EastEnders’ new president

EastEnders’ new president

The presidency of city resident group EastEnders has passed into new hands.

Former president Jenny Eltham – president for three years – stepped down and long-time resident Dr Stan Capp has taken up the mantle.

Dr Capp has lived in the CBD for 19 years, moving from Geelong to work on Melbourne’s health system.

“I’ve spent my life as CEOs of hospitals and health services around Victoria,” he said. “When I was in Geelong, we created a vehicle called Barwon Health. It became the exemplar of how you run a coordinated and integrated health service.”

He was subsequently asked to do the same thing in Melbourne.

“We had a little farm out of Geelong with 30 acres and cattle, so it was a bit of a wrench to leave Geelong having achieved what we achieved there,” he said.

“We were given the use of an apartment for three months up in Spring St and decided living in the city was right for us.”

After four years, Dr Capp was offered a string of jobs reviewing and restructuring health systems around the Middle East, but always returned to the same apartment in Melbourne.

He said a key focus for EastEnders would be continuing its balance of functioning social elements and resident power.

“We have a latent power in these groups to actually influence and give our views which I think we can do, but we have to be careful not to overstep that and become a political group,” he said.

He pointed to a highlight from the 2019 EastEnders program – a guest appearance from former Federation Square CEO Jonathan Tribe.

“It was quite a fascinating insight into Federation Square and where it is now and where it was before, behind the scenes of the scandal type stuff,” Dr Capp said.

The first EastEnders meeting for the year will be held at 10am, February 18 at Trunk (corner of Exhibition and Little Lonsdale streets) with a presentation from the council’s chair of planning Cr Nicholas Reece •

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