“Leadership does not really switch off, but it is good work,” writes UAICC Leprena Statewide Manager Alison Overeem.
Alison Overeem
Statewide Manager, Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress Leprena Tasmania
Thursday
On site at our Leprena office in Glenorchy. It’s a full and focused day with the deadly team of myself and sisters Ayla and Grace Williams immersed in our annual strategy meeting. We are planning, reflecting and challenging ourselves and building as a team, and it’s the kind of work that stretches you in good ways.
We also made space for gathering and networking and catch-ups with others along the way. They are the kind of conversations that remind you how many long-standing, forever connections are woven through this work. I am constantly reminded how blessed I am to walk alongside this team.
Friday
A quick but precious catch-up with my grandson before heading to Melbourne for the VicTas Walking Together in Covenant Committee with Moderator Rev Salesi Faupula and Rev Will Pickett. Travel days are never just travel days, they hold deep conversations, robust discussion and big thinking.
In between meetings, it is the constant weaving of emails, enquiries and staying connected to the team back home. Leadership does not really switch off, but it is good work.
Saturday
Part of the Synod’s Standing Committee meeting, as governance and friendships sit side by side. It’s about making decisions, discernment and accountability grounded in shared purpose.
Sunday
Time with family and friends on muwinina Country, which is always grounding. It’s also a day for a bit of cleaning up the yard and the house, part of the ordinary rhythms of life that keep everything steady. Sometimes the simple things are the reset we need. My spirituality and faith continue to ground me in all of it, in the busyness, in the responsibility and in the joy. It is the quiet anchor beneath everything.
Connecting with Country is vitally important for Alison Overeem as part of her busy role with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.
Monday
Just Ayla and I today and we are deep in presentation preparation. Administration also involves operational tasks, flight bookings and forward planning, all of the unseen scaffolding that holds everything up. There is so much thinking ahead, aligning calendars and mapping what is coming next.
Tuesday
It’s a team day at our Kingston Uniting Church office, nestled within the Rowallan Park site. It involves accounts, team meetings, dreaming and weaving the bigger picture. There are landscape meetings and building conversations, watching a vision slowly take shape and build something lasting.
Wednesday
It’s a time to connect over coffee at the Red Dove Café with the Kingston Uniting Church community, then it’s a quick visit to my grandson, time with my elderly mum and catching up with friends. These are all the threads that hold life together. Family conversations are never far away. My son Adrian is buying his first home and we are on the cusp of an empty nest season, while daughter Nichola is over on the eastern shore, building her own path. Our conversations are often about family, culture and the work we each carry. Both of them work within Aboriginal organisations, continuing the legacy in their own ways, and it makes me quietly proud.
It’s all about building on Country, being grounded in family, nurtured by friendships, driven by meaningful work and even finding time to plan a 60th birthday cruise in 2027.
Life is good and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress is good.
It’s family, friends, cultural connection and a little boy named Arthur, my grandson.
This is me, all of me.
