actually would be quite a bad architect. Really? So I don't do it. I'm not a detailer. Why not? I don't think I have the ability to zoom in on details over a long period of time in a quite an abstract way. And to think super kind of 3D, like about a tiny little object. For me, it's much more about strategic thinking and about bringing people together and about ideas and maybe the beginnings of architecture projects, but not deliverable. So that's my education background. But my life background, maybe it could be interesting to chat with. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I lived in London for two years when I was a little baby in Southwest London. and two things and then at the age of two, me and my parents, I was at that time the only child, I've got two little brothers now, but me and my parents were moved to India, so moved to Delhi when I was two years old. - Wow, I didn't see that in London. - And spent my, spent until I was 15 living in Delhi, with a little gap, we had a little gap in the Delhi. - To you were 50, that's a long time. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I had a little. - What language do these people have there? - In Delhi, most people speak Hindi, but it's like-- - So you're fluent in Hindi. - So I speak, I know what, I was actually, I met someone at Ruben who is Bengali, but she lived in Mumbai, so she speaks like Mumbai Hindi. And so we were doing like, we did Monday night, what's that video called, Hindi classes for the whole world? - I speak a bit of Hindi. I don't, this is one of my big issues, is that I never, big issues my parents, big beef for my parents, is they never let me learn Hindi. 'Cause a lot of people speak English, yeah. - You spent 10 plus years over there, right? - Yeah, yeah. - You thought naturally, you'd pick your up though, you just listen to people speaking. - I think there is a fact over there, but I never got properly taught. I mean, it's a way to, you know, you live in a way of bubbles, whereas I went to a French school, I don't French, instead of French, in India. - Nice, nice. - Nice to go with, super. But yeah, gave me a love for like, people coming together, gave me love for like, big cities and like chaos, the chaos of big cities, I think I've had that forever now since then. - Yeah, yeah. - India's the place if you wanna be around a lot of people. - It's the place you're allowed to be. - And it's given me, it's given me a lifelong passion for like South Asian cooking as well. Which I think I try and bring with me here to Reuben as well. So yeah, then at 15, I moved, I had the opposite, I moved to the Lake District, moved to like rural Cumber Hill, where my grandparents lived. And I was living in a village with like, 50 people and so on. - 50. - Like it was like, no, 50 is like, 50 houses. I feel like 50 houses, a pub and a church. - Wow. - And that was the infrastructure for the video. - That was huge. - That was huge. - Yeah. - Which is quite wild. Lived in Lake District for three years. And then I moved to Edinburgh to study, did a degree in Edinburgh. - Wow. - I just got one for that. And then I ended up in London when I did my masters. - Wow, full circle. - Full circle. - And what sprung your kind of love, I'm assuming there's a love for nature and the environment, considering your work area. Where did that passion come from? - That's an interesting question. - Probably like from my upbringing a lot, like the kind of holidays we had as a kid, the kind of activities we did as kids, we've been outdoors a lot in the park or whatever it is. We used to live in Delhi, we used to live next to an amazing place called Human's Tomb, which is like, it's like a mini Taj Mahal. It's like inspired by Taj Mahal. It's like a Taj Mahal, but not made out of marble, made out of like sandstones, like red and kind of beige color. We used to go and hang out there, loads of kids and walk around lots and like go running, like go running around the edges of London, but you could kind of break in as well when it was closed. So when I was a bit older, when I was closer to the 50, this may be one of the reasons I left. (laughing) You could break in and you could go and like, they let the sunset over there was crazy, is that, I don't know how to imagine. So maybe that, maybe like, like I did my grandparents, actually my dad's parents were really into, to like taking pictures of flowers, it's kind of strange. So they've gone these tracks, they became a sets of the Himalayas. So Himalayan flowers in particular. So they're going on all these tracks. There's a kid we went on, loads of tracks in the pool, quite a lot. - Oh wow. - And in the north of India as well, and like Himachal, the Dresha stuff. So I think that must have been stilled it. But I think it's been a slow burn. You know, like working here, I feel like has been a real eye opener for me in terms of learning so much from people like Katrina, who are just like, incredibly knowledgeable and like resourceful and kind of experimental with things like God thing. And so that's made me fall in love with God, and like I didn't realize I love God, in the last years I've had this kind of explosion into that. But I think also like food, food has been a long interest, long term interest. And I think maybe trying to understand how food is grown and made has been something that I've zoomed in a bit more during this job. And it's super interesting. And I guess connects us to thinking about nature as well. - Yeah, and community, 'cause it's what I love about the work Robin does and the work we're doing here, and just fact as well as like for those who don't know, just fact, it was just food and climate transition. And it's a huge program funding pot by