Bite size highlights from 2025: Looking south with some of the best

Welcome back to our curtain-raiser series of bite size highlights drawn from the 2025 wrap up episode.

These were a few of the best community-generated stories of the year, strongly among the listener favourites. I love this particular mini-highlight reel - the way the music plays off what these folk have to say, culminating in Jenny treating us to an impromptu rendition of an old Irish hymn. Unforgettable.

Here are the voices, places and tunes you're hearing:

0m - Cathy McGowan (ep 254), with Sal Kimber doing a famous cover

0.33 - Dr Blake Scott (ep 256), for The MARSH (Marsh Appreciation and Restoration Society for Happiness) Project, Charleston, South Carolina

1.07 - Galaxy Groove, by Yarin Primak (from Artlist) (ep 256)

1.16 - Joel Caldwell, alongside Blake Scott (ep 256)

1.48 - Jenny Finn (ep 257), Floyd, Virginia

2.13 - Jenny sings an old Irish hymn

Title image: Joel Caldwell and Dr Blake Scott on the clean up beat (pic: Anthony James)

To access all episodes, including the full 2025 highlights package in ep 289, head to the website (where there’ll often be photos with each episode), or wherever you get your podcasts. 

With thanks to our wonderful guests and the musicians who generously granted permission for their music to be heard here.

And thanks for listening and supporting the podcast!

Chapter markers

Chapters

• 0:07 Believing In Participatory Democracy
• 0:33 Parenting Sparks A Cleanup And A Name
• 1:16 Choosing Joy While Doing The Work
• 1:49 From Ideas To Living Examples
• 2:11 A Community School Takes Shape

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

It's it's not so much the vision of transforming because I haven't actually got a vision of what that looks like. But this involvement of people in democracy, absolutely, I believe in it. And I'm seeing it everywhere. Huge numbers of people putting their hand up and saying, I want to be involved. What that produces for the country, I actually don't know. All I know it's for the better.

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

You know, we were just shooting the shit, really, having fun playing, taking a you know, tiny micro break from parenting. And all of a sudden, it's like, all right, let's do a cleanup. Oh, and why don't we come up with a name for our group as we clean up? And oh, wait a second, why don't we do a few of these other things? And we're doing it as we're parenting, and so who who wants to parent and look at the world as a piece of shit? I want my kids to enjoy life and to feel joyful and come down and see this not feel like we're all sinking and dying.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16

So our the Marsh project is an acronym, it's the Marsh Appreciation Restoration Society for Happiness. And that is the idea. It's like we don't want to just be angry all the time. You know, like the stakes are high, yes, but like let's not all be miserable, you know. Like let's have fun doing this. Like, let's pick up as much trash as we can until we're too tired, and then let's go eat pizza and drink a couple of beers, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 1:49

We need examples, not just ideas, not just conversations, not just thoughts. We need examples of what it looks like when a community, an intergenerational, diverse community says, you know what, we're gonna come together and we're gonna see what it means to foster vitality in ourselves with each other and in this place over time. And why not call it a school?

SPEAKER_03: 2:14

Ska Mayan tree lake. No a shave Taiwania glasses.