Last year, Rebecca Allen-Ankins moved from the hustle and bustle of Brisbane city to Clermont in Central Queensland with her police officer husband and two young children. She spoke with SU QLD Media and Communications’ Jennifer Kerr about the move, and what got her involved in the LCC.
Tell me about becoming the Clermont LCC chair.
I started in the Clermont LCC Chair position last November (2017), invited by the current chair at the time, to not only join the committee for the first time, but to take on the chair role to commence 2018.
I understand you moved from Brisbane to Clermont. What inspired the move?
We moved to Clermont for my husband’s job. He is a police officer, we were looking for a rural transfer, and Clermont ticked all the boxes. Our boys were two-years-old, and 5-months-old at the time, and I was ready to connect and invest strongly into the mother’s group and playgroup community. A peace surrounding the decision and the timing was final confirmation that we were settling into what we would truly call home.
Community service and event management have always been my passion and skillset, and soon after becoming submerged in the amazing culture and life in Clermont, I began to take on roles to support the community through running programs and events like the Clermont State School Playgroup, starting up Mainly Music at my local church, and launching the now annual Christmas In The Park event.
I recently took on a new life adventure when I qualified as a Queensland Fire and Emergency Service Urban Fire Fighter (auxiliary). This is now my main employment, training one night every week, but only ‘going to work’ when a job or emergency occurs. Although I am on call 24/7 it works well around my family schedule. The comradery and support between emergency services in our town is second to none.
What has been the biggest learning curve so far?
For me, learning how to chair meetings well and not allowing them to extend into long conversations, mostly opinion driven, that don’t bring results. I want everyone on the committee to know their time and words are valued. Now during meetings, through the support of a great secretary who was previously an LCC chair in another town, meetings are 1 hour long, they stay on point, and we ensure all items bought up aren’t treated as open-ended discussions, but are brainstorming time that will end in clear motions and actions that can be measured and achieved.
What do you wish you knew when you started, that you know now?
I wasn’t fully aware of the community funding required to keep our chaplaincy service at the level it is now (two days each in our two schools). I am not scared off by a need to run fundraising events, or even asking for small funding, but now knowing the full extent of what our service needs in dollar amount, and that being required year in year out just to maintain what we have, has me sure that I wouldn’t have taken on the role had I known these details in full at the start.
What are the biggest challenges for your LCC?
We are blessed to have the support of many people sitting on our LCC, including representatives from three main churches in town who bring with them great support. But still our finances looking towards the future remain the greatest challenge. We don’t want our schools to ever be without chaplains again (this happened in recent years) and we would like to maintain a minimum service of two days a week in each school, ensuring the level of support that our community needs is being met. We also feel the burden of knowing our chaplains well on a personal level, and we seek to look after them, their families and their financial needs.
Tell me about the areas/aspects of your LCC you think are strong.
Clermont LCC are strong in community engagement and reach. We have on our committee not only our school principals, school teachers and community members, but we also have representatives from three different churches. Having this connection gives us the opportunity to actively educate and defuse misconceptions about chaplaincy to a broad demographic of community members. We have a fresh board (new chair, secretary and treasurer) which brings with it new ideas, new strategies and new enthusiasm for this service.
What top 5 tips would you share with a new LCC chair?
- Seek to educate the community on what the chaplaincy service really is. People and businesses need to connect to “the why” before they will think about “the what” and how they can support it.
- When it comes to fundraising and events, find what is unique to your community in and use it (like the Clermont to Capella Horse Ride event we do)! Don’t try to do what everyone else is doing, their model may not fit your community.
- Know what outcomes you want an event to achieve. Sometimes the outcome you need is for community education more than fundraising. Decide this, and build the event around its purpose. True fundraising events need to run at very little cost to profit ratios (better if cost is none at all) to be effective as real fundraisers.
- Listen to your chaplains. They know more than we do about the needs in our schools as they are there, on the ground, listening to the stories from the mouths of children. When they suggest a program or training is required to fulfil a particular need, do your best to support them and make it happen.
- Don’t be afraid to ask. I may feel nervous when I ask a business or family for financial support. But I remind myself that it isn’t me they are saying yes or no to. I truly believe in what I am inviting them to support, and I consider it my pleasure and duty to provide them with the same opportunity to partner in this mission. I have been called to knock, only God can open the door.
Do you have an LCC chairperson with experience to share? We’d love to hear from you! Email jenniferk@suqld.org.au