Email Article Jesse Taylor
Jesse Taylor at a rally in New York CityThere IS Such a Thing as a Free Lunch
Jesse Taylor, manager of headspace Mid-North Coast, says there’s often nothing more effective than a free lunch. Ironically his proof doesn’t come from his years serving up meals in soup kitchens in New York City. Rather it comes from his experience right here in Coffs Harbour reviving the somewhat dormant Youth Suicide Prevention Committee.
“When I came on board in June this year, there were two fantastically committed people attending the meetings. I found an organization (MHPN) that was willing to provide money to buy food and pay for speakers,” Jesse explains. “So I sent out a flyer to announce there would be free lunch at the Youth Suicide Prevention Committee meeting and 25 people showed up.”
Merrilyn Fitzgerald
A Study in Resilience
Merrilyn Fitzgerald starts to tell me about her day so far. “I was up at 5:30am artificially inseminating mares, then I went to get a semen collection and I’ve shipped that into Cairns this morning. I got my son ready and dropped him into school and now I’m here for the interview,” She is making me exhausted and it’s only 10am.
Merrilyn would exhaust most mere mortals. She specialises in equine reproduction for local practice Pacific Vetcare, teaches veterinary nursing at the Coffs TAFE and is mother to six-year-old Ryan who was born with autism and a rare form of epilepsy. Yet here she sits on the peaceful back deck of Mangrove Jacks Café, looking out over Coffs Creek and crackling with energy, laughter and adrenalin.
We speak about her veterinary practice, her passion for teaching, how she keeps herself together through difficult times and how having a special needs child changes your idea of what’s important.
Garth McGilvray
A PERFECT LIFE
Close your eyes for a minute and imagine the perfect life. Can you visualize it yet? Coming into focus? You may just have had a peak at Garth McGilvray’s life. He spends 6 months a year sailing in the Mediterranean, before packing up the boat for the European winter and returning with his wife Sue to their Camperdown Street apartment with its sweeping views of the harbour. He and Sue love spending time with his four grown children and dote on their expanding entourage of grandchildren. Between Coffs Harbour, Sydney, New York and the back of his sailing boat parked off a Greek Island Garth is keeping the mind sharp at the helm of Provet, a $300million veterinary supplies distributor, for which he is Chairman of the Board. Many people would see this as a perfect life.
Rochelle Martin
The Best Job in the World
You fly business class to some of the most exotic destinations in the world, stay in hotels that are out of reach to most mere mortals and travel with a team of people you almost consider family: would you call this work? Rochelle Martin does. Up until last January, she was a producer on channel 9’s Getaway travel show. “People ask me if this is the best job ever, and I would have to say yes,” says Rochelle as her 3 year old son Will crashes into the room wanting to show off his prowess at Angry Birds.
Sheree Lyons
A Beautiful Human Being
“What I remember from my childhood is violence”, says Sheree Lyons in response to my first question. This is not the start I had expected when I knocked on the door of this idyllic family home in Friday’s Creek, to be greeted by Sheree and 6 year old Majella, cute as a button and home from school with a sore throat. This image of domestic tranquillity doesn’t fit with the foreshadowing of domestic violence. But once we have Majella tucked behind the computer in the study, Sheree’s story starts to spill out and it becomes clear that it is this contrast between the demons of her past and the striving for serenity in her present that makes Sheree such an exceptional and beautiful person.
Peter Higgs
Coffs’ Renaissance Man
Peter Higgs drives onto the Jetty in a beat up truck with something about fertilizer written on the side of the door. In a striped t-shirt and jeans he approaches my table on the patio of Latitude 30. He looks like a farmer I think to myself. But once we’ve ordered a coffee and he starts to tell the story of his life I realise that he has far more in common with Leonardo da Vinci than Old Macdonald. Peter Higgs turns out to be a 21st century Renaissance Man: like Leonardo he has followed a variety of interests to become what is now called a ‘jack of all trades’.
Margie Gill
The Joy of Being Active
Café Urban on the Jetty Strip is teaming with people. It’s Saturday morning and everyone looks like they’ve just come from a work out – Coffs weekend warriors and surf junkies are out in force today. Plenty of fit looking people, but Margie doesn’t seem to be here. After 20 minutes waiting in the cacophony of endorphin charged chatter, Margie arrives looking sheepish. “I’m so sorry,” she apologises. “I was at Ventoux Cycles buying parts for a 1967 bike I’m restoring and I just couldn’t get away.” It seems pretty clear where Margie’s passion and priorities lie!
As our interview proceeds Margie happily acknowledges that exercise and fitness is indeed her passion and the focus of her life. “I just love it,” she says. “I’m not particularly good at anything but I just love being a part of it.”