Governance Information
Board
In late 2009, Mount Barker Waldorf School ratified a new Constitution and appointed a new nine-member Board as part of a broad renewal process underway across the school’s administration. The appointment marked the end of an era at MBWS, which has been administered by a College of Teachers since it was founded in 1979. The College has been solely responsible for the school’s governance, management and educational administration. The new Constitution and Board provided a foundation for a new beginning at the school and signalled a significant shift in the way the school is governed and managed. School community members have played a key role in the design of the new Constitution and were closely advised by external consultants with expertise in school governance, Waldorf Education and financial management.
Board is responsible for strategy formulation, policy making and compliance with requirements imposed by Commonwealth and State authorities. It also ensures the school is well run in the interests of all stakeholders. Each Board Member has been selected from a large number of nominations from across the school community and beyond. The current Board Members are: Grant Whitehead and Kerry Jones Co-Board Chairs, Kristy Carter, Peter Follett, Lachlan Jeffries, Katherine Hawkins, Shelley Warchol, Hannah Murphy.
The makeup of the board represents a strong blend of skills including financial management, the governance of Waldorf and mainstream educational institutions, strategic planning and marketing, communications and stakeholder engagement.
Profiles Board Members
To serve until the 2024 AGM
Kerry Jones (Co-Chair)- Joined 2021 - Kerry is mum to twin boys who attend our school and was drawn to Steiner education for the focus on holistic learning, development of social consciousness and being deeply connected to the world around us.
Kerry is a Director at the Australian Centre for Social Innovation helping to solve big social challenges in Australia. She has been part of the team transforming the organisation into a networked operation.
Kerry has a range of experiences in leadership and governance including roles as Board Director, Vice Chair, Governance Sub Committee Chair and Strategic Monitoring Sub Committee Chair in two national boards and one state based board.
When she is not deep in social change work or governance roles you’ll find Kerry planting trees, bush walking or beach combing.
Grant Whitehead (Co-Chair) - Grant and partner Bev, have 3 primary school children at our school. Grant’s professional career has been mostly around event technology; sound, video, lighting, and in the last 10 years has specialised in online video events and web development. He also gained 8 years youth / social work experience working for The Salvation Army in Brisbane (2 years), Melbourne (3 years) and Los Angeles (3 years). Throughout his various roles with The Salvation Army he served on governance and advisory boards, ranging from smaller local level, state based and national based operations. Grant is currently a founder of 2 companies, an event production company here in Australia and an online event start-up company based in South Carolina, USA. His day to day responsibilities include leading teams of employees and contractors on complex projects around in-person / virtual events and web development. Grant has a real willingness to listen, learn and understand the complexities of school governance and operations.
Peter Follett - has one grand-daughter at the school, and another close on her heels. This is pleasing for Peter as he has developed firm belief in Steiner pedagogical principles.His own children studied at Cabra College, where he was a Board member for 9 years, assuming the Chair for 4 of them. He has also been a director of The Wilderness Society here in SA since 2006, with about 6 years as Chair and these past 4 years as Treasurer, plus on the Board of their national leadership body for 5 years. Peter calls himself a ‘StrategiCulturEvolutionist’ – well, just for fun really. But he has worked for about 20 years with enterprise and industry leadership groups to support their professional growth, enabling them to better grasp and respond to increasingly turbulent conditions, and to catalyse teams and team members to develop the enterprise culture, strategic capability and operational wherewithal necessary to thrive in any context or to tackle any challenge. Earlier in his career there were 30 years in banking, holding management roles at Westpac and Community CPS Credit Union, developing what he hopes is a good appreciation for the challenges of leadership and of governance principles and functions, especially as they apply to not-for-profit / member-owned enterprises.
To serve until the 2025 AGM
Hannah Murphy | CPA, MBA and Bachelor of Commerce - Hannah joined the Board as she wanted to contribute to the community she lives in. She is passionate about learning and the important role Steiner education offers. Hannah has over 20 years experience working within profit for purpose industries across disability, aged care, retirement and technology services. She specialises in transforming business models to ensure financial sustainability through continuous improvement of process and enabling technologies. In her previous roles Hannah has been responsible for corporate service leadership, strategic acquisitions and divestments and the implementation of transformation programs. Joining the Executive Team at Minda in March 2022 Hannah is responsible for Children’s Services, Corporate Finance, Infrastructure and Technology. She is passionate about ongoing sustainability to ensure the Communities she works and lives within can continue to respond to changing expectations. Hannah has two young children and spends most of her spare time with her family and their horses.
Shelley Warchol (Board Secretary) - Shelley has two young children who attend the school and was drawn to Waldorf education as it takes account of the needs of the whole child. Shelley has over 20 years’ experience working within the public and private sectors across a range of industries including health and IT. She has established and managed governance and accountability structures, led business and hospital process re-design, developed strategies and business plans, undertaken project management roles, held executive support roles for Boards and senior Executives and managed IT training for large scale reform projects. In her spare time, Shelley enjoys gardening and aims to grow as much of the food for her family as possible. She enjoys sharing with her boys the skills of growing food – from raising the seed, to harvest, to plate. When not in the garden, she is often in her kitchen preserving food by dehydrating, pickling, conserving and canning.
To serve until the 2026 AGM
Lachlan Jeffries – has over 30 years experience leading a multi-generational South Australian family business focussed on creating value from organic resource. Through business, Lachlan has experience in managing diverse teams, business development, marketing, stakeholder engagement, financial performance, strategic planning and reporting to an active Board. Lachlan also has had experience on a number of Boards including the South Australian Governments board for Zero Waste SA (now known as Green Industries SA), Interchange SA which is focussed on supporting children, teenagers and adults with disabilities. In addition to these, while his children attended the Steiner Stream at Trinity Gardens Primary School, he chaired the Ground’s committee meetings.
