Podcast Episode: Zurich, Switzerland — Where It All Began

Pip: Some origin stories begin with a dramatic call to adventure. Brett Hayhoe's began with a filing cabinet.

Mara: This episode opens the World Traveller Series — brett's account of twelve years serving LGBTIQA+ communities internationally, starting in Zurich, where a conference, a city, and one unexpectedly eventful evening all shaped what came next.

Pip: Let's start with where it all began.

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Zurich, Switzerland — Where It All Began

Mara: The question this post answers is deceptively simple: how does someone end up spending twelve years on the world stage for the LGBTIQA+ community? The answer turns out to trace back not to ambition or a grand plan, but to an organisation sorting through old paperwork.

Pip: The post puts it plainly: "It began, as so many things do, with a filing cabinet."

Mara: That filing exercise at Pride March Victoria uncovered a previous attendance at an InterPride AGM in New Zealand. The board decided to send a representative to the next conference. The next conference happened to be in Zurich.

Pip: And Zurich, it turns out, is not a city that eases you in gently on a budget.

Mara: The post is candid about that. The dollar exchange rate made it, in the post's own words, "one of the most expensive trips ever undertaken." There's also a wry aside worth noting — home ownership in Zurich is among the lowest in the world because the banks own most of the buildings, leaving even residents of a wealthy city technically as tenants.

Pip: The city itself sounds worth the expense — old town along the Limmat River, medieval guild houses, church spires, and an airport that ran, as the post puts it, "like a Swiss watch."

Mara: The conference introduced the architecture of an international organisation from the inside, and the post is honest that it was a steep learning curve. What made it navigable was the generosity of people already within InterPride — experienced, and willing to share that experience freely.

Pip: The conference also produced a procedural argument that sounds genuinely uncomfortable to have sat through — a vocal dispute over whether two regional representatives could be appointed rather than elected, with both appointees present in the room and unable to do anything but wait it out.

Mara: Both appointments were confirmed. That single outcome in a Zurich meeting room opened twelve years of service — two terms as Region 20 Representative, two as Secretary, two as Co-President.

Pip: Six roles, one filing cabinet. The return on archival excavation has rarely been so consequential.

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Mara: Twelve years of international service, and it all traces to a single administrative task nobody particularly wanted to do.

Pip: Next time, the series moves to the United States — Long Beach, California, and a friendship that has apparently outlasted everything else. Worth the trip.