Launch of the Jan Pentland Foundation
The Jan Pentland Foundation was launched in Melbourne on 26th November, 2009. The launch included an outline of the objects and operation of the Foundation.
The Financial and Consumer Rights Council, the peak body for financial counsellors in Victoria, also made a presentation to Jan's family to note the establishment of an annual award to honour Jan.
Some excerpts from the speeches at the launch are below. The full speeches are available by clicking on the names of each speaker below or opposite.
From Peter Gartlan a colleague of Jan's and the keynote speaker
"To Jan, the starting point of her work was through the people who came to her office seeking help with their financial problems. Her work always started and finished with the lived human experience of her clients.
Little did clients realise what would happen when they had an appointment with Jan. Because if, say, there was an issue with a bank, the Jan Pentland approach would be to ring up a senior manager or executive at that bank (because she knew them and they knew her) and more often than not, have the matter resolved.
It didn’t stop there. Jan would then see whether other financial counsellors had similar cases, would raise this as a policy issue at an ASIC Consumer Advisory Panel meeting, then write about it for the financial counsellors newsletter, and sooner or later be quoted in the media about it. She would then don her AFCCRA hat, grab David Tennant, march in to the offending bank, challenge the bank executives about whether this example was systemic, and then somehow segue into a conversation with the bank about a funding proposal for an AFCCRA project.
And to finish it off, all of this would then be part of a speech to a financial counsellors’ conference in Western Australia a few months later." read more . . .
From Nick Trewhella, Chair of the Financial and Consumer Rights Council
"In a conversation recently with one of our practitioners he mentioned very simply that Jan was his hero. When he started out in this business, like many of us he knew nothing. He received a lot of information from our newsletter, the “Devil’s Advocate”. In almost every edition of this he would read an informative article by Jan. It was some months before he managed to meet her and so impressed was he that he then decided to model his professional practice on Jan’s example. This is typical of the esteem with which Jan is held in our field." read more . . .
From David Morawetz, Jan's Partner
"I was wondering: If Jan was here today, what might she feel about the Jan Pentland Foundation? I think the first thing she’d feel is embarrassed and uncomfortable. 'What do you think you’re doing, putting my name on a Foundation? Don’t be doing that! It’s not about me, it’s about the work for the disadvantaged!' Then I think she'd feel proud, ... humble, ... and greatly honoured.'" read more . . .
From Liz Pentland
"My siblings and I have never been in any doubt as to how amazing our beautiful Mum was – it’s wonderful to see that so many of her colleagues saw so many special qualities in her too." read more . . .
The Tim McCoy Award
On 6 November 2009, Jan was the posthumous winner of the Tim McCoy award. This prestigious award is given annually to recognise the outstanding contribution of an organisation or person working in the community law or legal aid sector in Victoria. Jan was nominated for her lifetime achievements – in increasing funding for financial counselling, building the peak body (AFCCRA), linking financial counsellors with community lawyers, promoting Indigenous financial counselling, her leadership roles as chair of the Consumer Credit Legal Service and then the Consumer Action Law Centre and so on.
Her nomination was also based on her long standing advocacy to reform bankruptcy law, particularly to stop creditors using bankruptcy as a debt collection tool for debts as small as $2,000. Jan was nominated by Carolyn Bond (Consumer Action Law Centre) and Gary Sullivan (West Heidelberg Community Legal Centre).
David Morawetz, Jan's partner, describes the event below:
This year's dinner was held last Friday night. It was hosted by Jon Faine from Radio 774 ABC (himself a former community lawyer), and the speaker was the High Court Judge, Justice Virginia Bell (who started out working in a community legal centre herself, the first high court justice to have done so).
In the last 18 years, 15 of the winners of the Tim McCoy Award have had "Legal" or "Law" in the title (Fitzroy Legal Service, Coburg Legal Service, etc) ...
After the six nominations had been read out, the High Court Justice opened the envelope, and she said: "And the winner is ... Jan Pentland."
Knock me down with a feather!
You can read the full email here, together with the actual nomination here.
Excerpt from A Life that Matters by Michael Josephson
Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance, but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters