Vale Ric Thompson ❤️
There are some people whose ideas become so woven into your own practice that it becomes difficult to remember where you first learned them. Ric was one of those people for us.
Ric has been part of our learning, thinking and community for a very long time. Dee first met Ric around 2001, and across the decades that followed he became a dear friend, colleague, provocateur and teacher, not only to Dee but to many people across the Jeder community.
Ric was also a pioneer in community inclusion and disability. Through founding Inclusion Works in Townsville, he was putting ideas about citizenship, belonging, valued roles and ordinary community life into practice long before many of those ideas became part of the broader conversation.
Dee remembers Ric telling her about the first time he heard John McKnight speak in the 1990s, and how deeply it challenged him. It shifted the way he thought about his own work and about what was possible when we looked beyond services to the gifts, relationships and capacities already present in community.
That challenge became part of Ric’s life’s work. He didn’t simply adopt a set of ABCD ideas. He wrestled with them, made them his own and translated them into practical ways of supporting people with disability to experience citizenship, contribution, friendship and genuine belonging. What challenged Ric all those years ago became part of what he went on to challenge the rest of us to see.
He was part of those early ABCD Asia Pacific gatherings, including the 2008 and 2010 conferences at the University of Newcastle, and joined us for the very first Jeder Unconference in 2013.
Ric wasn’t simply someone whose work we read or referenced. He was part of our learning community, generously sharing his thinking, challenging our assumptions and helping shape conversations that have travelled with Jeder ever since.
There were countless conversations about community, disability, citizenship, belonging, gifts, valued roles and what becomes possible when we stop seeing people through the lens of services and start seeing the richness of community around them.
Ric taught us plenty. He challenged us plenty too. His thinking around The Art of Asking, Third Places, the Power of 10 and community inclusion has travelled with us for years and influenced the way we think, teach and work.
At the heart of it was something beautifully simple and deeply human: people belong in community, not because a service has found a way to “include” them, but because they have gifts, passions, relationships and contributions that matter.
And then there was Ric himself. The colourful shirts. The wicked humour. The stories. The conversations that could wander all over the place and somehow leave you thinking differently.
And, for Dee, there will forever be fried ice cream. At a dinner many years ago, Ric managed to secure the last one. He shared it with her, and it became a running joke between them for the next couple of decades.
Such a tiny moment in a long friendship, but perhaps that is how we carry people with us. Through their big ideas, yes, but also through the ridiculous little stories that still make us smile when we think of them.
Ric, thank you for what you taught us, what you challenged us to notice, and what you made possible for so many people.
Our love goes to Candy, Ric’s family and friends, and the enormous community of people whose lives and work are richer because he was part of them.
And because of Ric, we’ll keep asking, keep noticing gifts and keep making community visible.
And somewhere, Ric, I hope there’s one last fried ice cream. ❤️
With love from all of us at Jeder.
Ric with Mike Green at the first Jeder Unconference in 2013.
Ric with Judi Geggie at ABCD Asia Pacific Conferences, University of Newcastle, 2008 and 2010
Ric with Judi Geggie at ABCD Asia Pacific Conferences, University of Newcastle, 2008 and 2010
