Are You Bogged Mate?

Ep.12 - Bogged Brakes #3 Wrap Up

The 3rd Bogged Brakes event put on by Are You Bogged Mate? has just wrapped up.

20 blokes, strangers one day, life long mates 4 days later. How does it happen?

Find out in this episode as AYBM inducts another 20 Blokes into Marys Army of guys who are helping her to help Aussie blokes get the shit out of their buckets.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Broadcast on:: 09 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

so welcome to another episode of the Aya Bog mate podcast with Mary O'Brien from the Aya Bog mate organisation Mary you've had your hair done. Yeah well we have to get rid of the grey somehow don't we? So you've gone the colour and cut looks awesome about about 24 hours ahead of you on that one after a big weekend of bog breaks. Well after a fair bit of a hectic schedule on the weekend there wasn't a lot of hair washing went on so a lot of sand a lot of dirt. Before we get into covering off the bog breaks event that was on the weekend which is just freaking phenomenal congratulations on becoming a grandma again. Thank you yes so I have a grandson now so now I've got one of each a granddaughter and a grandson so pretty excited about that and I guess since my focus is on men it's awesome to have a grandsons as well so they're both adorable pretty excited. Fantastic and everyone's well yep yep went in yesterday afternoon spent a bit of time with them which was great since they were desperately trying to ring me over the weekend and I couldn't take calls so yeah and since we caught up last time as well you were on the road and got yourself a nice little gift which I can't quite see in the background yet I thought you might have popped that up in the office. He's right he beside me actually. Yeah do you want to explain that for us? Yeah I was very fortunate that one of the guys who came to our first bog breaks is right into metal art and he's super talented and he secretly with the backing and support of the other guys that came to the first bog breaks they had this secret society going on to get all these little bits and make this incredible piece of metal art so I have this great big round plaque it's like the top of a 44 gallon drum. I'm showing my age there aren't I 200 litre drum and it's got the Aya Bogd mate logo on it made out of different bits of scrap metal there's a bit of a vice grips there there's bike chain is sort of the mud under the tractor and the bloke it's all made out of scrap metal and if anyone's looking for their 10 mil socket it's in there as well there's a 10 mil socket as part of the tractor so I think that's pretty hilarious and everyone's always looking for the 10 mil socket and there it is right there beside me. Does Damon do that for a crust or is that like a side thing that he does? It's his hobby it's one of his hobbies he is a boilermaker by trade so he's pretty damn handy at welding so he finds that a really good relaxation thing and it's one of the things he does to delete head noise so that's just a great outlet a really creative outlet as well and he's super good at it and he's just been off to do a course down in southern New South Wales so he's made some very cool stuff there as well oh I think I saw that on the on the group just earlier today that one of the guys was heading off I didn't put two and two together but that's what it is that's awesome and Quinno was involved in that as well with the layering from his 3D printer yeah yep so Jesse and Quinn did the 3D printing of the words and it's really cool it actually glows in the dark the words actually glow in the dark as well in the colors of the four main tractors right well yeah just it just glows in the dark so even when you turn the lights off it will glow in the dark oh right okay nice yeah so it's yeah it's got the LED lights behind it and you can change the color so we don't have to be biased towards any particular tractor brand we can change it to green red blue yellow so yeah what is yours if you got a you know just a bit of a soft spot for one of the particular colors I should say that slash makes but yeah I do like green ones my lawn I was green so yeah green with a bit of yellow writing yep yep now on my journey home I actually had a listen to a few podcasts on the drive back down from Central Queensland back down to Mexico and one of the podcasts I was listening to was something you suggested to me and you're a guest on do you want to tell us a little bit about that podcast is that the five of my life one is that the one you were listening to yeah it's the one I was listening to yeah because I guess you have been on quite a few podcasts so yeah yeah and I guess that one was quite different to the normal ones that I'm asked to be on because most of the podcasts that I'm on 99% of them are about a bogged mate and about the organization and about what I do how it started all that sort of stuff so this one is just such a different approach and the format that he has is super unique and and I just think fascinating and has some terribly interesting people on there he has quite famous people he has everyday ordinary Joe's like me on there it's just I love the format and so you get to pick five things he asked you and he explains the the purpose of it and he doesn't want to know why you pick those five things but you have to pick a movie a book a place a song and a possession that means something to you so there's a reason so they don't have to be expensive things and he doesn't want you to pick your favorite movie or your favorite song it's the story behind it and so that's what the podcast is about is about getting out the story from you as to why that's important to you and yeah I really enjoy listening to that podcast and the I guess the story behind things that and particularly of some quite famous people that we sort of know they're public persona but this is a bit more of a deep dive into who you are as a person so yeah they're personality yeah I said to Nigel Marsh who runs the podcast it's a bit like an audit of your heart to really sit back and think about what's important