it’s Claire
it’s Claire Boan… our awesome Mayor of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield is a dynamic, heartfelt, centred, progressive, forward thinker that is more than happy to question the status quo if it’s going to create a better outcome for our community. She’s extremely aware of the power of collective impact and is intent on including people in decision making processes so all of our community can become even better.
So how is it Claire, after only 6 months in the top job as our Mayor has already had a huge positive impact and stamped her mark on the entire Port Adelaide Enfield community?
Well, it can all be traced back to influencers over the years…
As a 4 year old, Claire and her family moved to ‘Narrang’ which is in the lower lakes - she grew up on a farm which was quite isolated as far as a location but had a really strong community and was right next door to an aboriginal community as well. Claire went to the aboriginal kindy and then onto a small primary school of about 20 kids. Claire remembers, “it was a really awesome environment to grow up in, but you also had to make the most of what you had, because you didn’t really get to choose. There were no sporting clubs or anything like that to make connections, so the small community was really how we maintained progression I guess. It was a pretty awesome way to grow up on a farm, riding motor bikes and all sorts of dangerous things!!”
As Claire got older she would travel into Meningie to go to high school and this was one of the first times she became a leader. Claire recalls, “I found myself on the ‘Student Representative Council’ and I was a really shy person and never really wanted to talk to anyone. I had a couple of close friends but didn’t have much self-confidence, so joining the ‘Student Representative Council’ was a bit crazy because it was a bit of a step out of my comfort zone… I knew I wanted to do it, but I didn’t know how. Then I was made the President of the ‘Student Representative Council’ in year 12, so knowing that I could really do this was a cool starter.”
Claire’s high school days were coming to an end & she had set her mind on becoming a school teacher. She remembers her Mum’s reaction when she let her know, “my Mum said, “why do you want to be a teacher, you don’t really fit the teacher fit?” but despite her Mum’s reaction Claire was determined. “I moved to the city when I was 17 years old and I had to stand out on my own because I didn’t have anyone else to help me at that age… I was pretty young. My parents always brought me up to have values of taking responsibility for my own actions. I needed to get a job, I needed to make a go of myself. I wasn’t given anything, which I highly value now, at the time I thought I got ripped off…but I’m so glad they did that for me.”
Going through Uni was an interesting time for Claire, she remembers, “I didn’t love it, but I knew that whenever I did my ‘prac placements’ that I was meant to be in the classroom.” Fast forward and Claire found herself at Alberton Primary School were she had 14 amazing years of teaching. She adds, “with the high aboriginal population of students at that school it kind of felt a lot like home to me, because it was like where I grew up. It’s like the family I had, it’s the connections I had when I was growing up, it all came back to me at the Port. I had to learn a lot because there are a lot of cultural difference still… but it was a really great place to be. It was a school that challenged my own educational thoughts because of the Principle who was an amazing leader in terms of not just saying ‘yes sir’ to the Education Department. That’s what education is and that’s what we have to do - asking questions like… ‘what is education, what should our students be exposed to?’… I was part of that whole journey… I really believed in the changes that were happening and loved the questioning, and in all of that time my confidence grew as well”.
As Claire’s confidence grew, so did her ambition to continue to make positive change in the community. Claire recalls, “I was married and we didn’t think we could have children, so then I thought…’I want to do something else other than just teaching, I want to try something else’. I really didn’t know what local government was, I saw the advert in the local messenger and said, I think I will just apply for this, not really realising what was involved in the job… & I won!! It was amazing, but a couple of days before I won the election, I found out I was pregnant and I was so so sick that for 3 to 4 months I was in bed. I couldn’t even go to the first few council meetings & I’m sure everyone thought…’my gosh who is this person, she hasn’t ever rocked up, we haven’t even met her, is she a real thing?’… but I genuinely couldn’t work.”
Claire was teaching part time and was Councillor at the Parks for 4 years. Claire recalls, “The Community Centre had just been announced it was going to be closed down, so I jumped in on that and was part of the group that were ‘activists’ for saving the space because of the needs in that community. It was a really high needs community and we had a responsibility to provide for them. I made it a purposeful thing and now spend time at the Parks Rec Centre and the library because I think what these places offer is absolutely gold. It’s a gem of a place and the more time we spend there we are actually creating relationships without even talking to people.
Claire moved house from Ottoway to Semaphore South and changed wards which was a big risk. She remembers, “well I could have still run in the Parks, the people knew my name or I could have run in the Port which is a risky thing to do but this was my home now, so I needed to and thankfully I got in. It has been really good having had the two Ward opportunities, because it’s given me a bit more of a scope coming into the job as Mayor. In terms of the diversity of the two different Wards, it’s been really helpful. I worked part time during my councillor days because that is quite easy to do, but as soon as I discovered I was Mayor I thought I would finish off my year teaching, but I couldn’t even handle the last few weeks because I was thinking… ‘this is my job now’! I was ready for a new way to work in the community. I still have my links to the school, my kids still go there, but now being Mayor is my new area to create change.”
You can tell Claire is a go-getter when she speaks about her journey… “So 8 years later, having had 3 children, I’ve loved the growth in myself which I believe, if we are not growing as a person, then what’s the point. The part of that growth is being with others, listening to others and questioning ourselves, questioning others and in a good way I guess questioning society a little. I am always a cup half full person, I come across too many that see themselves as a victim in situations and I’m trying to teach my kids not be victims. If you don’t like something, then in a nice way you can go about making some change. Don’t make excuses for things because it’s not going to get you anywhere. We don’t have to be aggressive in the way we move forward. If we work with others and make sure we are not just thinking about our own growth it’s actually a collective growth that can happen.”
