Laura Thompson - Office Manager

Laura Thompson is a Sunshine Coast girl through and through having lived on the Coast all her life. Laura graduated from high school in 2002 and joined the KDA Team immediately after as a warehouse trainee. Eager to gain some tertiary qualifications, whilst completing her traineeship, she also completed a Certificate III in Warehouse Distribution in 2003 and has since continued to complete a Certificate III in Business Administration in 2004

Laura's current role in the KDA Team is as the Office Manager, in which she takes care of accounts, teacher liaison, email marketing, the KDA Blog and other promotional activities.

She has also been a qualified and licensed Kindermusik Educator for the past three years and has have taught classes for another Educator and also run classes of her own, having had experience with the Village, Our Time and Imagine That programs.

Music and Arts have always played a big part in Laura's life. She has been doing classical ballet and drama classes since she was just 5 years old, played the recorder from age 6 to 9, the first clarinet for 3 years and then the alto clarinet for 2. As a teenager she took more of an interest in acoustic guitar and later electric guitar playing in a few social groups. For the past 2 years she has been playing the piano on and off and is keen to continue her learning with this instrument.

She is a graduate of the Margaret Kennedy's School of Drama having completed 4 years of classes and completed up to grade 7 in classical ballet through the RAD system.

She has also been involved in the Queensland Children's Choir and competed in many eisteddfods and competitions with both her dancing and music. She played the drums in the ‘School Anthem' band.

"I really feel that I am in the right industry as my passion is music and movement. I enjoy live music, going to the beach, bike riding and socializing with friends."

Contact Laura about:

Educator related issues

Profiling your company at our annual conference or professional development seminars

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Tiah Jeffries is the latest edition to the Kindermusik team at the Kunda Park office on the lovely Sunshine Coast. Tiah joins the team to look after ordering, licensing and will communicate directly with all the Educators.

“I'm really lucky,” says Tiah. “This is my first job and it's great to start off in an upbeat and friendly environment.”

Tiah, who completed her Year 12 Certificate in 2006, opted to enter the workforce straight away before undertaking any further study.

“I really want to further my skills in the work force and gain some life skills that uni wouldn't be able to give me. Kindermusik gives me such a great opportunity to do this, in such a supportive and caring way. I can see why lots of parents love Kindermusik for their children, they really do care about people and their growth. It's a great place to work!” she said.

Tiah has grown up on the Sunshine Coast and is fortunate to have so many of her friends and family living close by. Tiah loves to spend time with her friends and family, “they're really supportive of me. They were ecstatic when I started with Kindermusik, knowing I would be working for such a great company,” she said.

Contact Tiah about:

General inquiries

Peter Stock, AKA Pete and 'Syl's husband' grew up in Adelaide and was doing a science degree when he was lucky enough to get the job of his dreams; a Meteorological Observer with the Bureau of Meteorology.

For over 20 years he enjoyed the travel and work environment the Bureau provided but thereafter witnessed the computerisation of the department, going from manual data collection and analysis with many hundreds of employees to the computer intensive department that it is today with only a fraction of the employees.

After many years of loving his job, Peter found himself dissatisfied and after discussing alternatives with Sylvia decided to make a 'sea change' and move to the Sunshine Coast.

At the same time as Sylvia getting offered the Kindermusik Distributorship in Australia, Peter was chasing his passion (surfing) by opening a small surf shop. It didn't take him long to realise that 20 years in the public service was no preparation for the retail industry!

As Kindermusik grew under Syl's leadership and new employees were needed, Peter sold the surf shop and took on the warehouse management role. As the position has grown to the point where another employee, Ken, has been employed full time to manage the affairs of the warehouse, Peter is returning his focus to the website (and surfing of course).

"We certainly consider ourselves lucky - not only do we live in a great place (Sunshine Coast) in probably the best country in the world, but our industry, (the music industry), is friendly, vibrant and allows us to change the world one child at a time!"

Contact Peter about:

Website additions, alterations and updates 

Packaging, delivery or distribution issues

Secret surf spots

Nadine Hogg - New Educator Support

Nadine was born in London, England and moved to Australia in June 2007.

