Dot Haynes OAM

Thank you for visiting my website. I am excited to share with you more about me. This Website opens the door to get a better understanding of who I really am.

From leaving home at 15 years of age. My childhood of having a good father and no mother to guide me I have lived many lives that I could not have planned. Who I am is more than what I do or don’t do. Who I am is not dependant on the many circumstances of my journey. Who I am is a choice I make daily as I do everything in my power to respond and not react. This has given me more freedom and recognition that I ever thought I would have.

As life continues to change, I am adapting and changing with it. Sometimes with trepidation sometimes embracing the new. In September 2025 I became a National Board Director at The Order of Australia Association Ltd. I became member after being awarded with the honor of OAM. Below is the speech I share from that day on;

Dot Haynes OAM – Recipient Australia Day 2023 Speech

This is a great honour for which I am grateful. It’s my joy to serve the community and I will continue to strive to serve in whatever way I can.

To be chosen to be a recipient of this award was a great surprise and an even greater honour.

I’m passionate about the diverse multi-cultural society in which I choose to live! To have my many years of contributions recognised in this way is very special indeed and fills me with both pride and gratitude. 

My dad instilled into me the belief that ‘people matter’! To do whatever I can each day and to look after myself and share what I have with others. This belief, the encouragement of my friends, and the blessing that comes from helping and serving others have all motivated me to serve my community in whatever way I can.

People do indeed matter and this award I feel, recognises that fact, and therefore serves as a great encouragement to me as I continue to strive to make a real and practical difference in the lives of others within this and the wider community. 

Thank you, Dot Haynes OAM.

A snippet of my story

Recenty in 2026 - I gave a talk to groups of people giving them a snippet of my story – See below.

I have been asked to share what my role as National Membership Director entails. I have been in this position since late September last year, so for 6 months. When I was interviewed for the position I answered their questions and clearly stated that if they have someone else who will do what they are told, give it to them. I used more words than that and felt quite uncomfortable and wondered what I had put my hand up for. I had never applied for a positon before. I had usually been head hunted and taken on roles that fitted within my time and passion at those times.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am happy to learn as I go and will do what is needed for the organization I am representing, to ensure that it benefits from my time and talents.

Before I get into the ROLE I would like to share with you a bit about who I am and what I would like to achieve while in this position.

I am the youngest of 10 children. From the age of 6 I didn’t have my mother at home. Dad took on the role of raising all of us. From the age of 8 I was babysitting my sister’s kids, changing nappies, cooking for the family and doing everything I was told to do. Especially by my eldest Matriarch sister. That life continued. My dad got father of the year and we were on the front page of the paper. Dad and I were inseparable when he was home and I went to work with him often in the timber delivery truck doing things that would be seen as child endangerment today they were so dangerous.

I would see my mother some Saturdays when she dropped off food. We were poor and went rabbit hunting and kept chooks and grew vegies. On my 14th Birthday I attended my mother’s funeral. Dad had always raised me to follow the beat of my own drum and that everything had consequences of some kind.

By the time I was 15 ½ I had got a job at the local Newsagency, Tattslotto and Post Office all combined. I left home to live in a bungalow at the back of someone’s house. I spent the next 4 years working, paying bills and saving. I also bought and sold items at the Trash and Treasure weekend markets and did other work. At 20 I bought my first home, got a boarder, worked as the first female Postie on a bicycle and hustled goods, all legal, and focused on having my own home so that no one can tell me to move. By the time I was 25 I owned my home, bought a Wrecking Yard, then another, then another and when the interest rates were at 20% in the late 80s and 90s I was working 7 days a week and didn’t know anything else.

Got a man, smooth talking and that is when I learned the hard way that someone can lie in your bed, say they love you and only want to leech you until you can’t bleed or breathe anymore. I wanted out and couldn’t because I had 2 girls to him. That was his hold, which he made very clear. I decided in 1999 to move to the USA, opened a very successful Aussie restaurant. My secret was to hope he hated it and he would leave me. But I didn’t bank on him taking my girls with him. So I returned in 2002 and began other businesses.

