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Speaker 1: Moving that great things come from Mayfield. Sam Johnson, morning.

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Speaker 2: To you, wedding, Luke. Nice to chat.

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Speaker 1: It's wonderful to catch up with you again, reflecting on

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Speaker 1: fifteen years since they're devastating christ yours earthquake. Oh my goodness,

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Speaker 1: where were you when it hat?

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Speaker 2: I was? I was actually in Wellington. I was because

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Speaker 2: this was, of course the second earthquake after we'd had

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Speaker 2: the September one, and there was a massive emergency management conference,

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Speaker 2: so I was about to give a workshop on using

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Speaker 2: social media in a disaster when the big one had,

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Speaker 2: So I don't have the emotional attachment to that first

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Speaker 2: massive shape like so many people. But we came back

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Speaker 2: down that afternoon on a flu to Blenheim and drove

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Speaker 2: down with a whole car of journalists and I just

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Speaker 2: was on my phone in the car and just getting

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Speaker 2: Student Volunteer Army kind of back up and going and

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Speaker 2: saying that let's get going in two days time because

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Speaker 2: there was so much liquefaction.

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Speaker 1: So you talk about getting it going again. So many

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Speaker 1: people think of this being the genesis for the student

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Speaker 1: Volunteer Army.

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Speaker 2: That wasn't the case, No, no, quite actually really started

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Speaker 2: the Facebook page I started was well, I was in Mayfield.

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Speaker 2: I was at my sister's twenty first and went to

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Speaker 2: was there. I think how we should do something. I

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Speaker 2: was standing talking to Ben Tate and I actual, yeah,

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Speaker 2: let's go and should do something. So we went into

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Speaker 2: my room and just sort of started a Facebook page

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Speaker 2: and I called it the UC Student Base for Earthquake

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Speaker 2: Cleanup and invited all my friends to join, and then

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Speaker 2: they invited their friends, and all of a sudden, there

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Speaker 2: were fast forward to February and eleven thousand people showed

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Speaker 2: up to help out and along with the farming army

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Speaker 2: and everyone else, and it was it was an incredibly beautiful,

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Speaker 2: special kind of community response to a pretty nasty situation

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Speaker 2: and Strassie.

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Speaker 1: I imagine too when tragedy strikes, all people want to

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Speaker 1: do is help. And we spoke with former mayor Angus Mackay,

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Speaker 1: who knows it. In the hours following the earthquake, he

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Speaker 1: took a walk down East Street and it was like

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Speaker 1: a ghost town. Everybody had abandoned everything to either get

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Speaker 1: home to family or he said, there were there were

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Speaker 1: that many stories of Ashpotonian's going right. Things seem okay

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Speaker 1: for me, I'm going to jump in the car and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to drive to christ To because everybody's trying

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Speaker 1: to get out of the city. Midcantabrians were trying to

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Speaker 1: get in. Often officials are like, well whoa slow down.

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Speaker 1: You know, in times like this we haven't even had

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Speaker 1: a chance to take stock ourselves. Was that a challenge

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Speaker 1: at times? You know, so many people wanted to pitch in.

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Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think that's great. I think

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Speaker 2: that's exactly the character of Mid Canary people across the district,

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Speaker 2: and that's what we want and disaster you want people

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Speaker 2: to to I mean, not run into the face of danger, right,

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Speaker 2: but you do want people to help. And that's what

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Speaker 2: that's sort of what our whole project was about. It

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Speaker 2: was very straightforward at the end of the day. It's

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Speaker 2: that people have a bad situation and and other people

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Speaker 2: are allowed to allowed to and help, which is which

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Speaker 2: is terrific.

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Speaker 1: So coordinating, that wasn't no, not not really.