the Women's Environmental Network where it's all aimed at kind of doing loads of little experiments amongst a few different organizations in East London, where we're all trying to find ways of creating a just food system. And that comes in loads of shapes and forms and loads of different kind of, everyone's coming at it from a different angle of their expertise, which is the beauty of it, 'cause you're getting this beautiful, diverse range of solutions and you're considering different perspectives because there is no one-size-fits-all solution, right? Like, you know, it's the easy way, especially in kind of mainstream politics. It's just one big answer. You less, that's gonna fix everything. You know what I mean? Like we're gonna do this. It's just, there's no one blanket answer. It's lots of little things. And really, it's for particular communities, right? Every little hub, things work a little bit differently. And that's what I've really grown to appreciate with what we're all doing. And especially, I think, what really excites me about brother is the scalability of what you guys are trying to kind of find. So especially with the first thing I was introduced to and I came down to Robin with our young people was this kind of concept of trying to have a food waste collection system to then go into the anaerobic digester and create, you know, not just energy for kind of use, but also, you know, you create a compost that can then be grown. So, you know, you've got your food waste. - Yeah. - That your food, for the food waste away, gets collected, gets turned into compost, gets grown into food, you eat it and then you got the loop. - Yeah, the loop. - And I was like, - That can actually be done then. - I think there are other things. - Yeah, we can, we make compost now. I mean, the anaerobic digester system is about to be reinstalled on site, a kind of slightly higher spec, which means we can collect quite a lot more. I mean, you have to ask, I don't know if you guys have had like rock here on here. - No, I have to get rock here, though. - Because rock here is the kind of, the big brains behind all this AD stuff. But effectively, we're gonna be able to collect stuff from like, maybe one of the blocks, the tidbit of state. So I guess it's trying to say, you know, we've done this micro test. It was able to collect a little bit. Now I've been to, we kind of go a bit bigger. But also we're composting, just using a fairly straightforward kind of composting system, which is also amazing. You know, people bring us food all the time. And it's like, it's kind of crazy that we live in a city, and I guess is what you're alluding to a minute ago, and we're about like the scale at which stuff happens. And this kind of infrastructural scale means that, I guess it's like a big ship, isn't it? A big ship turns really slowly, whereas a little saving boat you can kind of zip around. - Yeah, exactly. - And so the way in which food waste is dealt with right now is really bad, you know, it goes. If you live in a block of flats, you don't get food waste collected separately. It just goes in your bin, in your black bag, and it gets incinerated. - Yeah. - And so that releases loads of stuff into the atmosphere. It has to travel already far away. I mean, there's always interesting layers to stuff, like the places where they process the stuff, even have a, basically the impact on the local area around that. It's pretty messed up, 'cause it's this huge waste infrastructure. So I guess it's trying to say, what if we rewire a lot of the systems that we use to live, the infrastructures that pin up how we live, and we think a little bit more was also being creatively, but how that could happen. It could have a benefit, rather than being the thing that's super messed up process, actually your food waste, it releases a gas, which you can burn, sure, but it does, composting does the same thing. It does release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, 'cause that stuff breaks down. But it's saying that it's a much more minimal impact than it would be because it's through the incinerator. And also that heat that you're creating from burning the gas can be used for something, but also creating a compost, which, like you say, you can grow it, or you're creating a liquid fertilizer, which you can grow it as well. - Yeah, that makes sense. - You know, I've always wondered whether there is a reason. Why we have kind of neglected building a food waste collection, kind of effectively recycling the food waste, sort of system versus how much effort we put into actually, kind of, you know, like we've got great recycling infrastructure. And from what I understand, and correctly, if I'm wrong, but in terms of positive impacts with the environment, surely dealing with food waste will have a greater sort of, impact in terms of how much you can use. Someone correct us 'cause I don't know. - Yeah, I don't know. - And this is purely conjecture. - I can't profess to be an expert at all of this stuff. - I imagine, I imagine the impact. - I imagine you're getting more, I don't know, maybe not. Maybe we need the next part of to corroborate the food. - You need the scientists in there, but I guess for us it's more like, what are also the social around the gas? So like, when you bring your food waste down and you grow food together, what does that make? What impact does that make on the neighborhood from a social perspective? That's a lot of the just that stuff as well. Yeah. It's saying like actually, a driving food system is one where people support each other and where a lot of the knowledge that already exists in the neighborhood is celebrated rather than ignored. And you get people out of the shed as well. Like that's the point of it. You realize how many one talented people are sitting around at home that have like so much experience and knowledge of certain things, topics that they probably love to talk about, discuss but maybe they're just spending at home. Maybe they're not as social or socially comfortable to get out of their spaces. But then you have things like this which enables them to come together and talk about something that they're really passionate about. And then yeah, all of a sudden, the next thing you know, you go a whole group of people coming together and discussing these things, discussing ideas. You just get a lot of further. You go a lot further. And you compare and know something, right? It's like there's different ways of growing things, different cultures, different ways of growing things. And when you assemble a group of people on a table to discuss that, like people know, people know stuff. Again, it's related to this teaching question or this education aim of the project. It's not saying that it's trying to reverse a little bit the way in which we think about how we learn. Because there's a hell of a lot of knowledge out there that needs maybe a moment to come together for you know, for people to feel comfortable to share. And maybe it needs, I think it's like linked to the ways in which people have been ignored or not felt valued in society. And I think there's big systemic issues that have created that like condition. But it's trying to make space for that to come out and to survive. That's it. Ever been like a moment or a series of moments that's kind of really inspired you in the work that you're doing. And inspire meaning, whatever you want it to mean, like inspire you to kind of keep doing what you're doing, inspire you to do something new, inspire you to see the world differently, to see something differently. These questions are difficult because then you're on the spot, but I almost wrong. But I guess for me, it feels like it's been meeting some of the, I guess a big reflection, a big inspiring reflection for me is that. Something that I think has happened through the project, which I think I'm probably the most proud of is that people like the place that is urban doesn't feel like it's got an own or a boss. And then people come to urban once, they come to the workshop, they learn something, they'll be really interested in. And then they'll come back a week later with their like kids, and they'll come back a couple weeks later with their sister and the sister's kids. And everyone becomes a host, you know, that they will be then hosting the sister, they'll be there saying come along, come along. Or like, you know, there's quite a big network of homeschoolers who come along and they'll invite each other and again, they'll be like, oh, come along, this is the place is our place now. And so it has this quality where people feel a sense of ownership of it and an ability to feel well coming off and to feel that it's a space where they can invite people to come to. And I think that feels like a big inspiring thing for me to have that. And I think to have met the people who. I guess started off like that and now, you know, two, three years later, I like absolutely integral to the day to day running of the project. So, you know, Katrina, who I mentioned, or someone like Ali or something like Nuri, someone like Alani, who, you know, Mord and Linda, Sunny Jarl, the people who are there, you know, weekend, we count, who were strangers, not that long ago. And to me, and you know, remains now, and that's, that's quite amazing. It's, it's, it's beautiful. And you do get that, that sense when you go there, even your kitchen, the people's kitchen, right. I love it. And being able to, to, to, to, to people to have access to that. It's not a special thing. Because it's not the case, like you don't have this everywhere. I think we're very fortunate. I live in Bethnoguna. I know there's a lot of stuff going on there. But it's not as kind of visible now there. I don't know how accessible. I've, like I've lived there for a while. And I've been trying to explore, trying to find things that are happening. And there's nothing like what we're doing here in Poplar. I'm sure this stuff out there that probably just needs to be highlighted that people need to know about. But I think what we're doing here is a special one. The amount, the diverse range of kind of projects that are giving people that sense of ownership is amazing. Yeah, it's not often you can walk into a space in London and feel like, I, this is, this is something I can kind of take ownership of and lead on. And yeah, it's very liberating. It's a special place. I think, I mean, I always say I know more people here than I do where I live. I don't live right now. I live, I live 20 minutes away. But this is, this is much more my neighborhood than the neighborhood living. I feel the same. And it's, you know, it's the thing that I love. And I think Robin is a great example of it is the use that the innovative and creative use of this use space and effectively wasted space. Because it's a pet peeve of mine like where where I live, we have these like in where the, where the like private car park is, they've got these random, and I've complained about this before. Masha's going to be like, here goes again about the bushes. Why can't they put any positive? Have you seen why they maybe bushes are useful? Maybe the birds are really happy. You have a listen to the bushes. It's true. But you're arrogance. It's true. But there's so many that and especially around the areas where around all the different blocks. I don't understand why like they can't be utilized for kind of multi use like you do need stuff that is just for the ecology. But there should also be like, like you guys utilize kind of any little bits that you can find for growing space that people can just kind of take ownership of. We have like rows and rows and rows of these bushes and trees. Maybe at least have like one or two in there that people can grow stuff. But the thing is there's no infrastructure in place for people to be able to reach out to the landlords of that area to actually ask for that. And I've tried and they even had a community consultation in a I didn't even know we had a tiny little community center that is closed all year except for winter when they make it a warm bank that is not well advertised. But the space just sits there and they had what I've lived there for three years and they've had one community consultation like, hey, what do you want to see around the area? And I came there and I offered I was like, look, I helped manage your community center. I'm just happy to volunteer as much of my time to make something happen here or in the area, give them my number, tell them this is where I live, here's my number, here's my email, my work number, just contact me when I can do and I've not heard back at all. They clearly don't take B seriously. They don't take B seriously. I think that's the crux of the problem is you can't because for us to be able to do stuff like this, we need to be able to contact those in power that have the ability to make this stuff. And this is such a block in most places that you can't access that kind of power or even like build up a community kind of demand to ask for it. I don't know what it is. I mean, there's like so many different factors that could be doing that. Is it like that it's a council run service and they don't have any funding, so they don't have any resources to just have someone there you can reach out to when council's in the tourist. Yeah, impossible to take. They're known for you. They're known for like not being able to reach them like literally anyone you speak to, they always say, I've been trying to get a hold of the council. But I think it wasn't the council's this big thing. It's like how do you know there's a million. There's so much work with councils of the moment, my other job. I still don't understand how they work. Yeah. There's so many people that you want to have this team. You don't have this team. And the teams don't speak to each other. No, they don't. Even with any associations, they have departments. Right. So like, for example, you can get like in one department, you probably get to speak to them all the time. You get to know someone. But they may not be the kind of people that you actually need. You need someone else from the other department. And then there goes. So you never get a hold of them. And I think that's similar to the council. It's like one department will be really good, really responsive. But you know that they're not really in charge of what you're kind of after what you're looking for. Even about the new spaces, things like that, which is you don't know who's in charge of that or who you can get to touch with. This is the thing that makes the case for communities having like power and control over stuff. Because when a community runs stuff, you know that it's it's clear. Like the decision makers are these people. Yeah. And they live around the corner. They're on your doorstep. You see them there. I think there's, you know, in terms of the management of assets of like public assets. Community sense. I mean, you guys are a case. point right, community centers or like a car park whatever I think when you've got an organization that is a smaller organization not this big machine in the council there's running stuff I mean it's weird because it's like at the same time like a weirdly neoliberal argument but the council shouldn't be running stuff yeah but actually there's a lot more agility and a lot more local relevance when you when you when you let communities control stuff. The effects we need there needs to be a hyper localized kind of devolution so it's like power needs like cool we've gone to a point where local councils have a lot more power which is great because again they can make local decisions but then there's that next layer down because like like boroughs are all different shapes and sizes time this is huge I mean maybe not compared to other boroughs where it feels massive and it is quite big and it's very diverse and everybody's like you know you we're in one postcard E14 and you've got one center of it that's worth hundreds of billions and then you know you walk five minutes and then you've got poverty-stricken people people that can't afford to eat to eat their homes and you know the needs are going to be different and then you walk a little bit further and you've got people you know they can maintain a decent life for themselves making you know just about get by and you know I mean this it's so diverse and everyone lives in clusters because it's just how things work and those clusters need to be able to organize themselves and be able to make their own decisions and I don't know man we need to bring a politician on here to this green Jeremy Corbyn on here to spill the beans because it has a work that would be amazing because it's it's we need to know and you know we've recently a leaders in community recently have joined as members for Citizens UK I'm not sure if you heard of them they're awesome so it's a national group all around kind of community organizing and leveraging power and community power to serve the needs of the community and their biggest kind of crowning achievement was getting the London the National Living Wage the sorry the real yeah the living the