Maureen
Born in Mater Hospital, North Sydney in the 40's and raised in Chatswood, Sydney, Maureen went to primary school in Chatswood and high school Monte St Angelo...North Sydney. Her 1st Job was in the Overseas Dept. Bank of New South Wales, Martin Place, Sydney.
From Banking Maureen ventured into Public Relations and thence the Pharmaceutical industry in Regulatory Affairs.
In 1974 she exited the workforce to raise her children.
and lived in a small country town, Coolah, for 4 years.
During this era she became a "recognised" China Painter winning awards
and eventually teaching the art.
In the late 80's she joined IBM Australia where she held many and varied positions, from Senior Secretarial to
Project Management.
She retired from IBM late 2001.
Maureen's hobbies are :
Photography, Aussie Rules Football, Scuba Diving (many years)
Travelling & Reading
Roy
Born in Brighton, Melbourne during WW2 ( family evacuated from Mackay,QLD.
to Melbourne during WW2 )
Roy was raised in Pleystowe, 12 miles west of Mackay,QLD. on the Pioneer River.
and attended Walkerston State School.
He migrated to Sydney in 1956 & attended Knox Grammar for 1 year thence
East Hills Boys High School.
He was selected to Royal Military College, Duntroon, Canberra where he studied commerce and military studies for 3 years.
Roy joined the Bank of New South Wales in 1963 where he met Maureen. Roy held many and varied positions in the Bank over 28 years, his last role being Divisional Manager Northern Regions,
In 1991 he set up a Mortgage Broking company, Mortgage Choice. Mortgage Choice is now the largest Home Loan broking company in Australia & New Zealand.
In 1999, he setup Smartline Home Loans. ( with two of his colleagues.) He retired in 2001, but is still a majority shareholder in Smartline Home
Loans.
Roy's hobbies are :
Scuba Diving , Travel, Building useless web sites, Video, Caravanning, Drinking good cheap wine.
Some Retirement Tips
Retirement is marvellous, provided three criteria are met:
Good health
Enough cash invested to support one's retirement lifestyle
Hobbies or passions to occupy one's time
Many people retire and after a short period become extremly bored and then despondent. This is usually caused because they do not have hobbies that will keep them occupied or the cash to support their hobbies.
Given that our major hobby is travelling, we are so busy and occupied that we never have a moment to spare. Time is irrelevant to us and when we caravan throughout Australia we do not have a fixed itinerary. If we like a place we stay, if we dont, we move on.
We try to stay on the road for approx. 6 months at a time we generally head for our home base in Sydney, where we catch up with our bills, banking, visits to Doctors, dentists etc.....and of course catching up with our friends, who we are in regular email contact with whilst on the road.
We generally take a 2 month break from our travels and are kept very busy editing our videos & photographs, updating this web site and spending time on the Internet researching our next escapade.
We still have goals which is very important to keep us focused and excited. If we tire of travel, we shall do charity work or further our training. Roy would love to learn gliding and complete a videographers course. We guess that will come one day.
Meanwhile......we are fully motivated and love our retirement. We both had very active careers, so being active in retirement is so very important.
Caravinning is absolute freedom.
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