Michelle Pascoe: Welcome to today’s podcast. I’m so pleased to finally have Debbie Dickson with me. Debbie is incredibly busy, as you can imagine, working in hospitality and taking on many roles at once.
Debbie Dickson is the Marketing Manager at The Ary Toukley on the Central Coast, a couple of hours north of Sydney. She has held that role for more than 12 years and leads the club’s marketing strategy, entertainment, promotions and events, with a strong focus on community engagement.
Debbie played a key role in the 2021 rebrand from Club Toukley to The Ary, helping modernise the club’s image and appeal to a younger audience. In 2023, she received a prestigious bursary from the Club Managers Association to travel to the USA with fellow CEOs and club managers for a food, beverage and marketing tour, and she was also invited to the CMA Food and Wine Tour in Tasmania in 2025.
Her commitment to community work is long-standing. In 2022, she took part in Cancer Council’s Stars of the Coast, raised more than $30,000 and received the highest fundraiser honour, despite having no prior dance experience. Debbie is also the Vice Chair of the statewide Clubs for Community United Against Violence committee, formed to lead the club industry in proactive domestic and family violence prevention.
Under her guidance, The Ary Toukley has implemented a domestic violence action plan, supported survivors, partnered with frontline organisations and invested in staff education. The club’s Purple Shirt Friday initiative visibly demonstrates its commitment to supporting survivors and building a safer future for the community.
Debbie, welcome.
Debbie Dickson: Thank you so much for having me, Michelle. I’m very honoured to be here. It’s an important time to talk about domestic violence because it affects communities all year round. We see it in the news, on social media and on television, and the question is always: what can we do, not just as individuals, but as teams?
The registered club industry has really stepped up in the last few years, and that’s wonderful. I’m pleased to share what we’ve been doing at The Ary Toukley and across the Central Coast.
Michelle Pascoe: You’ve taken a powerful stance on domestic and family violence prevention. What initially motivated the club, and you personally, to step into this space with such commitment and purpose?
Debbie Dickson: Back in 2017, Clubs New South Wales contacted us after being approached by New South Wales Police. They had identified the top five domestic violence hotspots in the state based on incident reports, and alarmingly our area was in that top five. At that time we were number three, and more recently we moved to number one.
The initial request was for clubs in those areas to display support material for victim-survivors on the backs of toilet doors and on in-house TV screens, with links to community support organisations.
I remember sitting down with our CEO and saying, “We’re the biggest organisation in this community. This is happening in our backyard. It affects our staff, our members, our family, our friends and the people around us. We have a responsibility to do more than just stick up a poster.”
That was the turning point.
We started with staff education because we knew our team needed to understand why we were doing this. We partnered with local domestic violence expert Danielle Habib, who has worked extensively in this space across police, education and support services. She came in and trained our staff.
We then invited Central Coast club CEOs, HR managers and marketing managers to attend the same presentation, alongside local police. We funded and hosted that session. We also created a radio campaign with club CEOs standing up together and speaking out against domestic violence during the 16 Days of Activism in 2017.
We committed to public community activities as well, including the walk that was known at the time as the White Ribbon Walk. We walked together behind our club banner to show that we wanted to be part of the solution. We also put support resources on the backs of toilet doors and used visible signage at our entrances so people knew where we stood.
Michelle Pascoe: When you think about it, that was a very strong public stance to take eight years ago. The numbers are shocking, especially in such a beautiful part of the Central Coast. It really shows that domestic and family violence can be present anywhere, regardless of postcode or socio-economic situation.
What stands out for me is the scale of your reach. You have around 80 staff and 18,000 members. When you think about the families and networks connected to all of those people, the ripple effect is enormous.
Then, during Covid, we saw domestic and family violence escalate. For one of your duty managers to ring you that night, and for a woman to come to the club because she had nowhere else to go, that must have changed everything.
Debbie Dickson: It really did. During Covid, our domestic violence initiatives lost momentum because, like everyone else, we were focused on simply reopening and getting back to business.
Then one Sunday night, in pouring rain, one of our young duty managers rang me around 9.30 pm. He said, “Deb, I’ve got this lady here. She has fled her home, she’s distressed, she’s distraught and she’s got nowhere to go. What do I do?”
In that moment, I realised the wheels had fallen off and that we needed to get back on track properly. I contacted our domestic violence expert, got the relevant support numbers, and we made sure the woman had a phone, a cup of tea, something to eat and access to the help she needed that night.
That led to discussions about rebuilding our domestic violence action plan and doing the work better and more intentionally. The issue had not gone away during Covid. If anything, it escalated and was simply underreported.
Michelle Pascoe: That one moment really brought the work into sharp focus. Since then, you’ve put a number of initiatives in place, including The Ary Toukley’s domestic violence and family violence action plan and Purple Shirt Friday. How has that made a difference to your team?
Debbie Dickson: We formalised the work we had started before Covid and put it into a written action plan, which was adopted by our board. We are fortunate to have a very supportive board and CEO, and that support from the top is essential.
The first step was, again, education. Before any club takes action, staff need training. We recently held three paid training sessions with our domestic violence expert and invited local support organisations to speak about the work they do in the community. We also have an Employee Assistance Program in place because we know one in four women have been affected, and those women are our colleagues.
We continue to support public events, including co-hosting the Walk Against Domestic Violence with the Central Coast Domestic Violence Council. That walk finished at The Ary and featured speakers from Clubs NSW, local police and the domestic violence sector.
We still provide support leaflets at reception and on the backs of toilet doors, and we stock Escabags, which contain essential items for people fleeing domestic violence, including toiletries and children’s packs.
