After nearly 60 years of volunteering, Jan Woolmer is ready to pass on the torch to the next generation. Having dedicated much of her life to serving others, she now looks forward to seeing younger people step up to continue the work she loves.
After nearly 60 years of volunteering, Jan Woolmer is ready to pass on the torch to the next generation. Having dedicated much of her life to serving others, she now looks forward to seeing younger people step up to continue the work she loves.
One of Jan Woolmer’s proudest moments was participating in the Sydney Olympics torch relay, so she has practical experience of passing the baton on to others.
After roughly 60 years of volunteering for a wide range of charities and causes, the Eagleby resident has decided it’s time to hand over to the younger generation.
Organising the Christmas concert at her over-50s lifestyle resort this year will likely be her well-deserved volunteering swansong.
With both herself and husband Mick feeling the weight of time and its associated health challenges, she knows it’s time for others to experience the joy of giving.
“We just need a few younger people to put their hands up now,” she says.
“I think we just need more and more people to do some good in this world.
Jan has spent much of her life giving to others, but feels she is the one who has gained most.
“You get so much out of it, so much satisfaction, so much learning. And you meet some beautiful people.”
It was through volunteering that she met two of her closest friends more than 30 years ago.
“We catch up every two or three months. Like so many who volunteer, they’re lovely people – two beautiful women.”
When Jan and Mick arrived in Australia in 1964 as “10 pound Poms”, they had no idea of what lay ahead in what they now strongly agree is the lucky country.
Originally from Leeds, they had married in 1961 when just 18 and 20 respectively, and three years later set foot on Australian soil with little life experience but endless enthusiasm.
“We arrived in Brisbane knowing no one, but after landing here on a Wednesday, we both started work on the following Monday.”
Now needing somewhere to live, they moved into a rental at Windsor, which turned out to be next to a noisy fire station, something the agent hadn’t pointed out.
“We were brand new and he took advantage of us, but we made the most of it,” Jan says with a laugh.
They settled quickly and, after living on the northside for four years, moved to the southside – firstly at Underwood Rd in Eight Mile Plains and then to an acre at Shailer Park, the ideal location to raise children.
“We have three children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. So, I always say we’ve done our bit to populate Australia.
It was at Eight Mile Plains that Jan, a young mother still in her early 20s, got her first real taste of volunteering.
“Once the children arrived, Mick didn’t want me to work, and he earned enough that I could be a stay-at-home mum. And because of that, I was able to do more volunteer work.
“We established a committee, with Mick as the president, to raise money for a kindergarten at Eight Mile Plains on Underwood Rd.
“We saw the need and, along with other enthusiastic and hard-working parents, decided to do something about it. There were a lot of other young families in the district.”
Over the ensuing years Jan has been involved in numerous volunteer activities, including with Meals on Wheels, The Salvation Army, cancer charities, and 10 years as a Lifeline counsellor, when she also ran group meetings for people affected by suicide.
“Families are so deeply affected, everybody who came to those meetings had lost someone to suicide,” she says.
“So when people walked in, they knew that we had some idea of what they were going through, and they felt safe.”
Jan says one of the stipulated rules of counselling was that you were not supposed to touch people.
“But if somebody wanted a cuddle or if I thought they did, I’d say, can I put my arms around you?”
During one counselling session, a woman who had lost her son was shaking violently and had tears streaming down her face.
“And I just said, I desperately want to give you a cuddle, would that be okay? And then we just stood there for about five minutes while she sobbed and sobbed.
“I didn’t always do what was considered the right thing, but I did what was instinctive. And I think that is the right thing.”
The counselling work also led to Jan creating and running self-esteem courses for women, after seeing a pressing need for women to realise their own value.
“It was to help women to feel more confident and equal to their partners, or their boss, or whoever.”
She also found it a personal learning experience.
“Because I came from the time when women were subservient to husbands, initially I was quite happy for Mick to make all the decisions. But not anymore,” she laughs.
“Mick and I are very, very different – but we’ve been married for 63 years, so we’re doing something right.”
And Jan is quick to acknowledge the support that Mick has provided during her volunteering.
“As I said when I was given the award for Logan Citizen of the Year in 1991, the reason I’d been able to spend so much time doing community work was because I had a husband who supported me.”
One of Jan’s proudest achievements was organising the Logan City street parade from 1988-91, and this was instrumental in her being celebrated as the city’s leading citizen.
“I did all the phone calls and organisational work and then the SES took over on the day and organised everybody into the order that I’d prescribed,” Jan says, noting that about 1000 people took part in the inaugural parade.
“I had an old door in the garage that I brought into the house and put on trestles, and then I had a piece of cardboard for every entry, and mapped out the order.”
Arguably her most rewarding volunteer work was with Protect All Children Today (PACT), where both Jan and Mick were involved for many years in supporting children appearing as witnesses in court.
Often the children were appearing in cases involving family members, so the potential for trauma was high.
“And they just had to tell their stories of whatever it was that they’d seen or experienced. Unfortunately, the bulk of it was sexual abuse, so it could be quite traumatic.”
On one occasion, after a young male witness bravely withstood a grilling from an aggressive female defence counsel, Jan remembers waiting until they got outside the court to tell him how proud he had made her.
“I said to him, and I can remember punching his chest gently as I said it, you’ve got more courage in there than you realise – because he had held his own, he hadn’t crumbled in front of this bloody awful woman.
But Jan’s overall feeling about her volunteering is one of immense enjoyment.
“You meet some of the beautiful people in this world and you can feel a lot of satisfaction when things do turn out well,” she says.
“One young woman gave me an angel to put on the top of the Christmas tree and she said, ‘You were my angel while I was going through this’.”
Among the most memorable outcomes from volunteering was being chosen to be in the torch relay for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Finally she says: “We never regretted coming here and I’d like to think that through my volunteering I’ve been able to give back at least some of what Australia has given to me.”
