Martyn's Adventure To The Sunny Land Down Under

How great is Facebook for reminding you when peoples birthdays are? How great is Linkedin for telling you about your work-anniversary!

Well, its been five years since I joined SHINE and its been five years of working with a great team and great friends, but sadly my time at SHINE is coming to an end. Don’t worry I’m not leaving for another studio around the corner or anything… I’ll be going slightly further. 10,168 miles to be exact! My family and I are emigrating to Brisbane, Australia.

It’s a big move (made possible by my amazing wife) especially seeing as we’ve never been, don’t know anyone there and don’t have jobs to go to… but hey ho!

I think I’m still too young for this to be a mid-life crisis? It was a very strange time for us when this day dream (usually spoken about over a bottle of wine or after a hard day) became an actual reality and I’m fully aware it’s a bit of a risk, but what’s life without a bit of adventure? Also, our kids are still young enough not to seriously question our parenting skills yet! Its very daunting buying one-way tickets, but we are excited as a family to be heading to Oz on the 2nd of November.

I wanted to express my sincere gratitude to everyone in the team at SHINE for their tremendous support, this process has been made so much easier due to their well-wishes and reassurances that I’m not making a huge mistake. I spend more time with this team than I do my family, so it will be a sad day when I say goodbye. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with some fantastic clients and suppliers, some might be glad to see the back of me… but I hope not too many! I genuinely wish each and every one of you well for the future.

Why Brisbane? There’s about 360 days of sunshine a year, it looks a great place for young families, they seem to have the whole work/life balance thing nailed and I love the stereotypical laid back beer-loving Australian way of life, I expect to be wearing a hat with corks on and wrestling a crocodile not too long after landing.

Its been possibly the longest notice period from any employee, given it was April when I told Craig I was heading to the land down under… my last day will be Friday 20th October and we are internally calling this ‘Australia Day’, I wanted to give SHINE enough time to get everything in order so there will be minimal disruption to studio and client work and so there’s not too much landing on Karen’s desk!