Paul Mracek JP FRVAHJ

Board Member & Immediate Past President

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Paul is a Mechanical Engineer by profession.  He has held CEO, Director and senior executive roles at Robert Bosch, Honeywell*, Tecumseh and Regal Beloit* in Australia and internationally, i.e. S.E. Asia, China, India as well as supporting Europe and North America.  He was also the Founder and Principal of Kotan Australia a business coaching and consulting company since 2007; and also a member of the Australian Martial Arts Hall of Fame as an 8^th Degree Black Belt.

Volunteering

Helping others has been a key focus of Paul’s private and professional life. He has been a Councillor for Australian Industry Group and Australia Standards for a number of years; he has been an Independent Third Person and Independent Person supporting those in most need; Paul also provides counselling, coaching, life skills and self-defence to victims of family violence and bullying. He has also been active in supporting the Security and Martial Arts Industry (MA) as a Councillor – International MA Coaching Council.  Paul is an active JP and a member of the RVAHJ Board for many years and is the current President.

Kevin Mackin BJ JP FRVAHJ

Board Member , Social Media & Custodes Editor

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Kevin is a marketer by trade.  He has held senior marketing management roles at General Manager and Director level at IBM, Telstra, Cisco, Webex and a number of other IT companies in Australia and in Silicon Valley (USA).

Volunteering

Volunteering has always been a key part of Kevin’s life.  As a youth he volunteered as a sports coach with disadvantaged children; he worked on an Aboriginal Mission in the Northern Territory;  he was a member of Apex in Darwin and was a Scout Group Leader for many years. As well as being an active BJ, JP and member of the RVAHJ Board, Kevin is a member of Rotary and founding member of his local Community Energy team.

Rodney Lavin JP FRVAHJ

Board Member & President

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Rod is a qualified Accountant. He has over 35 years experience in the financial services profession. He is a qualified Accountant holding the designation as a Fellow Certified Practising Accountant (FCPA) and is professionally accredited as a Specialist in Financial Planning. Rodney is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and has been the Chapter Chairman of the Financial Planning Association’s Gippsland Chapter for more than 10 years. He spent 14 years as a Senior Financial Planning Manager with a major bank in Gippsland and has run his own boutique Financial Planning practise in Traralgon since 2006. Rodney is also a Registered Tax Agent.

Volunteering

Volunteering has always been a key part of Rod’s life.  He was elected in 1989 at the age of 27 as a Councillor for the City of Berwick. He is a long standing Justice of the Peace (JP) since 1993, and has served on the Board of the RVAHJ since 2014. Rod is also the Chairman of the Freemasons Foundation of Victoria, a large philanthropic trust which donates to charitable causes between $2-3 million annually to the Victorian community. Rod has been honoured to have a park in Endeavour Hills named after him called the “Rod Lavin Reserve”. He also served for many years as the President of Cooinda Hill, a disability service provider in Traralgon.

Geoff Legge JP FRVAHJ

Board Member & CFO

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Geoff is an Accountant by profession.  He has held senior auditing roles in the public sector over many years.

Volunteering

Volunteering has always been a key part of Geoff’s life. His volunteering work began as a youngster spending over 29 years as a volunteer with the St John Ambulance brigade primarily as a first aider at community gatherings but also as an accredited instructor in public first aid courses. He has also been the honorary auditor for regional CFA and Scout groups and other community organisation. 

Geoff  is very involved with umpiring AFL football and promoting the health and confidence benefits to the younger umpires to take up the challenge. In addition to being the treasurer for many years. He is also a memer o the Independent Order of Rechabites.  He is currently an active JP and member of the Board.

Colleen Woolley OAM JP FRVAHJ

Board Member & Committee Member – Publications, Group Liaison & Roster

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Colleen has worked in the South Australian, New South Wales and Victoria Police Services, retiring as a Senior Sergeant from the latter. She is also the author of two editions of Arresting Women, A history of women in the Victoria Police, and in 2021, co-author of From Richard the Lionheart to modern Australia—a History of Justices of the Peace in Victoria. As a marcophilist, Colleen compiled the 1600- page Australian PictorMarks®, A graphic history of pictorial and commemorative postmarks from 1879 and wrote seven monographs on the subject.

