Mr Jim Shapcott - Founder & President

 

Jim Shapcott is a man deeply committed to the armed forces and the trials and tribulations of our defence families.

 

He is a reservist  - commissioned in 1966, AND retiring in 1973 as a Captain in the second fourteenth. It was a decision he often regrets, because many of his friends went on to become Brigadiers and so on in the Army.

Army life was a life he loved, but he made the decision to leave and begin his own advertising agency.

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The founder of the HIA Display villages from Darwin to Adelaide. Imagine establishing the “Homes Of The Year Competition” – the first lifestyle Television program in Australia. He set up the first housing franchise in Australia for Logan Units – 42 around Australia and creating a famous slogan:

“Did it with me spanner, mate.”

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He helped our Lady Flo launch her famous pumpkin scones and personally handled her two Senate Campaigns.

 

He had the audacity to stand against Bill Hayden – who later became Australia’s Governor General and being beaten by just 400 votes in what was then one of the Labor Party’s safest seats!  He even stood for the National Party against Clem Jones and Don Cameron in the seat of Fadden! For the record, Don Cameron thrashed him. 

 

Mr Shapcott founded Wounded Heroes in 2007. Previously known as the Deployed Soldiers Welfare Association, he changed our name to Wounded Heroes as he found the general public did not easily or immediately understand what a deployed soldier was. 

At the time, he was National Marketing Manager for Devine Homes, when he was approached by his old unit 2/14th at Gallipoli Barracks to provide a place where the families of those soldiers deployed could meet and support each other. First meeting was under a tarp! Not accepting mediocrity, Mr Shapcott, raised over $80,000, with the help of the then Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, and BUILT a Community Centre on base! 

 

His passion for the families of our deployed soldiers is unchallenged and at a 'young 75yo' only in February 2015, was out at 10pm, getting the electricity back on, and filling a fridge up of food for a Mum & her two children, with Dad suffering PTS.

 

 "It's all about them...not us"!

Mr Jim Shapcott

Founder & President