Club Sandwich

Club Sandwich You've got them. We've got you. The community for those caring for ageing parents, and everything else. Real talk. No platitudes or BS.

Weekly podcast, live events across Australia, people who respond at 2am 'same'. Just expert support that works.

04/06/2026

"You can be right, or you can be kind."
Bianca Dye is caring for her mum, who has dementia. And the hardest part isn't the big stuff. It's the stain on the jeans. The pants on backwards. The small daily moments where the woman who used to care so much about how she looked just doesn't anymore. Do you point it out and start a fight? Or do you let her walk out the door, stain and all, because at the end of the day, who really cares?
This week Bianca and Sarah get honest about what it's like to care for a parent on your own. Have you had to learn to choose kind over right? Tell us below.
New episode out now.

03/06/2026

Bianca Dye is absolutely squished in the middle of the sandwich generation. This week she joins Sarah Macdonald on Club Sandwich to talk about it.
Bianca is the sole carer for her mum, who's living with dementia, all while keeping her radio career spinning. She's open, funny and refreshingly honest about the guilt, the grief and the small moments of joy (turns out music takes her mum right back).
If you're caring for someone you love while holding the rest of your life together, you'll feel seen.
Language warning! 😂
🎧 Listen to the full episode tomorrow

The conversations we don't have with our parents become the ones we wish we'd had.What matters to them. What they'd want...
31/05/2026

The conversations we don't have with our parents become the ones we wish we'd had.
What matters to them. What they'd want if things changed. What they'd want us to know. Most of us keep putting them off, not because we don't care, but because we don't know where to start. And then one day it's too late to ask.

We’ve put together an evening to help you start now, while there's still time.
This Tuesday 2 June in Sydney, Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Kathryn Mannix, global campaigner and beloved author of With the End in Mind and Listen.

Expect an honest, warm and often funny conversation about the questions worth asking your mum or dad, and why starting imperfectly, at the kitchen table, is far better than finding yourself in a hospital corridor.

You'll leave with the courage to begin. And so you're not carrying it all in your head, every guest takes home a copy of Put The Kettle On, Vera's guide to the five questions worth asking the people we love.

There'll be club sandwiches, bubbles (of both varieties) and a chance to have Kathryn sign one of her books.

A few seats left. Be quick!

Tuesday 2 June, 6pm to 8.30pm Flex by ISPT, The Collider, 477 Pitt St, Haymarket Tickets $35 at clubsandwich.community or humanitix.com
A Club Sandwich night. With love x

30/05/2026

"I'm useless now. I can't drive."
That's the voice in their head of your elderly mum or dad the day the keys come out.
Once they stop driving, they're twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression. Their anxiety spikes. And it can last four, five, six years.
We talk about taking the keys like it's a logistics problem. It's not. It's the loss of agency. It's the spiral into "I'm useless now." And it's the mental-health story we rarely tell at the kitchen table.
This week on Club Sandwich, Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Joanne Bennett — researcher at Australian Catholic University and designer of the Thriving Without Driving program — to walk through what's really happening on the other side of this conversation, and what families can do about it.
The loss is real. Naming it is where the help starts.
Episode 16: Driving Me Crazy: Taking the Keys. Out Now 🥪
Jo Bennett Australian Unity Australian Catholic University (ACU)

29/05/2026

"When the keys go, the goal isn't to just get them from A to B. It's to help them live well.🥪
Dr Joanne Bennett on the practical scaffolding: Uber Senior, taxi vouchers, community transport, grandkids as the unsung heroes that keeps an ageing parent independent and connected. Brought to you by Australian Unity. Proactive local care that helps your parents live well at home, less worry for you, more time for the good stuff.

Episode 16: Driving Me Crazy: Taking the Keys. Out now wherever you get your podcasts.

28/05/2026

"He told the whole pub I'd stolen his car."
After she finally took his keys, her dad told everyone at the bar she'd ruined his life. She just smiled. "Hi everyone, call me Jane."
🥪 This is what taking the keys actually looks like.
Not a clean handover.
Not a logistics problem.
It's identity.
It's blame.
It's the white-knuckle worry that something will happen the next time your 90yr old mum drives past those three schools on her way to the shops.
This week on Club Sandwich, Dr Joanne Bennett walks us through the personal stories most families don't say out loud — and how to navigate this without losing your parent in the process.

Episode 16: Driving Me Crazy: Taking the Keys. Out now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our Youtube channelcommunity

28/05/2026

Taking the keys isn't logistics. It's grief. That's why this conversation breaks families.
🥪 This Thursday on Club Sandwich: Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Joanne Bennett — researcher at Australian Catholic University and the designer of the Thriving Without Driving program — to unpack one of the hardest conversations in the sandwich generation: taking the keys away from an ageing parent.
🎧 Spotify + Apple 📺 YouTube

27/05/2026

The dad who taught you to drive is now the one you're terrified to let drive.
🥪 This week on Club Sandwich: Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Joanne Bennett (Australian Catholic University) to unpack the conversation nobody wants to have … when (and how) to take the keys away from an ageing parent. Why licence loss is grief, not just logistics.
🎧 Spotify + Apple + 📺 YouTube, Drops Thursday.
🔗 Link in bio.

24/05/2026

The conversation with your ageing mum or dad you keep meaning to have. Need some help?
On Tuesday 2 June, Dr Kathryn Mannix is in Sydney to help us all know where to begin.
Kathryn has spent decades at the bedside of people in the last chapter of their lives, and helping the families around them find the words. She's a palliative care physician, a global campaigner, and the author of With the End in Mind, now translated into 16 languages.
She'll be in conversation with broadcaster Sarah Macdonald, for anyone caring for an ageing parent and quietly wondering where to start.
One warm room. Club sandwiches. Bubbles. A real conversation about ageing, living well and a good death.
Tuesday 2 June, 6pm to 8.30pm. The Collider, Sydney (near Central). Tickets $35 at humanitix.com.
Places are limited. We'd love you to come.

How do you support a parent who's lost their life partner?Bob Carr knows. He shares three things on this week's Club San...
23/05/2026

How do you support a parent who's lost their life partner?

Bob Carr knows. He shares three things on this week's Club Sandwich.

1. Get them talking. About the small stuff. Ordinary moments. The things you never thought to ask. Bob says he's learned more about his late wife Helena since she died than he knew when she was alive.

2. Honour the partner they lost. Their image is sitting huge in your surviving parent's head, every day.

3. Be patient. There is no time limit on this.

That last one stopped us.

When a parent loses a partner the urge is to push them forward. Into routines. Into activities. Into moving on. Bob's saying the opposite. Slow down. Sit with them in it.

Full episode wherever you listen.

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