Perry Lakes

The Perry Lakes process began with an interview on 22 April 2026.

The panel included Morgan Harland, Kylie Chamberlain, then PLHBA Chair Rocky Condo and Ella Burke, Director of Employii.

The Teams link almost became a story of its own when it did not arrive as expected, but eventually the meeting happened.

I came out of it feeling unusually positive.

I wrote to the panel afterwards and told them the discussion had strengthened my interest in the role.

I was also deliberately forthright about Bulleen during those early conversations. Kylie, Morgan, Rocky and Ella were not interviewing someone who had presented his previous basketball role as uncomplicated or perfect.

I explained that there had been significant unrest and change during my two-year term. Around six months into it, the President and Vice President had stepped aside at the AGM because of work commitments, which naturally brought new people into two of the most influential positions around the Board table.

That leadership change occurred while the Association was already going through a steep period of reform. I had inherited an organisation coming off a previous annual loss of about $280,000, so continuing to operate exactly as it always had was not, in my view, an option. Change was necessary, and necessary change rarely arrives without friction.

I told the Perry Lakes interview panel that the Bulleen Board had not always been united about the pace or direction of that change. Some people were aligned with doing things differently and modernising the organisation. Others were long-time custodians of the Association who understandably placed enormous value on its history and the way things had traditionally been done. Neither perspective was inherently illegitimate, but the tension between them was real.

I did not tell them that to criticise Bulleen. I told them because I wanted Perry Lakes to know what they were getting if they appointed me. I had already learned that leadership in community sport is rarely just about budgets, competitions and staff structures. It is also about history, identity, personalities, loyalties and the difficulty of asking an organisation to change without making people feel that what came before is being erased.

They asked for references.

I provided four.

A week later Employii told me my referees were being contacted and that the next step, if successful, would be a second-round interview.

That interview would be in Perth.

The Board gave me an organisational scenario.

How would I assess whether the current workforce structure was fit for purpose?

How would I balance budgets, timeframes, risk, existing staff preferences, culture, resource allocation and stakeholder expectations?

That was the kind of problem I enjoyed.

I sent my response through before I travelled so the panel had time to absorb it.

The second interview was held at Bendat Basketball Centre on 7 May.

Afterwards I felt something I had not felt strongly in a long time.

Belonging.

I could see myself there.

I could see the work.

I could see what the Association could become.

I wrote to the panel the next morning.

There was no hiding that it was my dream role, I said.

That line would matter later because it demonstrated the truth of my decision to move.

I did not relocate across Australia because I had run out of options.

I relocated because I genuinely believed Perry Lakes was the opportunity I had been working towards.