WCC Founder, Director, Steering Circle, Advocacy Circle, Hub Circle

Janet is a Canberra business woman, and was the founder of the respected science information company Biotext Pty Ltd. Through her work, she developed a strong interest in dialogue around contentious public policy issues. Since 2006, she has extended that interest through her membership of Canberra-based group A Chorus of Women, who give artistii expression to citizen concerns.

Janet was the initiator and facilitator of a series of 14 Canberra Conversations hosted from 2009-201 and bringing together citizens from across different professional and political perspectives for conversations about environmental and development issues, the arts, peace and human rights. Many were hosted in collaboration with the ANU Climate Institute.

A grandmother of 5, in January 2020, concerned by the ongong political climate wars and horrified by the Balck Summer bushfires, she brought together Canberra women to promote women-led collaborative climate action. This led to the formation of the WC.C.

Director, Membership Circle, Steering Circle, Hub Circle

Lyn has a background in mental health, public sector management, and organisational development consulting. She has had a long interest in dialogue practice and for some years was the director of the ANU Centre for Dialogue. In this role, in 2008 she started the ANU Dialogue Group, a community of practice for dialogue practitioners, which is still active today.

She has also been very active in the Art of Hosting Conversations community in Australia and coordinates a support group for AoH practitioners to share ideas and deepen their practice.

Director, Steering Circle, Financial coordinator, Advocacy Circle, Hub Circle

Kirsten trained in law, both in Australia and the US. After working for some time with Legal Aid, she has mainly focused on family as they lived in different places around the world.

She has developed an interest in conflict resolution and mediation, especially in the community context, and believes that communication amongst decision-makers that is honest, open and empathetic would improve the quality of government and put us in a place from which we could move forward on the important challenges that will shape our future.

Director, Steering Circle

Mary works from Australia as an international consultant in disaster and climate risk law, policy and practice, and is a recognised specialist on women’s resilience to disasters and climate change, working with UN Women, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and the Asian Development Bank.

This work evolved during 16 years overseas from 2000 to 2017 in Switzerland, Guatemala and Zimbabwe, after being a trade union official and then an anti-discrimination and labour lawyer in Melbourne in the 1980s/90s. Mary completed a Master’s and PhD in international law in Geneva and began working in international disaster response law with the Red Cross, which evolved into national disaster and climate risk governance over the last decade.

In the 1980s/90s, Mary volunteered in feminist community organisations in Melbourne (WIRE, Deer Park/Brimbank).

Hub Circle

Barbara has been an advocate for women's issues for many years, Barbara is concerned about domestic violence, gender equality in positions of leadership, and the growing problem of homelessness of older women.

With an amazing ability to connect with young people, Barbara sought to inspire a new generation of Australian women. In 2017, she founded the National Council of Young Women of Australia. As president of the National Council of Women of Australia, in 2018 Barbara was invited to speak at the 70th meeting of the United Nations Committee for ending all forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Barbara has also served as a member and past president of Hall Rotary Club, and is a past president of the Canberra Chamber of Women in Business. In 2023, she received an OAM for her services to women’s affairs and the community.

Hub Circle, Advocacy Circle

Barbara is an Aid and development specialist focusing on gender, peacebuilding and humanitarian affairs with a Masters in Peace Studies. She is a past president and Board member of the Australian chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and she continues to support and represent WILPF on the Women’s Peace and Security Coalition and other initiatives.

Hub Circle

As a recently retired social worker/ mental health clinician, Margaret is able to devote more time to environental actvities related to the Darebin Creek (Melbourne) restoration and planting works along degraded areas of the creek.

She is also studying the benefits of the "bush school" movement where preschool children are able to come and play down at the creek as part of their preschool learning.

She also continues to use her social work skills supervising social work students doing long placements with an emphasis on how to engage vulnerable people in being able to access natural places.

When I am not engaged in these actvities, she paints in the botancial art style, precious drawings showing intense detail of plants, nuts seeds, leaves, etc.

Hub Circle, Advocacy Circle

Toni is an author and Walkley Award-winning journalist. She has held senior positions in communications and advocacy in the not-for-profit sector including Indigenous community development and public health.

Toni is passionate about understanding how change happens. She has worked as an advisor for two federal parliamentarians and is an emerging artist combining her climate change and social justice concerns with visual practice.

Toni is an adjunct scholar at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, Charles Sturt University, an ecumenical body which progresses wisdom for the common good. She is an associate fellow with the The Australia Institute's Centre for Responsible Technology and a board director with the charity, Be Slavery Free . She has three school-age children at home with husband, Peter.

Hub Circle, First Peoples Relationships Circle

Honey is a retired veterinarian and aviator, artist and writer. She has had a life-long involvement with animals, sharing concern for native wildlife and habitat conservation, and the sufferings of our fellow species as human populations multiply inexorably at the expense of all other life. A long working friendship with Indigenous first people has taught her their ancestral knowledge of equality between women and men, and their respectful care of all life. Joining WCC as a grandmother, she reflects that the concerned voices of women seem the only hope for creating a protective, loving future for our own threatened descendants, and for all the beloved creatures of the Earth.

Advocacy Circle
Alex Marsden is a strategic designer, arts and cultural policy expert, and cultural advocate and adviser. She has a diverse background in public policy, strategic thinking and cultural heritage management, linked by a primary focus on people, culture and values. Trained as an historian, she has worked in museums, the non-government sector, heritage agencies and key national public policy departments, including 8 years at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C).

Advocacy Circle

Laurann Yen has worked in the health sector through most of her career as a clinical psychologist, manager, policy maker and researcher in the UK and Australia. More recently she has been working as a volunteer in her local community supporting the recovery efforts following bushfires of 2019/20, which has led to an increasing activism in the climate space. With Alex Marsden she is promoting a Women’s Caucus in the Parliament, aiming to take the vital issue of climate change above the fray of political partisanship to find solutions that work for all our communities.

Zoom Bookclub convenor

Mardi has a background in medical science but swapped a lab coat for a laptop many years ago to work as a medical writer - writing news for medical specialists around the country from my home office on the Gold Coast.

She is Mum to three creative young adults and says ‘the beach, books and chocolate are good for my soul’.

Hub Circle, Fundraising Circle

With a background in art history, Sarah has worked in both public and private art galleries where she has assisted with some major exhibitions. She currently works as events and corporate services officer at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra.

Sarah is the mother of three young men – our future. A concerned citizen for our planet, Sarah sings and helps to prepare public conversations and presentations with A Chorus of Women, and she is secretary for the Woden branch of the Canberra community initiative SEE-Change (Society, Environment, Economy).

Membership Circle

Jenny gained professional and educational experience in Darwin and Canberra schools over 30+ years of experience as a teacher and leader in the field of education. As a researcher, my PhD investigated the essential characteristics of trust and the impact of high and low trust environments on learning.

My long standing commitment to women’s leadership, equity, inclusion, mediation and the science of climate change has drawn me to the work of the Woman’s Climate Congress. I look forward to contributing in our no blame approach to a new sustainable and just world.

Hub Circle, Reintegrating the Arts Circle

Sally is a Canberra-based visual artist. In her contemporary drawings and textiles, cyclic patterning and the interconnected whole are explored, as well as the consequences of their undoing.

She feels deeply about disconnections in human understanding of the natural world which result in environmental crises. In turn she contemplates the effect of the climate crisis upon humans, examining art’s purposeful role in bringing attention to, and examining significant environmental and social issues. See Sally’s website www.sallyblake.com.

Hub Circle, Membership Circle

Lynne’s background is in Education, encompassing School Leadership, Curriculum Development and Change Management, with a long standing interest in women’s leadership, sustainability and stewardship of the planet.

Since retirement, she has taken up photography professionally, to express her belief in the importance of the Arts in telling women’s stories. Her recent work focusses on documenting, through images, the effects of human interactions on their environment.

Past director (2023), Adviser

Cheryl has over 30 years’ experience in the national security sector, including specialist Army intelligence and Defence capability and preparedness roles.

Cheryl led the Department’s Global Change and Energy Sustainability Initiative from 2013 to 2016, and established the position of the Australian Defence Force’s Climate and Security Advisor in 2016. She was the lead author for Defence’s submission to the Senate Inquiry on the implications of climate change for Australia’s national security.

As the Defence partner to Emergency Management Australia she supported the development of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework and the co-design of the Profiling Australia’s Vulnerability Report.

She is currently a member of the Climate and Security Working Group – Asia Pacific and a Fellow of the Institute of Integrated Economic Research-Australia. She is a councillor with the Climate Council.

Past director (2021-23)

Alison is currently a Special Counsel with Ninox Law Pty Ltd, delivering quality legal services in the fields of environmental law, human rights, administrative law and planning law.

She formerly was a senior solicitor with the Safe Climate (Coal and Human Rights) team working on groundbreaking climate litigation at the Environmental Defenders Office. In this role, Alison conducted complex climate and human rights litigation in the Federal Court of Australia, Queensland Supreme Court, Queensland Land Court and Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal on behalf of public litigants and advises non-government organisations on a broad range of matters such as governance, strategic engagement, policy, compliance and legal enforcement.

Based in Meanjin (Brisbane) she has extensive experience in community program development, fundraising, law reform, campaigning and movement building.

Past director (2023)

Sarah is an experienced organisational leader with a passion for strategic thinking and using embodied and creative methods to support systemic organisational change. She has worked in diverse organisations including an Australian-based manufacturing company servicing the plumbing/building industry, an independent higher education school and member-based educational NFP. As a community participant, Sarah has also served on the boards of a range of NFP organisations - the most recent being CERES Environmental Park and OASES Graduate School. She is an experienced facilitator of The Work that Reconnects, Warm Data Lab and the Art of Hosting.

Her PhD (2021) was a study of four non-hierarchically governed organisations to explore what is set in motion when decision-making is guided by the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion.