Michelle: Welcome to this week's episode of The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast. I'm Michelle, and thank you for joining me.
I want to start today's episode with a question, and I want you to sit with it for a moment before you answer. When was the last time your venue did something for your community? Not because a grant required it. Not because it was a special day like ANZAC Day or a charity golf day. But because you decided that your venue exists for something bigger than the bottom line. If you had to think about that for more than a few seconds, this episode is for you.
This month on the podcast I've had four extraordinary conversations. Christopher Hill, the founder of Hands Up Holidays and Impact Destinations, who built an entire business model around the idea that giving back is not the opposite of luxury. It is the definition of it. Damien Schofield, the founder of the Younger Heroes, reconnecting veteran families through nature, shared challenges, and the kind of honest conversation that only happens around a fire away from the noise. Debbie Dickson, the Marketing Manager at The Ary Toukley, who eight years ago looked at a domestic violence statistic about her own backyard and said: we are the biggest organisation in this community, and we're going to do a lot more than stick a poster up on the toilet door. And Jenny Holt from Club Rivers, who has built a community engagement program so embedded in her club's culture that her team volunteers over 1,000 hours a year. In their own time. Not because they have to. Because they want to.
Four very different people. Four very different approaches. But one thread running through every single conversation. Community isn't something you do on top of your job. Community is the job.
Our industry has spent decades waiting for a crisis before it acts. A flood. A pandemic. A domestic violence hotspot ranking. A veteran who has nowhere to turn. A woman fleeing her home on a rainy Sunday night who walks through a club door because the lights are on and there are people in there. We are reactive when we could be proactive. We write cheques when we could be building relationships. We put up posters when we could be changing lives. The good news is that shift is already happening, and the generation now entering our industry and our venues is going to accelerate it, whether the rest of us are ready or not.
So today I want to do three things. Recap what my four amazing guests taught me this month. Give you my take on why community connection is both a leadership strategy and a customer experience strategy. And leave you with practical action steps you can take back to your venue this week. Let's get into it.
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Christopher Hill is based in Auckland and runs two luxury philanthropic travel brands: Hands Up Holidays, which combines sightseeing with volunteering primarily for families, and Impact Destinations, where your philanthropic donation unlocks a unique experience while funding conservation and humanitarian work on the ground.
Now you might be thinking: what does luxury travel have to do with hospitality leadership? Stay with me.
Christopher's entire model is built on a premise that I think every hospitality leader needs to write on a sticky note and put on their bathroom mirror. He said that meaningful luxury is when both the traveller and the destination are enhanced by the experience. Mutually enriching. Both parties leave better than they arrived.
Read that again through a hospitality lens. What if that was how we defined a great shift? A great service interaction? A great guest experience?
What Christopher has proven over twenty years is that when you give people the opportunity to contribute to something beyond themselves, it changes them. Families who travel with him have children who come home and say they don't want Christmas gifts. They want to send them to the kids they met in Morocco. Clients come back five or six times. Not for the luxury. For the connection.
Christopher said that if every luxury travel provider embedded purpose into their guest experience, the impact would be world changing. I would say the same is true of every hospitality venue. If every club, every hotel, every registered venue embedded genuine community purpose into their culture, not as a campaign but as a culture, the transformation would be extraordinary.
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Damien Schofield grew up in rural New South Wales with a father who served in Vietnam and came home carrying things that were never dealt with. He watched, as a child, what that cost a family. He went on to become a professional fighter, a resilience coach, and eventually the founder of the Younger Heroes, a not-for-profit that runs nature-based programs reconnecting veteran parents with their children.
The four pillars of his program are strengthening family bonds, communication, team building, and personal resilience. And the environment is everything. He takes families out of clinical settings, away from technology, away from the noise, and puts them in nature. Around fires. Near waterfalls. On country. Because, as he said, nature lowers stress and helps people relax. It creates the conditions for real conversation.
Damien said that a strong community doesn't fall apart under pressure. It comes together. And then he applied it directly to hospitality. Busy services. Staff shortages. Difficult guests. Those are the moments that expose good leadership. A leader who panics spreads pressure through the team. A leader who stays calm, communicates clearly, and backs their people spreads resilience instead.
He also spoke about the loneliness of transition: veterans leaving a structured life, a work family, an entire identity, and having nothing waiting for them on the other side. I want our hospitality leaders who work with RSL clubs and ex-service venues to hear that. Your community program is not separate from your service culture. It's an expression of it. And the people walking through your doors may be carrying more than you know.
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Debbie Dickson is the Marketing Manager at The Ary Toukley, based on the New South Wales Central Coast. She's been there for over twelve years. I've been trying to get Debbie on this podcast for a while, and I'm so glad we finally made it happen.
In 2017, New South Wales Police identified five domestic violence hotspots in the state. The Ary Toukley was number three. They were contacted, along with other clubs in those areas, and asked to display support material on the backs of toilet doors.
Debbie sat down with her CEO and said: we are the biggest organisation in this community. This is our backyard. These are our people. Our staff, our members, our families, our friends. And we are going to do a lot more than stick up a poster on the toilet door.
Eight years later, The Ary has a formal Domestic Violence Action Plan adopted by the board. Staff training delivered by a specialist. Purple Shirt Fridays every single week, with staff wearing purple in solidarity. Escabags, essential kits for people fleeing violence, stocked and available. A three-year education program in local high schools. And Debbie serves as Vice Chair of the statewide Clubs for Community United Against Violence committee, which is working to bring the entire club industry together on this issue.
That's not a marketing strategy or a CSR initiative. That's a venue that has built the culture, done the training, and made the commitment, so that when a human being needs help, the team knows what to do. And she rightly pointed out: clubs are open later than most organisations. They are well lit. They have security. They have people who care. They are a safety zone. And while you may never have thought of your venue that way, your community certainly does.
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And then there is Jenny Holt. Jenny has been in the club industry for more than twenty-five years, and at Club Rivers in Sydney's south-west for over ten. Her title is Community Engagement, and if you want a masterclass in what that actually looks like in practice, her episode is required listening.
Jenny's team, which she now shares with a younger colleague, Caitlin, logs over 1,000 volunteer hours a year across more than fifty events. Their staff volunteer in their own time. Not for pay. Because the culture of the organisation makes it feel like the obvious thing to do.
She talked about Sailability, which gives children with disabilities the opportunity to go sailing. The Tough Mudder they ran to raise funds for the Waterfall Rural Fire Service. Sleeping rough in their own car park with over twenty staff members to raise awareness and funds for Georges River Lifecare. Climbing Mount Kosciuszko for the Autism Community Network.
But the thing that struck me most about Jenny was not the volume of what she does. It was her philosophy. She said she won't just write the cheques and wait for the acquittal. She gets on the phone. She goes to see the programs in action. She takes photos. She brings the stories back to the board. She connects her stakeholders with each other. All in an effort to make her club the heart of the local community. Not the biggest or the loudest. The heart.
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So what does all of this mean for you, sitting in your office, or your car, or wherever you listen to this podcast?
Community connection is not a marketing strategy or a CSR line item. It's not something you do in November for the 16 Days of Activism, or in April for ANZAC Day, and then pack away until next year. It's a leadership strategy, a service culture strategy, and frankly, it is your single greatest competitive advantage in an era where your guests and your team members can smell inauthenticity from a hundred metres.
Damien Schofield didn't build the Younger Heroes program by accident. He built it because he had lived experience of what happens when community breaks down, when a family carries invisible wounds and nobody builds the container for those wounds to be addressed. And what he created was an environment. A deliberate, structured, intentional environment where people could reconnect.
That is leadership. Creating the conditions for people to do their best, whether that's a veteran reconnecting with their child around a fire in the bush, or a frontline team member walking into a Friday shift wearing a purple shirt and knowing their organisation stands for something.
The most important insight Damien offered was this: resilience is not about being loud or tough. It's about being steady, consistent, and accountable under pressure.
I want you to think about your leadership team right now. Not the titles. The behaviour. When the pressure hits, a short-staffed Saturday night, a difficult member, a complaint that escalates, who sets the tone? And what tone do they set? Because your team is watching. Always. They're not just watching what you do when things go well. They're watching what you do when things go wrong. And the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
Community connection starts internally. It starts with how you lead your team. It starts with whether your people feel that they belong to something worth belonging to. You cannot build a genuine external community program on a foundation of poor internal culture. It will ring hollow. Your team will know it. And eventually, your community will too.
