Within 18 months of our move to Adelaide, son Darren decided a 2 year NAB transfer to Darwin sounded like a great experience.
Our eldest daughter Jacqui, went into year 12 on arrival from NSW & Nicole into year 10.
After year 12, Jacqui commenced studies at Adelaide Uni to study a Nuclear Medicine Technologist Degree; 2 years later Nicole commenced her training in a Primary Teaching Degree as Uni S.A. in Magill.
I was invited to join the Rotary Club of Campbelltown in the N. Eastern suburbs of Adelaide in June 1986. In this era and for many to follow, we were encouraged to do a ‘MAKE-UP’ with another Rotary Club if you were unable to attend your own club’s regular Dinner Meeting. My first ‘official’ meeting following my induction into the Campbelltown Club was the following week and I was on a business trip to WA and actually in Kalgoorlie. This was an interesting experience when asked how long I had been in Rotary; 1 week was my answer!
In 1992 – 93, I was Club Secretary of Campbelltown Club and served as a Director on several occasions across the years. I served as Club President of Campbelltown in the year 2000 / 1.
In October 1990 Jacqui & David Grivell married at Dernancourt Uniting Church and 2 years later in July 1992, Nicole & Peter O’Brien married in the same church in Dernancourt; a North Eastern Suburb of Adelaide.
Alice continued teaching in her Home Economics environment (more so known today as Food & Technology) at Sienna College at Findon, across a 19 year period, until we moved to Middleton in 2006.
My working role became a bit chequered across the years of 1988 through to 2014.
I joined the Mitre 10 Hardware Group in October 1989 where I operated as the True Value Group Coordinator across S.A., working from Head Office at Para Hills through until July 2001. This was a shock for the system as I had hoped to have been in this environment for many years to come but through major changes Australia wide in the Mitre 10 Group my position disappeared.
Employment was difficult to secure across several months, until I took a job on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland at Buderim, where I worked as a Technical Writer for a former work colleague from my Woodlawn Mines days at Goulburn in NSW. This work tapped in to my technical and maintenance background of my trade and mining equipment maintenance.
In this role I negotiated a work pattern of 3 weeks on and 1 week off where I flew back to Adelaide for this time; then back to Qld on the Sunday, ready for work on Monday. In this period of time I rented 2 different flats at Alexandra Headland for a period of 4 months until March 2002; a period of 4 months. This was great work but not the best way for Alice & I to be so far apart.
Across the next 3 years, my employment was rather chequered. I worked as a Sales Rep for several companies in the Hardware Industry but did not gain a great deal of satisfaction in this work.
By March 2004 Alice & I were looking seriously at both moving permanently to the Sunshine Coast, as I had taken up another appointment working in the same role as a few years earlier, as a Technical Writer.
Alice explored the opportunity of obtaining a teaching role in the area of the Sunshine Coast, but that was not as easy to gain a position as we had hoped.
On this appointment, I took my own car to Queensland, organised a flat within walking distance of the work place and I worked the equivalent of 4 weeks in 3 weeks , so as to return to Adelaide and still know I had actually worked as full-time role; quite demanding but the enjoyment of the work made the long hours well worth-while.
As the concept of actually moving to Queensland was not to be, I only remained working in this position for 4 months and returned to Adelaide.
I was able to find employment in a Purchasing position in an Aluminium Casting Business in Wingfield, very soon after returning from Queensland, only to find 6 weeks after taking up this position, the organisation went into Administration. We worked hard to trade out of this situation but after 12 months, the gates were closed and we all moved on into another world.
The Human Resources Manager from this business had already moved into another business and contacted me about a position available where he was now working in the ‘Lift Industry’ in Adelaide.
I took up the role of Purchasing and Field Logistics and within 6 months Alice had been appointed as Food & Technology teacher at Investigator College at Goolwa Campus.
We moved to Middleton in early 2006 and I continued to commute to and from Middleton / Goolwa to Adelaide for the next 4 years until a redundancy caught-up with me again.
I worked with former Rotarian, Ray Jackson, on Radio Tower maintenance tasks in locations across regional S.A. for 12 months until an employment agency contacted me about a part time contract Purchasing role with Tenneco, the parent company of Monroe Shock Absorbers, at Clovelly Park, on South Road, in suburban Adelaide. I worked in this role for
4 ½ years until I retired in 2014 at the age of 68.
Alice & I have and continue to enjoy our caravanning travels to Tasmania, Vic., NSW., & Southern QLD Coastal Regions and across the Nullarbor and into the former area of the Pilbara where we lived in the late 1960’s and 1970’s and through the South West of WA.
While living in Middleton for 2 years, we purchased land and built a new home in Goolwa Beach in 2007 / 8 . Recently we decided to downsize our home and have moved into the SeaChange Retirement Complex where we built a new home and took delivery of our keys at the end of March 2021.
I moved to the Rotary Club of Goolwa from Campbelltown in July 2006 and have served our community and this Club as Secretary for 3 years and Vice President for a similar period.
Rotary has been a significant part of my life for the past 35 years and I have enjoyed the opportunity to be part of our Rotary team in making a valuable contribution to our local community of Goolwa, across the last 15 years.
KEVIN H.
President Wendy Lippett
Secretary Greg Casson