I finally found a way out and from 2009 to end of 2010 spent almost 2 years in the courts trying to keep my home. After agreeing to give him a business and pay $340,000 cash to end this madness I started becoming free and worked to pay off my new huge mortgage.

In 2012 I was elected onto council and was re-elected in 2016 with the most votes ever. This made me a political target, even though I have no political alignments. A very politically aware family, the Mayne family led by Stephen Mayne at the time, worked to ensure that in 2020 during the pandemic I was not re-elected.

I had been volunteering within the community and that grew as I led changes with the Manningham Interfaith Network and Doncaster RSL. Volunteering is so much more rewarding than working for money I have found. I like money but I love people and God more. I am part of the local Church parish as well and am involved in many other faith events throughout the year, recently celebrating Purim at the local Synagogue. They call me an honorary Jew. Chinese New Year has been very busy as well as me being a busy Christian, doing the 40 days of lent that will end at Easter. I continue initiating and coordinating Faith visits of schools and adult groups to The local Synagogue, Open Mosque days, Sikh Ghurdwara, Buddhist Temple, Bahai’ House, Hindu Ashram, Assorted Christian Churches. With over 1400 faiths around the world it is no wander people are taking on some dangerous views.

I am fortunate that after a number of difficult health issues, being told I would never walk again in 2003, in 2017 being found almost dead by the police thankfully having friends that care enough to push the police to find me, and told I will never get my memory back, cancers and so much more throughout the years I am still able to be here and share some of my story with you and continue my rewarding life and volunteering work.

In 2023 I was awarded my OAM for the many things I have done to change many organizations locally and achieve things council said were not possible, as well as self-published my two books. One covers parts of the terrible years that is a page turner titled Pretending to Be and the other is about life and living as a person that sees beyond what is in front of me. It is titled People Matter, I didn’t want to be known as the woman who was a victim of domestic abuse and ensured that how I think was also printed to share with people. I help people to know that what happens to you doesn’t define you! I hope you can find $30 today to purchase both of my books and see what freedom of self, with some gems in the pages, will give you, as I have been told by many it is a page turner that takes about 2 hours to read.

Upon receiving this great honor, that my family had no idea such things existed, I gave this short speech. I have a few copies out on the table.

You are the reason I am here and without what you do within the community and this organization, I would be doing something else that doesn’t make me feel as happy as this does, as I see people with stories much better than mine and done so much more for the greater good of society. Doctors who made breakthroughs! Educators who have made others into leaders! Your stories are important!

So what is my role?

National Membership Director is my title. I am overseer of the Membership Officer, Heather, who is the only paid person throughout this large organization, with over 400 volunteers that keep it running around Australia, UK, Canada and USA.

In October all I heard about was the Survey and there were changes to implement, but nothing was clear at the time as to what I was to do. I was also given the task of leading the coordination of website, social media and changes to the magazine, yet there was no clear plan to what that would look like. I have been making changes to the website, social media and the magazine with lots of assistance from the people in those positions.

I have been given the task of putting together a plan for the 50th Anniversary and wrote my plan and gave it to the executive.

I was recently advised that I have to work in initiating implementation of some of the things that come out of the survey response. Let’s see what that means during this year, as I am a newbie and continually learning that we are all doing things that we cannot define. As a Mother, Grandmother, Volunteer and Helper nothing in our lives as Outstanding Citizens of this great Australia is able to be put within a defining box.

This week I was asked to write an article for the Age regarding Interfaith work as we know that there are lots of tensions out there with opinions on who is right and wrong and many are using twisted views on faith as the reason for their stand. I have a clear knowledge that “It is not religion that defines a person, it is individual people that defines their form of religion.”

I think I have said enough and will leave it there.

I have Linkedin. Facebook and will be doing more Youtubes from around the community. Check out some of the great Veterans Videos and much more. I hope you can connect and reach out to a stranger as you go about your day. Positive interaction with a stranger will benefit your wellbeing! Give someone a smile it may be the only one they see all day, you don’t know what others are going through. Take care and each day is new to do something new with!

Welcome to my life. Warm Regards, Dot Haynes.