Forrest Chat

Interview - Helen Punch - Harpist

Helen talks about being a harpist, what it takes, what it means and how you do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "And the nursing home, I've been playing at various nursing homes, and one in particular, I've been going regularly for eight years now and I go there once a fortnight. And that's different type of music, that's familiar type music. And often, the residents will start to sing along to the music. I encourage 'em if they want to sing along they just love it. They absolutely love it."

Interview - Nathalie Mitchell - Paint by numbers

Nathalie talks about painting by numbers, what it takes, what it means and how you do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "Yeah, I've had people say to me, oh, if I do this, it's not gonna be as good as yours, or I'm thinking just give it a go and you will amaze yourself. I didn't think I would be any good at it. I would not even see my, you know, 10 years ago there's no way I would've said I would be completing these canvases. But yeah, just give it a go. Just see if you've got time. You don't have to spend a lot of time, just a little bit of time every day. And, it's just like coloring in by just painting. You just do a little bit and then at the end you've created this thing. I don't see how you could really go wrong with it."

Interview - Sharon Rose - Living Simply

Sharon talks about living simply, what it takes, what it means and how you do it.
My favourite quote of this episode is "I love that concept of the native Americans. That they refer to the natural community as all our relations, and that we are caretakers. And it's our decisions in life that affect all of the other creations on the planet."

Interview - Luke Deighton - Business on the road

Luke talks about running a business while on the road, what it takes, what it means and how you do it.
My favourite quote of this episode is "I understand that not a lot of people get the opportunity to take that step either.  It's been a choice that we've had to make, regardless of the financial side of things, especially starting out. It was like we're gunna drop a bit here for sure, but we're gonna gain so much more. And it was really making the change, from putting focus on the financial aspect or looking at everything as what's gonna create some money, to, what's actually gonna build real wealth. And not just from a monetary sense, but from a happiness sense, a joy, a connectivity sense, all of those other energies that are there and that make up who we are."

Interview - Holly Taylor - Mountaineer

Holly talks about being a mountaineer, what it takes, what it means and how you do it.
My favourite quote of this episode is "I definitely feel, like even my last climb in Pakistan, I was having a way better time than a lot of the other people on my team. Just 'cause I was so grateful to be up there. I didn't even really think about the hardships to be fair. I just, yeah, I was just so happy to be up there and so glad that my training had got me this far and that I could feel good. And sometimes I think that I feel better up high in altitude on the mountain than what I do in day-to-day life just dealing with general MS stuff and all of that. So I feel really extra strong up there, which is good. It's a really good feeling."

Interview - Leanne Haggart - Triathlete

Leanne talks about being a triathlete, what it takes, what it means and how to do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "If you aren't injured, and your bike's okay, then yep, you, you have to get back on that bike. Otherwise, it's very easy to go, nup, I'm not gonna risk it anymore. I don't wanna get injured, or, you know, when you fall off, it does hurt. But yeah, you've gotta get back on the bike. Otherwise, yeah, there is that. Yeah, sometimes you just don't want to do it, but you've just gotta get back on there. Definitely."

Interview - Phil Gore - Running in Backyard Events

Phil talks about running backyard ultra-marathons, what it takes, what it means and how you do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "It's kind of just something that I fell into, like started with short distances and, yeah, it just kind of snowballed and got bigger and bigger. And I think it's just it's something that I've discovered that I'm good at, and I think when you find that thing that you're good at you just need to embrace that and see how far you can go with it."

Interview - Chris Lark - Running Event Organiser

Chris talks about organising running events, what it takes, what it means and how to do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "They might be doing a parkrun, they might want to get up to a 10 K or, it might be for a real good cause. It might just be something that they, you know, wanna kick off that they've been thinking about for a long period of time. So I think  everyone has their own reasons to do events. But I know personally that me putting on these events means a lot to people."

Interview - Sugi Kossen - Library Officer

Sugi talks about being a Library Officer, what it takes, what it means and how to do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "My mother tongue is Tamil. 'cause I was born in Sri Lanka and there was another language in Sri Lanka. We had to learn Sinhalese. So my dad said, no, you had to learn that language and both languages and English. We have to learn English. So he made us study English all the time.
And so he would tell us, because I'm from a church back Christian background, so he said, alright, you learn Tamil at home in your Tamil Bible, go to the English Sunday school. So learn from that. So I had to go one, two, I think as a kid I would've said, oh, why is he doing that? But now I appreciate because I can understand.
And then he would take us to the British Council Library, and then the public library of Sri Lanka. And then there was so many libraries we had. Russian libraries and we had Chinese library, all the libraries, possible he would take us every Saturday, once a month. 
So we had books like that and you know, he'd come home and we could read and he, he introduced.
I really thank, I'm very grateful for my dad. He did that. And all my fam siblings say that, you know? And uh, yeah. When I think of him, I think, I mean, as a young person, I may not have appreciated all what he did, but now I really appreciate what he has done because I could pass that to my kids and I see that with my kids."

Interview - Paul van der Mey - One Year of Podcasting

Paul talks about one year of Forrest.Chat podcasting, what it takes, what it means and how you do it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "There's a balance between the skills and experience that the person has and what they do and often what they've done in the past and the skills they've learned make it easier for them to, to do something. And knowing that you actually have a particular set of skills that you have built up and experiences that you've had that allows you to get on and and do the things that you do as well. And if that gets lost, or missed, in somebody's formation of their thinking, then they'll think that they can't do anything, they're not good enough, or whatever. But all it really means is that they need to find something that will harness what they are able to do and they'll be able to get on and do it. And it'll be far easier for them than than they expect."