This Tuesday 3 November we held our long-awaited Leadership Talk with Liz Cosson, Secretary of the Department of Veteran's Affairs, via Zoom. When our planned trip to Canberra was cancelled in March due to COVID-19, we worked hard with Liz's Office to make sure LIP still had a chance to hear from this remarkable leader, and the opportunity to ask her a few questions.   

Liz is a retired Major General of the Australian Army, so it was a huge honour for LIP member and ex-serviceperson Rod Clark to be spokesperson for our session.  We were treated to a presentation of Liz's leadership history, peppered with fascinating anecdotes from her career in the military and learnings from her 40 years of leadership experience.  

Thanks to Liz and her staff for making this event possible.  Honourable mentions also to Rod for stepping up and making us all proud and to Stephanie Hummerston for her Vote of Thanks.

On 20 October TIC held it's penultimate Dinner Meeting of 2020 at the Novotel Wollongong. Present were current LIP members Jake Pearson of Interchange Illawarra, Zahra Shahbazian of UOW and James Welch of Access Law Group, and they were joined by Bethan Farmer of RDA Illawarra. Thanks to Graham Lancaster of TIC for giving LIP a shoutout in his President's address. 

The guest speaker was Dan Hunt - former NRL star and founder of The Mental Health Movement. Dan spoke with passion and conviction about his struggles with mental ill health, about breaking down barriers and the code of silence that surrounds particularly men, in that situation, and passed on some practical tools we can use to keep on top of our own mental health and that of those around us. Bravo Dan!

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