Making the Invisible Visible

In every organisation, there are visible leaders and invisible leaders. Some roles lead from upfront, other roles lead from the centre.

I want to draw your attention to one of our less visible leaders and the enormously significant impact he has had on our wonderful school.

In comparison to teaching-and-learning, some school operations remain largely unseen. For example, within our school there is an entire business office, an ICT office, a community-liaison team, and a maintenance team. These departments are populated by non-teaching staff. They serve the essential operations of the school, and they include around twenty-five employees. Twenty-five staff represents a fifth of our total number of employees. These non-teaching staff are wonderful people who serve selflessly, so that the teaching-and-learning that happens in classrooms can be done smoothly.

As you would understand, there is a senior leadership role that oversees all these staff in all these non-teaching departments of the College. That leadership role is called: Business Manager. Since September 2015, our school has been served by Mr Neville Findlay in the role of Business Manager.

Many months ago, Neville let me know that he will be retiring this year. This editorial is to let you know a bit about Neville’s work, and to help our school community understand just how much he has helped shape this place into the advanced and successful school it now is.

Firstly and importantly, our school is Neville’s seventh school. That means he has brought massive experience to MCC. For over thirty years, Neville has served schools; including government, independent and Christian schools. This wealth of experience has meant we at MCC have received the pinnacle of Neville’s service.

Secondly, Neville has enabled our school to move from where it was in 2015 to where it is now. In 2015, MCC was a good school, a lovely school with great potential for growth in its systems and operations. Now, in 2022 our school has a high functioning administration team building capacity for growth in the whole operation, a highly effective ICT team creating digital opportunities and protections for our staff, students and operations, and a maintenance team committed to excellence in the way they contribute to student-learning through presentation of places and spaces.

Lastly, Neville has been a leader heartily committed to the growth of this organisation. You have heard me say many times that we would love to accommodate more students. We are building and growing as fast as possible while we simultaneously keep our tuition fees as low as possible. Well, the growth and buildings that have been put in place has meant we could grow Brookfield campus and develop Toolern Vale campus. All these things have all been overseen by Neville. These are significant achievements.

Neville will finish work at the end of term three this year. We bless him and thank him for all that he has invested in Melton Christian College. 

David Gleeson, Principal