Notes in the Field: Newsletter No.13, Week Ending 3rd May 2026

Some weeks feel like movement.
Not necessarily loud movement — but momentum. Quiet shifts. Unexpected conversations. Little signs that things are growing roots.

Across the projects this week there was a sense of people beginning to notice, connect, respond, and step closer.

1. ChristiaanMcCann.com — Building an Organisation

This week carried a strong sense of organisational growth beginning to form around the ideas and community work happening through ChristiaanMcCann.com.

Social media engagement has been growing steadily recently, and after appearing in the news there has been a noticeable increase in conversations with people interested in collaborating, supporting, donating, or simply wanting to understand more about the direction of the work.

What feels significant is that people are not only responding to projects, but to the wider idea underneath them — that community contribution can be relational, creative, local, and deeply human.

A lot of the work right now is not glamorous. It’s systems, conversations, connecting dots, shaping language, and trying to build something sustainable enough to hold people well. But there’s a feeling that an organisation is slowly emerging from what previously looked like disconnected community activities.

The challenge ahead is building structures that can hold the growth without losing the relational and grassroots spirit that made the work meaningful in the first place.


2. Woodcraft Adventures — Dust in the Lounge Room

It was a quieter week on the carving front, but still one that carried something special.

On Saturday night my nephew came over to help film some carving work in the lounge room. We set up cameras while wood dust floated through the light — and honestly, the dust looked incredible on film. There was something cinematic and strangely beautiful about it.

The response online reminded me again that people are not only interested in finished products — they’re drawn to process, atmosphere, and authenticity. They want to see hands working. Wood shavings falling. The real environment where things are made.

Sometimes Woodcraft Adventures feels less like a business and more like storytelling through timber.

The slower weeks matter too.


3. FNB Hobart — Shared Tables and Food Loops

This week at Food Not Bombs Hobart we partnered in a co-joined shared table event alongside Pets in the Park.

One of the highlights was a doctor stepping in to sponsor the event — designing and purchasing a menu to help make the day possible. It was one of those moments where people from completely different worlds quietly come together around practical care.

Meanwhile, Priscilla’s Food Loop continues to grow.

What started years ago as collecting leftover bread has gradually become a much wider community distribution effort. Every Saturday evening Priscilla continues her door-to-door list, while Sunday church distribution keeps expanding too. This week the giveaway reached fifteen large baskets of food shared into the community.

The most important thing about these projects is that they remain relational. The food matters, but so do the conversations at the gate, the checking in, the familiarity, and the sense that people are remembered.

Shared tables continue to do what shared tables have always done — bring people into proximity with one another.


4. Sing With Me — The Sound Finally Came

This week’s story belongs to Sing With Me.

Over the last three weeks a new woman has been attending singing sessions. For a while, almost no sound came out at all. Just presence. Watching. Sitting with the group. Existing near the music.

And this is where patience matters.

Community singing work often requires moving beyond what I think of as the “risk apparatus” surrounding disability and institutional support systems — systems that can unintentionally reduce people to managed outcomes, compliance, or service categories.

Real community participation works differently.

It takes time to feel safe enough to risk expression.

Then this week, suddenly, the sound came.

Not perfect singing. Not performance. But participation. Presence becoming voice.

Those moments are hard to explain to people who haven’t witnessed them. They feel almost like small miracles — the kind created not through programs or paperwork, but through patience, repetition, welcome, and human connection.

That’s the kind of work Sing With Me is trying to protect and grow:
spaces where people are not simply “helped,” but where capacity, confidence, identity, and possibility can slowly emerge through community itself.

And every now and then, you get to witness real magic.

— Christiaan

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