Thank you

Thank you to our GEKA Community

Dana Bitan, Service Support Coordinator 

From the bottom of our hearts, Thank you to the GEKA Community, for your ongoing support, resilience and strength. 

2020 has most definitely been the year of mixed emotions. Each and every one of us has experienced the emotional roller coaster with high anticipation of when it will come to an end. From this pandemic, we learnt how important it is to stay connected and how working together was the key to overcome each and every obstacle. We were tested in many ways and yet still managed to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel with the support from our community, family, friends and work colleagues.   

Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.

Henry Ford

GEKA, did everything we could, to ensure the needs of children and families are accommodated. With the assistance and patience of our families, we were able to work together and keep our kindergartens open to those in need. If our families needed us because they had no one else to care and educate their child, while they worked, we were there.

To our families and educators, Thank you, for all your hard work. We all stepped out of our comfort zones and followed strict protocols to keep our services open; wearing masks, keeping 1.5 meters away from each other as best we could, applying sanitiser regularly, taking temperatures, not seeing our friends or loved ones, staying at home and only allowing permitted workers/vulnerable children to attend kindergarten. The GEKA community took every precaution so efficiently and effectively, that in time our hard work had finally overcome the lockdown. Despite the challenges we have come across this year, we have been so impressed with the way educators have embraced the opportunity to work in a different environment and with unfamiliar educators. We highly value our educators and office staff and view them as Hero’s during what was a very frightening and unsettling period.

May we all take in what we have learnt from 2020 and embrace the new year with gratitude and determination, so we can continue work together and foster a better world for our children's future. 

A Special Goodbye to the Educators  Moving On

Laura Healy - Congratulations on graduating with a Bachelor of Early Childhood!

Vicky Toparlanis - Staying with GEKA and working casually across all services

Kelly Turner - Moving interstate to take on new opportunities

Lorraine Denniston - retiring after 30 years of dedicated service

Natalie Cross - resigned to pursue new opportunities

Melissa Crowley - resigned to pursue new opportunities

We are sad to say goodbye to our educators that are spending their last year at GEKA. THANK YOU, just doesn’t seem enough, to express our appreciation for the love, care and knowledge that these educators have brought to the lives of so many people. We wish you all the very best with your new found journey. Please join us in thanking our exceptional teachers for their contributions to the GEKA  community.

An Inspiring and Extraordinary Educator:  Lorraine retires after 30 years of service 

Lorraine Dennison, Early Childhood Educator

In February 1990 I began working at McKinnon Kindergarten. However my association began many years before this with two of my own children. During these years before teaching I served as Secretary on the Parent Committee. At this time committees were custodians with full responsibility for managing local kindergartens. I was lucky enough to build a strong friendship with the then Director Margaret Walker. Margaret recognized my love for children and a potential in me too be an educator that I had not realized myself.  When the job as her Assistant (as we were called in those days) became available I was encouraged to apply and was successful in obtaining the position. No Qualifications were necessary in those days; just a love, understanding and respect for children, which enabled them to be the best versions of themselves.

Over the past 30 years this has been my underlying philosophy. I remember hearing a quote at a professional development session that has stayed with me: “At Kindergarten we are not preparing children for school, we are preparing them for life”. 

I have built a connection with countless families over the years that have become lifelong friends. It is always a thrill when children that have attended the kindergarten enrol their own children many years later. I have been blessed to work with wonderful staff over the years who have taught me so much to help me become a better educator human being. 

I have seen many changes in Early Childhood , and have had to adapt to them accordingly. Doing so has allowed me to continue working in the sector for as long as I have. 

I believe in the philosophy of the NQF for children and adults alike: BEING BELONGING AND BECOMING. This should be a life long journey for all of us. 

Living in McKinnon all my life I have a strong sense of Community so I feel blessed to have been able to spend 30 years working at the local Kindergarten. 

Lastly, thank you to Mel, Sam and the Management at GEKA. 

As employees we are very lucky to be supported by such professionals.

This has never been more apparent than over the past year. 

Thank You to our Beloved Lorraine

GEKA Management

Lorraine is an incredibly dedicated, committed and genuine educator, that we have been fortunate to have as part of the GEKA community for many years.  Lorraine’s core belief is to ‘see the good in all people’.  This is evident in everything she does and is present in every relationship she holds, be with children, families or colleagues. It’s also why so many people value, respect and hold Lorraine in such high regard – because she sees people for the person they are and the person they aspire to be.  She has always had a special way of communicating with children that need a little extra help, by consistently providing gentle care and guidance.  She has been a mentor and confidant for students and colleagues and someone that families could trust with their fears and concerns.  We congratulate and thank Lorraine on a wonderful 30-year career in Early Childhood and hope that she will be available, from time to time, for ongoing mentoring of our newest educators, into the future.  It has been a privilege to work with you to deliver quality programs to children and families.        

Denise Ricardo, Colleague and Early Childhood Educator

Lorraine, you have been part of my working life for more than 20 years, can you believe it?

You always had so much belief in me when I started at McKinnon & that continued until your last day & thanks to COVID this year was cut short. 

We have become such great friends; getting to know you during our Friday night sessions after work at the McKinnon Hotel was the best. First a soothing beverage then straight to the pokies for a flutter. With other members of the team we would head off to the football, Hawks V Bombers year after year which morphed into the Anzac Day game as the other staff moved to different work places. Since we are both hardcore Bombers supporters the footy was a great place to listen to witty comments on the state of play. 

We have worked with many teachers all with incredibly individual styles of educating children & we have remained constant. I value our strong friendship, your ability to see the good in people & respect their opinions. I am certainly going to miss you but we’ll continue to catch up. 

I hope this next adventure in life is as fulfilling as your last. 

Joanna Palios, Colleague and Early Childhood Educator

Lorraine

Loving

Optimistic

Reserved

Respectful

Accepting

Intuitive

Non-judgmental

Earnest

These are only some of the qualities that is Lorraine Denniston. I feel incredibly honoured to have worked alongside Lorraine for nearly 7 years. Lorraine has been with GEKA McKinnon just over 20 years, plus the years her own children attended. Lorraine’s passion for children’s learning is woven into the fibres of the walls of the kindergarten. Throughout all these years Lorraine has been a colleague and mentor to all, a friend, a shoulder, an advocate for all and a voice for children that needed to be heard. 

A true community founder, a parent this year bought their child to kindergarten and was so incredibly proud to seek and say that he too attended McKinnon kindergarten and that Lorraine was his educator.

Lorraine did not work to live, but lived to work, her compassion, understanding and acceptance in all is an achievement and should be celebrated. Happy wonderful 70th birthday Lorraine, keep shining.