living wage yeah they're great you guys will we can facilitate an introduction of them because they're amazing but yeah the National the Living Wage yeah that was something that they have been we were campaigning for four years and years and years until it got adopted as an official policy so it's you know signed into law now yeah and it's all it's a legacy that's still going you've got the London Living Wage now and the the most recent thing is trying to fight for living wage for carers but anyway they are an organization that facilitates this and that's what we're like they're trying to push this whole thing where we want to fight for more defolution on that's one of their they've got loads of agenda points yeah I think it's good to get really nerdy about this kind of legislatively because I mean I'm just thinking when you're saying this before I was thinking about the Sones Centre in time at so much fun yeah I had about what's something there they got evicted by the sort of the council owns the space they got given like a super short eviction notice and then they're like nah man we've been here for years we're a community organization we're gonna try and buy the building we want a fundraiser to buy the building to do I think they call it community asset trust because it's like why does the council know you know what what's the what's the relevance of the council doing this thing and we keep people out who are doing good good work yeah it's a community space that's what I mean but they're own their own buildings or they'll have assets but then they'll never be in use or if they have it they won't have use for it like it's just for them it's a property but for everyone else in the community you've got an image like especially if you've got the the managers of the place there we're doing amazing work for the community it's such a big thing for them but for the for them for the councilor like oh it's just something we own it's just a property yeah yeah I'd like to find out how churches work you know because churches are interesting because they do a lot of community stuff right but they're always owned the building yeah it's it's an interesting model we should get get get church yeah church on get get chairman of of the trustees church because it's it's a long established you know institution so I'm sure there's there's hotter centuries of like you know legislation and precedence that they can play on but to go back to you do you have to get a bit nerdy about some of the legislative stuff because it's it's how you you have to speak their language you have to understand how they work it's very difficult and it's it's intentionally built that way like we were saying earlier where it's hard to get in touch with councils this you know the bureaucracy exists for a reason it is a tool yeah it's a tool it's a tool and it's you know it's one kind of method of maintaining control because if they were easy to access we'd be able to get everything we want we were yeah which is goes against some of that stuff we'll go against their interest which is weird because their interests meant to be our interests but that's not always the case yeah yeah exactly um so uh what's been kind of a challenge that you face i know we've been speaking about challenges you know my big challenge is right now well is that i'm supposed to be somewhere else oh my god it's three okay like let's wrap let's wrap it up let's wrap it up okay that's a good good leeway that's a good challenge yeah but we'll bring we're gonna have you back we have to i would love to come back but maybe also to do a little plug the the challenge the thing i'm going to right now is uh is a meeting of the teviate people's kitchen which is this amazing group of local legends that have come together over the last few months support by when we got one um support by just fact to think about okay you know right now we depend on on craft funding to do stuff right how do we think about different ways and different ways different ways of organizing with different ways of running programming so that the amazing work that i think everyone does within the context of urban same with you guys how can that keep going you know how do we keep doing stuff so that we're a bit a bit more resilient bit less grant rely so training is testing business ideas it's you know running i mean you know running meals running running events running fundraisers that's what we're doing that well thank you for leaving us on like the juiciest thing that we get stuck into so now we go bring him back for part yeah now we are we organize it again but Cameron thank you so much for your time like this has been a great long-end to spare conversation we'll back out another time again it's been joyful you have to come you know i do radios or you have to come on my radio show can we trust his yeah wait wait it's a it's radios not this it's okay this just makes me feel this it makes it it will it will pass in island and yeah i will come through that would be great yes something a wild and a little plug for listeners bees in a wild new series if you like the podcast you love bees in a wild we go out in the wild mash hasn't joined me for one yet um but we've got one coming soon actually for the following honey harvest but we're gonna wrap it up there yeah thank you let's get it out of here time and thank you for listening for listening in thank you for listening yeah tune in round two yeah round two it's gonna come soon uh yeah thank you for listening i've been your host mo i've been your co-host man and you've been listening to bees in a pod make sure you like comment subscribe all of the good stuff hit the notification bell uh ding dong ding dong uh ding dong uh thank you