Jenny Holt's team volunteers over 1,000 hours a year in their own time. That doesn't happen by accident, and it doesn't happen by mandate. It happens because Jenny built a culture where people feel connected to a purpose that is bigger than their roster. When a community manager says twice a month, "we have the best job in the world," and means it, that is the internal community you build first.
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Here is a question I want you to ask yourself honestly. Why do your members or guests come to your venue?
The easy answer is food, drink, entertainment, gaming. And yes, those things matter. But if that were the whole answer, every venue with a decent bistro and a clean gaming floor would be full every night. And we know that's not the world we're living in.
People come to your venue because of how it makes them feel. Because of whether they feel seen, welcomed, known. Because of whether the team remembers their name, or their usual order, or asks how the footy went on the weekend. That is community. That is the micro version of what Debbie and Jenny and Christopher and Damien are all talking about at scale.
Christopher Hill told me that the magic in his travel experiences happens in the interaction. Not the luxury accommodation. Not the itinerary. The moment a client sits down with a family they have helped and hears their story. The moment a child draws water from a village well and carries it over to where the cement is being mixed. The moment that something shifts from observer to participant.
That shift is available to you every single day in your venue. Every time a team member moves from a transaction to genuine human connection. Every time a guest walks out feeling like they matter.
And when your venue is embedded in the community, when your members know you funded their kids' swimming lessons, when your staff showed up to sleep rough in the car park for the local homelessness charity, when your team wore purple every Friday for twelve months, that's no longer a transaction. That's a relationship. And a relationship is the only thing that creates genuine loyalty.
Debbie said something I want to repeat here, because it is so important. She said: we're not just sponsoring local sporting organisations. We're trying to create social change and build a safer community. And our staff are very proud of that.
Proud staff deliver better service. Full stop.
When your team believes in what your venue stands for, it shows up in every interaction. In the greeting at the door. In the way a complaint is handled. In whether a team member notices that a guest seems distressed and knows what to do. That is the link between community connection and customer experience. It's not abstract. It's practical. It's daily. And it's your job as a leader to make that connection visible to your team.
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If you have Gen Z team members, and you do, and if you want to attract more of them and retain the ones you have, and you should, then this section is non-negotiable.
Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with climate anxiety, a global pandemic, a social media landscape that makes every injustice visible and immediate, and a deeply embedded belief that their work should mean something. They're not interested in working for a venue that exists purely to generate revenue. They're interested in working for a venue that stands for something.
Gen Z team members are not difficult. They're not disloyal or lazy. They're simply asking a question that every generation before them was too conditioned to ask out loud: does this place deserve my best? Your answer to that question is your community strategy.
Jenny talked about young team members who start at eighteen, work through while going to uni, leave, and then come back. And when they do come back, they're suddenly all in. They've been out in the world, seen what it looks like without the culture, and come home. That is a retention story rooted in community connection.
But here is my challenge to the industry. Stop waiting for them to leave before you show them what you stand for. Show them now. Involve them now. Caitlin, Jenny's younger colleague, engages the frontline staff better than anyone because she's on their level. She talks to them while they're carrying plates. She recruits them for the next community event while they're mid-shift. That is community building from the inside out.
And for Gen Z members and guests walking through your doors: they're watching what you do, not what you say. They will not be loyal to your venue because of your loyalty program. They'll be loyal because your venue is part of something real in their community. Because when something goes wrong in the neighbourhood, your venue shows up. Because when they wear your uniform, they feel proud of it.
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I said at the top of this episode that our industry waits for a crisis before it acts. I want to come back to that.
Debbie's club was listed as a domestic violence hotspot. That was her catalyst. Damien watched his father carry the weight of a war for decades. Christopher was in South Africa, helping build a house in a township outside Cape Town, and something shifted in him. Jenny got on the phone and started moving beyond the cheques.
None of them waited for permission. None of them waited for a policy document or a board directive or a perfectly crafted strategy. They saw a need, they had a platform, and they acted.