When she was primary school age Nadine sang in the local church choir. She learned the recorder at school and did many accompaniments to school plays and productions. She also did classic dancing lessons (ballroom and Latin-American) and then took up modern disco dancing.

It was at school that Nadine started guitar lessons and was given her first full size acoustic guitar when she left school to go to college. She studied as a Horse Riding Instructor and also did some tertiary qualifications including Sociology.

Nadine went on to teach horse-riding for adults, children and disabled riders and used music to train dressage horses. She met her husband when she taught him to horse-ride and they have now been married for 14 years and have a son.

The long hours and poor pay working with horses, led Nadine to retrain as an Optical Dispenser, which took 3 years distance learning and training in practice. She worked for many years as an optical store manager and gave training and advice to new staff members joining her team.

The Hogg family decided to move to Australia to live their dream and improve their way of life.
Joining the Kindermusik team has given Nadine the opportunity to be part of a meaningful company and the chance to share her interest in music and her passion for people.

Contact Nadine about:

• New Educator Enquiries
• Learning Groups
• Getting Started
  

Diana Acheson - Educator Mentor & Maestro

Diana Acheson has always loved music and used to “hang out” with the piano tuner when she was 2 years of age, helping him to tune the piano. Diana showed a love for music and dance and after years of ballet, highland and piano lessons, finally settled on piano and singing as her “main thing”.

Diana set her sights on doing a degree at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music early, which she completed years later, loving the atmosphere at the Conservatorium to this day. It was there that she realised that music was a journey, one that was just beginning.

After years of working with children in the areas of music and special needs, Diana came across Kindermusik in a magazine. It took 2 years to come to the decision to train and within 12 months of becoming a licensed Kindermusik educator, Diana was in a commercial studio and loving it. She still has the studio, now with 3 teachers working for her.

In 2002 Diana was invited to be a mentor for Kindermusik International, responsible for training new teachers. In early 2006, she added to her responsibilities and became part of the KDA team as Recruitment Manager, responsible for all Kindermusik educator enquiries, nurturing potential educators through the process from their first enquiry to entering a learning group.

Music and education have always been a big part of Diana's life. She has a BA(Mus), Grad Dip Ed (Childcare) and several Kindermusik awards.

“Music is the thing that feeds me. We all have that one passion in life that makes us tick and music and teaching are those things for me. I love the joy that Kindermusik brings to the lives of children, parents, families and the teachers that teach it. I am proud to be part of a program that is making a difference in the world! My personal interests are children, choir music, composing, conducting, and eating out.”

Contact Dianna about:

Becoming an Educator

Yvette Adams - Marketing Manager

Born on the fortunate cusp of Generation X & Y into a techie family which at any one time had several computers littered about the house, Yvette created her first e-commerce site – an online tee-shirt business - in 2002. Within one month of launching she received a Government Grant and won a website award. In 2006 she sold the global business and concentrated on launching The Creative Collective who are now responsible for all of Kindermusik's online and offline marketing, including website development.

An international freelance writer of many years and an author of a biography on her grandfather's life which is distributed at book stores throughout New Zealand (www.morethanmeetstheeye.co.nz), she has been the online content editor of a massive player in the UK magazine market, http://www.tntmagazine.com, and has consulted numerous businesses in New Zealand, the UK and Australia on their online & offline strategies and built many websites.

The Creative Collective is a creative services agency offering the full suite of creative services including PR, marketing, websites, internet marketing, site optimization, graphic design, photography, events + more! Collective experience + collective talent = complete convenience to the client.

Yvette juggles her rapidly growing home based business around her two beautiful children Rio (3.5 years) and Matisse (9 months) and was recently named Queensland Small Business Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Her partner Steve is an accomplished musician having produced a CD of his own originals and having played a mixture of originals and his wide repotoir of covers in venues around the world. Their Sunshine Coast home is littered with a diverse range of musical instruments collected from over 7 years travelling over 40 countries. A wide variety of loud music can be heard blaring at any given time and jam sessions and spontaneous dancing with the children, friends and family are a regular feature.

Contact Yvette about:

Strategic alliances

Advertising - online or offline

Marketing - online or offline

Website development

Our affiliate program where you can earn money promoting Kindermusik product and services

Your own online or offline marketing or website requirements