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Speaker 2: I think that you know, we've fifteen years now, We've

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Speaker 2: done i mean over fifty different disaster responses, including just

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Speaker 2: this weekend we had volunteers from you see, University of

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Speaker 2: Canterbury over a little river and way are we helping

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Speaker 2: with the flood victims? There? It helping clean up their

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Speaker 2: houses And the same thing happens every single time. People's

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Speaker 2: homes who often live around rivers often get flooded, and

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Speaker 2: typically Civil Defenses is very good at getting the roads

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Speaker 2: back open and that sort of thing, but actually they don't.

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Speaker 2: They don't do much for people inside their homes and

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Speaker 2: so and Insurance only covers the area right around your house.

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Speaker 2: So we fill that little gap where we can send

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Speaker 2: volunteers in and help coordinate people to go in and

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Speaker 2: help each other out and shovel a bit of celled

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Speaker 2: or mud or pick up things that are broken around

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Speaker 2: the house.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty neat, you know. It gives the people who

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Speaker 1: want to help a sense of purpose and applies to

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Speaker 1: help where it's needed the most. Well, what's the experiences

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Speaker 1: with the army sort of taught you personally?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think I think overall people want to help,

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Speaker 2: as we talked about, so in the disaster or any

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Speaker 2: sort of situation, whether it's a car crash or something big,

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Speaker 2: people do want to help. And and I think we're

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Speaker 2: not We're not very good organizationally at allowing people to help.

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Speaker 2: We sort of treat the government. So I think the

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Speaker 2: biggest thing overall is we've got to get better at

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Speaker 2: how we enable people to help each other and make

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Speaker 2: it quite straightforward, don't make it too complicated, not too

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Speaker 2: many rules. People can show up and generally take care

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Speaker 2: of their own their own safety with a few sort

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Speaker 2: of guidelines in the.

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Speaker 1: Face of pretty much every legislation corporate way of life

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Speaker 1: at the moment. Are you still involved with the army?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I still share the board, so I still step

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Speaker 2: back and involved last from mid last year and really

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Speaker 2: just focused on and if student longs RUM is quite

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Speaker 2: quite a big beast. Now we've got two hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty schools around the country, all seven universities and involved.

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Speaker 2: We've got a program that we run in South Australia

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Speaker 2: and the program that we run in Tasmania, and it's

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Speaker 2: all about the same exactly the same ethos that you

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Speaker 2: know that we had in a field years ago. When

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Speaker 2: people need to help each other, you just show up

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Speaker 2: and help. So we recognize volunteers everywhere. So it's a

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Speaker 2: badge based program. If you do five hours volunteering you

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Speaker 2: get a badge, thirty hours get a badge, two fifty hours,

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Speaker 2: get a badge. And it's all about identifying people as

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Speaker 2: volunteers and having people understand that, Okay, I am a volunteer,

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Speaker 2: so that when something happens, I go, oh, I can help.

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Speaker 2: I have the sense of permission. Actually I can show up.

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Speaker 2: And that's the whole thing that we want to do.

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Speaker 1: I love that, And so we quit yourself personally, what

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Speaker 1: are you up to these days?

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Speaker 2: We'll got a little baby, little two year olds that

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Speaker 2: she keeps me no, that's right, no. And then a

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Speaker 2: day job. I work at Auckland. Then in a more

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Speaker 2: corporate role at the moment, but it's still nice to

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Speaker 2: you know, get back, get back home often enough and

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Speaker 2: uh and these things.

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Speaker 1: You're a brave man living in Auckland.

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Speaker 2: You don't hold on that welcome forever, but it's good

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Speaker 2: for now.

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Speaker 1: Welcome you back. Anytime the Mayfield shows on in a

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks there could be reason to get back.

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Speaker 2: Then it's a bigger centeniary. You should. If anyone's following

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Speaker 2: the social media, it's absolutely amazing what they're doing. The

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Speaker 2: new produce. She has been all done up. So it's

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Speaker 2: just an incredible community. Yet, but I've loved watching it,

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Speaker 2: watching it all happen.

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Speaker 1: Come and have a punt on the piggies. Maybe you

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Speaker 1: have better luck picking them than I do. Sam Johnson,

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Speaker 1: founder of the Volunteer Student Army,