  Many thanks to Jacqueline for her profile
Hunter Valley Newcastle celebrant Jacqueline Harrison - Appointed December 2010
I arrived in Australia in 1988 with my husband and three daughters after being born in England and living in Belgium, Ireland and Spain.
My professional background in Australia, started with becoming an underwriter with an insurance company and then moving into a management role. For the last nearly twenty years I have worked in senior management as a regional manager for insurance branches, national Human Resources Manager for a major bank, leadership trainer in a large corporate and as a strategic project manager.
9/11 caused me to rethink my role in the world and I resigned from my role and took a regional managers job with The Smith Family, looking after northern NSW and then four years ago moved to The Benevolent Society as Regional Manager for Hunter and Central Coast.
In 2009, I was undertook the ten month Sydney Leadership program and at the end of that period decided that I wanted to return to university to study full time for a BA, run my own business and work in my own community both in a voluntary capacity and in order to support myself.
I am a Lifeline counsellor (not practicing at present), a Master Practitioner in NLP and am currently working as a volunteer with the local school. I now live alone,
My two married daughters who both have two daughters, one with severe mental disadvantage live in Sydney, and my parents have migrated from Spain and now live on the Central Coast. I have a beautiful sister who lives with her partner in Sydney.
Interested in working particularly with the over fifty five community and minority groups (for example gay couples and aboriginal people) I have an interest in the social responsibility that celebrants have towards their communities. I am a strong believer in social justice, dislike discrimination and feel quite strongly about the penal system in Australia. I became an active feminist in the 70’s and this is still an area which is very important to me.
I was attracted to celebrancy as working in my community and with families is important to me and I have some reservations about the exclusiveness of many of the religiously based ceremonies around birth, marriage and death. I have enjoyed public speaking over the years as part of my role, have a strong business background as well as a community focus which developed during my years working with the NFP’s in community development, child protection, community capacity building and engagement.
I have a treasured memory of my Father reciting a poem called ‘They Said It Would Never Last’ to my Mother at their renewal ceremony I held for them for the 57th wedding anniversary. When he looked at her with tears in his eyes and said
‘You are my life, my love, my hope,
My friend, my work, my song,
The mirror of my unseen heart,
The place where I belong”.
I saw the joy on my whole family’s faces and knew I had made the right choice in choosing to become a celebrant.
The one tip I would give anyone for any ceremony is that, it is not about you! The fear recedes if you are truly focused on the people whose ceremony you are working with and if you are more concerned with how it is for them, rather than on the impression you are making. Then the message comes from the heart and that is what people hear.
Jacqueline Harrison
Civil Marriage Celebrant
Morpeth Hunter Region Celebrant
Morpeth NSW
More about Jacqueline
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