Graham Dodridge has always jumped right in and immersed himself. A career in communications that includes the founding of Gyro and Silver agencies has served as a professional spine to his other creative expressions, including photography, writing, music and his latest venture - Crunch Time - a board game for our times.
In this episode, Graham discusses launching his board game in our New Normal era and the importance of understanding the global environment crunch point.
Graham Dodridge has always jumped right in and immersed himself. A career in communications that includes the founding of Gyro and Silver agencies has served as a professional spine to his other creative expressions, including photography, writing, music and his latest venture - Crunch Time - a board game for our times.
In this episode, Graham discusses launching his board game in our New Normal era and the importance of understanding the global environment crunch point.
Hello, hello, and welcome back again to another, I hope, in fact, I know will be a fascinating thoughts and leaders because today we have Graham dredge Graham, introduce yourself. Hi, Jonathan,
Unknown Speaker :thank you for inviting me on.
Unknown Speaker :I
Unknown Speaker :the inventor of a board game called crunch time.
Unknown Speaker :crunch time. Well, we certainly are in a crunch time at the moment. Graham, tell us a little bit about the game.
Graham Dodridge :Okay, so I had the idea about 10 years ago, and over the last 10 years I've sort of got shelved a few times, and I think I got prompted by the pan demick to pull it off the shelf and say Stop pushing. Basically, it's it's a board game where you go around the world, and your behaviours affect the outcome. So the first half of the game is you go clockwise around the board, and you pick up cards along the way which have things like you didn't turn the taps off when you're washing your teeth if you went on a foreign holiday and you get penalty points I carbon credits or crunch points for all of the bad things or the bad behaviours you do. So you build up a carbon points deficit which you hold
Jonathan gabay :this board and I've seen it and in the middle of the board there's the ice cap bit Yeah,
Unknown Speaker :yes, it's a circular board you go around a planet there. And with your with your endangered species as characters, when you land on particular places, at the roll of a dice, you pick up cards which have actions and and so they educate you tire pressures in cars. The effect of Going in a helicopter,
Unknown Speaker :I really got to stop travelling in my helicopter
Unknown Speaker :gone okay but but but some people do and so, yeah, that is a that is a huge penalty involved in going in helicopter.
Unknown Speaker :Okay then carry on.
Unknown Speaker :So one goes around the board and and and eventually the rain forest disappears Of course and and so the ice caps melt and that all gets removed and what it reveals underneath is a scorched earth that's uninhabitable and that is crunch time. And that's the first half of the game. Then we reverse play, we go backwards around the board anti clockwise and we undo the damage and good behaviours are rewarded with you being able to hand back your carbon credits. So the tops off when I was cleaning my teeth I did only boil the kettle with as much water as I needed. I did run my car on the white tie pressures reducing electric burn on the Tesla
Unknown Speaker :fuel in the in the car
Unknown Speaker :that goes back to helicopters and Tesla's go on carry on
Unknown Speaker :in the courser
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, that's me. That's me. Okay.
Unknown Speaker :Exactly. So I did use public transport instead of my private car, and so on and so forth. So So by doing good behaviours, I then can reduce my carbon deficit and the eventual and slowly we put the rainforest and the ice caps back and the eventual winner is the person with the smallest carbon footprint.
Unknown Speaker :Love it.
Unknown Speaker :The idea of games like I suppose a board game, or getting people together I think that's what people have been missing, isn't it?
