This month we spoke with Josh Fraser, Aquatic Services Team Leader, City of Tea Tree Gully, about his role, winning the Australasian Management Challenge and what's next for him. 

How long have you been in local government and what is your role?

I have been in local government in the role of Aquatic Services Team Leader at Waterworld Aquatic Centre for over two years, starting out with the City of Tea Tree Gully as a casual at Waterworld in 2017. As a part of my role, I am responsible for overseeing 50+ Lifeguards and Duty Managers, while ensuring the operations, safety standards and cleanliness of our facility are up to standard.

What does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day varies depending on the time of year. As I am based at Waterworld Aquatic Centre, during the summertime I am fully focussed on our operational requirements - maintaining a safe facility through the leadership of our lifeguard team, ensuring effective pool supervision, maintaining a clean facility and ensuring water quality is within acceptable ranges.

Being Adelaide’s largest and busiest outdoor centre, Waterworld can have up to 3,000 patrons within the facility at one time. It is our mission that every person who exits the centre leaves as happy and healthy as they entered.

During winter, it is all about preparation for the summer season. Through this time, I organise and oversee maintenance on the facility, review and implement training plans and procedures, and any other professional development associated with my role.

You participated in the Local Government Management Challenge this year. After winning the State Challenge your team ‘LeGully Blonde’ represented SA at the Australasian Management Challenge Final earlier this month, where you were crowned joint National Champions! Congratulations on the win, can you share some reflections from this experience?

The overall experience at both State and National Challenges were amazing! The state event was a bit of “going into the unknown”, however, our entire team came together and prepared incredibly well. We knew part of our success would come from putting in a clear structure from the word “GO”, with weekly meetings, training and development and mock challenges all scheduled in advance. Tuesday afternoons became our “Management Challenge Afternoon”.

We went in confident, yet hesitant about what the day may bring, but once the challenges dropped the team worked so well together, stuck to our process and were rewarded a month later at the LG Professionals SA 23^rd Annual Leadership Excellence Awards Gala Dinner. It was an incredible feeling at the time, with the underlying tone of “we’re going to have to do it all again”.

As a team of naturally high achievers, we were confident that our process worked and focused on further developing our knowledge gaps in the buildup to the National Challenge. The City of Tea Tree Gully and our respective teams were so supportive and allowed us to pack in as much development and cross collaboration from as many aspects of council as we could into the couple of months before we jetted off to Brisbane.

Once there, you could just see why each team won their respective State, Territory or New Zealand competition. Each team represented their state with flair, and there was a Welcome Reception the day before the Challenge, so we were able to spend time getting to know one another and connect in a very unique circumstance.

Whilst the tasks at Nationals were more difficult than States, and with more strategic elements, the team settled into the rhythm of the day and worked diligently to their strengths. We finished the day exhausted, content and with no idea of how we went.

At the presentation lunch the next day, the team and I waited in anticipation for the results. Knowing how fierce the competition was, we were content with the achievement of making it to Nationals and as the first team from the City of Tea Tree Gully to ever do so. When we were announced as joint winners, the feeling of excitement and relief was immense!

Reflecting back on the whole process, I’m proud and grateful for the incredible opportunity to develop my leadership skills and understanding of the diversity of issues and tasks that local government encounters on a day-to-day basis - winning both titles was just a nice cherry on top! However, the credit must go to the rest of the LeGully Blonde team - each member was integral to our success. As a team, we were strong and as a team we were able to achieve success.

What would be your advice to others thinking of participating in the Management Challenge?

Sign up and get your name in the draw! If you’re relatively new to council, this opportunity allows for such a quick learning process into the intricacies of local government. It challenges you to step into areas foreign to you and your role yet has a variety of tasks to also allow individuals to show their skills and talents in their respective roles.

If you do get the opportunity to do this challenge, make sure you go in with an open mind and the flexibility to turn your hand to whatever task you may be given. Make sure to put your full effort into it, and by doing that, you will get the best results individually and as a collective.

What’s next for you in your professional development journey?

My next step is to finish my university degree! I have ten weeks left and I am looking forward to having that off my plate.

I also aspire to look into a couple of additional short courses in the aquatic training realm, before most likely going on to study a Masters, part time, while I continue at the City of Tea Tree Gully.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I am a triathlete and adventure athlete, so love the outdoors, training and competing. I have Ironman Western Australia coming up in December, so training is just about building back up to full force in the next couple of months.

I also enjoy spending time with my fiancé, friends and family - we’re very active so love spending time paddle boarding, going on coffee rides/walks/runs, and heading up to the river when I get the opportunity.