Frances Shares Her Journey
Recent member Frances Clark shared her fascinating job talk at last week's meeting. She grabbed our attention by claiming that we spend all of our life running away from our environment or giving into it. Frances' father was a priest, and her mother was a local school teacher. Her mother took one look at her father and fell for him because he had clean hands! Frances' mother had been brought up on a sugar cane farm, and she hated the way that that lifestyle produced filthy hands. The couple married to a small town in the Riverina - even smaller than Tarnagulla. Given the nature of her dad's work as a clergyman, Frances, by the age of 5, had moved 3 times and been in an aircraft 500 times. Moving around became an integral part of life for her. Frances' Father was on his 3rd career by the age of 28, and he was dead by 50 - his first job had been as an engineer in the in the James Hardy factory. Frances lived in the Riverina for 3 years when her dad got itchy feet - he thought being a Vicar was boring, so he was head hunted to Melbourne in 1970 and became a Vicar in Collingwood - helping to integrate migrant people into the community. The family lived in inner city, around the Hoddle Street area. According to Frances, this location contributed to her becoming "feral" in her teenage years, so she has much empathy with many students at our local GELC where she now works. Still, Frances finished Form 6 at a Melbourne Grammar school and went to uni, completing her degree in eight years! The reason why, according to Frances, was that she was "feral and stupid"! However, she DID complete her degree and then went and had babies. Frances had worked at numerous occupations by the time she was 26, and thought she had done nothing useful - she reckons she had 400 jobs on her resume by the age of 25! However, having children made her realize that she needed a more permanent career. One of her father's many occupations was to be a psychologist in Broadmeadows working with under-privileged families and this was also to influence Frances. By the age of 26, Frances consolidated her career using her extensive experience of customer service and business and she decided to become a trainer. Her first job was in fact here in Maryborough at GELC, teaching customer service. Frances then became a corporate educational consultant back in Melbourne - but the people she worked with didn't really appreciate how difficult it is for some people to obtain an education. So, after 15 years at the job, mainly to ensure that her kids were fed and clothed, she came back to Maryborough and ended up doing the same sorts of things as her parents. She thanks her father for teaching her that we need to take risks in seeking our careers, and we need to pursue what we really want to do as a vocation.
Currently, Frances has one son as a marketing executive in USA, the other son is on his 15th job at the age of 22. Both boys are taking after their parents just as Frances has been driven by her experiences with her own parents. Frances believes that many children today are under parented, and some haven't been parented at all - e.g. coming to school with no breakfast, no clean uniforms etc. She argues that we need to support parents to actually be parents or better parents, and she believes Rotarians could be good role models for students at GELC. She is very proud of her students at GELC, many of whom still pursue an education every day despite their difficult personal experiences and backgrounds. Thank you Frances for an honest, challenging story!