Chaos Cultivated 2025

It has been a full, nourishing, exhilarating and exhausting 2025. We’ve had such a great group of young people in the 25Crew, diving into events, creative projects and real-world learning. They have driven innovation, developed products, created business networks and gained confidence through pushing their boundaries. And, they planned and delivered the 14th annual STUFFit Student Film Festival to a sell-out crowd of 130 people. Working with QuEvents during our Crew-intensive, to turn the fabulous Light Industry venue in Kunda Park into an indie cinema. The Crew-intensive brought an additional eight students who worked with the 25Crew and QuEvents. It is a powerful team-building experience and the students are pumped by the end of it.

Now we’re gathering creative young people keen to do this with us in 2026.

We completed our year by celebrating seven amazing students who graduated on December 1st. One completed the BSB30220 Certificate III in Entrepreneurship and New Business, and six earned their SIT30522 Certificate III in Events. It’s been such a joy watching their confidence and skills grow through months of planning, creating and delivering real events. Two more students who joined us mid-year will now continue their studies next year while working with the Heart of Gold International Short Film Festival in Gympie.  

Thanks to Advanced Flight Theory for the part scholarship for one STUFFit student, Perseverance Street Theatre for the part scholarship for Arafin and Gympie Regional Council through The Regional Arts Development Fund, a partnership between the Queensland Government and Gympie Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland for funding Sharn to pursue further learning opportunities with local work pathways.

The students planned and delivered their own graduation which included games and a shared lunch at work. Then a swim in the ocean followed by a lovely dinner at the Coolum Surf Club with their families to share in the success of their teens' achievements this year. It was a wonderful ending to their year of planning and delivering STUFFit and participating in many other events.

I’m especially grateful to share that, thanks to the generous support of several local benefactors, a number of students in Nambour and Gympie will have the opportunity to access a part scholarship for the 2026 SIT30522 Certificate III in Events EventSpark program. Their generosity means more young people can gain a nationally-recognised qualification, in their local community, by working on established events.

We have a change of leadership for the 2026 STUFFit Student Film Festival. I’m thrilled to welcome Lincoln Knight as our 2026 Festival Director and Rae Gunn as our 2026 Deputy Festival Director. Bringing the management of the festival pretty close to our aim for the event to be fully youth-run. 

The Gympie students will be attached to the Heart of Gold International Short Film Festival from February 2026 and we have three more students enrolling now. These well-established festivals give students the perfect framework to put everything they’re learning into action; planning, problem-solving, collaborating and making events happen.

I’m thrilled that four of our awesome 25Crew Events students are staying with us to start a BSB40520 Certificate IV in Leadership and Management. They’re exploring some exciting project ideas right now, and I can’t wait to see where their leadership journeys take them next year.

Grateful to my collaborator Dani Duncan from Learnivation Pty Ltd RTO 45770. Dani brings the rigour to the knowledge and reason required to understand events, and potentially gain nationally-recognised qualifications. While Cultivate the Chaos provides the structure and pressure of a well-established real-world event to deliver the experience. It’s a strong collaboration. This year we were lucky to welcome Kathryn Bradley to the team, Kathy is helping students build the solid foundation of what and why before they head out to tackle the how through various real event experiences through the STUFFit course.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this update. I’m grateful to those who support our wild ride into broadening educational opportunities for young people on the Sunshine Coast and Gympie. The students speak for themselves on what this year has meant to them and I welcome you to step into some elements of our 2025 through our media gallery. 

My sincere thanks to our 25Crew and their families for developing the year with us. We have all enjoyed see the learning and experience outcomes for their teenagers. Thanks for supporting this time of creative and purposeful learning.

If you’ve got any questions or thoughts, please drop me a line at robyn@cultivatethechaos.com.au.

Here’s to more learning, laughter and live events in 2026.