Volunteering

Since coming to Victoria in 1976, Colleen has been involved with a number of organisations, was Secretary/Editor/Treasurer for the Retired Police Association of Victoria and a founding Committee member of the Past & Present Women Police Association of Victoria. She has been a Justice of the Peace since 1999 and has worked at the RMH DSS. She founded and coordinates the Austin Health DSS, encompassing six campuses, and is Victoria’s Remote Witnessing Coordinator.

Wendy Williams BJ JP FRVAHJ

Board Member & Secretary, Committee Member : Ethics & Rules, Finance, Training

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Wendy commenced her career as a Home Economics Teacher training with the Victorian Education Department. This was followed with further qualifications as a Primary Teacher and a Special Education Teacher. She has taught across the primary, secondary and special education sectors over the years. Further university education resulted in Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and B.Ed. This lead to becoming one of the Education Department’s Historians and establishing the Education Department’s Archive and wrote the Education Department’s Records Disposal Schedule through work with the Public Record Office. These roles resulted in the sorting and classifying for permanent storage of more than 150 years of education department records. Returning to schools she became a Principal for a number of years before retiring from the education department and establishing her own businesses as a consultant for schools. Subsequently she has also trained as a wool classer, a civil celebrant and a bookkeeper and tax agent.

Volunteering

Volunteering has been part of my life since I was young. As a teenager I taught Sunday School and was a volunteer in the Calisthenics club that I belonged to, to help the younger children develop their skills. As a teacher, I was elected to School Councils for the whole of my career. This was a voluntary position involved in the management of schools. I have run Brownie packs for many years both in the country and in Melbourne. When our children were little, I volunteered to be on the Kindergarten Management Committee and we raised sufficient funds over 3 years to commence the building of the combined Kindergarten and Senior Citizens complex. My interest in history has seen me involved with historical societies in various places and I was a member of the Western Victorian Association of Historical Societies for many years. As Secretary/Treasurer of the Dunkeld and District Museum I was involved in the cataloguing of their collection through Collections Victoria and had supported the development of a variety of documents to facilitate their registration as an Accredited Museum.

I have been a member of the Penshurst Hospital Advisory Board for almost 20 years and am involved in the current redevelopment of the nursing home. I was the Chairperson of Southern Grampians Adult Education. For the past 4 years until COVID saw a dramatic downturn in our enrolments and eventually the group having to go into voluntary liquidation.

I have also been an active JP and a BJ for quite some time and for 7 years was the only BJ in the Hamilton area and am part of the JP Online project.

Kim McAliney BJ JP

Board Member & Vice President, Committee Member : Bail Justice & Marketing -Sponsorship

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Kim is a qualified FCPA by profession and is an experienced Non-Executive Director with over 12 years as a Local Govt Councillor in the Western suburbs of Melbounre.  In addition, she is a Graduate of the Institute of Company Directors , has a  Advanced Diploma of Public Safety (Emergency Management), Diploma of Justice, Cert IV Property Management , TAE40116 Training and Assessment and Family Violence and Elder abuse studies. Kim has worked with a multinational company Ingersoll-Rand, Accountancy Firms, National Crisis Centre, Aged Care and Retirement Living. She has most recently held the Safer Communities Portfolio Holder for Wyndham City which covers perceptions of safety, Justice, Police, Family Violence, Gender Equity and Emergency Management. Working closely with agencies including Victoria Police, Westjustice, Crime Stoppers, Neighbourhood Watch, Coast Guard, SES, CFA and Dept of Justice and Community Safety. Recognised by Victorian University – 2019 Alumni Meritorious Award and Crimestoppers 2019 Mersina Halvagis Award for contribution to safer Victoria and to Crime Stoppers.

Volunteering

Volunteering has been part of  Kim’s life with currently being active with the CFA – Operation Support / Community safety; a Justice of the Peace and Bail Justice; assisting family violence victims; mentoring /coaching young women and a member Western Integrated Family Violence Committee( WIFVC).