to you particularly when you are choosing a possession or something like that like what speaks to you what is important to you and yeah they can be super simple things yeah I could really hear the thought that you'd put into all the answers there and that it sounded like you took some time to have a really deep dive into coming up with the you know you can't with some fantastic answers yeah I actually I never put so much effort and thought into a podcast in my life not even my own it's it really did it made me sit back and think when I sort of spoke to Nigel and understood what he was trying to do and I I was probably a bit nervous about it um I'm quite happy to talk about the the public side of it but once you start delving into the the personal side of it that's a puts a whole different spin on it yeah he's had some amazing interesting people on there from all walks of life and artists and politicians and filmmakers and just incredible people and when when you hear their story about their whatever it is that possession in particular the possession I think is really an interesting thing um but yeah the song or the whatever why that's important to them and the background story to it is super interesting it's a great podcast and it's called five of my life as in the number five of my life yeah and I don't want to steal the thunder any thunder from the podcast because it is a ripping listen to go in here just just another side of yourself like you said all the podcasts that you've done is about the organization and how it's evolved but this is about you and something that um kind of blew my mind in it is that you're a golden guitar nominee I found out oh do you know you didn't know that yeah that's that is pretty ridiculous for someone who cannot clap in time with the music isn't it so well yeah so yeah yeah yeah yeah that's probably one of I guess there's so much in my life since writing this article that has come out of left field and you know interesting amazing stuff that not everyone gets to do and I get to meet some pretty cool and famous people but yeah when you when you get that um yeah nominated for a goal guitar that's that was completely left field that that just yeah I just didn't expect that at all do you want to explain what you were nominated for would you prefer to leave that in the five of my life podcast and and uh let everyone go hear it from there yeah so it's actually a song that I well technically it's a poem so I wrote a poem which I do write a little bit of bush a bush poetry occasionally and it was a song that I wrote well a poem that I wrote and um Angus Gill who is a goal guitar winner for Australian bush ballad of the year one was looking to do something on mental health and particularly rural mental health for the farmer mental health was what he was looking at and he found my website and found the bogged blog on the website where I had posted that poem and yeah he and Alan Mackey he found the poem and went to Alan Mackey who's a a great musician and songwriter and together they put it to music they changed a few other words but not much and in typical Mary's dialogue it is quite a long poem so they had to shorten it up and I didn't know anything about this so essentially instead of asking permission they decided they'd be big forgiveness and how did you feel about that I was very nervous very nervous about that so I got this phone call from this blog I'd never heard of and he asked me if I'd heard of Angus Gill which I hadn't and he said he's an up-and-coming country music star and he won goal guitar last year at Tamworth for Australian bush ballad of the year he has found your poem we have put it to music we have changed a couple of words here and there but mainly what they did was reshuffle the words around so pretty much just sort of works like from a rhyming yeah from the singing from a song structure yeah so I was very nervous because the poem is deeply personal to me it's about the the death of my father and I thought oh if he blokes a break this poem I will kill you and anyway I listened to it and they had done an amazing job and they hadn't changed my words so yeah I was I was really stoked with it and yeah they and that was the phone call we found your poem we put it to music do you want to have a listen we want to nominate it in the goal guitar awards and I was like I yeah I thought it was a G up I thought it was a complete G out yeah wow and turns out yeah we made the final five in the category of a bush ballad Australian bush ballad yeah wow there we go yeah so we got to walk the red carpet at Tamworth which was surreal surreal um something picked up in the bog breaks weekend as well which we will get into in just a moment but you were talking when we're talking to the guys you referred to you know the stats as a part of your presentation the seven men a day stats and you said that the the new updated stats are due out have they come out yet or are we still waiting for those new stats to come out um tomorrow I think they're due out tomorrow so we will post stuff on that when we get those those numbers I will crunch those numbers I'll dig into them a little bit further than the media release stuff and actually go into the spreadsheets and crunch the numbers a bit more and we put something out on socials about that so it's always a fairly nervous time of year for me to see whether that's going north or south yep so that's on the stationery are you bogged mate socials yeah we will put something out on socials when we get the the new suicide data from the ABS so yeah all right and just before we do get into it we have our first speak pipe call speakpipe.com slash a y b m did we bug mate we got a call oh wow believe it or not would you like to hear it was it good or bad have a listen okay hey good hey mary your noise you know you're here I just sort of let you know enjoy and listen to the podcast and yeah for the record the container is dead level really good yeah that's awesome so we at least know that one person's listing BT oh that's awesome that my neighbor took the time to to make that call it's um I'm glad that the container is