We are also supporting primary prevention programs in schools through a three-year partnership with CatholicCare, delivered by our domestic violence expert. That work is focused on young people in Year 9, helping them understand healthy relationships and what respectful behaviour looks like.
Then there’s Purple Shirt Friday, which I absolutely love. We rolled that out in October. More than 20 clubs across the state are now involved. The shirts include the 1800RESPECT number, so they become an information gateway for anyone who may need support. If someone sees the shirt and takes a photo, they have immediate access to help.
The staff have embraced it so well. After the training, I had several staff members tell me how proud they were to work for an organisation taking this stance and trying to drive real change. We’re not only supporting local sport or community events, important as those things are. We’re also trying to create social change and build a safer community. That means a great deal to our team.
Michelle Pascoe: I really love that, especially the connection between education, visibility and action. It also highlights that this work reaches across generations. Some staff may have grown up around domestic violence, some may be living with it now, and some may never have been taught what healthy relationships look like.
That’s why education matters so much. You can’t force people to make changes, but you can make sure they know support is there when they need it.
Debbie Dickson: Absolutely. Even this year, I’ve personally assisted two women, and our staff have supported others as well.
One young woman came to the club after going to a friend’s house where he tried to force himself on her. She fled and came to us because clubs are often open later than other organisations. We are staffed, well lit and have security. She had no money, wasn’t a member and was very scared. We were able to get her safely into a cab.
We also live and breathe the policy in everyday moments. Recently, an elderly gentleman in the lounge was speaking abusively to his wife. Another patron overheard it and alerted us. I spoke privately with the woman, and our operations manager spoke with the man. When he said it was none of our business, our ops manager told him that it absolutely was our business because we do not stand for domestic and family violence in our venue. He was asked to leave.
So this isn’t just words on paper. We are acting on it every day.
Michelle Pascoe: That is such an important distinction. It’s not a policy sitting in a folder. It is something your people are living out in real time.
You also serve as Vice Chair of the Clubs for Community United Against Violence committee. What is the committee’s broader vision, and how can other clubs and hospitality venues get involved?
Debbie Dickson: Our ultimate vision is to create communities free from domestic and family violence. There is a lot of work to do, of course, but that is the long-term goal.
The committee was formed after a Catalyst for Change forum at Doltone House, where clubs, ministers, the domestic violence sector and industry leaders came together to talk about what was already happening in this space. A lot of clubs were doing amazing work, but many were operating in silos.
I remember asking what was going to happen with all the information from that forum, and I said we needed a statewide committee so clubs could be united, share resources and create change together.
Now we meet online every two months and are planning face-to-face meetings as well. We have recently become an incorporated association, which helps ensure the longevity of the committee and the work we are doing.
We are also building a website that will act as a resource hub for clubs of all sizes. It will include training, information, events, policy templates and community support contacts. We are working with partners including Kempsey RSL and Learning for Good to develop training that will be available across the industry.
Ultimately, we want every club to educate its staff, make support resources available and stand with its community in a practical, visible way.
Michelle Pascoe: I was at that forum at Doltone House, and I remember the moment the conversation shifted from talking about the issue to actually doing something about it. That was when it became clear that clubs needed to come together, not keep working in isolation.
I also love the idea of the website, because one of the biggest questions clubs have is: who do we contact in our area? Where are the services? Who can we partner with?
There’s another side to your leadership story too, and that is your involvement in Stars of the Coast. You raised over $30,000 and stepped well outside your comfort zone. What did that experience teach you about leadership?
Debbie Dickson: I see leadership as a privilege. With the profile and position we have in our communities, when opportunities come up to support a cause, I think we need to embrace them. The cause has to be bigger than our own fear.
I was terrified. I had never learned a choreographed dance routine in my life. I said no the first time they asked me, but when they came back in 2022, I knew I needed to say yes.
I had an amazing dance partner and it turned out to be an incredible experience, even though I was challenged every step of the way. We were rehearsing during Covid disruptions, so a lot of the time I was at home in my lounge room practising off a recording. At the first rehearsal I nearly cried because I thought, “How am I ever going to learn this?”
But I had made a commitment, and I kept reminding myself that the cause was bigger than my own fear. In the end, it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It stretched me personally, connected me with incredible people in the community and raised a significant amount of money for a very important cause.
That experience reinforced for me that leadership is about using your profile and your influence for good.
Michelle Pascoe: That’s such a powerful takeaway. Looking at the bigger picture, how do you see the role of clubs evolving, not just as entertainment and hospitality venues, but as agents of social change within their communities?
Debbie Dickson: Clubs have always been more than hospitality venues. They are social hubs, and as social issues become more visible, communities look to organisations like ours for leadership.
We have the spaces, the people, the reach and the connections to create change. We are connected to members, local leaders, politicians, industry bodies and community organisations. That gives us both the opportunity and the responsibility to step up.
I think this role will continue to evolve, because in many areas clubs are the biggest organisation in the community. That means we can make a meaningful difference, whether individually or as a united industry.
Michelle Pascoe: Debbie, I have really enjoyed this conversation. Is there anything else you would like to share before we finish, particularly around the new website?
Debbie Dickson: We’ve seen the first draft of the website and I’d like to acknowledge DOOLEYS Lidcombe for funding that work. We have some amazing larger clubs helping to drive this forward.
There is still a lot of information to build into the site, along with our marketing and learning and development subcommittees. We’ll also be launching social media platforms to help share resources and updates with clubs.
Hopefully the website will be ready early in the New Year, and I’ll be very happy to share the link as soon as it goes live.
Michelle Pascoe: Debbie, thank you so much for joining me, and thank you for your commitment not only to your staff and members, but to your broader community. The work you are doing is making a difference to many lives.
Debbie Dickson: Thank you so much, Michelle. It’s been a real pleasure talking with you.
