By Mikayla van Loon
After 26 years as board chair, Harry Moyle has decided it’s time to step away from his position at Caladenia Dementia Care, a moment that was celebrated and congratulated by many.
First enlisted by co-founder of Caladenia, Trish Maggs, Mr Moyle began his days with the organisation as treasurer just as a favour for his friend.
“She got to know me and knew that I was doing accounting…and she was the one who administered it for the first probably five years of its life,” Mr Moyle said.
“She kept asking me year after year, if I would do that and after about three years, I said to her ‘Trish, I will come and do the job for three years’ and here I am 26 years later.”
While not the original plan to stay on the board for that many years, Mr Moyle said once he came to understand the level of care and contribution shown at Caladenia, he couldn’t leave.
“It’s such a great contributor to the community and we’ve always been very fortunate to have really caring staff and managers and CEOs who have looked after the people living in the community with dementia,” he said.
“So it’s been a really worthwhile cause and I’ve been surrounded by lovely people with a lot of commitment to the cause.”
Throughout those 26 years, Mr Moyle said it was quite incredible to watch the service Caladenia provided grow and grow.
“During the 26 years, we’ve increased the number of people, consumers that we service or that come and visit us for respite for their carers.
“At the moment, we’re servicing something like 80 people every week and back in those days, I suspect it was probably 15 to 20.”
This growth was facilitated by the expansion of Caladenia’s home at 11 Hilledge Lane in Mooroolbark thanks to some grants in 1998 and the ability to add two vehicles to its fleet.
“We run activities away from the day centre as well. So that’s enabled us on some days at the moment, we run three different activities out in the community, using the vehicles and one at the day centre. So it’s been quite a massive increase in services provided.”
Even though he is stepping down as board chair, Mr Moyle doesn’t have any intention of leaving completely, remaining on the board in some capacity.
“If I can make a small contribution, I’ll be very pleased to do it.”
Not only did Caladenia celebrate Mr Moyle’s departure as board chair on Thursday 27 October, the team awarded him the inaugural Harry Moyle Award for Outstanding Achievement
and Commitment to the Caladenia Community.
“It’s very humbling to have something like that happen because it means my name, apart from being on the life member’s board, will continue to occasionally be recognised in the Award to some other person who makes a significant contribution to Caladenia and hopefully, there’ll be lots of them.”
