Club Sandwich

Club Sandwich You've got them. We've got you. The community for those caring for ageing parents, and everything else. Real talk. No platitudes or BS.

Weekly podcast, live events across Australia, people who respond at 2am 'same'. Just expert support that works.

12/06/2026

One nursing home spent over 10,000 euros (AUD $16,500)in a single year. On plastic plants.

Real plants weren't allowed. The reason? Someone living with dementia might eat one. So a real plant becomes a risk and a fake one becomes policy.

Teun Toebes lived in a dementia ward for three and a half years and watched this logic play out everywhere. A system so fixed on safety and control that it quietly strips a home of the things that make it feel alive. Real plants. A dog. A bit of mess.

As he puts it, it's not about how much money is in the system. It's about what we choose to do with it. Choose lively environments over risk assessments.

Full episode out now. Wherever you get your favourite podcasts. Also on Youtube at .community


10/06/2026

At 21, Teun Toebes did something most of us would never consider. He moved into the locked dementia ward of a nursing home and lived there for three and a half years, as a housemate rather than a visitor.
What he learned changed how he sees everything about dementia care. His line has stayed with us: "looking differently always leads to doing differently." If we change the way we see people living with dementia, we change the way we treat them and the policies we build around them.
If you're caring for a parent with dementia, or watching the system from the inside, this conversation with Sarah will challenge a few of your assumptions and a few of your feelings.
New episode of Club Sandwich out this Thursday.

09/06/2026

We keep telling ourselves we'll have the conversation "in the future." Then a crisis arrives, and nobody's ready. ☕
Dr Kathryn Mannix and Melissa Reader joined Weekend Today to talk about the conversations we need to have with our ageing parents — and the help the Put the Kettle On guide can give families facing them.
In this clip, Kathryn shares her guidance: it's not about taking over or over-parenting them. It's about saying, "You could help me by having this conversation."
You keep them in the role they've always had — the parent. The person who taught you to hold a spoon. You're just opening the curtains and letting the light in.
That's the heart of Put the Kettle On — a free guide for the conversation to have at the kitchen table, not in the hospital corridor. It starts gently: "Mum, Dad, what does a good day look like for you?"
👉 Grab the free guide at putthekettleon.com.auPut the kettle on with your parents. It can be a wonderful opportunity for real connection. 💛

It’s about living well in a different season of life, and it begins with one gentle question — "Mum, Dad, what does a good day look like for you?"
From there it opens up what matters most: independence and agency, who they want beside them for big decisions, the important documents (power of attorney, will, enduring guardian), and the story and legacy they want remembered.
👉 It's free. Download it at putthekettleon.com.au

08/06/2026

"Mum, Dad — what does a good day look like for you?" ☕
It's a simple question. But for so many of us, it's the one we never quite get around to asking. Then we find ourselves in a hospital corridor, stressed, vulnerable with almost no idea of what matters most to our parents as they age.
Put the Kettle On is a free guide to help Aussie families have that conversation at the kitchen table, not in the hospital corridor. It's not about taking over. It's about understanding what living well looks like for your parents in this season of life — while there's still time to ask.
The guide gently walks you through what matters most:
☕ What independence and agency look like for them now
☕ Who they want beside them when big decisions need to be made
☕ The important documents — power of attorney, will, enduring guardian
☕ Their story and the legacy they want remembered
People worry these chats will bring up sadness. More often, what comes up is relief — and families end up closer than before.
👉 It's free. Grab it at putthekettleon.com.au and put the kettle on this weekend. 💛




08/06/2026

Bianca Dye is caring solo for her mum, Annie, 81, living with dementia. Annie had a tough childhood and carried a lot of trauma. And Bianca describes the shift that changed everything for her: when she hugs her mum now, she's not hugging "the dementia," or the woman who can be difficult. She's hugging little Annie … the frightened kid who never got enough of it.
So many of us are caring for parents who weren't always there for us. It's complicated, and it's hard, and there's grief in it. But as Bianca, there can also be a strange kind of healing.

Have a listen. This one stays with you. 🎧
Episode 19 — "One Text Away From Falling Apart” with Bianca Dye — is out now wherever you get your podcasts.
(This episode touches on dementia and mental health. Support: National Dementia Helpline 1800 100 500 • Lifeline 13 11 14.)

