Sad News but a Great Week.

Well a little over a week ago we got the phone conference call which although not surprising, shocked us all as our new division Director announced to us that he was proposing to make our RLO positons redundant. I personally had expected this sort of news a few years ago when our job positions changed somewhat, but this last 12 months felt pretty certain that our positions were pretty safe as we had won the prestigous "Carrick Award" and student support at the Uni was being modelled on our delivery of support. Lots of things were put in place for us to support students in the next 12 months including a name change of our job descriptions so you can image the shock when we were all summons to a phone conference three days before we were due on campus for our annual seminar to be given this news.

It was with some numbness, disbelief, and sadness that we all packed our bags ready to leave and spend our week on campus. Hard to beleive because we were also celebrating 30 years of the Network, and most of us have held our positions for a long time. A couple of the girls had been RLO's for 25 years, others for 20 years, I have been one for 15 years, and the two youngest serving RLO's have held their posiions for 6 and 3 years respectively. This is a job we all love and between us we had something like 200 years of experience. We are actually an RLO family. Our boss Suzanne had organised in fact two Birthday cakes for us this week.

We are a unique bunch of happy vibrant, bubbly woman who love helping and serving people, and when we got together on Sunday night decided that the week would not be a sad one, but a celebration of the good times, and friendships that we had made, and we had a ball. Lots of laughter, in fact, side spitting laughter, we wrote songs about our redundancy and sang them at the special dinner held in our honor - we arrived on Monday with party hats and balloons and streamers, which really did make life a lot easier for the staff members on campus who were hurting for us. The Uni has been a fanastic place to work - they have always treated us well - guess this was why the announcement was so much of a shock, but we have an amazing boss, some great students and we will continue to support our students well until we are no longer needed. We had lots of fun at our dinner, Beryl from Cairns had organised a fun night with party games, hat decorating competitions which were all accompanied by side splitting laughter. Thought I would share some of the photos of this fun night with you.

We have had an amazing boss who although firm, and fair, has supported us every inch of the way during our time as RLO's. Everyone of her staff members have thrived under her leadership and direction. This week is not the last week that we will be on campus. The Uni plans to bring us and our spouses all back to Toowoomba for a weekend to catch up again and have a celebration dinner some time next year. Something for us all to look forward too.

Although we met with all the Faculties and had some pretty full on sessions, there was also a mix of team building, and fun times built into our weeks program. Some of our "Carrick" prize money was spent on getting Dr. Phil Jauncey - a keynote speaker and corporate trainer in management, performance psychology, communication, marketing, education and sports psychology to address us. His address was very motivational and quite applicable to our current situation. He was also entertaining. Besides the RLO dinner on Wednesday evening, we also spent a morning at the"Jondaryn Woolshed". Outreach Staff also got to join us on this excursion, and I managed to get some great photos.
Karen got the surprise of her life when our guide was showing us the cook shed. It turned out to be her Aunty - she never realised she worked at "Jondaryn". She got a little extra ribbing, and Jim our guide made sure that she was the one to shear the sheep.

Our guide Jim did an excellent job. He was so knowledgeable and was able to fill us in on a lot of the History of the sheep farming and shearing in the district. The whole place is set up like a small town, and the school house was really intersting - reading the"Rules for Teachers 1879". Glad I am a woman today, and not back then. On our way back to the Uni, we stopped off to check out Queens Park which was just a mass of coloured flowers for the Toowoomba "Carnival of Flowers" which was held the weekend we arrived. Just gorgeous.

This week away has also allowed me to catch up with my kids which is always fun and exciting, my friend Karen (from Emerald who is also an RLO) joined us and we had a great time shopping and getting pampered in the big city.

Yesterday, Karen and I had a pamper whilst waiting for Sarah to finish work, Karen got a manicure and I had a pedicure - what a luxury, both got to get a great massage whilst we waited, and it was a lovely way to spend and hour or so after a hectic week. Then last night we got to go out for dinner and off to coffee afterwards - got to share photos of coffee and desert - it was presented beautifully, HUGE HUGE PHOTO SHARE this week.

Today Sarah and I hit the shops and had the time of our lives as we shopped until we dropped. This afternoon we found this gorgous little cupcake shop at "West End" and had afternoon tea there. Lots of good fun. Tonight I get to go out for dinner with my wonderful son. Looking forward to seeing some special time with him also.

It has been a pretty awesome week spent with a wonderful bunch of warm and beautiful woman - this is the part of my job I will miss the most, the time spent with these guys. Still I am thankful for the 15 wonderful years I have spent in this job and I know that just as this is the end of an era, as one door closes another door open and I am sure that God is in control.

This has been a huge post, and I'll be surprised if you get to the end of it - but so much has happened in the last fortnight both good and bad, that I really want to document it all for my own benefit - I apologise for all the picture too but they really do contain some wonderful memories for me that I want to remember always.

Trust you all have a great week.