My takeaway from the conference is more the awareness and the environment and the practicality of even simple things like our waste and how much waste we have, and being aware more of our everyday actions.

I’m a lecturer in management at Swinburne University of Technology at Hawthorne in Melbourne. I’ve been hearing of Newkind for a number of years actually. And it was this year that I felt a clear intention that really drove me here. I’m teaching business students system thinking, sustainability and business ethics and I feel it has always a number of new ideas, new initiatives that I can feed into that. I see my work as a vehicle for social change and I feel Newkind is a big vehicle for social change. I don’t have one favourite keynote or workshop, but I really feel like this connects people in a vitally important way. I feel I haven’t come across a platform that does connect people from all walks of life, different expertise, backgrounds, parts of society in a similar way, and I feel Newkind is really adopting a unique position in that. That’s why I would love to see it going forwards. I actually had a vision today of Newkind becoming a global movement. My idea is that 10 years going forwards, we will have Newkind workshops all over the world. Little regional conferences where people in other parts of the world come together in a similar way to share knowledge and that there will be some exchange between all those global hubs where we keep feeding each other. That’s my dream, my vision. I’ll be back next year with more input than I’ve given this year and I look forward to it.

Igor Kreyman, The Human COnnection Movement

I’m from Sydney and the highlight of Newkind for me was the people. Definitely the people. Every single time I had an opportunity to connect with someone, and just have a discussion and get to know them and just sit in that commonality and understanding that we’re here for the same reason. It was just really extremely beautiful. I’m very honoured to be here experiencing these amazing people and speakers.

AMy Churchouse, THe Human Connection Movement

People definitely are the highlight for me here at Newkind, but also my major insight was definitely that we have to do this together.

We’re in this together, and going through grief or trauma; it’s best to do that in a team with people supporting you. You don’t have to do it alone.

Kim, Head of Newkind COnstruction

I’m in charge of construction here and I normally work with my son and we do small building works and we came to the first one because Sam sold a generator to Erfan and we then just sort of followed that to the first Newkind. I was ready to escape in case it was all too esoteric. But after the first day I knew I was in the right place. Sam and I have been constructing stuff for Newkind ever since. So my favourite project here is the wash-up bench, which Sam and I put together and the water boil that’s over here, which this year has reached perfection.

And the bagpipes! I played bagpipes and I loan tools to everybody, and everybody does the right thing and puts them back in the van at the end. One of the things I take from here is that lovely chance to just trust everybody on this site. I’d like to be able to do that all the time in my life and I can incorporate that. I can add trust to things that I do and most of the time it’s okay and the few times when it’s not okay, I’ll say it doesn’t matter. That’s what life is about. Sometimes you go for a long walk and occasionally you’ll fall over. Well what do you do? You just get back up and you keep on walking.

I come from Hobart and my favourite thing about the festival was listening to the zero waste free talk by, Che and Asher. It was very interesting.

Steph, Newkind Volunteer

I’ve been helping people feel welcome this year at Newkind. I’ve been here the last few years and it’s amazing to see how it’s grown as a festival. It’s really lovely how it just changes a little bit each year and it just becomes more and more onto it and more and more is being learnt every year. Something is always a bit different. But my main takeaway this year is that I felt in myself like something was a little bit off for a while and I feel like something’s really opened in my heart after being in the breath-work workshop. And it’s really exciting because now I feel like I know where I’m going for the next bit of time. It’s a lot of clarity. It’s this really lovely open feeling and I’m just so grateful for everyone here because it’s happened together and we’re all part of this together and it’s beautiful.

Lenny, Newkind Cameraman

I’m one of the camera crew here at Newkind. I’ve been on the site for probably about a week now. My main job with the media crew personally is to basically gather shots so that Erfan can build some promotion for next year. What I’ve been focusing on is getting very natural, genuine shots of people at workshops, dancing, going about their business and just interacting with one another throughout the week, which has been really cool. I come from an illustration and a film making background so I’ve done a few events but not anything quite like this before, which is very interesting and it becomes a bit of a challenge when you’re relying on solar power to charge your camera batteries! But, it’s very rewarding and it’s very different to the kind of conventions and events and concerts I’ve done in the past. It is really cool. What I’m taking away from this is a lot of positive collaboration and working together and learning together. Newkind is basically just one massive classroom and every student’s very passionate and very driven and it’s awesome.

Together we can achieve the things that we can’t achieve on our own.

But it also reminded me that we have to do our inner work and we have to learn to care for ourselves deeply and to clear ourselves so that we are able to come and do the important work for our planet effectively and be more efficient and not waste time with carrying our baggage around with us. But once we deal with that, we have the space and the capacity to be more effective out in the world. That has been a beautiful message.

I run Bewitched and I’m based in Brisbane and it’s my first year at Newkind and it’s been really interesting for me. I’m very passionate about our environment and that was probably the main reason why I’m here, to connect with like-minded people and get new ideas. I really liked Stewart’s talk about permaculture and I’ve started getting into it, but what I found amazing is just the amount of projects he has going on at the same time and all these amazing things like bio-gas reactor and solar and mushrooms and everything. It’s pretty amazing.

I’m really excited to be here at Newkind. There’s so much more this year to see. Everyone seems to be focused on the really important core business which is building community from the ground up and for us that’s really, really important with the My New Neighbour Campaign. I’m really excited to see that this is the anthem of this festival; building community, creating bonds and trying to search for the way forward.

I’m from the Sunshine Coast, and it’s been an honour to attend Newkind 2020. It’s been lots of different workshops and discussions. Some of the things that I’ll certainly take away from it though are in line with my own values, which are that a lot of the solutions being proposed are community based and from the ground up rather than from the top down.

I’ve been cooking at the festival and running the kitchen. My biggest takeaway is the fact that everybody here seems to be so excited, that they find kindred spirits and souls that they could talk about anything with and it’s not judged and it’s one family.