What a weekend! Melissa Reader, CEO of Vera and Commissioning Editor of Club Sandwich joined Weekend Today with the wond...
07/06/2026

What a weekend! Melissa Reader, CEO of Vera and Commissioning Editor of Club Sandwich joined Weekend Today with the wonderful Dr Kathryn Mannix, Michael Atkinson and Alison Piotrowski to talk about something most of us quietly avoid — the conversations we need to have with our ageing parents.
That's exactly why we created Put the Kettle On. It's a free guide, built around five simple questions worth asking your mum or dad — about what they want, what they worry about, and what matters most to them. No pressure, no guilt. Just a cup of tea and an honest chat at the kitchen table.
Kathryn has flown in from the UK for just one week, and her message says it all: these conversations can feel hard to start, but they don't have to be. There's often real relief. These conversations are a gift to everyone around the table.

Don't wait for a crisis to have them.
ownload the free guide now at putthekettleon.com.au
Put the kettle on this weekend — and start the conversation.

04/06/2026

"You can be right, or you can be kind."
Bianca Dye is caring for her mum, who has dementia. And the hardest part isn't the big stuff. It's the stain on the jeans. The pants on backwards. The small daily moments where the woman who used to care so much about how she looked just doesn't anymore. Do you point it out and start a fight? Or do you let her walk out the door, stain and all, because at the end of the day, who really cares?
This week Bianca and Sarah get honest about what it's like to care for a parent on your own. Have you had to learn to choose kind over right? Tell us below.
New episode out now.

03/06/2026

Bianca Dye is absolutely squished in the middle of the sandwich generation. This week she joins Sarah Macdonald on Club Sandwich to talk about it.
Bianca is the sole carer for her mum, who's living with dementia, all while keeping her radio career spinning. She's open, funny and refreshingly honest about the guilt, the grief and the small moments of joy (turns out music takes her mum right back).
If you're caring for someone you love while holding the rest of your life together, you'll feel seen.
Language warning! 😂
🎧 Listen to the full episode tomorrow

The conversations we don't have with our parents become the ones we wish we'd had.What matters to them. What they'd want...
31/05/2026

The conversations we don't have with our parents become the ones we wish we'd had.
What matters to them. What they'd want if things changed. What they'd want us to know. Most of us keep putting them off, not because we don't care, but because we don't know where to start. And then one day it's too late to ask.

We’ve put together an evening to help you start now, while there's still time.
This Tuesday 2 June in Sydney, Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Kathryn Mannix, global campaigner and beloved author of With the End in Mind and Listen.

Expect an honest, warm and often funny conversation about the questions worth asking your mum or dad, and why starting imperfectly, at the kitchen table, is far better than finding yourself in a hospital corridor.

You'll leave with the courage to begin. And so you're not carrying it all in your head, every guest takes home a copy of Put The Kettle On, Vera's guide to the five questions worth asking the people we love.

There'll be club sandwiches, bubbles (of both varieties) and a chance to have Kathryn sign one of her books.

A few seats left. Be quick!

Tuesday 2 June, 6pm to 8.30pm Flex by ISPT, The Collider, 477 Pitt St, Haymarket Tickets $35 at clubsandwich.community or humanitix.com
A Club Sandwich night. With love x

30/05/2026

"I'm useless now. I can't drive."
That's the voice in their head of your elderly mum or dad the day the keys come out.
Once they stop driving, they're twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression. Their anxiety spikes. And it can last four, five, six years.
We talk about taking the keys like it's a logistics problem. It's not. It's the loss of agency. It's the spiral into "I'm useless now." And it's the mental-health story we rarely tell at the kitchen table.
This week on Club Sandwich, Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Joanne Bennett — researcher at Australian Catholic University and designer of the Thriving Without Driving program — to walk through what's really happening on the other side of this conversation, and what families can do about it.
The loss is real. Naming it is where the help starts.
Episode 16: Driving Me Crazy: Taking the Keys. Out Now 🥪
Jo Bennett Australian Unity Australian Catholic University (ACU)

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