After Jeff stood aside, John ran toy making for the next 5 years with Jeff as his 2IC (second in command) – ‘Role swapping’ during this time. John’s approach to toy making was quite different – looking to make toys that built:
• fine motor skills, e.g., hand control like noughts and crosses (also developed thought processes), draught boards and the disks for them
• gross motor skills, e.g., dolls cradles, push along carts with blocks in them, wheel barrows to be wheeled around, bikes that could be steered.
• Toys that developed hand eye co-ordination e.g., Quoits, finskas, cricket wickets and bats,
• General toys, e.g., Easels, dolls houses and furniture for them, Tait red rattler trains and W class green and yellow trams

Attendances remained strong during his time in toy makers – during winter 12 plus with several more attending in the warmer months when people returned from their holidays. John feels that his biggest challenge was matching skill sets (of the toy makers) to what was needed to be done. The inexperienced toy makers were a big challenge – making sure they were competent with the machines as their skills developed. This included ‘certification’ on the different machines – for both safety and for insurance purposes. John stood aside from toys about 3 years ago to concentrate more on wood turning. Then along came Covid and the WoSP workshop went into hibernation.

Around this time, John was diagnosed with a serious illness – Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) with a chromosome know as 17 Deletion – a type of cancer that does not respond to chemo therapy. John felt fortunate as, arguably, the Peninsula Private Hospital has some of the best haematologists in Australia. John was also fortunate to qualify for a global clinical trial involving tests such as frequent blood tests, quarterly CT scans and a bone marrow biopsy every six months. Initially, John was given a prognosis of 6 months to 2 years to live. His glands were the size of golf balls. As part of the Global Trials Program of a new generation of medication, the course of drugs worth in excess of $300,000 per year, blood tests, scans, biopsies, etc. (all free because of the trial). He is now down to scans 3-monthly and a bone marrow biopsy yearly. Now no sign of the CLL with 17P Deletion and his prognosis is 8-10 years. Worth noting is that one of the key drugs involved Venetoclax, was a 30-year development here in Melbourne at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. All good, however the treatment has completely destroyed his immune system and means he must have all his childhood vaccinations again, plus the adult ones like shingles and can’t be the PBS live shingles shot – the one on the PBS. He found the cheapest none live vaccine shot by shopping around the pharmacies – a cost of $270 per shot for which he needed two shots. Plus the Covid shots – 6 in all. However, his immune system is still vulnerable.
These days, John’s woodworking tends toward furniture making with his current project a TV cabinet. And furniture from recycled timber – a project initiated by his son in Newport.

Most of John’s working life has been on the computer side of insurance and financial services working for several companies and ending up with the Royal insurance Group which later merged with Sun Alliance in 1996. While with the Royal, John was invited to discussions with IBM for whom he ended up working for the next 10 years. For the first couple of years at IBM in Melbourne, he was running the Insurance and financial services side of the business with clients such as SGIC in South Australia and Suncorp in Brisbane. John ended up heading up the insurance and financial services arm of IBM for Asia/Pacific involving lots of global travel. He was finally offered the job to head up insurance and financial services for Greater China (China plus Hong Kong and Macau) – John opted for a redundancy.

After leaving IBM, John then joined Synchronised Software (SyncSoft) for the next 10 years. SyncSoft is arguably the premium software for running superannuation. One in four Australian super funds runs their software. At that time, SyncSoft had customers across Australia and New Zealand – even one in China.

At this time, John bought a place in Dromana – two stories with each level a self-contained unit. This they ran as a bed-and-breakfast. On retirement from SyncSoft at 62, he moved permanently to Dromana. This property in Manna Street off Boundary Road affords them a great view across the bay – even to Mt Macedon.
Apart from woodwork, John is actively managing his SMSF (Self-Managed Super Fund) – successfully – the value of his SMSF has increased substantially since retirement. Not that he has had some ‘dogs’ (poor investments…) which he has learned how to handle (offload…). This, possibly, stems from his lifetime in the superannuation and financial services industries.

John’s family was living in Hughesdale when he was born. He lived there till he was married. Schooling was at Hughesdale Primary then Oakleigh Tech where he gained a Commonwealth Scholarship that funded his studies at Caufield Tech (later to become part of Monash University) that included Computer Studies majoring in Business Studies, Computer Programming and Economics. The later studies were part time while he worked as a computer programmer for Vic Rail (now two entities – V/Line and Metro Trains Melbourne). Around this time, John joined, and became active in, the Australian Computer Society (ACS) – he now has his 50-year ACS Membership certificate. After 6-7 years at Vic Rail, John changed employment to the Royal Insurance Group.

Although John prefers not to advertise it, he is very active in the Victorian Liberal Party. Given the old saying about ‘not discussing politics and religion’ – enough said on this….

For 4-5 years, John was involved in the L2P (Learner to P-Plate) Mentor Driving Program. This program is funded by the TAC and endorsed by the Department of Transport which works with young disadvantaged kids that do not have access to a car or supervising driver. On the Peninsula, it is administered by the Shire with three cars. After 3-4 lessons, the student is handed over to a Mentor who takes them through to the 120 hours of driving (including 20 hours of night time driving). Seven kids now have their driver’s license due to John’s mentoring. Gaining a driver’s license and a car greatly facilitates getting work. These kids are not bad kids, they simply need a leg up.