Unknown Speaker :Well, I live I'm very lucky enough to live in a small village and the community has really come together, the family has been forced back into the family home teenagers at university coming home, reluctantly after a long period of hanging out without coming home, but now they're all here. We've rediscovered board games in the house and everybody working together and the community as a whole working together, sharing trips to go and get bread from the bakery. The local fish monger delivering to the village square, and solar so forth. So we've really seen a coming together of the family and also the local community. I think I think if you're if you're confined in a in a in a small flatten it, you know, for example, and you've got a family, I can only imagine that it could be torturous, and so some people have been really, you know, suffering in a great way. We've all had a chance now to pause to for our lives to slow Not Not everybody, you know, NHS and front frontline health workers and key workers have been working as busy as as busy can be so so you know, thoughts and prayers for those guys. But most, a lot of people have had a chance to stop, pause and reflect. They're not rushing around going on holiday they're not, you know, because these things aren't possible at the moment. So people have been forced to take a bit of time out. Think about the world around us. We've seen less vapour trails in the sky from from planes flying overhead, we started to hear the birdsong again, go outside into the parks and start to appreciate the world and the environment around us in perhaps a way that we've stopped appreciating in the last 50 years.
Unknown Speaker :for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies cuts through kept the S of the evolutionary spirit of greed in all of its forms, read for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked upward surge of mankind in greed. You Mark my words will not only say tell that paper, but that other malfunctioning Corporation of the USA. Thank you very much. You know, when I when I was sort of coming up with this idea,
Unknown Speaker :though, I was only thinking about the ecology of it. But then when I started to think about all what board games from a from a sort of commercial aspect would I be competing against? Then of course, the one board game that's brings to everybody's mind is monopoly. monopoly is it's all about human greed, really beating, grabbing, doing a land grab and beating the other guys to Mayfair and Park Lane and of course, wiping them out. You know, so in every sense crunch time is the antithesis of that. I think there's an opportunity here now for us to, to look, you know, look at things another way in a very positive way. And, and the environment is something we all inevitably share. You know, there's a great disparity between the rich and the poor on this planet. In this country, you know, in, in, in every village, in every street, there's disparity. But one thing that we share is the air that we breathe, and the seas and the oceans and the rain forests and the ice caps. And that's inescapable. And, and so we have a it's the one area where we have a joint responsibility, a universally joint responsibility to protect, preserve and try and undo the damage that's been so catastrophic to the planet over the last since the Industrial Revolution, maybe before.
Unknown Speaker :You said earlier the idea that you can now hear the birds singing and and you can see the blue skies and stuff like that. Do you think that It's only a matter of time until those blue skies you know, slightly have a slight tinge on them again,
Unknown Speaker :people are very by their nature,
Unknown Speaker :I believe very self interested. And there's always a sense that well if the guy down the road isn't doing it or the girl down the road isn't doing it, why should I so so i think i think the collective psyche that needs to change and it won't change with one pandemic and one pause in our lives it will change with with an absolute will be forced to change.
Unknown Speaker :So in terms of unprecedented times, you can get much, much more dramatic than this in order to get people to change And yet you think that they won't change?
Unknown Speaker :Well, unfortunately, the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere 418 parts per million is only marginally affected by the pandemic, in the last hundred years, the amount of carbon dioxide in part of carbon in the atmosphere has dramatically increased. And, and our search is it's a level now which is far higher than it's ever been in, in, in the last 3 million years. So, so it you know, for that to come back down for global warming to, to slow down is going to take a major turnaround in the way that we will behave. And it's not just airline flights, it's consumerism, it's it's using plastics and so on and so forth. The oceans are becoming more acidic and so on and so forth.
Unknown Speaker :So we would really take
Unknown Speaker :it starts with education, so education, education, education, this is Great realisation this pandemic this period has given everybody a pause for thought, but then people are more aware now conversations around climate change the likes of the fabulous Greta Thun Berg she's she's a beacon of hope she's generationally not being tarnished by, I guess age in some regards, you know, she's got a purity of youth and idealism, which I think is is many older business leaders need to set up take note and observe and and do something about the beautiful idealism of youth is so so easily lost. As as one gets older, and I absolutely applaud her. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker :You all come to us young people, for how, how dare you. You have stolen my dreams in my childhood with your empty words. Yet I'm one of the lucky Once people are suffering, people are dying. entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is the money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How
Unknown Speaker :Don't you feel slightly uncomfortable, Greg, I mean, I'm not going to give your age away here. But I will say one thing for the listeners, he is just over 21 years old. I won't tell you how many months etc over 21 years over these over 21 years old. So in terms of gretta having a go at people of our age group, don't you find it a bit you know, have a bloody cheek quite frankly. And there's video after video after video scrunching up her face and and and accusing you and I and our generation of of learning This planet.
