Kintsugi Heroes
Glenys Reid
Glenys Reid noticed lonely people in cafes and built a national network that treats connection as vital infrastructure.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
In 2017, Glenys Reid lost her job at 65 and found herself facing loneliness for the first time. She'd spent decades in high-flying corporate roles across Australia, Asia, and the USA, but suddenly she was job-hunting in a market that didn't want her. What struck her during that year was something she noticed in cafes: people sitting alone, using phones and laptops as props, wanting to connect but not knowing how to start. She began talking to strangers, and 45 minutes later they'd be laughing together, having real conversations. That simple act planted a seed.
Glenys learned about Chatty Cafe, a UK program with a similar idea, and decided to bring it to Australia in 2019. She had no business plan, no experience running a charity, just a conviction that it seemed like a good idea. She started with nothing but volunteers and the belief that if people simply began talking to each other, it would transform their lives. Despite bushfires and COVID, Chatty Cafe now operates in over 230 venues across Australia with 70 volunteers.
Her ability to keep going through 2017 came from somewhere deeper: her father survived three and a half years as a prisoner of war on the Thai Burma Railway, never speaking about it until he was in his seventies. He marched every year with the men he'd served with, right up until age 85, despite arthritis. Her mother served as a nurse's aide in wartime Darwin. Glenys grew up in a family that didn't take sickness as an excuse or use it as a reason to stop. That inheritance, combined with a 6 AM beach fitness group and close friends who showed up without knowing how much she needed them, carried her through.
Today, Glenys says the most important thing you can do is slow down long enough to listen when someone asks if you're okay. Not as a question you rush past, but as an act of kindness that takes real time. She believes one person can change things, even if it's just for one other person. She hasn't taken a salary from Chatty in five years. What she hopes for now is that Chatty tables become so common across Australia that no matter where someone walks into a cafe, they'll find a table full of people chatting together, and they'll feel welcome.
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