level because that was something I think we mentioned in the first one that yep because you were sitting out on the deck you could hear the the dumpy level going and um so for but yeah we didn't hear it inside I didn't yeah couldn't really hear it inside you wouldn't have at all because I was sitting out on the deck with all the equipment so just for some context for if you're not quite across what was going on um a few months ago I was at mary's place and we recorded a whole heap of podcasts to get in the can for us just because a mary schedule is just so full and throughout a lot of the recordings mary's neighbor just had that dumpy level running flat out for the weekend and yeah he was putting a shipping container in place so there is uh yeah that's great to hear that it's level yeah that's awesome and it was good to good that he ragged too that's awesome brilliant all right let's do it bogged brakes number two for 2024 we have literally just arrived home it finished up only a couple of days ago um did the drive back from um from back down to mexico you've turned up home yesterday as well yes how are you feeling yeah i'm exhausted look at my eyes for goodness sake it's it is full on it is a very full on day but i want to start by thanking you for being part of the third bog breaks it was awesome and we we need a range of facilitators and i need a bank of them too because i can't wear them out so it was awesome that you could be a part of it and that you volunteered to to give up your time and your time with your family and your time away from home and i was a bit concerned about you driving all that way but i think as you may have now realized that after bog breaks there's a lot of processing to do and so at least you did have some time in the car to have some silence and have some time to process as well so and it was brilliant so two days two and a bit days in the car and pretty much for the first day and a bit yeah it was a lot of silence so i listen to you know a bit a bit of breezy's podcast actually um dead-ass podcast and that's the first time i've really had a good listen to that and quite enjoyed that yeah but a lot of silence as well and then it was kind of about the middle of the second day that i actually started communicating with a lot of the guys from the weekend and it was it was beautiful like that they were texting me and calling me to make sure that you know i'm going okay on the drive and ended up sort of calling a couple of them and having a really good chat and i think i spent probably the last five hours of the drive maybe from phone call to phone call to phone call and it got me all the way home and yeah it was just awesome and like these are guys that five days prior i never knew existed and here you are having these conversations like you've known them for years and that is probably one of the biggest takeouts you gave me the heads up on this about this is what happens at bogged brakes and i'm like oh yeah yeah i'm sure that that's fantastic having experienced it i'm going to take a word from your book mary and just say wow because it was freaking awesome it is very hard to describe to people what happens there and particularly as a facilitator you get to see that change in those guys that we bring guys from all walks of life from very different backgrounds that would never cross paths or never talk to each other and we sort of level the playing field and they just yeah and this group in particular gelled really well so often on the first evening or afternoon i get a bit nervous that they're not going to gel they always have but this group in particular just gel so quickly and that i thought wow this is you know going to be a great one because they just clicked straight up they were like they knew each other forever and that i think that was the phone call i made to Jenny on the first afternoon yeah you know five o'clock i said this group have already clicked and we haven't even sat beside the fire yet you know what i reckon might have been a big part of that because of the way they commuted to the location they came through the one airport and a lot of them were wearing it's it's elf's gear it's two flog's gear it's knuckles hats and it's bogged stuff yeah they had all the merch on and they all said to me that they deliberately did that now for every other one they all come through the same airport we make sure they're all on the same flock but this group wanted they were sort of playing spot the other bog breaks bloke before we get there yeah and so walking through the airport they were looking for alpha merch they were looking for two flogs merch they were looking for a bogged mate merchant and knuckles hats and go oh i reckon he's it and and yeah so they they had connected at the airports as well and yeah that was pretty interested they just had this little game of themselves of spot the bog breaks like before we get there playing spot oh and and i reckon that was the the very starting point of that relationship probably you know getting underway a lot quicker but but it was really interesting to see on that first night yeah i think things were sort of quiet-ish and and not too rowdy by the time you get to sunday night man the volume level was just complete opposite changes changes unbelievably and that's the way you've built it and and again you told me about this the way that you've built the activities and the things that you do it it it's kind of helps with that evolution of the relationships and and what you do on a sunday you you wouldn't do on the first day because it wouldn't work and again you explain that to me and i'm yeah yeah no that's fantastic to see it in action it just really sunk in it's like right that's why she did that and i love what you said just before about the level playing field so you know just talking to um Sharon and the girls when i got home and and a couple of other people i likened it to walking into a pub and if you saw those 20 blokes in the pub you wouldn't necessarily go talk to a lot of them because i don't know just you know pre you know just judging a book by its cover or whatever exactly that's