A Leader’s Story
An insight into the past and present of one of our extraordinary leaders.
Hollie Neasham
Hollie Skye Neasham is an Adminstrative Assistant for Faith Family Church, based in Coffs Harbour. Hollie has held this role since late 2020, which has involved regularly working in data entry and with spreadsheets, as well as assisting with rostering, preparation and execution of any and all tasks involved with Sunday services at Coffs Harbour and other general church operations. She also assists in the weekly production and distribution of Faith Family Church’s Online Service through media presentation (ProPresenter).
Prior to joining the Administrative staff at Faith Family Church, Hollie worked at Coffs Harbour’s Faith Family Early Learning Centre for three years as an educator. Her traineeship with Steven Fairall in 2009 alongside the formerly named Harbour Church also had Hollie assisting in the accounting and financial department. Hollie says that she enjoyed learning about how the church operates and that it was a great opportunity to learn about business right after leaving high school.
Hollie was born in Sydney, moving to Coffs Harbour with her family within her first year of life. After growing up locally, Hollie moved to Brisbane for tertiary study (initially for Game Design, then for Bible College in Brisbane) in 2010 and would eventually return in 2017 to Coffs Harbour, where Hollie is currently studying a double diploma of Business (Compliance) and Quality Auditing.
During this time, Hollie met her now husband, Jon, through their mutual passion for online video games and were married in late 2019. Together, their marriage has been able to grow and strengthen, despite the flurry of natural disasters (bushfires, local hailstorms and floods and global pandemic) that have occurred concurrently - in fact, it was COVID-19 that allowed Hollie the opportunity to expand her workload in 2020 towards editing and production as Faith Family Church pivoted to online services. Towards the end of 2020 as staffing changes occurred, Hollie was offered a position at Faith Family Church full-time to assist with Administration and Production and finished her time with Faith Family Early Learning Coffs Harbour. When asked about her position, Hollie had this to say:
“As boring as it sounds, I love compliance, procedures, and OH&S. My favourite thing about this career is the chance to research and help make not only our church, but other churches safer and more efficient…”
…In every job I’ve had, it’s always come with minimal training before being thrust into the job. It can be hard to train admin staff in particular, because of the variety of tasks within the job. How do you remember all the things you know, and how do you pass that one to somebody? I want to develop policies and procedures so that others can start similar jobs with a ‘how-to’ manual. If, whenever I leave this job, I can leave behind all my knowledge for whoever follows after me, I will be happy.”
When asked about valuable advice for a person who may fulfill her role in a different situation or organisation, Hollie shared this:
“Do your best to leave work at work. I think it’s the best thing for your mental health to know that when you go home, you leave your ‘work brain’ behind. It’s something I still struggle with, the idea that “This needs to get done today, so I’ll sacrifice myself to make sure it’s done.” It’s ok for things to wait until tomorrow. It can be tough to clock-out on time, to not come in to work early, or take tasks home to complete. I find I’m happiest when work stays at work, and I keep my home as a place of rest. The easiest way I’ve found to separate the two is to set my phone to be in ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode when I am not at work. This setting allows family and close friends to still contact me, without getting email notifications or texts relating to work.”
On a personal note, Hollie had this to say to our Legacy community: “I really appreciate everybody who has been a part of our church over the past 40 years. As somebody who grew up in this church, thank you. Thank you. Without you, Faith Family couldn’t be what it is today.”
Always a key part of our administrative functions and practically anything to do with our Coffs Harbour location, Hollie is a cheery and encouraging part of our Faith Family and is always up for a chat! If you have any questions or want to strike up a conversation with Hollie, you can find her at hollie@faithfamily.com.au!