Hey Buddies!

I have news! I’m leaving! Sort of! I’m stepping down from my role as the Perth Team Leader after 2 ½ years but I’m not going far. I’ll still be running events here and there.

With a new CEO coming aboard and some great changes happening across all of Australia, I want to reassure everyone that there is not anything nefarious going on, I haven’t been pushed out, I’m not unhappy with the changes, in fact I’m stoked.

So, you may wonder why I am stepping down. I have likened it to Buddy Up Australia (BUA) is like a mother hen and her chickens are now fully fledged and ready to fly on their own.

When I first stumbled across BUA in early 2020, I was very unwell. I’d survived breast cancer, a very violent relationship, multiple surgeries and procedures on my physical injuries from my service in the Australian Army which had compounded into very poor mental health. A major depressive disorder, anxiety and complex PTSD.

I had already started to receive some good mental health assistance, and I realised that walking away from a destructive personal relationship was only the first step in what I needed to do if I wanted to be well and to thrive.

This led me to walk away from almost my entire existing friendship group and many of my family members, as a single woman in their 50’s, this was not easy and I often wondered if I was up to the task, but I was determined that I wanted the second half of my life to be happy, healthy and fulfilling.

So, when I stumbled across BUA on Facebook and saw they were advertising a yoga and bike riding event in the Mundaring hills of Perth, with e-bikes available for an additional $10.00 if you couldn’t ride a normal bike, I thought, why not give it a go.

In the hour it took me to drive from the northern suburbs to Mundaring I was certain that my heart was going to burst out of my chest, the acid churning in my stomach was making me sick and I very nearly turned around when I got lost and eventually pulled up into the carpark late and saw they’d already started yoga on the lawn area.

But I got out of that car, with my beach towel as I didn’t have a yoga mat and sort of joined in on the edges of the group. Once the yoga was finished, we were directed to the bikes and initially I was just riding along at the back of the group.

As I became more relaxed, I started to call out when I saw runners or riders going past to alert those ahead of me, in my quite, dulcet tones….ha!

Before, I knew it I was talking to this cool chick and started to relax even more. I have never looked back!

Since then, I have attended many, many events, first just as a member and then I started to lead an event here and there; and then, before I knew it, I was the Perth Chapter Leader, (I’m so glad we’ve changed that to Perth Team Leader, I always felt a bit bikie like calling myself a Chapter Leader).

I started to meet and make friends from these events which led to socialising outside of BUA events and my life became a little less lonely.

My physical and mental health improvements were making great strides, so then I started to attend my local RSL sub-branch, then I moved to Joondalup City RSL Sub-Branch where I was able to help out as a volunteer, to the point that I recently took on their volunteer role as Sub-Branch Secretary and again they made me feel welcome and I have made new friends there too  and this led me to join the local sports club and join their scuba diving club where I have begun to make even more friends.

It doesn’t end there though, a member from BUA, had founded another Veterans and First Responder Charity called Wyvern Resilience which revolves around scuba diving which was something I had been extremely active in before I’d become unwell. So, another group of amazing, welcoming and fun people to surround me with.

I want to focus on spreading my volunteering across all three organisations, but more importantly, I want to spend more time developing these amazing friendships outside of “work”.

My life is full, I am happy, as healthy as I can be and thriving so it’s time to step aside, to run less events for BUA, but I’ll still run some, I’ll be attending others, and as always, I will be telling everyone I meet about the value these three organisations have brought to my life, so come along and check us out.

If you have time on your hands, if you need a sense of purpose or connection, reach out, join us, you won’t regret it. I haven’t!

See you soon!

Jane