exactly but but that's what quite a few of the guys said to me on sunday night the one of the biggest things they took away from it was i shouldn't judge a book by its cover because if they walked into a pub they probably wouldn't say good data those blokes and quite a few of them came up and said that's the one thing that you look at that bloke and he looks tough and he looks like he's got his shit together essentially yep but we know now what he's got going on yep what is the stuff in his bucket and so i think that's that you know leveling the playing field that it's this it's a safe place there's no judgment there that all of those blokes it no one cares yep how much money they've got no one cares how successful or unsuccessful they are no one cares whether they uh you know own thousands of hectares or weather or stuff or whether they're a shearer or driver chuck or they don't care no one cares it's a shit like it's the great leveler and that's something i really got out of that um and just loved like because we're so you know pre-wide to just judge yeah and you see on that first night that they'll tend to stick if you've got two blokes who've come together whether they're mates or brothers or father and son or whatever you'll sort of see him stay in their little groups on that first night and by the second or third night you should just see them sort of they've made all these other mates and they're drifting around all mates and all sharing stuff and laughing and having fun and and having those serious conversations with complete strangers yeah because they've connected they've made a connection and we see that with the previous groups that blokes from other end of the country are ringing each other because they're both sitting on a header or or in a truck or whatever they're doing it all hours of the night and you know we've seen situations from previous groups where one of the blokes is having a rough day or a rough time and he will ring one of the other blokes at two o'clock in the morning and that's what we want don't sit there and suffer in silence you've got that connection you've got this brotherhood yep and it is that therefore it is exactly that and that's what they refer to it as that's what it feels like one of the guys i was talking to sort of not too far away from home and um and he was saying mate we've already been talking with you know two or three the other guys that were in this bog breaks about catching up and going to a particular location and there's already another couple of guys that might be from the original bog breaks who have linked into that and all of a sudden they're already connecting and getting together and again these you know you're talking about events that have happened over a year and a half apart yeah folks who do not know each other and they're already just hooking up it's a common thread that you know that common lived experience that they've had with bog breaks that is bringing them together which is just mind-blowing and that's why when when we put a new group through i get into that bog breaks group so we have that private group on facebook for them to go into if they want to and i put up a post and say all of you from every group come in post a selfie in there so show us what you look like and tell us where you live yeah and we've got you know blokes who are 10 Ks where he's like mate you're just near me and you know that we never met suddenly they're catching up for a coffee or beer or something to say g'day and introduce each other because they you know i think one of them's like oh you're just on the other side of the bridge to me yeah so yeah it's building that brotherhood it's it's pretty cool stuff to watch from the facilitator perspective and um i guess that's that's the beauty of this and we even within each group we identify leaders who grow over time and i watch that i watch that growth over time in the bog breaks group of who's in there who's doing stuff who's calling other blokes who is picking up on the cues when someone posts something in that that oh he might be doing it a bit tough i'm going to ring him this weekend so that's what i'm trying to create with the bog breaks with those group with that group that they are there for each other that they are relying on each other i mean i don't mind if they ring me at two in the morning but they've got a whole suite of other people there that they can call on as well you're just one person mary and you've carried that you've carried this for a long time and there's only so many hours in the day and you need your sleep and i really get this genuine sense that you are building this army around you of blokes who can who can you know carry the flag be the bearer and just support each other support each other yeah yeah i mean i will do everything my power to be there for those blokes and i would never want them to hesitate to call me if they needed me but moving forward we're going to have hundreds of blokes through this program and i physically can't be there for every single bloke in Australia so that's why we've got to build this brotherhood that they are in their communities they're seeing other blokes that i will never see or never meet and say hey mate are you all right because you're doing this and i've noticed this and so they start to reach out and they create that ripple effect across the pond and that's what ball breaks is about it's not about fixing anybody you're curing anybody or anything like that it's breaking down some barriers leveling the playing field and creating that network of men to go back out into rural Australia and spread the word and save others and and that it's passing on the torch you're passing on the torch of these guys you're arming with them with the tools to go out and be the mary in their community to help other blokes now coming into it i was i was so excited to be a part of it and i was scared shitless at the same time okay scared shitless for the fact of i've always been one to when i sit down and someone's telling me things and i try to go to the fix it kind of thing how can i help this person fix this what can i suggest for