Kymberlee and Sarah

Kym – “We moved to Lismore in 2012, so 5 years ago. We opened Flock 4 years ago in the little arcade. It was a 20 sq metre block at the end with only 8 seats when we started. At that time I worked nights as a youth worker as we were pretty broke and in the day i worked in the shop. It started taking off, so 6 months later I was able to leave youth work and just be in the shop. We did all our cooking off site in a commercial kitchen as we didn’t have the facilities or the money to buy the equipment for the shop. It grew quickly, so we put more seats out in the alleyway and then we took over the shop next door for a dining room. We went from just us to a team of 10 plus before the flood.

We have always had lots of fundraisers as well. We love doing fundraisers and giving back to the community. Not only Internationally but locally as well. I don’t know if its because we are a minority but being gay we really appreciate the support being given to small business and we really like to be able to share that with others. We moved here and didn’t know anyone. Having a small business, doing fundraisers and being part of the community when you don’t know anyone is so important. That becomes your structure, your family and your support.

We had a cafe in Brisbane and holidayed around Mullumbimby. We wanted to move and saw how expensive Mullum was, so it was like ‘Lismore is great’! We moved here in August 2012 and held some vintage markets while I did youth work. We talked about opening something small and Sara found the old Flock space. It was yellow and gross and they used it to store tyres. I was like …’You are insane, I’m not doing this’ and she won the fight.

Sarah – ‘I don’t generally! Everybody can vouch for that. It was never meant to be that big. Just us and maybe 2 others but it blew up in such a good way.’

Kym – We are thankful. We love it! You hear wealthy people say ‘Find your passion or find your purpose.’ We love hospitality, working together and having a business together.

Sarah – It’s not even like working at the end of the day but I’m patient. (laughs)

Kym – (laughs) We’ve been together 8 years and had businesses together for most of that.

We have 3 dogs. Our angels, they are so amazing. They will be shocked when we go back to work. Even though we are here from 6am we are up at 4am normally. The last few weeks we have had snuggles in the morning and a play. They are treasures.

We were trying to have a baby before all this flood shit happened. For the last 18 months we have been going through that fertility rollercoaster. It’s now been put on the back burner for a while. ‘We’ll just keep that sperm frozen, it’s fine. It’s not here in the freezer! (laughs).’ I told my Dad how we go through the fertility programme and how the sperm is frozen. He was like “Can I open your freezer or does it need to be kept at a certain temperature?”I was like ‘Dad, it’s not here!! and my Mum’s saying.. Rick, Stop talking!’

We feel really dumb and naive with this flood. We lifted everything as high as we thought we should. We were worried we wouldn’t get back to Clunes where we live. We were told the height would be less than it was so we thought we raised our stuff high enough. Sarah drove back to me and couldn’t get through any where.

Sarah – “In the end I came all the way around through Ballina and we got the message at 10.30 at night from the SES. We are not blaming the SES as everyone does their best in a really shit situation. To ourselves we feel silly. We lifted up as much as we could but we had a a narrow stairway. We lifted most of our food in the freezers but they turned the power off which is normal. We were so overwhelmed. It came up to 1.4 metres, picked up huge fridges and tipped them over. The power of that water!! On the Friday one of our team members came into town and the water was only about a foot high so we were still thinking we were ok. We were told it had to peak and would rise. We were being sent photos and videos from mates who were filming and sending from kayaks through town of our shop underwater. We were in Clunes and couldn’t get in. We went through the 2011 flood in Brisbane which was huge but we made it through that one.

Kym – “We opened the door as soon as we could get in and went on auto pilot. We had team members and beautiful friends ready to help. We couldn’t open the door or get in because the equipment had blocked the entrance. They were crawling under rotten fruit and broken glass to get in. At that time we thought we could start again. So much damage and we didn’t think about asbestos, cracked pipes etc. My parents came from Brisbane at 6 in the morning to meet us at the shop. We were trying to get plumbers, clean and scrub to open again. The builder who came past told us to stop scrubbing as the walls were asbestos. We finished all the cleaning and after talking to all the powers that be we realised that we couldn’t go ahead in our Flock space. It wasn’t viable and when that conclusion was made for us that was when it all sunk in. We stayed at home for 3 days and we were really sad.

You can’t compare business to humans. Business is our baby. We invest so much of our time and ourselves, not to mention our 10 team members whom I hold a huge responsibility for. That was hard. We had to move. Our staff were asking when they could work again then this space which had been for lease since September came onto our radar. It hadn’t been cleaned. The Firies had hosed it out after the flood, but it was 2 weeks before we could get in and clean. It was huge and revolting. The mud was curling like chocolate. The old Flock space was about 50 sq.mtrs and this is about 270 sq.mtrs which is significantly bigger. Everything in the old Flock space was wood so now we have metal with wood on top so if it happens again we can replace the tops. We lost our coffee machine. We have painted the whole space. We have relied on all local tradies.

Our parents were telling us to move back to Brisbane, to go back to social work, Sara should go back into finance and walk away.

We were like, apart from building something up for 4 years. We love it and we love this community. We were devastated, even the thought of leaving Lismore broke our hearts. We don’t have $100,000 just sitting there in case and we have spent the same amount of money trying to fall pregnant.

Our best friend created a Gofundme page and lots of the charities we work with donated on that. Lots of our customers and suppliers did as well. Cafe’s that we have relationships with donated. The things that people wrote were so beautiful and when you’re feeling alone, not from being bad in business but from a disaster your whole routine is thrown out. We have been to banks, maxed out cards and we start again. We hope to open in a week or so when all the boxes are ticked. The council have been amazing!

I feel like the best thing that can happen is people in rural towns can do it all. Everything in here is from Lismore except for the IKEA cushions. All our tradies are Lismore based. We have gone from a team of 10 staff to 22 and we had our first team meeting so they could all meet and engage. It’s so exciting that Lismore can meet all these lovely people. We had hundreds of CV’s sent to us and I wish I could employ them all but we are growing and it’s so great.”

Sarah wrote this David Bowie quote in the Allpress mag.

“I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other peoples expectations. If you feel safe in an area that you are working in you are not working in the right area. Always go further in the water than you feel you are capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom you are just about in the right place to do something exciting, not necessarily the first.”

“We really loved our last space so we just hope everyone loves our new space.”