Our People
Our Staff
Sally Thompson
Centre Manager
With 28 years in education, Sally is a passionate advocate for inclusive, community-based learning. She has a strong background in regional and remote education, having lived and worked on Norfolk Island for nine years before returning to lead a school in a NSW regional community.
Sally believes that everyone should be able to access further learning without leaving their community and is focused on flexible, learner-centred pathways with wrap-around support, empowering individuals to reach their goals in ways that work for them.
Email Sally
Board Members
CUC Norfolk Island
The drive towards securing access to post-secondary education on Norfolk Island began with the confluence of a suggestion in a conversation and the decision of a a recently relocated couple to purchase a large shopfront on the Main Street of town. Geoff and Wallis Edwards decided to buy the old Prouds building with the intention of building a community space for education and development. The Shoebox was a little retail shop that formed part of the big building.
When Geoff and Wallis heard about the idea of bringing a Country Universities Centre to Norfolk Island, the beginning of the journey was sparked. The Shoebox was the perfect place to try to get a centre up and running, and the Regional Development Australia Mid North Coast team started work showing the Norfolk Island community what a Regional University Study Hub/Country Universities Centre was. The CUC Team came to visit Norfolk Island in October 2023, and we held community meetings and started socialising the concept. When the community learned that they were able to build their own organisation to advance their own people, an independent organisation of their own, we formed a Board of community leaders to begin the process of applying for the grant to establish our Centre.
We worked hard to get the 2023 application in with our organisational structure agreed and formed. Unfortunately, we missed our opportunity, with the original estimates for freighting the building supplies making the grant uncompetitive and a need to demonstrate the community buy-in to a higher degree.
Geoff and Wallis agreed to hold the tenancy of the Shoebox for us, which was a miracle. In 2024 we rallied and tried again. The community provided over 50 submissions to the second grant application, proving how much access to education and training opportunities mattered to them. In January 2025 we were thrilled to learn that the Country Universities Centre Norfolk Island had been successful, and by the first week of February 2025, CUC Norfolk Island Ltd was incorporated and we were officially away!
The photo has the original crew in front of The Shoebox. Geoff and Wallis, the Board and Terrence Grube along with the late Robin Adams (not pictured) were absolutely instrumental in securing the grant and the community trust and support for the project.