Andrea Goble

Andrea became Chief Executive of Community Waikato in May 2006 after working for 15 years at the Funding Information Service.

Born in Stratford, Taranaki, she moved to Wellington when she was still at primary school. Her tertiary education includes teachers college at Ardmore in South Auckland, a Library Certificate through the National Library, a BA from Victoria University, a Certificate in Social Studies also from Victoria University and the Unitec Post-Graduate Diploma in Not-for-Profit Management.

Andrea loves to learn and has done many other courses. She thinks of herself as a perennial student and believes that learning keeps her young and developing, and that you can learn from the people around you, the work you do, and your challenges and failures, as well as from more formal study.

Following her teacher training, Andrea taught for three years in Wellington, two years in Sydney, and did relief teaching in Canada and in London. She travelled for five years in the 1970s meeting interesting people in 27 countries and having many wonderful experiences and adventures. She kept up some of the friendships from that time and, after 25 years back in New Zealand, she and her daughter went for a trip to North America, England, Scotland, France, Holland, Malaysia and Thailand.

After her five years early travelling, Andrea went back to Wellington and worked for 12 years at the Wellington Public Library – nine as Extension Services Librarian providing services to housebound and sight impaired people and running the Wellington Learning Exchange, which gave her lots of community and continuing education involvement.

After that she felt it was time for change and got a job at the QEII Arts Council (now Creative NZ) as a resource officer for 18 months.

Information has been the common theme in all Andrea’s work, starting with teaching and library work, then as Resource Centre Manager at QEII Arts Council, the Employment Equity Commission and Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

She has worked with many community and voluntary organisations, including Wellington and national adult community and continuing education, new mothers’ support group, toy library, day-care centre, school fundraising, CORSO, Wellington Council of Social Services, Women’s Refuge and New Zealand Council of Social Services. She is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the New Zealand Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations.

Andrea has two children who both work in Wellington. She goes to Wellington regularly for executive committee meetings, so gets to see family and friends back there. She has a passion for making information accessible to people, working with the community to achieve sustainable infrastructure, processes and funding, building the profile and voices of the sector and working to create an informed and equitable society. Somewhere in there comes her passion for hanging out with friends, travel, reading, chocolate and shoes!