A Drink with Jeff | Shazia Bano

In our “A Drink with Jeff” series, Campbelltown Catholic Club

community liaison Jeff McGill has been catching up with a diverse selection of club identities. This time, he caught up with Shazia Bano.

She’s our guardian of first impressions. One of the first beaming faces we see as we stroll into The Catho.

Shazia’s job title alone—senior receptionist—suggests she’ll be wearing a big smile. But it’s not the smile some people notice first. It’s the hijab . . . not the first thing they expect to see in a Catholic Club.

But the warm welcome that Shazia offers our members and guests is only matched by the warm welcome she says she has received since her arrival two months ago.

Despite decades in the hospitality industry, Shazia is completely new to clubs. In fact, when she first saw the sign “Campbelltown Catholic Club” she assumed it was a giant church hall, perhaps full of pews.

But she is certainly no stranger to the twin pillars of The Catho: community and education. She grew up in a cultural melting pot and was educated at a Christian school. “I think I’m more familiar with the Bible than I am with the Koran,” she laughed. She also grew up in a home where the front door was always open, witnessing firsthand the art of hospitality in its purest form.

In fact, when you get to know Shazia, it’s not her smile, or her hijab that you notice, but her heart. It’s so big you can’t miss it. So, we invited our guardian of first impressions as the latest “Drink with Jeff” interview.

As Shazia’s front desk shift ended, we briefly chatted with fellow staffers Kay and Katrina, and Operations Manager Leigh, then collected our drinks from Olivia at the cafe. A posse of smiles.

As we took our seat in the Harvest I asked her about her parents.

“My father was a very strict person, so he made sure we are very disciplined as people. Mum was a great cook. So all this amazing food. I love cooking and am particularly happy when a relative visits and, licking the plate, says something like “Ah, just like your mum’s.” No culinary praise holds more weight with Shazia.

I next asked where she was born and bred.

“I sometimes get asked if I’m from India,” she smiled, “No, I’m 100 per cent Fijian. I was born and raised my whole young life in Fiji, and got married there. My parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great grandparents, all from Fiji.”

She is descended from the thousands of canefields labourers brought to the islands by the British colonial rulers. Most of them Hindus, but some Muslims. I wondered what her own 1980s childhood was like, given the famed 1987 military coup (in which indigenous Fijian army officers deposed a Prime Minister of Indian descent). But Shazia only spoke of good memories, and a tapestry of faiths and cultures that surrounded her. Deep friendships crossed boundaries, shaping her appreciation for the common threads that bind us.

“I mostly grew up with my grandparents and they were the loveliest people of all, every weekend they had visitors, in fact, every weekday they had visitors. No appointments, people just rolled in. My grandfather had lots of native Fijian friends and they’d just rock up with a big sack of cassava and stay for the whole week or so, because they’d bring their crops to sell at the market and my grandfather would provide them with accommodation and food. My grandmother cooked for them, and she had lots of Hindu friends visiting.”

That revolving door of welcomes shaped Shazia’s childhood so it seems no surprise she chose a hospitality career.

At first, she worked at Fiji’s five-star Shangri-La resort as a front office associate, a holiday paradise many Aussie tourists will know. That’s where she met the love of her life, Mo Farook, a Fire, Life & Safety Manager (FLSM) and Building Consultant. But, after they married, they headed off on a life of adventure.

“Before getting married, I always had it in my head that I wanted to move overseas. No matter what happened, and Mo supported that.” He has always nurtured her strong independence. To this day, Shazia proudly retains her maiden name. “Mo has always loved me for me. He is a good kindhearted man.”

They have done lots of travelling together, Singapore and Malaysia being her favourite holiday destinations, but it was New Zealand they felt so warmly embraced they made it their home for 20 years.

Much of that time she worked for the Scenic Hotel Group at the Heartland Ambassador Hotel in Hamilton. “I started at reception, then progressed to duty manager, then the front office manager, then Assistant Hotel Manager. When Covid hit I was second-in-charge reporting to GM directly.”

Shazia and her husband are staunch supporters of the All-Blacks rugby team. They also volunteered in many sporting events. But when it comes to Rugby 7’s, Fiji is always at heart.

Last year, however, her whole life changed when her husband was transferred to Sydney. It was her turn to follow him.

“It was a shock,” she admitted. “I loved my job, I was doing everything, I knew the hotel in and out, and everyone knew me.” She was heartbroken to give all that up to settle in Australia.

Wow, given that strong history with hotels, I told Shazia it was a surprise she wasn’t working at Rydge’s next door.

“I WAS at Rydge’s!” she replied. “It was my first job in Australia. I was employed there as the front office manager (FOM) and loved it. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. I got sick.”