them or whatever and you know you specifically told me prior to going into this at that that's not the case so i was very conscious of that and and i really enjoyed the process of just sitting and listening with empathy with these guys i'm not going to solve their problems but i'm going to be an ear for them that might just you know it's that whole problem shared problem half type of thing that hopefully um yeah just being the ear for them was something that i really enjoyed that that whole process across the course of the weekend and and i'm kind of i feel a little bit guilty that i didn't have a full sit down with all of the guys and hear all of the guys stories and so do i and that's the hard thing is that it's hard to get around everyone and to connect with everyone and i guess that's the other side of it is having other facilitators there like yourself and dave and dug on this occasion was to have other blokes there that you know what there there might be blokes there that that would never connect with me or never sit down and tell me their story but they might tell you or they might tell one of the other followers and so it's also give them time to process this in a couple of weeks time we might get phone calls from those guys who are ready to tell their story there weren't on the weekend or what's going on the weekend they've got to go back home sit down and go yeah i i can trust these people or whatever it is that they they might need that time it might be in 12 months time yeah they come back and say i didn't tell you this but this is what's actually going on so it's that pro it's just it's just cracking the egg to to get that little opening so whether we crack it right open or whether we just make a little dent in it that it's okay to say this it's okay to sit down it's okay to cry it's okay to do this stuff and it's just having that supportive man time of of other men around them that are there to to listen to it yeah and to and to help them carry that and i did recognize that with us facilitators that it didn't all need to come through us because as those relationships develop then as you've just said the guys will kind of connect with another one of the guys that are there as as in the you know the attendees if you want to you know call that and connect with them and end up sharing the stories with them and not necessarily needing to share it with Doug Dave myself as as facilitators when you call yourself so that was really cool too yeah it is it's um it's an interesting process to watch and i just get such joy out of watching it unfold over the weekend of being able to peel back those layers slowly and create that space for them to to connect and to yeah take that put on the breaks and take a break and and make some new mates and that's what the strongest thing that comes out of it is this brotherhood is that they are best mates forever and we've we've seen this with guys from the first group who you know going through health issues and stuff and all they do is go into that ball breaks group and and and say what's happening and their phone lights up yeah they've they've got that brotherhood to support them and they're not looking for sympathy it's not about sympathy it's about mates looking out for mates so i'm interested in in the way the facilitators see it too and that's why it's important to me to to touch base with you guys over the next few days in particular for that that debrief and that wind down to make sure that you guys are not taking those stories because some of them are fairly tragic and and putting it into your bucket and weighing your cells down so that's a really important part of after ball breaks for me to touch base with you guys pretty much daily which is well i'm an all in the shit out of all of your boring and you've done just to check it's appreciated just to check um and you know you had a very long drive and so there is the potential there to get in your head and to get bogged down in it and oh maybe i should have said this or oh maybe i didn't connect with that bloke or i haven't i so beaten myself up about that i that thought has you know as i said just before those thoughts have gone through my head but i and i normally am very heavy and hard on myself in this instance i haven't been and and i thank you for that for setting me up you know what i would believe is the right way for that you know i there was a couple of cries on the way back down when i was talking to a couple of the blokes and there was a trigger and i had a cry i was expecting to walk in at home and burst into tears but at the time of day that i got home i was actually able to go and grab the girls from school and so it was a distraction so i didn't walk in with Sharon and the two girls in the house and just lose it so i picked up the girls from and it was fucking beautiful what they did i was waiting in the car and they're walking up to the car through the train station and met the oldest one she opens the door put the school bag in and she says get out dad so we can say hello properly so i got out and she gave me this biggest hug and there's other school kids walking past and normally at the age that she is there would be an embarrassment to do that so she couldn't give a flying fuck about anyone else around her and then the youngest one from about 150 meters away was then coming up she was running bolting up to me again couldn't give a rat's arse about what anyone else thinks and just wrapped her arms around me and told me that was amazing so therefore i got to get home and saw Sharon and the tears didn't happen then but as i was kind of unpacking a few stories later on the evening then some of the emotions kind of came out and it was great it felt fantastic yeah that's awesome and that's what we do find a lot of even the participants go home and walk in the door say hi and just break down to explain to their family or partner or whatever what's happened and what they've been through and some of them can't even do that and they're like i'm not even sure what happened yeah yeah yeah yeah it is a bit of a head spin it's like there's this and you know talking to