Tracey Doherty (Part 1/2) –
“I’m a January 1979 baby, born and bred in Lismore. I always joke that I’m that local. I don’t have a passport as I’ve never been out of the country. My local GP Bill Thompson who recently retired actually delivered me. I went to school at Lismore Public and then onto Lismore High.
I have a younger sister and brother. My sister has four beautiful children and my brother who’s local has three beautiful children.
My Mum’s side of the family are Sheaffe’s. My Grandfather was from Goonengerry. When the Goonengerry school needed more playground, Pop donated part of his farmland to the school which became their bottom playground. He was very community minded. Pop has lots of siblings. One has the old Sheaffe Motors which is now Sheaffe Towing over in South Lismore.
My Dad’s side of the family are from Blue Knob which is just passed Nimbin. They were the original dairy farming community prior to the Aquarius Festival. The cattle arena at the Nimbin Showgrounds is named after my Pop. My maiden name was McClelland so it’s the Bruce McClelland Cattle Arena and out near the Blue Knob RFS sheds there’s a road that goes to the left and there’s a little cemetery in there and that’s where Dad’s side of the family are buried. Dad maintains that cemetery and when he’s away I take pride in looking after it.
Both my parents, though separated, are retired. Dad is the Secretary of Lismore RSL sub-branch and my Step-Mum does a lot of case work for the Veterans. I think I get a lot of my work ethic from my parents and grandparents. They all volunteered in a whole range of different roles and always were and still are involved in community work.
I started work when I was 15. I worked at KFC in Lismore about 30 hours a week whilst still at school doing my HSC and I was also coaching and umpiring Netball. Mandy was the KFC store manager when I was there and she’s still working there so 30 plus years.
I always felt very awkward growing up until I reached Year 11. Something just changed, I felt like I really got to meet my peers who I’d not socialised with at all on a personal level. I became more confident in myself.
My Nan Una passed when I was in Year 11. I remember her telling me a story where growing up she never had a doll or a stuffed animal that was just hers. My step-mum took me shopping when Nan was Palliative and that was when Darrel Lea was still in Molesworth St. I found this Wombat, 30 cms long and at the time he was expensive, a full 8 hour shift for me and it didn’t phase me at all. Nanna passed away with that wombat tucked tightly under her arm. It then lived on Pop’s bed and when he was moved into the nursing home it was gifted back to me. My affinity with wombats really grew from there. Wombats are my spirit animal because they are short, fat and can run faster than you think they can. After I lost a heap of weight I started running and it was funny because I am short and I’m a bigger person but I can run faster than people give me credit for.
A couple of years ago after the ’22 floods I had some R&R so I went to Tassie. I joked to my husband about getting a tattoo of a wombat when I get there. He said…Where? I said on my butt so when I walk it waddles like a wombat does. When I got off the shuttle there was a tattoo parlour right there. I got a cute, cheeky wombat on my inner arm.
I met my husband Glenn in 2000. We actually met on a blind date. We went on a Thursday night to see ‘Me, Myself and Irene’ at the cinemas. The next day I talked his ear off on a drive and I thought, I’m never going to see him again but I did. We have two daughters and we’ve been together for over 25 years.
I’ve had a varied career. I did a child care traineeship after school. I then did a Cert 3 in aged care. I went from little bottoms to big bottoms (laughs). I ended up smashing my kneecap at work so I couldn’t do the manual lifting. I went from there to the call centre at Telstra in Goonellabah. I worked in that role until I had Emilee. She was born with some health issues. I had to pivot again so I did training in Business Management as a Bookkeeper which meant I could be flexible.
I picked up work in 2010 based in Ballina with an organisation called Spirit Dreaming. It was only one day in three weeks doing some bookwork. That organisation flourished. We did workshops in Aboriginal communities doing health and wellbeing. The Director was an Aboriginal woman from down Canberra area and her name is Mel Brown. My day went went from one day every three weeks to becoming her business manager and working with communities from Tweed right through to Coffs Harbour
I did some contract work with Uniting in Goonellabah and I picked up a short term contract with the cane growers in Wardell. I became their business manager and was offered full time work with them. I met one of my dearest Mentors through that process, Mick O’Connor. He was a school teacher in Ballina and he wrote the Marine Science Curriculum for the Department of Education. We worked together and it saw us in Parliament House and having meetings with Ministers.
Through that I formed part of the small team who created ‘Women on the Land’ We worked with women in agriculture to provide them with opportunities to empower each other. In the sugar industry men had their shed meetings and they had opportunities to come together but the women were doing the books or getting the kids ready or the finances. I used to remind our board of directors…Who does your bookwork? Who makes sure there’s a meal on the table?, Who does your washing, who does the stuff to help you get to do what you have to do? As part of that process I met some incredible women across the Northern Rivers….Helen Carlos within the RFS, Jen Harbright who was with the Dept Primary Industries, Sam Osborne from the RAMHP program, Janet Pettit from the SES and Fiona Borello. Together we provided opportunities for women to come together to learn and upskill.
I was offered a job in Disaster Recovery. I had a background with the RFS at that stage so it was lovely transition. It felt like I was moving home. I started with the RFS in January 2014 with the Caniaba Brigade originally. I started there as a fire fighter. Mal Robson trained me, and nicknamed me Humpty because I fell out of a fire truck doing a training exercise. My first helmet had ‘Humpty” written on the side of it. Mal always took me under his wing and pushed me to step out of my comfort zone.
Just prior to the 2019/20 bushfires I broke my ankle so I was in a moon boot. Northern Rivers fire control is Lismore City, Kyogle Shire and Richmond Valley. I had other skills and because it was such a huge event I stepped into the support brigade and learnt the radio and the phonetic alphabet and I wanted to help. That was my first foray into the Northern Rivers Support Brigade. We are all volunteers so we don’t get paid and often we are often the first responders. Since 2019 we’ve had a couple of Captains in the support brigade and late last year our current Captain resigned.
In December last year I was appointed as the Captain of the Northern Rivers Support Brigade. As I drove home I thought, I wonder if Pop’s proud? I have a photo of the fire truck back in the day of us kids with Pop’s helmets on and when I joined I now have a photo of Caniaba’s truck with my girls in the truck so there’s this generational thing. Last weekend I received my 10 year long service medal. I was alongside one of our members who received his 60 year long service medal. It was very special.
In 2023 I had about 5 months of unemployment and it was difficult because I didn’t realise how much I saw myself as, was tied up with what I did for work, so when I wasn’t working it was like, who am I? Earlier that year I had done a Cert 4 in Training and Assessment at Tafe and promised my husband I wasn’t going to study again. On a whim I applied to do a Diploma in Disaster and Emergency Management. I ended up doing a Graduate Certificate and finished that this year. At 45 I decided it was time to go to Uni.
I was needing some income so I was making some jewellery and doing some markets. I got an opportunity do a course in Pyrography which means burning into wood or leather at Stokers Siding. My friend and I went and I loved it. It was only a two hour course. She was a great teacher and we learned to burn designs onto hats. I fell in love with the craft. I went and purchased a $20 soldering iron from Bunnings and a couple of hats from Kmart. Since then I’ve bought a bigger machine with temperature controls. I’ve introduced the hats, the journals and the bags to my market stall. I make designs to order and I love being able to personalise this stuff.
In 2020 we had the fires and then we had Covid. I started work with St Vincent De Paul in November 2021 and then the floods hit in 2022 so my role was Bushfire Recovery and Community Development and then I had to pivot into the flood recovery space.
It’s the connection to community that I really love. I want to see people succeed and I want to see the next generation, that succession plan, I want to see them smashing the ceiling. That’s the stuff that I love.”