To cut a long story short, after a relentless onslaught of severe headaches and other troubling symptoms, and an ambulance rider to the hospital, Shazia’s life became a blur of  MRIs and CT scans, and an operation. “I was scared. I’d never experienced anything like that.”

Faced with that challenge, she resigned. “It was obvious that Rydge’s needed someone for that position, and they had been so good to me, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them in a bind. Stepping away was sad, but I felt it was the right thing to do.”

She suspects her illness was triggered by temporary stress. “Too much pressure in my head,” she shrugged. “I had had a month to end my old working life and move country, packing 20 years of my life in boxes, leaving all my friends. On arrival in Sydney, I found it very hard to connect to people and felt I had no one. No friends, no life. My husband was working, and I didn’t know places, and it got to me. All I wanted to do was go back to New Zealand.” Her heart ached for the familiarity, routines and smiles of “home”.

In fact, Shazia flatly refused to unpack her bag and boxes, leaving them in a state of disarray in the garage of their rented dwelling in Harrington Park. A silent protest, each unopened zipper a testament to her reluctance to embrace this new chapter of her life.

“When I got out of hospital, some of my friends and family from Fiji and New Zealand came to visit me, lifting my spirits. I’m not a sit-around-the-home sort of person, I must be doing something, so once I had been cleared by the doctors I wanted to work again. That’s when I saw the senior receptionist job advertised at the Catholic Club in July.”

She got the job.

Although well versed in hospitality, she was completely new to club life. As mentioned earlier, she had assumed The Catho was a giant church or hall. Or something. She recalled vividly the first time she walked through the glass doors of the foyer.

She was immediately struck by the sheer scale and vibrancy of the place. The culinary paradise, and scent of gourmet dishes mingling with the sounds of clinking glasses and animated conversations. The bars, the flashing lights of the gaming lounge, the conference facilities, not to mention The Cube. “I swear, I had never set foot in a club like this before, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

She is now thrilled to be greeting and welcoming members to the new world she has discovered.

Shazia had big shoes to fill, of course, replacing the gentle-soul of Evy Kavaratzis and, before that, the amazing Leanna Field, who for decades was a much-loved face at the club’s front desk. But Shazia is loving the challenge.

 

“After my first two weeks of training, I worked my first weekend shift. Wow. Boom. It felt like I got hit from every direction: ticketing, phone calls, bookings, restaurant queries, some weird and wonderful questions. Non-stop multi-tasking and loving it. And I thought everyone in Macarthur suddenly wanted to become a member! ‘Can I be a member’ . . . ‘Can I be a member”. One after another. It was a great learning experience.”

Shazia says the biggest joy comes from not only the fascinating people she meets, but her new work friends.

“Where do I start, from the team I work with on the desk, to the doormen. Kevin is great, I love Max, in fact they’re all wonderful. Leigh is the best boss I’ve ever had — so polite and calm. Some bosses, people are afraid to talk too. Not here. Do you know that when I came for my job induction, Adam [Cooke] in HR walked me down to my car afterwards, chatting to me like I was an old friend. But that’s the way everyone has made me feel.”

Shazia says that’s not training, that’s a culture.

I suggest to her that that’s why I’ve loved my own connection to The Catho for more than 30 years. The staff go above and beyond, but more than that, even the Board members are down-to-earth fellow parents of kids at local schools. No ivory towers here.

“Well, I love Campbelltown Catholic Club,” she beamed. “It is not only a great place to be part of, but it has literally changed my life. I want to create memories, and a future, here. I’ve even planning to go along to one of the Studio 54 Reloaded events at The Cube. Looks likes so much fun.”

Shazia is also touched by how warmly a hijab-wearing newcomer has been welcomed. Indeed, in a world where stereotypes often paint a narrow picture, the Catholic Club’s new senior receptionist stands as a bridge, not a wall. And the club’s mission to support Catholic education is one she respects.

“I went to a Methodist school in Fiji, which is not too different in the wider scheme of our world. We are all humans, and I believe we all have one God and we all go to the same place when we die. In Fiji, I grew up going to Islamic mosques, Hindu temples and Christian churches. We have Christian and Hindu friends who every year shared Eid with us at the end of Ramadan. Then we’d go and help celebrate their festival.”

Shazia loves the whole notion of people working together. In fact, she hopes genuine teamwork becomes her hallmark as senior receptionist. I am very passionate and take pride in my work. “I’m part of a great family. And, I deliberately I call it a family. They help me, support me. I’ve never been in place with these wonderful people, they are awesome. The Catholic Club has given me the home I was looking for in Australia.”

Does that mean she’s finally unpacking her bags and boxes?

“Yes,” she beams. “I said to my husband we are NOT going back to New Zealand. In fact we need to find a proper house because I need to unpack all our stuff.

“We are home now.”