This year’s National Reconciliation Week theme, Bridging Now to Next, invited us to reflect not only on the past but on the shared future we’re building together. For the St John’s College community, the 2025 Reconciliation Week Lunch provided an opportunity to honour this spirit through conversation, learning, and deep listening.
The event welcomed students and staff to engage with two powerful voices working at the cultural interface: Uncle Rod Williams and Dr Sam Cooms.
The conversation opened with an acknowledgement of Country and a reminder of this year’s significant milestones: 25 years since the Walk for Reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the second Reconciliation Week since the Voice Referendum. While these events form part of our national memory, the focus of the week was squarely on the future - how we choose to live, lead, listen, and regrow, both individually and collectively.
Uncle Rod Williams has spent decades working where First Nations knowledge systems meet Western structures. Through his consultancy, Gongan, he introduces a business model rooted in cultural values and spiritual grounding. “All good business and all strong communities begin with a cultural and spiritual base,” he shared. “Before we ask people to contribute, we must ask: What is your culture? What is your spirituality?”
This starting point is especially powerful in college settings, where students from diverse backgrounds are learning not just to co-exist, but to live in community. For Uncle Rod, these questions open the door to relational leadership, one that prioritises respect, reciprocity, and responsibility.
Dr Sam Cooms, an academic and leader in Indigenous strategy, offered insight into the challenges and opportunities of working across cultures within institutions. She highlighted the importance of moving beyond performative gestures to actions that are embedded and enduring.
A theme that resonated strongly throughout the afternoon was that leadership is not defined by position, but by responsibility. Within college communities, students shape culture every day—through the stories they tell, the behaviours they normalise, and the values they choose to uphold.
When asked what message he would give to students wanting to lead well, Uncle Rod was clear: “Start with relationships. Learn to listen to our stories before you act.”
Dr Cooms added that strength in leadership doesn’t always look like certainty. Sometimes, it means being brave enough to admit what we don’t know, and being open to learning from others, especially when that learning feels uncomfortable.
As the conversation drew to a close, attendees were encouraged to reflect not just on what they had heard, but on what they might carry forward.
What values are we cultivating in our communities? What kind of seeds are we planting; personally, culturally, institutionally? And what might we need to unlearn in order to walk together differently?
In a time where reconciliation can feel fraught or uncertain, the lunch offered something both grounding and hopeful, the reminder that change is not abstract, it begins with how we show up in the spaces we already inhabit. As we bridge now to next, it’s in these everyday acts of respect, reflection, and responsibility that true reconciliation takes root.