a couple of the guys and they're back on in the trucks and they're back you know out on the farm or whatever um it but you know only 24 48 hours beforehand are in a completely different world so there is that something it is something they need to be careful is the come down as well off the back of that weekend and then getting back into reality that can be a tough transition i reckon yeah it can be a tough transition but it's just remembering that they have those blogs there that they can call and they can debrief together as well they can debrief in that group in so much as sharing what they're doing and saying that it's tough to get back to work because they'll all experience that they'll all experience that that come down and um it's i guess being aware of it and other blogs looking out for it as well because you can see or hear when you're talking to some of these like this oh you know i don't think you know he was doing that well when he got home because when he got home there was no one there or whatever the situation is that you know they went home to an empty house or they had to go straight back into work and um you know this is something that we i guess it's it's maybe even having a day to just be after um which was one of the things you had just had that the other guys didn't they're on massive drive and you had to go straight into work and um you know one of our other facilities has done that too gone straight into work and i was like ideally i would prefer if you had a day just to i don't know Netflix look at the fluff in your navel do something just yeah we'll do nothing really i think i'll do that like it's a day and time and i'd love to do it again and if i'm not going to say when i do it again i will be doing that for myself afterwards as putting in a day where i'm not going straight back into it because this morning after you know the the drive it was straight back into work this morning straight back on and and i struggled with there a bit this morning to be honest um but you know the week will get better but i'll do that for myself next time yeah it's it's making sure that you can do that and i look i've deliberately done it um i didn't get home full just on dark on monday and i was so wide to up late or up early and up late i still don't think i went to bed till 11 o'clock on monday night even though i could have slept hanging over the fence but and sleeping in is not really an option for me once the sun's up it's on yeah might as well get up and but today i'm i'm probably feeling more washed out today than i was yesterday because i still had a bit of stuff to do yesterday i have run around and making phone calls and and doing stuff and yet today i'm just dragging my feet going i just i just want to be in bed but i don't want to be in bed so all right so can we talk about bog brake plans for next year and you know because there's no more events for this year being 2024 but back into it again next year that's the plan yeah we definitely um we'll be running them again next year whether it's two or three events we haven't quite decided yet and so we will be advertising that sort of um hopefully by april may i think is usually when we try and get that out and i open up the applications and get some get another group of of blokes together to to experiences and and join that that brotherhood which is um pretty exciting but we we get a few months reprieve now so keep an eye on the socials for that so watch out on the socials yeah keep an eye on the socials we do have the the page on the website is still there but the format hopefully hopefully we'll turn that off the moment but yeah i can expect um i can expect a flood like it i mean essentially now you've got 50 to 60 advocates for this program out there who have been through the program over the last year and a half that's surely that is going to resonate out and these application numbers are going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and you're going to have to run more than just two or three a year you're going to have to you're going to have to have this place running 24/7 at some point mary oh i've got other ideas to run 24/7 uh but yeah i think the the program that we've designed is is i guess got a time frame on it during the year so so we yeah we we do need to um look we've learned some things from this one and each one has been slightly different uh in in the program and the first one was two jam packs so we took some stuff out for the second one and then you know for the third one we sort of you know added one thing back in and a couple of things just changed them and again we learned some stuff on this which i will change the program again just slightly just tweak it we're just still tweaking it we've only done three and still learning stuff and the feedback that the guys give us is great yeah and the feedback from the facilitators and i i guess that's part of my question for you is coming in for your first one um well i would just sign up again would you would you would you would you would you freakin oath i would absolutely i would if you'll have yeah definitely it's um a unique experience for the facilitators as well i think is yeah it's an honor to wear that red shirt and talking to some of the guys on the last night um when they were saying you know i i hope to wear red shirt one day and that's really that red shirt that's so so cool like that that red shirt says something yeah it it means something and and it's an honor to put it on yeah they could that they want to come back already they hadn't even left yeah and they're still volunteering to come back and give like not to come back and experience it again but to give so that they can give to help other guys to help other blokes yeah it's awesome isn't it and yeah this group in particular i think most of them volunteered to come back and and help others so it's yeah it is it is pretty cool to see that but as i said as i said to one of the guys you know you you don't have to be wearing a red shirt though right now you can be wearing any colored shirt and you can help other blokes when you're every day of the week when