Kim has also been involved with volunteering and supporing other groups in the past such as: Think Pink Foundation; Salvation Army Chair State Social Command Advisory Committee; Salvation Army -Chair Wyndham City Red Shield Appeal; Wyndham Lodge Aged Care Director; Wyndham Legal Aid; Bendigo Bank ( Laverton/Point Cook ) Treasurer; Westgate Road Community Road Safety Council ( just resigned after 10 years); RRR – Road advocate and lobbyist for state and federal funding and a past Board Director- City West Water , Victorian Veterans Council and  Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust.  

Stephen Sennett JP

Board Member & Committee Member : IT

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Stephen Sennett is a cloud technology leader, content creator, educator, and speaker. He has spent over 10 years working in the industry in a variety of roles. He holds high-level certifications across multiple technologies, has been recognized as an AWS Community Builder. He works as a consultant to a number of organizations, and authors technical content with Pluralsight, a global IT training company.

Volunteering

Beyond his ongoing service as an Honorary Justice, Stephen is also an active volunteer in the Emergency Management sector for over a decade, serving in many significant national disasters around Australia. He is currently an active volunteer with the Australian Red Cross, where he serves as a specialist in Incident Management, and liaison to government before, during, and after emergencies. He is also an active member of the Rotary, serving in leadership at club and district levels, and leading significant national projects.

Susan McIver JP

Board Member & Committee Member : DSC Liaison

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Susan has had extensive involvement in management and executive administration roles with an in-depth knowledge of office procedures and equipment. She has strongly developed leadership skills and understanding of business objectives.  Experienced in negotiating with government agencies, embassies, international and national partners at a high level with a strong commitment to providing excellent customer service and has developed the ability to ‘think outside the square’ and ‘to get in and get the job done’ using basic commonsense principles.  She has extensive experience in not-for-profit organisations, the legal profession (conveyancing and probate), medical, business facilitation and serviced offices.  Involved with a UK based educational charity organising overseas work placements for 18–25-year-old Australian youth that developed, managed, co-ordinated an exchange program in Australia.

Volunteering

Susan has experience as a Business Manager of a not-for-profit small business incubator (which is a serviced office providing business facilitation and support services for new, start-up and expanding businesses).  Under the NEIS Scheme (a government-funded scheme) business facilitation and support was provided for up to 30 different small businesses which included graphic artists, fashion designers, communications company, web page designers, business promotions company, computer hardware maintenance and financial planners.  Also has experience with other not-for-profit organisations – an Employment Development Corporation and an Area Consultative Committee.  Susan was extremely lucky to share in the success of the many varied, creative and innovative small businesses

Jackie Warner JP FRVAHJ

Board Member & Committee Member : Training

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Jackie worked in the mental health field for 40 years before leaving the nursing profession. In that time, she worked as a clinician, an educator and a manager. She has completed numerous undergraduate and post graduate qualifications as well as being awarded the NBV June Allen Fellowship, the Doreen Bayer Travelling Scholarship and the University of Ballarat, Academic Achievement Award. Her Master’s thesis led to changes in the education program for nurses in relation to the mental health component of their degree. During this time Jackie presented papers at many national and international conferences. She completed 3 terms as an Honorary Teaching Fellow before taking on the role of university lecturer for the last 5 years of her working life. Although retired from her professional work, Jackie is kept busy running the farm office for the family farm in Ballan.

Volunteering

Jackie has been involved in volunteer work all of her adult life. She worked for Lifeline as a phone and face to face counsellor, and was on the Executive for the Ballarat Mental Health Association and the Ballarat Psychiatric Fellowship for many years. She has also been president of the Rotary Club of Ballan. Jackie became a Justice of the Peace in early 2004 and is active as secretary of the Ballarat branch. She has been the training coordinator for RVAHJ for the past 4 years and delivered training days around Victoria. Currently, Jackie is also the secretary for Twin Hearts Inc, a small local NFP.  It is this work that brought home the message that something small can make a massive difference.