John Holton
Who are you?
Yes,
that's a question I ask myself often. I wonder if I'll ever find
a satisfactory answer.
Explain your role at Innovative Resources.
It says
'writer' on my business card. That's the most mysterious-sounding
job description I've ever had, so I won't spoil the magic.
How long do you feel like you’ve worked at Innovative Resources?
I tend
to think in width rather than length, but let's say about 72.8cm,
which is also the average length of a piece of string.
What are your favourite products in the shop?
I love the card set Lost
in Normality by Jane Hutton and Kate Knapp. It's soulful,
funny, poignant, insightful (and unfortunately out of print).
Kate's illustrations can make me cry and laugh at the same time
(don't try that at home, kids!)
The Short and Incredible Happy Life of Riley by Colin Thompson is a worthy winner of the CBC Picture Book of the Year. Sums up the whole human muddle in 32 glorious pages. I wish I’d written it!
Oh,
and Innovative Resources publish
some good stuff too, I've heard.
What does a typical day at Innovative Resources involve?
Answer
emails … answer some more emails … have lunch …
answer emails … have a meeting … check emails …
shit, it's time to pick-up the kids from school.
Is
there a special place you like to hang out when you're not at
Innovative Resources?
On a
massage table, floating weightless in a hydro pool, cycling with
a tail wind, watching repeats of Seinfeld with a cold beer. At
home with Cath and the boys, and Rommy, our psychic border collie.
What are your favourite activities?
Playing,
listening, watching, reading, making, muddling, pottering, dabbling,
dreaming, imagining, drifting …imagining.
Is there a quirky story about yourself that we can add to your profile?
I
once swallowed a fly while giving a lecture to a class of writing
students. It was quite a performance and eventually became a published
short story.
What's
your favourite website?
PostSecret Blog
Frank Warren invites people to anonymously send him a postcard containing a secret they have never told anyone before. Every week he posts them on his blog. He has received over 10,000 and they keep coming.
Is there a question we haven’t asked that you’d like to answer?
Yes,
I'd like you to ask me what the Swedish
word for hovercraft is.
Jennie
Mellberg
Who
are you?
The
sum total of the genetic, social and psychological history of
my ancestors.
Explain
your role at IR.
Wordsmith and nitpicker….in other words: writer and editor.
How
long do you feel like you've worked at IR?
5
minutes.
What
are your favourite products in the shop?
As
a mother, having favourites can be dangerous! However Storycatching
definitely floats my boat.
Why
have you chosen these products?
Storycatching
is a writer's dream resource: inspiration, eloquence and visual
intrigue all rolled into one set of cards.
What
does a typical day at IR involve?
Ride
my bike, park my bum, tap my keys, have a little hum. Mark the
page, read the text, answer emails, plan the next….
Is
there a special place you like to hang out at when you're not
at IR?
In
my head.
What's
your favourite activity/activities?
Walking.
What's
your favourite website?
I'm
a luddite.
Is
there a question we haven't asked that you'd like to answer?
Yes:
"What would I like to be when I grow up?" And when I
grow up, not only do I want to be an old woman, I'd also like
to be still saying: when I grow up I want to be….
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Jacqui
Lynch
biog
coming soon!
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Cristina Gay
‘A bit of everything.’ That’s how Cristina describes her work at Innovative Resources. But we think that’s far too modest. As the gal in charge of accounts and ordering, Cristina is the lynch pin, the reinforced cement, the kernel in the apricot of our operations. I mean, she does the pays, for heaven’s sake!
Her commitment to Innovative Resources has kept her with us for some six years now, although she admits that at times ‘I feel like I have been here much longer…’
Like all the staff at Innovative Resources, she has particular favourites among the products stocked in the shop. Puppets and the Affirmations card set (‘the one with the stand’) rate highly in Cristina’s mind. So too do the Strength Cards for Kids cards. ‘I feel that the Kid’s cards have a lot to offer to people who are feeling down on themselves. It helps to lift up your spirits.’
With a lot of different jobs needing her attention simultaneously, Cristina nominates time management as one of the most important aspects of her work. So it’s no surprise then that she also loves ‘being at home’ to relax. ‘I play a lot of games on the computer,’ she tell us. We may be tempted to wonder if this is a good thing. But then she adds ‘I don’t check websites very often,’ which, ah, is not a claim that this particular writer would ever be able to make…
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Cath Holton
Cath
is a part of our Customer Service team and the person you're likely
to meet when you visit our amazing shop. Her favourite shop item
is the Folkmanis Mouse puppet - in fact, it's worth a visit to
the shop just to see Cath and the mouse in action.
