startup

What makes you want to cook? Why do you do it?

Because we have to eat—it seems an obvious answer.  But you might be surprised what the trainees said when I asked them that question. I spent Tuesday following their activity in the training kitchen at William Angliss.

There’s a certain exhilaration to working in a kitchen. Maybe it comes from the sharp objects and high heat—potential for disaster creates excitement and an incentive to get the job done correctly. Who knows. But what I do know is that the day I spent in the kitchen of William Angliss with the trainees was a real rush, because I got to see our trainees in action, knife skills, sautéing and all.

They start the day with a couple hours of cooking theory. In the afternoon, they move into the kitchen. On the day I saw them they made chicken wings in a honey and soy marinade, fried rice with ham and egg. They cooked the rice pilaf-style and infused it with star anise and ginger—something I definitely intend to try at home. The trainees finished the lesson with a rocket and grilled pear dish, which took them from 1pm to about 5pm.

Trading at Fed Square has been full of trial and error, the occasional cut finger and Pete’s favourite job of building shelves without the right tools. Throw together electricity issues, new sinks and pushing a half tonne of cart up an incline every morning has lead to a journey of many learnings. Learning to use our new equipment, learning to cook the food, and learning to smile through many ups and downs that come with the start up off any new enterprise— such as an outdoor food cart. We often wake in the mornings praying to the rain gods to ward off any dark cloud the may loom atop Fed Square.

At the end of trading recently we reached a small but very important milestone. Our trainees arrived and completed their first of many shifts down at the food carts.  The truth is that it was a hard shift for some of them to come to work. It was an exciting change for others. The truth is, hospitality isn’t an easy industry. It has its slow time and its busy hours.

But in the end the sizzle off the grill smells good, the trainees all smiled, and Pete left with a blue bandaid.

About four weeks ago Vanessa, one of our youth workers, sent around an email to the team requesting we bring in old magazines for our youth creative program. The email coincided with a discussion I’d just had with Sahil Merchant (pictured above) the founder and Chief Magazinologist at Mag Nation, that wonderful home of all things magazine. Sahil and his team had just dreamt up Undies Monday, a promotion being run across the month of March. All you had to do is walk into a Mag Nation store in Australia or New Zealand in your underwear and you get to choose a magazine of your choice up to the value of $50.

So I suggested the whole STREAT team do Undies Monday and we kick-start the youth library together.

Every Monday this month I’ve unsuccessfully tried to round up the crew. Now granted we’ve had a few other things on the last couple of Mondays (big stuff like our youth arriving or us kick-starting our street cafe at Fed Square). But today wasn’t any better. Everyone was too busy. Or they weren’t wearing the right undies. Or they thought it was too weird to be in their undies with their boss. Or they didn’t want to inflict themselves visually on others. Or they hadn’t done the necessary manscaping.

Should I go alone? Yes, because I’d been the one trying to hype up everyone else to do it.

So I jumped on the 109 tram and headed into Elizabeth St.

Just as I was about to get off the tram a thought struck me. What if doing it backfired and somehow damaged STREAT’s reputation? Is it weird for the CEO of a youth organisation to walk into a shop in their underwear to get resources for the youth in their program? Would potential funders, particularly the more conservative ones, see such behaviour as highly risky leadership behaviour and be cautious about investing in STREAT? What would the Board say? Or would people just laugh if they found out? Did it make a difference that I’d decided to do it for STREAT and not personally? Would it be the act of the leader of a youth organisation showing they could embrace their inner silliness and hadn’t lost their youthful side? Or could it be distorted by others as just plain creepy?

Quite coincidently when I arrived at Mag Nation Sahil was sitting out the front of the store dealing with his own dilemmas. He was waiting outside for ABC radio who were doing a live cross to the store whilst he was simultaneously fending off a pervert who had found out about the promotion and had positioned himself outside.

So Sahil and I ended up sitting on the street outside the store (whilst keeping an eye on the perve who was still circling) and debating our various choices and dilemmas as CEOs. We discussed how little decisions can have unintended consequences, both good and bad. For Sahil it had been great that the promo had gone viral and lots of people had been made happy by getting their favourite mag free. It was also good that the ABC and other media wanted to give their listeners a laugh. And the free promo Mag Nation was receiving was worth gold for the store, even after factoring in the high cost of the giveaways. But how to deal with the unintended consequence of the media coverage drawing out perverts? And what to do when the promo goes viral and can potentially ruin the store? And what should one do when an 18 year-old school girl turns up in her school uniform for the promo? Or what to do when you get a call from a stressed staff member because a woman wearing see through plastic underwear is making everyone feel uncomfortable?

Yesterday I walked out of the store with the latest Semi-Permanent art mag in my bag. You’ll probably never know if I bought it or got it for free. Either way the most valuable take-home was seeing how easily little decisions can have bigger consequences. 

I’d love your feedback about what I should have done.

It’s been a big week for STREAT. The trainees are in. We’re trading in Fed Square. And the STREAT team has been rolling up their sleeves, donning the trainers, and pushing those half-tonne carts around the Square morning and late afternoon.

This makes me think about generosity, and what a difference it can make in the everyday. Last month the New York Times (my favourite required reading) wrote about a woman in Brooklyn who is giving $100 dollars to people to give away in creative ways. My old roomates were part of this little experiment, called the Creative Philanthropy  project. Watch them pay people to talk to a stranger, with the option of holding hands with a stranger and walking around Bryant Park. For three walks people were paid $18. It seems like this little experiment produced some unexpected moments of social cohesion—a generous gift among the hustle of city life.

Another friend Charlie wrote on his blog Do Good Well about how social enterprise benefits from a culture of generosity. Traditional businesses compete for market share, whereas social business will thrive the more we grow the field. Our customers benefit when offered diverse options so that they can choose to consume responsibly across as many products and services as possible. This is intuitive and practical reasoning.

I’ve seen some old-fashioned generosity happening in Melbourne as well. Last month Social Traders and STREAT co-hosted the “Socially-enterprising Foodie’s Forum” (now a quarterly event) so that players in the food and social enterprise space can exchange ideas and learn from one another. Maybe one day this will develop into a network for consumers, a benchmark like Fair Trade that certifies social and environmental outcomes, but for now it’s enough to exchange lessons learned as the industry starts to form. Social enterprise is new to Australia, and any exchange of resources and hob-nobbing of like-minded folk is bound to produce good outcomes.

I’ve spent the last week dividing my time between the food carts in Federation Square and the orientation of the STREAT trainees. At Fed Square we’re interrupting people’s busy days to pitch the idea of a social enterprise helping homeless youth by  selling street hawker food. Despite the crazy (or crazy audacious) idea that it is, we’ve got good reception so far, and even offers from people who want to volunteer, and help spread the word that STREAT has come to town. The trainees have been doing a Foodie tour of the Victoria Market and getting their uniforms from William Angliss. In the midst of this, there’s a whole host of people—staff and volunteers—who are working flat-out to make the trainees’ experience as positive and engaging as possible. That effort is generous indeed. After all, it’s the little moments of individual generosity that build a greater culture. It can be the smallest interactions that change a person’s world view towards a wider embrace of their potential, and what they can achieve.

So what moments of generosity have you experienced?

What has touched your life and changed its direction?

How do you give gladly and give well?