you're back in your community yeah it's not just a consolidated four five days here at this location it's every day of the week you can be that advocate you can be that soldier for the bogged army you know it's yeah i um i love watching the the facilitators engage with it and get something out of it as well and obviously in the last day when we do our debrief at bog breaks i give the facilitators the opportunity for some final words of what they've learned or you know advice for the guys going away and all of you guys got that opportunity and um it's i think it's really to show those participants as well the the impact it's had on you guys and um so most of them are you know uh i say there's a bit of hay fever around there's a bit of peeling onions there there was a lot of peeling onions and um you guys my three facilitators were no different and um i was actually saying to Jenny this morning that yeah you guys got emotional and that's that's normal that's standard that's at everyone yeah um that the facilitators tend to get quite emotional and i sometimes feel like i'm a hard bitch because i'm the only one in the room not bloody crying and but you but i don't think me crying at that point is of any benefit to anyone i don't bring something by doing that you guys do and you got emotional in your final words and i wondered if you were happy to to dive into that as to like what you got out of it and why it was so important to you i've really been thinking about this and trying to drill into it as to why and and i feel like i'm not coming out with excuses but you can't explain it it's hard to explain but yeah i remember what i said to the guys that i i grew up um very young i i feel like i grew up into an older person very quickly got married very young started working very young like career working you know had jobs at Woolworths and washing cars whatever but sort of got into my career started my career around the age of 15 and i was in a much full full-time employment before i left school yeah and it's what i've always done and i love what i do and i wouldn't have it any other way and the way our life is now it would not be what it is now if we if it had been different back then right but um you know sort of getting married early and all that sort of stuff and a lot of the mates that i had around me were all off buggerizing around and and you know doing what they do being young men being young men and there's a part of me that feels that i didn't have that in my own life right so when i get into you know a group of guys like that who and and i i'm going putting forward a lot of assumptions here they may have been tied down young as well whatever but i see that bugger rising around and the fun that they're having and the shit that they get up to and just that stuff that i feel like i sort of didn't do and and i was probably never one that was going to do that but would have i if i hadn't you know got sort of tied down and into life so early type of thing so when i when i was in that group and i was looking around that group of guys they're the type of guys that i would have been intimidated by bullied by at school um never felt that i was qualified enough to engage with them knock around with them type of thing but then for them to accept me as a part of that group with them there that weekend and and and feel such a part of it that that brotherhood that emotion just kind of flowed out from me um and and there was a couple of them that i caught their eyes and like they were staring straight through me and there was tears in their eyes and and that just set me off even more so um i don't know if i've explained it really well at all but that's where i'm that's kind of where i'm at with it yeah no that was um that's interesting that you say that they're the sort of guys you would have been intimidated by because i think that's part of the leveling of that playing field yep ball breaks exactly we don't care where you come from we don't care who you are or what you've achieved or haven't achieved that's we don't we i'd i'd really even ask them what what they do for a cross i probably only tell you what a couple of those blokes do for a cross yeah only because they offered it it's not not something that's important so it's um look i know just talking to the to the guys there just how much they appreciated having you there and and the other guys um and quite a few of them were quite starstruck to have you there that they they don't get to see you much you're usually the the the magic behind a lot of the the things that they listen to and the podcast and listen to that you're the the very humbling the magic behind and and they don't get to see see you out front so um yeah i know that a few of them said they saw the you know the BT on your shirt they're like yeah is that the BT and i was like yeah they said we knew as soon as he spoke we knew his voice but we didn't know what he looked like so no that was that was so humbling mate and when i when i came home and told the kids that sort of thing their eyes lit up and they're like really oh wow and what about this and what about this and it's like guys it was it was just it was just the the whole thing was just amazing mary and i yeah i find it hard to put it into words to encapsulate it it is and even with the last one you know beforehand we had a few facilitators meetings and because i had two guys that hadn't done it before and one of them said to me what you know what do we what is it and and what do you expect from us and i couldn't even verbalize that myself and i said let me think about that and get back to you because i it's very hard for me to describe it what happens but when you see it and when you see how it how it works it's uh yeah again even after you've seen it you can't describe it so yeah yeah it's uh and each group is different of how they connect and the things they bring and you know some groups you could identify several leaders in it that will continue to be leaders in this space in their communities in their workplaces and other guys tend to fall back into old habits and um i guess that's why we have that bog