Unknown Speaker :Okay, well, whatever it takes to get our attention. But if you're offended by that, then that's a great shame because this goes beyond personal indignation. This is either you believe in climate change, or you don't. If you have, in my opinion, any sense of logic and belief in science, then you know that the planet is in a very precarious position. And it's not sustainable at this level. population is rising 7 billion. I mean, it's just not sustainable.
Unknown Speaker :People at the moment they are going through, a lot of people are going through hell, actually, we're hearing about domestic violence on the increase. We're hearing about young people with, you know, feeling suicidal people being furloughed and wondering, you know, what they're going to do about paying rents or mortgages or whatever it might be. It's very difficult for us to also have to take it on board. The idea of climate change because what can we do as ordinary people? I mean, we're just regular guys here. We're not. We're not at the United Nations or anything like that. I mean, what on earth can we do? We're just trying to get on with our lives?
Unknown Speaker :Well, some people are undoubtedly suffering. And, you know, I do feel very sorry for anybody that's having a really tough time right now. One doesn't stop in the tracks and say, Well, that's it then and give up. I think, I think now more than ever, it's time for people and people are doing it. They are starting to look after each other and really understand each other better.
Unknown Speaker :Do you think that given the pandemic and all the social pressures that have put on people that they're going to be able to also on top of that have time to think about the planet?
Unknown Speaker :I'm not suggesting that there's a preoccupation for everybody all the time, and pay and things are are starting to happen and there is hope? You know, because somebody is suffering Right now doesn't mean that other people on the other side of the planet are doing making great strides in creating ocean cleanup, technology, recycling technology, there's there's alternatives to plastics that are coming through that are all biodegradable and so on and so forth. That the collective psyche of the of humanity on the planet is about survival and, and ingenuity to create a sustainable planet I believe. And it's all a question of shifting the balance in the favour of that oh away from just the chopping down the rainforests to palm oil plantations, for example, you know, we got to think more cleverly and carefully about the the the wildlife of the planet 75% of which has been lost in the last 50 years. I just think the collective effect of 7 billion people on the planet is as long term catastrophic Short term hugely damaging and it went one step leads to another step in the path to that inevitable in endgame and, and we need to do something about that and we have it in our collective power as a as a species to do something about this. I mean Elon Musk, for example he is he believes his life's ambition is to create alternative worlds and life on Mars and so on and so forth. That's what he thinks his legacy What
Unknown Speaker :do you think that do you think that that's a bit wacky about life on Mars is one talking about the wacky?
Unknown Speaker :I understand that I think that that's an extreme ambition of his. And if you don't get out of bed in the morning with some ambitions, then then you end up maybe not not springing out of bed and that like you could do. I mean, he's achieved things that previously people thought were unachievable. And and he's challenging the girl the ice engines the internal combustion engine. industry, which is of course linked to the oil industry. And so he in a technological and ingenuity sense, he's he's an example of one of those people I talked about. You are creating sustainable solutions or at least attempting to create sustainable solutions against the backdrop of big industry and lots of interested parties who have lobbying, who are lobbying governments to prevent change, to destroy, to start drilling in the Arctic to, to put pipelines across Indian reservations. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of lobbies, a lot of interested parties that would try and prevent people having a dissenting voice and trying to do good for the rest of the planet.
Unknown Speaker :practically a prisoner in my own home. I couldn't get out to see my friend couldn't take part in PTA activity. I couldn't even shop when I wanted to. It's a whole new way of life. Now I'm free to go anywhere. Do anything see anybody anytime I want to hit the only good common sense.
