You’ve had a distinguished career in the education department. Tell us a little bit about that.
I’m currently the president of the Victorian Primary Principal’s Association. I was also principal at St Albans East Primary for 10 years and prior to that I was principal at Calder Rise for nearly five years. So I’ve spent 15 years as a principal in the western suburbs.
What do you think of the current state of schools in Brimbank?
Some of our school’s facilities are a little less than desirable compared to what the newer schools get. However, in saying that, there’s massive money being spent on education, so there’s some real positives and hopefully we see some of these older schools brought up to standard.
What do you think the biggest challenge facing our schools is?
In my time in Brimbank I’d say the significant change in demographics of families is one of our biggest challenges. There’s an influx of newer cultures coming in and that in itself means you need to make adjustments to learning programs and build an understanding with families with what we’re about. Brimbank is an evolving space. It’s constantly changing.
Tell us about your involvement with the Keilor Football Club.
I’ve been connected to the football club for the past 14 years. First through my son playing here as a junior and doing team manager roles during that time.
Four years ago I went onto the executive as vice president and currently my role stands as the vice president as well as the child safety officer and the team manager of our women’s team for the second year running.
The women’s team has seen drastic growth since its inception. Tell us about the work that’s gone into that.
A lot of the work was done prior to me stepping in. We started about five years ago with a couple of teams and now we’re up to six teams with a strong Auskick element. We expect to grow in that area too.
Has the growth posed any space constraints?
There’s always space constraints. You’re talking about facilities that were built traditionally for male sport. Because we’ve grown so rapidly we do have the issue of trying to get our females into the changerooms when men are in there and naturally there are some logistics around that which we have to adhere to and address each week.
