---

---

On a Sunday morning at The Outside Inn, just outside Wannon, people will sit around a table with beads, thread and a chart of dots and dashes. They will make jewellery. Some will spell a child’s name. Others may choose a single word: love, hope, remember. From a distance, it will look like a craft workshop. Up close, it will be something quieter and more complicated.

Grief Relief and My Crafternoons are hosting the Encoded Jewellery Crafternoon on Sunday 25 October, inviting bereaved parents, siblings, grandparents and anyone carrying a loss to make Morse-code jewellery together. The event is free, with an optional donation to Grief Relief, and is open to people aged six and up with adult support.

For Josh Bell, the man behind Grief Relief, the idea began in the aftermath of an unimaginable loss.

Bell’s son, Mather, died in a car accident. Later, a close friend lost his 17-year-old son. The two fathers found themselves talking about what came next — or, more accurately, what did not.

“There was just nothing to look forward to,” Bell says. So they got on dirt bikes. What began as a way to keep moving became something larger. His friend, Matt, wanted to do it for other people. That instinct became Grief Relief, a local charity supporting families after the death of a child.

The charity’s work has so far taken the form of outback treks and community missions, including the Dads on Dirt motorbike expedition across the Simpson Desert. But Bell is careful not to let Grief Relief be defined by one kind of grief, or one kind of person.

This workshop came about after a mother who had lost a child asked for something for women, particularly mums and their kids. Bell had seen Stacey Barnes’ My Crafternoons events and thought the format might work.

“It’s not just for women,” he says. “People have many different ways of remembering their loved ones.”

Bell knows grief does not disappear because life continues. It can sit alongside birthdays, school runs, weddings and ordinary Tuesday afternoons.

“You think it’s all disappeared in people’s minds and they’ve moved on and forgotten about it,” he says. “But people reach out and realise they haven’t forgotten.”

He describes community support as feeling like “lying in pillows” soft, unexpected, and difficult to explain until you are inside it.

“Grief, joy and love exist together during some of the most joyous moments,” he says. “I’ve found a lot of comfort in spending time with people who share the experience of having lost a child, and I wanted to combine that with activities that bring joy.”

Bell, who is also a teacher and runs positive-psychology programs, hopes the morning offers something gentle rather than prescriptive.

Busy hands, quiet minds

Stacey Barnes has built My Crafternoons around a simple observation: when people make something with their hands, they often find it easier to talk.

“Busy hands, quiet mind,” she says.

There is a flow state to it, she explains. The focus shifts to the beads, the pattern, the small physical decisions in front of you. That can create room for conversation without making conversation the point.

“It allows space for the brain to wander,” Barnes says. “You’re not focused on what you’re saying. It can create a more comfortable environment.”

At the session, participants will use Morse code to translate a name, word or initial into beads. The message is there, but it is not obvious to everyone who sees it.

“It’s subtle,” Barnes says. “Encoded. Something close to your heart.”

That privacy matters. Nobody will be asked to explain their loss, perform their grief, or justify why they came. Some people may want to talk. Others may want to sit quietly, make something beautiful and leave with it around their wrist or in their pocket.

“When your hands are busy making something, sharing the table with friendly locals, open conversation tends to happen naturally,” Barnes says. “My Crafternoons create spaces for people to share stories and make connections, while having a good time and making something lovely and personal they can keep.”

No pressure to share

The collaboration began when Bell reached out to Barnes. They had already been planning a different Crafternoon, but says the connection felt natural.

She describes Bell as someone who passionately cares about people, and who is willing to be open about vulnerability, something she believes is still too rare, particularly among men.

“Men can be vulnerable when most are bottling it up these days,” she says.

The workshop is deliberately broad. It is open to anyone who has lost a loved one: a child, a parent, a partner, a friend, a grandparent, even a pet. There is no hierarchy of grief and no expectation that everyone’s story will sound the same.

“Some attendees might not want to talk about it,” Barnes says. “There’s no pressure to share.”

For anyone nervous about arriving alone, she encourages them to get in touch beforehand. On the day, Bell and his family will be there, along with the kind of regulars Barnes says tend to gravitate towards her events.

“People can be reluctant to start,” she says. “But once they start, they get into it.”

Free, so nobody has to decide

The workshop is free, with an optional pay-what-you-feel donation to Grief Relief.

That choice is intentional. Earlier this year, fundraisers including a multi-person bike ride from Port Fairy to Koroit helped raise money for Dads on Dirt. But Barnes and Bell did not want cost to become a barrier for someone who might already be carrying enough.

“In an ideal world, people can keep coming back,” Barnes says. “We’re testing it first, but we’re hoping to make it an annual thing.”

She hopes it may grow into regular grief-informed Crafternoons, shaped by what participants say would help them remember their loved ones.

What Barnes wants people to take away is modest, and perhaps because of that, more powerful: new connections, a few laughs, a small spark of enjoyment, and the feeling of not being alone.

“A part of a community,” she says. “People who relate to a similar experience.”

---