We can thank Honor’s mother for bringing her and Tim to Bermagui. After leaving Lord Howe Island, they wanted to open a restaurant somewhere small and beautiful by the beach. On the long slow drive from Brisbane, they looked at many towns but realised Bermi had everything, ‘and why would I not choose the place where my mother lived?’

Long lines of locals and visitors at Honorbread speak to the delicious success of this local business. Honor and Tim hope their fifty employees will soon own it, using a model that is gaining traction in Europe and the US. Honor explains, ‘This model seems complicated at first, but selling your business to your employees through an Employee Ownership Trust makes a lot of sense. It keeps the business in the hands of people who care about it and know how to run it. A constitution grounds important values, the Trust owns the business on behalf of employees, and future profits pay off the owners and later get dispersed to employees. A company board makes sure the company still works, it’s not a co-op, but employees have more of a say. It would make an enormous difference if the Treasurer and the ATO would issue guidelines about what it would mean tax wise, about what kind of valuation I need. Then my lawyer and my accountant could just set it up.

‘We’ve worked really hard to build certain values into this business. It’s not easy when you have so many different personalities and needs. Every day you have to think and act on the right thing, right here and right now. That doesn’t just happen. You have to constantly reinvent what’s going to work. When we started a decade ago, Tim and I were making every decision, but now we are slowly stepping back and a management team is doing much more of that work.’

Honor Northam. Photo by Flick Ruby

Honor has recently joined the Four Winds Board, ‘I love everything about Four Winds, which has evolved so much since we first got here fifteen years ago. The classical music festival every two years was fantastic and introduced me to lots of music I would never have heard. Now that opportunity happens all year round. That space is being used and it’s alive. People’s ideas are being incorporated. I like things that bring people together, share creativity and allow people to grow. I’m seeing all that happen at Four Winds and I love being part of it.’

Honor recently had the opportunity to visit Scott Reef, endangered by resource giant Woodside’s proposal for gas extraction in the remarkable Kimberley region. ‘It’s really hard to get there. Scott Reef is 400 nautical miles west of Broome. The exact location of where they want to mine is the most pristine reef. There was bleaching everywhere else, but not there, and no one would see that. We were with a team documenting the beauty and the danger. Let’s protect this precious place from seismic blasting and from industrial gas extraction. We need to be louder. We saw another former mine, and it was just abandoned. Nobody sees the destruction or the waste and that’s what they’re banking on. I’ve never explored Western Australia before, so it was incredible. We saw crocodiles and incredible First Nations rock art, just extraordinary.’

Honor has a new project in a café space a few doors down from Honorbread called The Dissenters Lounge. ‘I called it The Dissenters Lounge because of a place I saw in the UK and also because I sometimes worry that we’re moving into a time where people aren’t speaking up for what’s right. They’re scared. I’ve been thinking a lot about homelessness too, so I wanted to make a space where people can have comfort, clean clothes, internet and a space to sit at a nice table, have a cup of tea, make yourself a piece of toast. It will be a comfortable community space that everybody can access. During summer, The Lounge will be a normal coffee shop till noon and then it will be different till 9 or 10 at night. Sometimes it will be rented out for events, for classes, a DJ could have a great little dance party here.’

A long table at the centre of The Dissenters Lounge has a lot of history. ‘This table was milled from a tree on the daffodil farm where Tim and I got married. This has been in our house for a long time; many good dinners and conversations have happened around this table. It’s got good juju. You could host a dinner here because there is a full kitchen and nice lighting. Exciting things are going to happen here.  We’ll see how it turns out! It changes every day.’

Where does Honor get her energy from? ‘I’ll be very honest. Up until this time last year, I’ve been running on adrenaline. I can’t say that I have looked after myself all that well. I have always kept pretty fit, but maybe to excess, I’ve often exercised more than I need to. This year, I’ve consciously tried to be less critical of myself and let myself do things with faith that it won’t all come tumbling down. I’ve realised that self-care is about self-compassion. I’m loving that I have a grandson. I have got to an age where I’m not so mentally consumed with everybody else. I lost my sister a few years ago. When she died, it made me really think about how I actually want to live and what I really want to be doing. I’m not going to keep doing something just because I started it, but what do I really want? It became incredibly clear that you die exactly how you live. I don’t want to think things will be better later on, or that I’ll start my life later on. I want to make sure that all the things I do every single day are what I really want to do.’

You can also listen to an interview with Honor on our December  Triangle Community Podcast.

Flick Ruby

Photo: Honor in The Dissenters Lounge. Photo by Flick Ruby