Co-op community farewells longtime shop manager

Flame Tree Co-op manager Gini Purcell has left the non-profit wholefoods grocery store to embark on her next life adventure.

Gini has a life-long passion for real food – whole, single ingredient food that is low in additives and rich in nutrients. This love arose partly thanks to her mother’s experience of living in the UK during the war, and the appreciation she held for fresh fruit and vegetables as a result of food rationing.

I worked as the Flame Tree shop’s second-in-charge for five years, so I know Gini pretty well, but I needed a dot-point chronology from her to unpick her life’s adventures to now.

Gini was born in Bermuda, a tiny island in the Atlantic, heavily populated with limited food production. Local growers would sell their small selection door to door and everything else was imported. The family emigrated to Australia when Gini was a child, settling on the north shore of Sydney. At the time, the area was close to orchards and markets gardens so the family suddenly had access to a variety of local fresh food.

As a young adult, Gini became deeply concerned about the impact of humans on the environment. She often visited her sister who was living on the land in Tasmania and witnessed first-hand the deforestation and other environmental impacts of the time. Gini tried her hand at living an alternative lifestyle in the Bega Valley, but it was difficult because of severe drought.

Gini decided to follow her passion and studied horticulture, starting a gardening business.

She also studied theatre and started a community theatre company in Tasmania. Whilst a jobbing actor, Gini had many day jobs, including in sales and retail.

Gini has travelled extensively overseas; she walked and hitched around Ireland, studied acting in New York, lived in a small village in southern Turkey, and she met her (now ex-) partner in Zanzibar, where she lived for some time. Eventually, they moved back to Sydney and had a son, Jamil. While raising her son, Gini began working at the Sydney Opera House as Visitor Services Manager.

In 2012, Gini and Jamil came to stay with a friend in Austinmer who was involved with the recently established Flame Tree Co-op in Thirroul. Gini started volunteering in the shop almost straight away. At this stage, the shop operated from a tiny space behind a dress shop. Soon she became the volunteer co-ordinator, which itself is a volunteer role. She found her people and decided to stay in the Illawarra. Over time, the co-op moved into the front shop, retaining the first space as a storeroom.

Gini secured paid employment as Project Co-ordinator with Keep Them Safe, a child wellbeing program run by the NSW government, and eventually had to relinquish the role of Flame Tree volunteer co-ordinator. She purchased a house for herself and Jamil in Mangerton.

Meanwhile, the co-op was growing and the pull became too great. Gini, along with Cath Blakey, were appointed as paid part-time retail team leaders. Cath, now a Greens councillor for Ward 2, left to have a baby and pursue her activism ambitions.

As a community co-operative, the Flame Tree was building relationships with members, volunteers, staff and suppliers. Gini understood the importance of this. In 2017, she was appointed as full-time Retail Manager and oversaw the crowdfunding campaign and move to nearby larger premises. Sales were building and the shop was buzzing with customers.

Then Covid hit.

Gini oversaw the transition to online-only shopping at the start of the pandemic, and then the gradual reopening and rebuilding as community fears and anxiety settled.

Gini has been the linchpin of the business and we – customers, staff, volunteers and suppliers – will all miss her. We wish Gini all the best with her next adventure in Melbourne, where she will be closer to Jamil, who is at university there. We look forward to seeing how she will make her mark in her new city.

Stay tuned for further information on the appointment of a new manager for Flame Tree Co-op.