breaks private group for those guys it's not about sharing their deep dark secrets or stories it's about keeping that connection and keeping that that bog breaks i guess momentary yeah it keeps that brotherhood going and builds it with the other guys and you know it's it's been interesting for me to watch the first group have that group have that bog breaks private group to themselves for 12 months yes and then i throw in another 16 blokes and then i throw in another 20 blokes four weeks later so i can see some of them have pulled back and gone oh we don't know these blokes yeah but then you see other ones that have come in and go and yeah welcome brothers and come on you know who are you where are you from yeah so it's it's interesting watching the dynamic of the different groups because it yeah it's they had that group to themselves for for 12 months yeah all right i gave them six weeks out i said to them we're gonna have some other guys yeah no your little safe place here we know everybody is not going to be the same and that's okay but yeah it's uh i do a lot of watching i do a lot of watching and observing of what goes on so but yeah well you're doing amazing work Mary what you've created is just um again i struggle to put it into words i it's just amazing to have seen it from a distance to see it from the inside and to be a part of it and again i can't thank you enough for uh affording me the opportunity to um to come along that journey with you um truly truly amazing thanks mate thanks for giving up your time and and your compassion to be part of it because it's i can't do this by myself no i cannot physically do this by myself i might get through the first 24 hours but i wouldn't survive it's just it's too much to be due it's on it's on it is full on and it's awesome it's full on it is exhausting it is draining physically mentally emotionally but it's rewarding and so it it's that you know the the the good things that we get out of it will stay the tiredness and the sore limbs and feet and whatever else we've got will disappear yeah but the the good stuff will stay and so that's what i just focus on and always give myself a couple of days to just can be completely branded um constantly thinking and making notes of how to improve things at the same time at the same time but uh make sure i'm not rushing off to do other things that require me to be focused on that i i just need to yeah to process and um yeah it's it's cool stuff and i know that we you know scaling this up like you said i need to run at 24/7 that's one of the things that i've had to accept in starting this the whole bog are you bogged my thing that i can't save them all yeah but by crocky i'm going to try and save the ones that i come in contact with and we can't put a thousand blokes through it a year that's not how it works that's not the purpose of this but we will save some and we will we will put that framework around them whether they choose to lean on it we can't make them yeah but with the framework and the support is there if that all they've got to do is is lean on it because it is around them and um yeah scale it up i we can do so much it's guarding it up but i i think it's rather the mass production i'm looking more at quality rather than quantity yeah and to try and reinforce the space reinforce that and um yeah create other like you said other soldiers to go out there and yeah and and do some of that footwork as well yeah no well done congratulations um let's wind it up for today if you want to leave us a message you know send a message to mary you yeah chuck us a yarn whatever you want to do are you bogged mate is on speak pipe you can do that speakpipe.com/aybm and follow mary on all the socials are you bogged mate um stay in touch awesome to see you and i think we'll go out with these podcasts i i'm gonna play that song if that's okay with you we'll throw that song on um from the uh the golden guitars oh yep yep sure sure let's do it all right thanks bt she lay dozing by the back end his only boss dogs do twitching gently in a sleep she dream she caught a roof and i chirred in her color her third lost gets lost she was soaking up the morning sun waiting for the boss waiting for the boss that voice to call get up he trained her well for all those years since she was a pop they chased the logs of sheep and goats through the scruff and when their day was done he'd give her faithful head a row she rose up from her slumber for a sound to call her ear she had to bark a warning there's a motor drawing there were hackles up and growling no time for her to stall she always let the boss know when people came to call it looks like sound peak she thought from over their next door so she's the barking back a bit but now that she was sure you knew the boss would like to chat with people sometimes they drink along and she looked towards the back gate waiting for the boss waiting for the boss that voice to call get up he trained her well for all those years since he was a pop they chased the logs of sheep and goats into the scruff and when their day was done he'd give her faithful head a row was the missus at the back door the wise old dog could spy sell us by and without a glance they both began to cry the boss dog said oh by the gate he tried to see inside then paid he slowly shuffled by as a tear fell from his eye come on boss let's do some work so what's the plan today let's check some troughs fix offense so give the bull some high high what's with all his people all looking sad and lost she snapped the fly and lit the lips just waiting for the boss waiting for the boss that voice to call get up he trained her well for all those years since she was a pop they chased the logs of sheep and goats and bullets through the scruff when their day was done he'd give her faithful head a row as another group of people sadly made their way inside but you couldn't understand just why they hugged and why they cried why they whispered word she heard again we're sorry for your loss with the old dog kept on sitting there just waiting for the boss yeah the old dog sat there silently just waiting for the boss You