25 July 2023
Amelia graduated in 1999 and has had a very interesting career working in marketing, communications and events. Amelia has worked for organisations such as the Australian Olympic Committee and the Royal Adelaide Show, but it was her love of the Pembroke community that brought her back to campus as Pembroke's Marketing and Communications Coordinator.
What is your biggest career highlight?
This is probably more of a great perk of the job rather than a career highlight but flying around the Main Arena at the 2019 Royal Adelaide Show in an Isuzu Team D-MAX Ute during the Nighttime Entertainment was incredible. Amazing how quickly that will take you from exhausted Event Manager mode to top of the world!
But above all else, it has been the inspirational people I have worked with across my career.
Who was your favourite teacher at Pembroke and why?
I had the much-loved Mr Campbell Whalley for Year 11 Geography and I still have vivid memories of the wonderful stories he would tell of his early life in Tanzania. He brought the world into the classroom, yet always remained a slightly mysterious figure!
My favourite thing to do in Adelaide is…
I’m a proud Adelaide Hills girl, so plonk me in a decent winery or gin distillery and I’m quite happy!
Name three places that are on your bucket list
The horse-mad kid still lives strong in me…so Badminton Horse Trials in the UK still sits at the top of my list! Closely followed by a Winter Olympic Games (Milano Cortina 2026 would do nicely), then Wimbledon. Travel plus sport…the perfect blend!
If you could have coffee with anyone in the world, who would it be?
Brad Pitt
What is your go-to ‘guilty pleasure’ television show?
Never Have I Ever (Netflix) – I particularly love the narration by John McEnroe and Gigi Hadid!
The most adventurous thing I’ve done in my life is…
The most unintentionally adventurous thing would be ending up at the top of a black diamond run on Year 10 Ski Trip due to chatting on the ski lift. My dear friend Thamsin (Brockhoff) Cox (1999) and I were definitely green run girls, so after a disastrous attempt at skiing down, we took off our skis and walked the whole way back, very nearly having our ski passes confiscated by a less than impressed team of Pembroke staff when we returned hours later!
What is your go-to mood booster?
Fresh air and exercise – preferably on a horse!
What are three things you can’t live without?
My beautiful little family (husband Tom, and sons Banjo and Henry), great coffee, and an impending adventure!
What advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?
When I need a bit of a push to be more courageous I always go back to Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘The Man in the Arena’ speech. It was delivered over 100 years ago, but the advice remains as solid as it was in 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”