Claire is excited to see this happening in the City of Port Adelaide Enfield, “I can see change, it takes time - the more people you have to work with, the slower the pace you need to move…but as our leaders become more happy to question things, then it will help the whole community.”
When it comes to Claire’s intention and what would she like to see happen across the entire City of Port Adelaide Enfield Council, she confidently lets us know, “I want to continue with where we are going - we are heading in a positive direction. I also want to work more with our community, what’s the point of me saying what we are going to do if I haven’t even talked to our community or heard back from them. Knowing we have a particular responsibility as well in our council, that other councils don’t have given they don’t have the great multicultural element that we have. It’s not about me, it’s about our community - we have our Aboriginal Advisory Panel and we work closely with Michael O’Brien. This has helped us greatly - at the moment we are just missing the mark, and I’m not sure what the mark is, but we need a bit of a forward plan. We are providing services and doing all those great things, but we need to continually ask the question, ‘what about the people and what do they want’.
“At times local government can be slower, you can’t just make things happen quickly. But by engaging with the community and working together in whatever we do, we will deliver in a far more meaningful way. We can’t always keep everybody happy. We don’t always need to agree on every decision but what needs to happen is we trust that we have made the best decision and then everyone needs to get onboard. Whether it’s what they wanted in the first place or not, we all need to accept the decision that has been made and all move forward… otherwise we will never progress.”
When asking Claire about her family, she’s proud to add, “I have 3 kids and a husband, and my family life is what makes this job much more relevant. For example, I remember earlier on people saw me out with my kids running a muck at Kmart trying to get them to try on thongs… and this guy walked up to me and said,
‘aren’t you the Mayor?’… and i’m thinking to myself, I don’t want to say this right now… it wasn’t good timing at all. I think it makes us human, my kids wear pass-on-clothes, we don’t have to look a certain part, we just need to be part of our community.”
Claire and her family definately walk the talk when it come to having strong community ties, she lets us know, “We have a place called ‘The Village’ which is in our street. We live on the corner of two streets and I’m in a really lucky position where my sister lives next door. My parents live behind us and it just happened that way, it was not planned that way at all. We just started to create a community, then we started to do street BBQ’s. We started off with not too many people the first year and it’s grown each year where we now have to go over to the park and we had about 80 people our last one. It was all people from our street and some we didn’t even know and now they are connecting. It’s the village as we know it and we now know everyone, we support each other, there’s been a couple of people that have passed away and we’ve been able to drop meals off to their families. This strong sense of community is not something we see often, so that has become a bit of a project with the City of PAE Council. So after hearing our story and a few other good community stories we are starting to do some more initiatives around this space.”
Claire is our Mayor and she is also very ‘real,’ so when asking her to tell us some of the things she’s been proud of in the 6 months she’s been in the roll, with a smile she replies, “I had never run a meeting before, that’s pretty crazy! Handling 17 Councillors in a chambers is a pretty massive thing and not breaking any rules can be tricky.”
“I feel that people are starting to realise that I’m different, that the Mayor doesn’t have to be a particular colour or gender or age or size or anything like that and that’s been pretty cool. I still love it when people say, ‘oh but you are so young. I don’t feel that I am young but I think it’s such a privilege for someone to go ‘yeah how cool is that ….someone who doesn’t fit a stereotype can be in this roll.”
“Something I learned pretty quickly as Mayor was how much information I was privy to information, opportunities and experiences. I wanted to make sure other Councillor’s were across it, so I feel i’m doing a good job of communicating as a whole council and really making it more of a team thing, rather than a Mayor thing. I’m really trying hard at that one. The discussions that we are now having around ‘community’ are discussion our Council haven’t had in the same way previously.”
Claire is really proud of the entire City of Port Adelaide Enfield community, where over the past 6 months there have been a lot of changes and more that are about to happen with the majority excited and embracing it. Claire adds, “They are cup half full people and embracing how awesome our place is.”
Claire is proud of the people that are standing up for our community and voicing what it is they value. She adds, “We need to hear those voices to make good decisions in the chamber.”
itsPortAdelaide gives our Mayor Claire Boan a huge two thumbs up! We’re an extremely lucky community to have her on our side. Her heart is in the right place and she will always put what is best for our community first.
Claire wanted to have the last say and we aren’t going to argue with our Mayor!!
“I want to hear from you, I want to listen. I’ll say yes to anyone that wants to catch up and have a chat. My role is to just listen and then look at how we can move forward together as a community. I think the thing that we always need to come back to is this… ‘is this good for our community’ and if it’s not, maybe we need to relook at what our priorities are. Are we moving forward in the way we are thinking about things, are we questioning things. If there’s something that is happening in Council that you don’t understand, come and ask us about it, find out how it works and how it fits together and why a particular decision was made. Maybe there is a bit more of a story behind it than what people are really aware of…. misconceptions come through. Local government is so much more than just providing libraries, roads and bins… there is so much more to what we do, so I would love to just be able to chat to people.”
How good is this!!! Claire would love to connect with you all and itsPortAdelaide is going to ask you a big favour… it would mean a lot if you would please go and like her Facebook page… Here’s the link to click Claire Boan - Mayor of the City of PAE… you can also email Claire at claire.boan@cityofpae.sa.gov.au - This is an awesome opportunity to share your thoughts, ideas & suggestions directly with our very own Mayor… Let’s all work together to make the best community in the world even better.