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You are on Saturday Magazine. Join 94.9, Maca, Fiona and Paul, who we got next fee. We have some fantastic news. CEO of Queer Town. Archie Beatle is in the studio with us here to tell us about his 2024 Melbourne Award for Queer Town and all about Queer Town and how it all started. Welcome to the studio, Archie. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
So many people in the studio. And congratulations, congratulations. Ask Archie. We'll ask you first to tell us about Queer Town, but jump forward a step. What did winning the award mean to you and your team?
Yeah, winning the award was so special. I think it kind of caught us off guard because we've been so busy and we're like, we've got those Melbourne awards and it's really exciting. And then we walked into Melbourne Town Hall and it's just full of all these. It's like very bougie event, very important people in the room, including queer town. And then, yeah, it just felt really special, I suppose, to be recognized for the work that we've been doing because
you know, been operating for six years and it's just felt like heads down in the trenches working hard. So to actually have some recognition and I guess see someone of that impact, it felt really, really nice actually. I mean, I was in the room and your acceptance speech was really interesting because you talked and touched on some of the darker times, some of the, because you worked solo on queer town for a long time before you started to get stuff.
And, you know, thankfully you have the support of friends and family, but there must have been moments as anyone that starts an organization where you feel, how could I keep going? And obviously this is a great reward for all of that effort. But how does that feel to now, I mean, how can you use that skill to, the challenges that you went to to inform queer town going forward?
Yeah, I mean, I just don't take a moment for granted. I think having worked solo for so many years on it, trying to get it off the ground. And it's had gradual momentum. But this year, it really feels like we passed a threshold. And so to have four team members now and to have the opportunity, like the Melbourne Awards, to have our partnerships growing and
It's just really exciting. So I just, you know, I've seen other startups take off. I've been part of accelerators and part of the startup world for a while now. And sometimes you just get so big, so quick, you kind of lose sense of reality. And I just want to keep a gradual, you know, celebrate every small win so that it's sustainable. So for our listeners who might not be across queer town, can you give us a summation of the incredible queer town platform?
Yeah, so at Queer Town, essentially our two main focuses are education and content. So predominantly we provide education and training around LGBTI, QA+, inclusion and allyship. So that's often in workplaces across industries. You know, we work in medical, tech, arts, legal, health, all the way through to kind of local community businesses.
We also work in schools and events. And we're also creating digital content. So videos, resources, written, and now we're doing some podcast work as well. So we're looking to educate people, but also connect with community and lift our local voices. I think one of the
The great things Archie is, and as disclosure, I was a judge in the category and it's so nice and it feels great to be able to recognise working our community, for our community, by our community. The business has been going for six years and it's growing and it's growing and it's growing.
What does the future hold? The environment we're all living in now is very different. I mean, the other business kind through COVID. I'm sure we all want to forget that, but we need to remember it. But what does the future hold for Queer Town, Archie?
Yeah, well, I think now that we've built a stronger foundation and a team, we just have more resources. So we're looking to engage community more. We spend a lot of time educating those outside of the community, which is great and important. But now we have more resources to put on events for our community, create content that features local voices. So we're wanting to kind of platform local identities.
However, one of the big things that we have coming is we're about to launch our digital short course, which is a self-guided online module, which goes for like 25 minutes. So our vision for that and we've made it in collaboration with HR leaders across Australia so that when you have a staff member join your team, they can undergo queer town's induction training and then they're entering your team, your workplace,
with a basic understanding of language, how to use pronouns, what to do if you make a mistake, how to be an ally, so that it's not reactive work. So we're really, really excited about that. Oh, that sounds really good. So what does 25 minutes walk? What are people going to learn in 25 minutes? Or what's the content?
Yeah, so it's 101. So we're not going to solve all the problems in 25 minutes. However, we just want people to feel more confident and comfortable to engage in conversation. So we want people to have a basic understanding of what does LGBTIQA plus mean? What are pronouns? And I think a big gap in pronoun conversation is why are they important? You know, people might figure out, okay, I've got to use them, but
If you don't understand why, you don't have the empathy there. So we find that people aren't using them. So they'll learn a bit about that and a really big part of Queen Town's content. And I think what makes it so special is we really prioritize storytelling. And it's without a doubt, like we cover really good content. But in every feedback form, the overwhelming feedback we get is the personal stories is what I connected with most. So we're incorporating that into our training.
Also, if anyone's done mandatory workplace training, it's so boring, dry, hideous, ugly, depressing. So we, ours is fun, colourful, video interactive. It's queer, you know, we're not going to make it boring. Now, so you won the 2024 Melbourne award, but the service obviously
goes far broader. Can you tell us about the breadth of the places and the workplaces you've been working with? Is it across Australia? I mean, where are you hoping to expand? Yeah, we've been lucky to grow fairly quickly. One of my first clients was the Australian Ballet, and I was lucky to have a friend who I know back in the day who works there, who really believed in our work.
And, you know, that was a really great launching pad. We've worked with cotton on group, we've worked with GMHBA, Siemens, specialized. We've worked with big orgs, but local ones as well. And interstate, you know, it's getting to the exciting point where we're getting flown around a little bit now. You know, someone wants to bring us interstate feels very important. And then recently I've worked internationally.
they're not flying us internationally yet, but online in Singapore across Europe. So more and more people are wanting this education. And actually, we've found that it's pretty, I don't want to say revolutionary, but there's a lot of places that don't have access to this kind of information and resource. I'm interested. I don't want you to name them. What was the industry sector in Singapore?
