According to the branch minutes, Fiona attended her first branch meeting of Yaraka/Isisford ICPA, which was held at “Pemberly” the home of Mike and Teresa Cobb on 28th February 1986. Her son Ben would have been four years old and her daughter Susan, two. As Fiona taught both Ben and Susan from pre-school up to and including Year 7 with the Longreach School of Distance Education, this would have been a most appropriate time to begin to find out about ICPA and what the organisation had to offer.
Some six years later, on the 29th March 1992, Fiona accepted a nomination by Heather Morton for the position of branch secretary. According to branch minutes, Fiona was not actually at that meeting so one can only assume that Heather spoke to her about the nomination prior to the day! For the records, those in attendance were W Bailey, H Morton, S Read, B Edwards, J Turner, V Hock, G Gimblett & N Stepanoff.
Fiona held the position of branch secretary from 1992 until the AGM held on 11th November 2006. What an enormous commitment – fourteen years as branch secretary. During this time, Fiona did the job with professionalism and efficiency. Her dedication to and passion for ICPA never faltered. Whenever there was an opportunity to “fly the flag” Fiona flew it.
During this time, she hosted at least eight branch meetings at her home, Gydia Park. These were usually accompanied by tennis afternoons followed by wonderful bar-b-q’s and were great social occasions. She (and her husband Joe) would always make people feel most welcome and she never missed an opportunity to encourage someone to become a member of ICPA.
Fiona has represented Yaraka/Isisford branch at numerous state and federal conferences. As far as we can ascertain, state conferences have included two in Longreach, Mt Isa, Cloncurry, Blackall and Tambo. She would always try and gently coerce someone who had not been before to go with her. “You will meet so many people and learn so much,” she would say. ‘They won’t bite you, you know!”
Our branch was also represented by Fiona at least three times at Federal Conferences in Roam, Perth and Adelaide. She would always deliver a most comprehensive report to the next branch meeting and could always answer most people’s questions about conference issues.
The position of Branch Publicity Officer was filled by Fiona during the following years: 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991 and 1992. She was also responsible for writing the information about the Yaraka/Isisford Branch which is contained in the ICPA Silver Jubilee Book.
In 1996, Fiona accepted the position of ICPA representative on the LASSC. She continued in this position until the committee was disbanded.
Thanks to the initial diligent work of branch member Heather Morton, the Commonwealth Bank provides a Tertiary Scholarship available to the child of an ICPA family. Since 6th February 1999, Fiona has coordinated the paper work associated with this scholarship. She continued in this roll after having stood down as branch secretary and is still currently in this position (10th March 2008).
Administering this scholarship on an annual basis is no small undertaking. It involves much liaison with bank, organisation of advertising for applicants, appointing an impartial panel of judges, collating the applications, providing the bank with details of the winner etc. It really is a significant undertaking and one which Fiona has done extremely well and for which we owe her a great deal of gratitude.
With the introduction of Risk Management strategies to ICPA, Fiona was nominated by Pauline Brunckhorst and seconded by Andrew Pegler as the Yaraka/Isisford Branch Risk Management Officer. She completes and submits all risk management plans on behalf of the branch and continues to hold this position to date (10th March 2007)
Over the years, there have been numerous working bees and fund raising functions from which ICPA has benefitted. Fiona has been actively involved in most of them and coordinated the catering for the East Toowoomba Rotary Club Car Rally which passed through Isis Downs in 2001. There are too many such activities to list them all, but it is with conviction that I stress there are not too many that Fiona has not been part of in some way or another. The Isisford Fishing Competition, the Symphony in The Shearing Shed and the Opera in the Shearing are some that come to mind!
