Staff Members

Core Staff

Rae Perry is the Chief Executive Officer of the Victorian Local Governance Association. Ms Perry's local government experience comes from two terms as a councillor for the City of Darebin and one term as Mayor. Ms Perry also served a member of the MAV Board and ALGA Board. Ms Perry was the first woman elected to lead local governments in Australia as President of the ALGA.
From a diverse background in nursing, midwifery, trade unions, international public policy work with Oxfam and as a governance officer in local government Rae has unique perspective on advocacy and working with local communities. Those local communities stretch as far as our global backyard in Timor-Leste and working with Mayors in the Philippines.

Alan has a background in community radio and has designed websites for various community groups. At the VLGA he is responsible for publications, the electronic communications systems and this website.

Sarah has had a long term involvement in grass roots political and industrial campaigns around social justice issues. She is currently enrolled in the Masters of Public Policy at the University of Melbourne. Sarah has most recently worked for over four years for State politicians in Queensland and in Victoria. She has worked extensively with local communities on policy issues around planning, housing, transport, roads and infrastructure needs. In this sense, she is enthusiastic to be working for the VLGA which has such a respected reputation in pursuing principles of democratic engagement between local communities and their local governments to achieve progressive social change.

Cr Darren Ray has been an enthusiastic participant in community issues since his late teens. He is strongly motivated by a desire to be involved in many project groups and lists his main passion in life as helping communities cope with change. Darren was first elected to the Port Phillip City Council in 1999. He was also Mayor in 2002 - 03. An openly gay secular Jew, Darren worked for a diverse range of community issues before his 2002 Mayoral role. He has been an adviser to state and federal MPs in two states and a national project officer for the Australian Physiotherapy Association. He was the inaugural executive director of the ALSO Foundation and manager of the North West Youth and Family Services Inc (a youth refuge and family reconciliation program). He is currently undertaking a part-time Masters degree in Planning & Environment at RMIT.

Project Staff

Verity has a PhD in Political Science from ANU and has previously worked at the ACT Council of Social Service and the ANU's Democratic Audit of Australia. Verity came to Melbourne to work withe the Brotherhood of St Laurence on community enterprise research (amongst other things) and has been appointed Project Manager of the the Community Enterprises and Local Governments Research Project, a partnership between the VLGA and the University of Melbourne's Centre for Public Policy.

Greg Thomas joined the VLGA in 2008 as our Public Transport Local Government Facilitator. Greg has recently arrived back in Autralia from overseas. he spent almost 18 years working in South East Asia on international development projects as diverse as livelihood, health, education, and training including infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, solar power, irrigation, water supply and urban improvement. The link in all cases has been his close coordination and partnering with local and state governments and communities. This experience will stand Greg in good stead as he works with local government and community stakeholders on the myriad issues related to improving public transport in Victoria

Sarah Colgan has come to the VLGA on secondment from Holmesglen Institute to manage the Overseas Qualified Professionals in Local Government project in 2008. Sarah has a background working with refugees, migrants and International students in ESL at the Holmesglen Language Centre, and has previously worked in the areas of Youth and Aged Social Support.