Um, let me remember Singapore. Oh, that was the tech team. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Now, because I do a bit of work in Singapore and it's a, it's a really fascinating environment for, for queer people. Fascinating is a diplomatic challenge. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm, I'm being diplomatic. Yeah. I think for the, the challenges, Archie, you know, getting involved with an organization or with a corporate
So many of us, you know, we think that those organisations are doing a bit of virtue signalling sometimes. So when you engage with them, how do you ensure that it's not just
ticking a box for them. Clearly, sometimes perhaps push them a little bit further than they might have wanted to go. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, it's interesting. I'd say we get a mix. Sometimes you can tell by the inquiry or the conversations you have with the contact that it's a box tick.
and we'll take a box tick because we know that it's a very good vehicle for us to get into a space and then we're going to rock their world with like a really fire workshop and then we kind of generally will be back. So what we do at Qui-Tian is we're moving away from this notion of like a one-off workshop and we're like moving to a partnership model. So
And it's just sort of happened organically, each, you know, which is really beautiful to say about our work is that each client has become an ongoing partner. It's very rare that they kind of disappear. So we look for, okay, what's next and what differentiates us from some of the other providers is we do a lot of pre and post work. So we do some surveying beforehand in the company to find out what are the gaps? What are the questions? What are the issues?
And then we run the workshop or the training or the consultation. And then we do a really extensive follow-up process so people can provide information on what went well, what they need, more, you know, what supports they need. And we actually put together like a feedback report with recommendations and a roadmap for that company. So I think because we do all that work, a lot of companies just don't know where to start or feel overwhelmed. And so we're in a position to help and provide that.
Actually, were you surprised? I mean, you obviously started Queer Town because you realized that there wasn't this kind of service and that, you know, people in the community were not being able to connect and I've been there workplaces and, you know, being misgendered and being misunderstood. Were you surprised that there wasn't more services available already when you sort of started Queer Town?
Yeah, look, there are some services out there for sure. And, you know, we really respect the work of other organizations in the space. And I've actually worked for a number of them myself. However, I think why I wanted to start Queer Town was I was honestly came back to that storytelling. Sometimes I'd be delivering workshops on behalf of other organizations. And I felt like we were missing opportunities or there was too much emphasis on the dark and gloomy or the statistics or
boring slides, you know, so I wanted to death by PowerPoint. Yes. Oh my gosh, there's nothing worse than presenting and you can see you're losing people. So I wanted to create my own content that I believed in and could back. That's colorful. That's engaging. That's person centered.
So it's being really special. And actually, ironically, I started Queer Town to develop content for community. However, because of COVID, I needed to pivot. And because my backgrounds in education, that's where I developed the first workshop to be like, OK, I need to pivot. And that's what really took off. So I kind of started Queer Town to engage the queers. And then I was spending 24, 7 working in very heteronormative corporate workplaces.
So it's not what I expected. And I think to be honest, that's part of the reason why I burnt out. Even though my mission was strong and to do with my values, day to day I was just exhausted from trying to justify, educate, work in non-queer spaces. So to now be in a position where we have, you know, become successful and we're able to engage more with communities. Really exciting.
It's, you know, the journey that you've been on, the journey the organization's been on, and that, you know, some of the stories you're, you're telling are so encouraging because it shows that, you know, organizations, yeah, they might just think this is a, a box tick, but then what happens is they actually discover or they understand
where they've been lacking or what they haven't been doing. That must feel pretty good when you walk into a place and you're going, oh, yes, this is the box that they're in. But it must be pretty satisfying at the other side when you get that feedback and you see change happening.
Yeah, this week I was out in Lilydale and, you know, I was opening up a facilitated conversation and I was like, you know, when you hear about LGBTIQA+, what comes to mind for you? There was a very vocal man in there who was saying, I don't believe in they, them. I don't believe them.
He was basil's going off. So, you know, he was very conservative and against the actual workshop. And by the end, he hung back to chat. He took an allyship pin. He took a rainbow lanyard and he was asking when the next workshop is. How amazing. Even though I was exhausted, I was like, that's amazing. That's a, you know, superpower. Yeah. So the future is holding, I know, as part of the Melbourne Awards, we probably, you probably don't need a lot of help with podcasting, but
We're on Saturday Magazine. We're happy to work with you because that's part of
what you want and, you know, we'll host those on the sat mag page. So let's have a think about content, you know, for our listeners, because it'll be, you know, every platform is different. Every platform has different listeners and we'd like to have you back in a few months time to give us an update on, you know, progress and some of the challenges and, you know, expanding what you're doing.
Yeah, well, let's put it in the calendar. Let's open them up. That's right. We don't put it in the calendar. It doesn't happen exactly. Well, thank you so much for having us. And thank you, Mac, for believing in us. And I know you're a judge in it. And I really appreciate that support. What you do is important, Archie. And look, everyone in that category, they're all found it was difficult decision. Yeah. But what you do, like everyone else, is important. And it's the passion
and the thoroughness of what you do that really comes through. And I want to thank you. Thanks for coming in today. And congratulations. And you can take Baz for a wee. Oh, thank you. Yeah, thanks Basil. Cheers. You are on SatMag. Join 94.9. Stay with us quickly. We'll be back to close the show.
You're on Saturday magazine. We are here to wrap up the show. Thank you to all of our guests. Next up, Enjoy is Better Together, Mecca. Yep. So thank you for listening. If you're not a joy member, please join. It's really important to help keep us on air. Thank you, Fiona, for giving up your Saturday morning and all the work you do as our executive producer. Show wouldn't happen
without Fiona. Thank you, Mackeh. Thank you, Paul. And thank you, Paul. Thank you to all our guests. Stay with Joy, you know, there is no better radio station in Melbourne in Australia to listen to than us. Thanks for listening to another Joy podcast brought to you by Australia's LGBTQIA plus community media organisation, Joy. Help us keep Joy on air. Head to joy.org.au. Joy, a diverse sound for a diverse community.
