She knows most of the people in the Cove, and has probably written about most of us in the great 12-page local paper, the Cove News. But many of us don’t know much more than that about the remarkable woman her friends call Mo - Maureen Kelly OAM.
The thing that stands out about Maureen as you chat with her is that celebrations have been and continue to be a big part of her life. The family photos on the lounge room wall are not posed collections of people, but images captured at moments of celebration – son Peter leaping in joy at his wedding to Claudia; daughter, Fran (Twig), snuggling up with granddaughter ,Lily; and step daughter, Stephanie, interacting with grown up sons, David and William.
Maureen’s passion for good food is probably because celebrations often centre around meals. One of her heroes is Manu Feildel, currently a judge on My Kitchen Rules, and on her kitchen wall there is a menu signed by Manu after a New Year’s Eve dinner in 2007 where Maureen and Manu sat and chatted till close to 1 am.
If you visit Maureen at home, you’ll meet the two cats who complete Maureen’s household – pretty, shy, feminine, dark Muskie will look you over and disappear, but the man of the house, Oscar, a huge ginger and white Persian, will oversee your visit, strolling over to look you in the eye and ensure you are meant to be there. Maureen comments that her only complaint about the cats is that they can’t make tea, or bring the shopping upstairs.
The death of husband Jim in 1995 has obviously left a huge hole – there are photos of Jim at various stages of life around the house, and Maureen speaks of him with obvious longing and affection. A boy from Birmingham, an industrial city in the Midlands where life is tough, marrying a girl from Surrey, who lived near Hampton Court Palace, was going to have problems in class conscious England. ‘We emigrated in 1965 as £10 Poms’ said Maureen, ‘because I couldn’t live in the North, and Jim couldn’t live in the South’. Jim was a refinery technician, and a truck owner, who loved Maureen, his kids and golf.
Next month (July 2015) will be 25 years since Maureen moved to the Cove after some 25 years living around Melbourne. She retired from her job of 18 years as medical practice manager which, with Jim often away with work, she combined with caring for her family often typing the referral letters at home at night.
If you see Maureen casually writing shorthand at various functions, know that she graduated from Business College with a Pitman speed of 140 wpm – a speed that these days is usually only achieved by court stenographers on machines.
In ‘retirement’ Maureen got a job at The Port Stephens Examiner, and worked three days a week for some eleven years. It was there that Maureen learnt the skills that would transfer to the Cove News when Val Winter, the founder of the newsletter, wanted to hand it on. She talks about producing the magazine at home, typing it in WordPerfect , saving to a floppy disk, converting it to Xy-write then cutting the text up and placing it on a light board she borrowed from work – a process that took about 12 hours for the four-paged magazine. Now it is a 12 pager produced more easily as a PDF. ‘It gives me an official reason to be nosey’ laughs Maureen.
Apart from family, Maureen’s passion is for the community centre, the site not only of lots of community meetings, but of hundreds of community celebrations. It is, apparently, the most-used hall per capita in the shire.
How did it start? A vision shared with friends, Les and Rose Oxenbridge, and a mistaken purchase of land by Council. Maureen explained Council bought land for a new road and realised they had bought the wrong blocks. So the executive of the Progress Association - Jim, the Publicity Officer; President Les, and Treasurer, Alan MacKnight, approached Council. Then resident/Progress Association member Bernie May offered the house from his land at Raymond Terrace, fund raisers were held, and Council provided an $8000 grant which paid to transport the building and put on a new roof. Jim died just three weeks before the building arrived on its current site. Nonetheless, what a celebration was held when the Foundation Stone was put in place by the late Dr Steve Colvin (former president of the Progress Association) in 1995 and again on 12 October 1996 when the building was handed over to the community. Maureen remembers the school band from Tea Gardens, a spit roast, lots of politicians and much eating and drinking – and it was all free. A celebration indeed!
Over the years, there have been many formal acknowledgements of Maureen’s efforts: the 1996 Australian Day Citizenship Award (at which she talked with John Chadban, then Mayor, and secured the printing of Cove News, John recognising the Cove as a rural isolated community where the community needed to stay in touch, Cove News fitting the bill); the Centennial Medal for Community Service in 2001; the Great Lakes Council Active Seniors Award; and of course the 2010 Australia Day Order of Australia Medal for committed service over a long period of time. One Cove resident, Colin Hall, summed up the community response to Maureen’s award, ‘For a Pom, you’re not a bad Aussie’.
Truly an impressive collection – but what Maureen talks about are the celebrations that followed each award. She acknowledges she was really proud to receive the award, but lunch at Parliament House with her children following the 2010 event seems to have meant more to her than the award or the complement of a policeman decorated for bravery at the same time. He said he earned his award doing his job, Maureen earned hers doing the things she wanted to do.
So, what are the things she has wanted to do? Produce the Cove News for 21 years; organise and convene the International Women’s Day for 17 years – an event which has raised $35,000 for UN Women Australia to help women in Third World countries less privileged than us; be Secretary of the Progress Association for 13 years; co-found the North Arm Cove branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW Inc– for which she is now State Secretary; and finally, work as Secretary of the Community Centre Management Committee since 1996 – probably the organisation closest to Maureen’s heart. ‘It would be the last thing I’ll give up’ said Maureen.
Maureen is really good at encouraging others to take part in whatever her current project is. The way different community groups contributed to the hall is one example. When Maureen was Secretary of the Progress Association, her friend Julie Savage painted a picture of the newly located hall with Rose sweeping and Jim lighting a fire. Maureen used this as the cover of a grant application that won $15,000 and was used to pay for the toilets and part of the kitchen. The community theatre group paid for half the stage and the curtains, and the Stitch Gatherers put money towards matching crockery and cutlery. Maureen’s enthusiasm did much to encourage such community involvement.
The jumpers knitted for the Door of Hope in Johannesburg is another example. The Door of Hope is a charity where babies born to HIV positive mothers are dumped. The babies needed jumpers, and Maureen and her friend, Sandy Williams, sent 3,500 to the charity. Many of these were knitted by elderly people as far away as Maitland and Mayfield who appreciated the chance to actively contribute to something worthwhile.
Why does she do it? Maureen mentioned the desire to make a difference. It’s clear she cares deeply about the people in the Cove – ‘they’re my family’ she said. But deeper than that is the motivation of a school motto she remembers from 1947. It was a Church of England school in the UK, and up on the wall of the assembly hall was the school motto: JOY (Jesus, others, yourself). Joy was to be found in serving others. This motto has certainly characterised both Maureen’s life, and all the celebrations that have marked the miles stones in the life of this remarkable woman.