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Kaylene
Dowd
When
it comes to the nuts and bolts of keeping a publishing venture
in the black, there is no nut (or bolt?) more important than our
accounts-keeper and finance officer, Kaylene Dowd. Whether you've
under-paid us, over-paid us, or failed to pay at all, Kaylene
is the person who will take the matter in hand and restore order
to our books and justice to the cashflow.
When she's not
chasing our recalcitrant customers, Kaylene is likely to be lost
up river in the red gum forests. There she can be found combing
wool by the campfire in the company of the family pack (consisting
of both pups and people). Asked to describe her favourite activities,
she lists gardening and koala-chasing in Australia's great outdoors.
But as daylight fades and the night draws near, our intrepid outdoor
gal retreats inside, preferring to spin fine merino for the knitters
among her friends and family.
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Teena
Perry
Teena works in our packaging room where she deftly handles all our mail orders with infinite skill and aplomb. No product is too large, no product too unwieldy to escape her abilities to wrap it, pack it and post it off to customers around the world.
Once disentangled from cardboard boxes, unstuck from the multiple rolls of packaging tape, and free of those little polystyrene shapes that stick to you with static, Teena enjoys putting the right things in the right places to make sure that every card pack, book, game or puppets gets to you intact and unruffled.
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Step Forbes
Explain your role at Innovative Resources.
I try to keep my head around budget management, business planning, website development and the myriad of resources that we have in the production tunnel at any moment.
How
long do you feel like you’ve worked at Innovative Resources?
Not long enough (yet!)
What are your favourite products in the shop?
Cars ‘R’ Us is a great new one, but I wish we’d done it about bicycles instead. Look out for Bicycles ‘R’ Us soon!
I love many of the picture books we have downstairs. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge is one of many fantastic reads (by Mem Fox)... but there are many more amazing ones.
Deep Speak is another of my favs—great to use as a game too, to get interesting conversations and secrets out!
What
does a typical day at Innovative Resources involve?
Driving
into work with Russell (or catching the train) from the little
hamlet of Castlemaine.
Heaps of meetings (with good company though!).
One day I’m looking forward to a real kitchen.. (and a hammock in the back room wouldn't go astray).
Is there a special place you like to hang out when you’re not at Innovative Resources?
In the outside bathtub looking out onto the hills around town.
What are your
favourite activities?
Swimming, gardening, playing games and eating!
Is there a quirky story about yourself that we can add to your profile?
Three times I almost died: as a toddler—getting kicked in the head by a horse; as a five-year-old—falling off a tree house three metres high and missing a metal stake by inches. A few months ago—swimming two metres from a massive white pointer shark at Glenelg beach. Actually, I realized after I panicked that the big black fin belonged to a dolphin instead!
What’s your favourite website?
Victoria’s weather radar to check out the rain!
The
Chaser website is another favourite.
Kristie
Frost
Biog
coming soon!
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Nola Tranter
Nola could well be the voice on the other side of the phone if you call us. She’s organised, friendly, cool and collected, but here are some things you might not know about her...
In her spare time Nola practices ice-skating, repairs toys and designs ladies’ fashion hats. She is also a budding ballet choreographer, best known for her stunning adaptation of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Le Bourgeous Gentilhomme (renamed Le Bendigoneus Yobbeous for our local audience). Her greatest life achievements are: learning to ride a unicycle, performing a slam-dunk on the Kangaroo Flat public basketball court (with only minor assistance) and holding her breath underwater for 2 minutes and 11 seconds when she was 12 years old.
Nola's
favourite resources in the shop are Ish,
Fish is Fish,
and Cat and
Fish (we think it's got something to do with their titles).
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Chris Cain
Chris
is our Warehouse Manager. That means he keeps an eye on quality
control, stock management, production issues and managing our
collation team at our swanky new warehouse (well it's not a new
warehouse per se, but it's new for us!). On top of this, Chris
manages to fit in a few hours packaging each week, plus has the
important role of Occupational Health and Safety Representative
for IR.
Chris
hasn't submitted a profile for us, so we can tell you he enjoys
moonlit walks on
the beach, strawberry
daiquiris and water
polo ... or perhaps we just made that up.
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David Pugh
David
is the CEO of St Luke's Anglicare
(in case you don't know, Innovative Resources is the publishing
house of St Luke's).
David has been one of the key players who have guided Innovative Resources from a small business to a not-so-small business. He's been instrumental in many of our early successes in Europe and the USA.
And he still likes to keep an eye on us and help guide us through unchartered waters.
Read more about Dave here.
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Di O'Neil
Di is the Executive Director of St Luke's Anglicare.
Di has been associated with St Luke's for more than 29 years. She has significantly influenced the philosophies and practices of St Luke's, Innovative Resources and many others.
She co-authored Beyond Child Rescue (which we will be reprinting in some form or another) and Promoting Family Change: the optimism factor.
Basically, she is an all-round legend and you can read more about her here.
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