You have the platform. You have the people. You have the space and the connections and the community relationships that most organisations would spend years trying to build. The question is not whether your venue can make a difference. The question is what are you waiting for?
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So here are five practical actions drawn directly from the conversations I've had with my amazing guests this month. Pick one. Start there.
One. Audit your internal community first.
Before you plan a single external initiative, walk your floor and ask yourself honestly: do my people feel like they belong to something worth belonging to? Talk to your team. Not in a staff meeting with an agenda. One on one, informally, while the shift is setting up or winding down. Ask them what they're proud of. Ask them what they wish your venue stood for. Ask them if they know what your community values are, and see if their answer matches yours.
If there is a gap between what you think your culture is and what your team experiences daily, that is where you start. Because as Damien said, resilience spreads through the team from the leader. So does disconnection. Fix the inside first. Then build out.
Two. Stop writing cheques. Start building relationships.
If your venue has a grants program or community sponsorship budget, do what Jenny does. Get on the phone. Go and see the programs you're funding. Take a team member with you. Bring the story back to your board and your staff. You don't need a big budget to do this. You need curiosity and follow-through. The relationship is worth more than the dollar amount on the cheque. And it will transform how your team understands the impact their venue has in the community.
If you don't have a grants program, start smaller. Identify three local organisations your venue already has a connection with, perhaps a school, a sporting club, a charity. Reach out. Ask how you can help beyond the financial. Show up.
Three. Tell your stories.
This one is for every venue that is already doing good work and staying silent about it. Jenny was very clear: the community engagement side of the club industry is the yin to the yang of the gaming industry. But if you do not tell the story, it does not exist in the public conversation.
Put it on your screens. Post it on social media. Include it in your member communications. Brief your frontline teams so they can talk about it when members ask. Broadcast it throughout the venue. Whatever it takes to make the story visible.
And for those of you thinking your community work is not impressive enough to talk about: stop that. A club that funds swimming lessons for kids who cannot afford them is doing something worth celebrating. A venue that trains its staff to recognise domestic violence and respond with compassion is doing something worth celebrating. A team that volunteers 1,000 hours a year in their own time is absolutely worth celebrating. Tell the story. Your members want to feel proud of where they spend their time. Give them the material to do that.
Four. Find your Caitlin.
Jenny didn't build Club Rivers' community program alone. She now has a younger colleague who speaks the language of the frontline team, who can recruit for the next volunteer event while carrying plates, who brings energy and connection that reaches people Jenny cannot reach in the same way.
Look around your team. Who is that person? Who is the one that other staff gravitate towards? Who already cares about the community work you're doing, even if they've never said it in those words? Invite that person. Give them the role or the responsibility, even informally to start. Let them champion the program from the inside. Because the community engagement work that lasts is not driven by one passionate manager. It's embedded in the team culture. And the best way to embed it is to find the people already living it and give them a platform.
Five. Act before the crisis.
You don't need a domestic violence hotspot ranking to build a DV action plan. You don't need a veteran to fall through the cracks to partner with the Younger Heroes. You don't need a Sunday night phone call to train your staff on how to respond when someone walks through your door in distress.
Look at your community. Not your membership database. Your actual community. The streets around your venue. The schools. The families. The people doing it tough. The people doing extraordinary things with very little support.
What do they need? What can you provide? What gap exists that your venue, with its space, its people, its connections, its resources, is uniquely positioned to fill?
And then act. Not next financial year. Not after the next board meeting. This week. Pick up the phone. Book the meeting. Put your hand up.
Because the venues that will define this industry for the next generation aren't the ones with the best fit-out or the biggest gaming floor. They're the ones where the community says: when things get hard, we go there. Because we know they will show up. Be that venue.
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Thank you so much for joining me for this month's recap episode. Links to all four guest episodes are in the show notes: Christopher Hill, Damien Schofield, Debbie Dickson, and Jenny Holt.
Tag me on socials. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, and of course LinkedIn. Send this to the one person in your venue who is already doing this work and deserves to know they are not alone.
And if you're ready to go deeper on leadership development, customer experience, or building the kind of service culture that makes community connection possible, visit my website at michellepascoe.com. The details are in the show notes.
Until next time, keep leading with purpose.