Unknown Speaker :See your board dealers.
Unknown Speaker :You have run some of the world's no less, literally, most successful design stroke ad agencies who started it up one of the biggest ones ever and you you're running another one at the moment, I will ask you a question not about crunch time. But about advertising at the moment. I'm inundated with TV commercials, telling me how kind they are and how kind I must be to myself. And it's getting to the it's getting to the sugary level now. And do you think people are going to buy this long term? Is that the way that you're going to be advising your brands to go, which is like push up this kindness message.
Unknown Speaker :I think advertising very much reflects the spirit of the nation and the spirit of the international community. I think it's a barometer for For emotive thought patterns and where people are at people are very people have a cynicism. And what they are interested in is good stories, nice stories, positive stories, but they have to be authentic. And when you use the word sugary, that rather suggests that it's become unauthentic. And in that sense, I think consumers won't, or don't buy it at that point. I do understand what you're talking about. If it's disingenuous then then people won't buy it. So it becomes valueless.
Unknown Speaker :Are there just a few things that we can do in terms of this crunch time now in terms of the thinking about the planet, but what little things can we do that could make a bit of a difference?
Unknown Speaker :I think that the biggest The biggest thing that people can do is less of what they're doing. If you start to appreciate the things you already have, and stop wanting things that you don't have, and start to utilise the material goods that you've got and stop stockpiling more, you are doing good for the planet. People have gone into a frenzy of cheap holidays fueled by EasyJet and Ryanair, and a bunch of airlines and you know, people going away for a weekend. To to because they can because it's cheap. it perpetuates this notion of of unending resource that's available to us as people and and it and it blinds us and we get into a friendly It blinds us and stops us thinking about what is good for our long term planet
Unknown Speaker :prior to COVID I think some not all people, but some people, you know, were under the delusion that everything was an unending resource in terms of nothing could touch them. And you know, it's okay for atom Bower to talk about these things on a beautifully yes shot programme, but it's got really nothing to do with me. And I think this is really brought home that, you know, life isn't an unending resource that you've got to take responsibility.
Unknown Speaker :Yes. And there's no point in playing the blame game. Otherwise we become frozen in our in our in our guilt. I mean, I'm, I'm as guilty as anybody. What are you going to do about it? grant? What are you personally going to do? Excellent question. I have already started thinking about and started to appreciate the things I do have around me and to make better decisions about what I need versus what I don't need and the impact Packed with that does have on the planet. Again, it's all about education. The more you know,
Unknown Speaker :the more you consider it, the more action you take this positive
Unknown Speaker :action rather than negative action. The first thing I'm doing is is trying to share the knowledge that I'm slowly learning and be very cognitive of it. And secondarily, live my life in a in a more productive way to create more sustainability.
Unknown Speaker :So the big question is, of course, and everyone's going to be wanting to know this now, where can we get hold of this fantastic game? Okay, so I've got a website play crunch. time.com. Hold on. I'm just going to repeat that for people to play crunch time.com. Okay, yes. So So
Unknown Speaker :have a limited number of games that were available. They're currently working on getting the production of a major production run. in place so that, hopefully get it in shops by by the end of the year. If you've
Unknown Speaker :got kids in the house by the way, it's a great one to get them to have a go crunch time. So great. Thanks again for joining us.
Unknown Speaker :Thank you very much indeed Jonathan for, for having me on. And I look forward to speaking to you very, very soon.
Unknown Speaker :Wonderful. Okay, so that's another as they call it, another wrap up. So until next time when it comes to the crunch. Remember, you've got it in your hands as as Graham inspirationally was telling us to do a little bit to make this world a little bit of a better place, and I'll speak to you soon
Unknown Speaker :If you would like to contribute to a future programme, please email reinvent@me.com that's reinvent@me.com