Uncoordinated Wins Again

I’m not what you’d call a sportswoman. I’m a little uncoordinated.  At school I was the child the sports’ teachers would shake their heads at when they saw me coming.  I’m sure they were thinking there is no hope for this one.  Apart from winning most improved player for about three years in a row for basketball, I don’t have that many awards from childhood.

I’m sure making up for it now.

The Queensland winner of the Heather Ramsey Young Leader Award goes to – Chelsea Allan”

Last Friday night (2013), I attended the Nursery and Garden Industry Queensland Award Ceremony.  During the night I had one of those “this is your life moments”. The presenter started to read a story about a girl who seemed to have accidentally fallen into horticulture while looking for her dream job. 15 years on that girl discovers she is working her dream job.

As the presenter was reading this story I got thinking, this girl sounds a lot like me.

He then announced “The Queensland winner of the Heather Ramsey Young Leader Award goes to – Chelsea Allan”

It took a moment, hang on that’s me. Wow.

I WON.

But what does this mean?

The Heather Ramsey Young Leader Award recognizes and rewards the outstanding achievements of individuals in the Australian nursery and garden industry, who display exceptional commitment and passion towards their business, the industry and industry leadership potential.

That’s me. I’m young (this is my last year of being young though), I’m committed to this industry (long days and sometimes longer nights) and gardening is my passion.

But it’s not just the physical aspect of gardening. It’s the sharing component I love. I love enabling others to enjoy gardening with my few simple tips. I love going to clubs and talking gardening. I love writing Trevallan’s gardening blogs that you can read on here and using Trevallan’s Facebook page to keep you updated and informed. I don’t get paid to write my gardening column that appear newspapers and magazines across Queensland, I do it because I want to share with you all this wondrous thing called gardening.

It was an amazing experience to be recognised and awarded this award by my industry peers.   I couldn’t have won this award without you.

It is because of my customers, my family and my mentors that this award was possible.

The other day a gentleman came into Trevallan Lifestyle Centre to tell me he hated mowing. He read my lawn challenge article and thought I was crazy saying I loved to mow. He followed my simple steps and now he loves to mow. His granddaughter loves coming over and running barefoot on his lawn. He mows twice a week and loves sitting back to admire his handiwork.

It’s because of happy customers and family who are gardening enthusiasts that my passion has grown. It’s because of you I want to achieve more so I can give you more.

I am so proud to win this award. Thank you for helping me turn my passion turn into an award. I hope we can continue to share this passion for many years enabling us all to have amazing gardens.

Creating a Sacred Space

It started with a graduation present.

Perfect Potion was a little shop in the Elizabeth Arcade in Brisbane. For my year 12 graduation present my mother bought me a box of essential oils and a candle oil burner. A few years later I upgraded to an electric oil vaporizer. It was ugly yellow; there wasn’t much choice back then! Now I have a classy black aroma diffuser.

No matter where I lived I always had my oils. Slowly as my interest grew, so did my library and my aromatherapy classes. I enjoyed infusing my home with the scents I created. I loved it when friends visited and they’d say ‘your house always smells so good’. When I lived in an apartment the girls upstairs used to tell me how much they enjoyed walking past my door as there was always beautiful scents wafting out.

Lucky for me as my interest grew Perfect Potion flourished. More and more stores opened, more oils were released, more blends were available, more products. Unfortunately it didn't quench my scent thirst, it only fuelled it.

There was nothing more I enjoyed than spending an afternoon in a Perfect Potion Store.

One day the opportunity arose to stock Perfect Potion at Trevallan Lifestyle Centre. We have never looked back. It has been an amazing journey being a part of a company that seems to only take huge steps forward.

Then in 2012 something strange happened - Perfect Potion ran a competition, a competition unlike any other. A competition open to all Australian and Japanese residents. The competition was to create your own essential oil blend to be sold under the Perfect Potion banner. They had never offered this before; all the blends sold by Perfect Potion are Perfect Potion’s creations.

The competition wasn’t just about choosing some essential oils. You had to work out the perfect combination of oils and then how much of each oil. Plus the scent you were trying to create was to embody your scared space.

Hang on I live in a small house with kids, animals – what scared space?

My books! It always comes back to books. Books are my scared space. Books are my escape. At the time of the competition my little library was being built. So now I had a sacred space but no scent.

Then a few days before close of competition inspiration struck. The oils just worked, the combination, the amounts. It worked. I still hesitated to enter and then late one night, almost competition end time, I finally got enough guts to enter. And swoosh like that the email was sent, the competition closed and I promptly forgot all about it.

You see I had a baby on the way. Number three to be exact. The day the winners of Perfect Potion’s competition was announced I was a little busy. I was in labour.

When I finally got my head out of new born clouds I read an email “Firstly, a massive CONGRATULATIONS for being the winner of the Create Your Own Sacred Space Blend Competition”.

I thought “what’s going on. Who won the competition? They aren’t telling me the names”. I thought it was a generic email sent to everyone who entered informing them of the winner.

Silly me.

Tears may have flowed when it set in.

My Creation - Widsom

Something I loved, something that is so important and a part of me just became real.

The day that I received that little bottle adeptly named ‘Wisdom’, my heart skipped a beat. Just thinking about it now makes me well up with tears.

It wasn’t just that I won it was the recognition I also got from the creator of Perfect Potion Sal Battaglia. A man who I admire for all that he and his team have achieved over the years.

Sal wrote ‘Choosing the sacred space blend has been so difficult for me as there were so many wonderful ideas and beautiful blends…. I was so impressed with the depth and complexity of the blend. It is such a simple formula…..I absolutely loved the blend …

Unfortunately after 8 years this blend is no longer a part of Perfect Potion's range. I will always be eternally grateful to Sal and the Perfect Potion Team for giving me this opportunity. I was lucky to have one of my secret dreams realised and to be able to share it with others.