Field Notes: On Your Marks, Get Set, Behave
What a community marathon can teach us about trust, belonging and prosocial behaviour.
Hola Wayfinders 👋
When we last corresponded, I challenged us to rethink how trust and belonging take shape in our communities (or our workplaces, or institutions). We have a tendency to roll out programs that educate or instruct or police behaviour, and then wonder why the behaviour we want doesn’t follow.
Did we not make it clear enough?
Did we not reinforce it enough?
Did we not tell the right people, at the right time?
Then we wandered over to explore the work that we are doing in Ballarat at present; work in which we’re thinking about this challenge a bit differently.
Instead of asking how do we build trust, we’re asking:
What changes the conditions in which trust becomes possible?
The feedback from you?
“This is intriguing. I’d like to know more.”
So…. for the past few weeks, I’ve been recording short audio reflections for members of our Ballarat Civility Collective - the very excellent group of individuals in our community who have been helping to shape this work.
They’re not polished podcasts or formal updates. They’re more like field notes.
They’re observations from inside the work we’re doing locally - noticing moments, environments, behaviours and tensions that might tell us something useful about how trust, belonging and civility actually develop in communities.
I thought I might start sharing some of them more here too, as a way of bringing you into the work - if you’re interested.
This week’s field notes come from the Ballarat Marathon.
Almost 12,000 runners.
300 volunteers.
Participants from 17 different countries.
$6 million flowing to the Ballarat economy.
$160,000 raised for charities.
Thousands of people across the city. Crowds gathering early. Roads closed. Cafes full. Supporters and runners everywhere.
And yet what stood out most to me wasn’t the event itself.
It was the behaviour around it.
People were patient. Encouraging. Respectful. Joyful. Looking out for each other.
No one was forcing that behaviour. No campaign was instructing it.
So what was happening?
🎧 Listen to this week’s Friday Field Notes
In this 4-minute audio reflection, I explore what events like this might reveal about the conditions that make prosocial behaviour feel natural and easy.
As always, I’m sharing this as a working observation rather than a definitive conclusion.
I’m curious what it brings to mind for you.
Onwards and upwards,
