Twenty10 loses boss

After 13 years of involvement with the gay sector, Twenty10’s Meredith Turnbull has resigned from her position as executive officer to take on new challenges with GetUp.

It wasn’t an easy decision says Turnbull, who is filled with hope for the youth service.

I’ve got to see for four years now a really strong bunch of young people working in partnership with the Twenty10 team to make their lives better, she told Sydney Star Observer.

Every day I’ve gotten to chat with young people who have every right to be pretty pissed off with the world and instead they’re choosing to come to us and say, -˜I want to create a better world for myself’. Money can’t buy that, so that’s been the hardest thing to think about leaving behind.

Turnbull said she would look back on her four years secure in the knowledge she had contributed to Twenty10’s growth.

Despite it being 2008, young queer people aren’t often affirmed in general youth services and yet they still face a disproportionate amount of discrimination and marginalisation, so Twenty10 is vital, she said.

There are two things though that are going to be core to our future and that is, that we continue to develop the next generation of leaders and that we also start to look at ways to better service the west of Sydney, because that’s where increasingly our young people are coming from.

Turnbull will leave Twenty10 on Friday. David Motou will step in as interim executive officer until a replacement is appointed.