Bidding farewell to Adele Underhay

On Thursday 19 April, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory hosted a farewell function to give a warm goodbye to one of our fellow colleagues, Adele Underhay (aka Granny Cool). Adele is retiring after 9 years of being an essential member of the GCRO. While Adele will be remembered for her numerous positions and roles she played in the Wits community, the GCRO is grateful to her for being such a capable senior finance and administration manager and a member of our management committee since our inception.

Since joining the GCRO in 2009, Adele has presided efficiently over an increasingly demanding finance and administration role, with exponentially growing staff over the past 3 years. As the first port of call for colleagues chasing new equipment purchases, RINC money, payments, contracts, reimbursements and anything of a financial nature, Adele remained calm and even-tempered throughout.

Adele also made it her personal responsibility to ensure that the office is a healthy working environment, to follow up when someone was under the weather, be a confidant, and to set up for staff gatherings (and at times cleaning up after us). She is also, single-handedly, the reason why many a diet has failed. She looked after us while also being a wife, mother and doting grandmother. We are not only going to miss her nurturing nature and constant reminders whenever she was going on leave (because she knew things would fall apart without her), but we will also miss all the jokes she subjected us to during staff meetings and teas.

Adele was celebrated through speeches by Rob Moore, Darlington Mushongera and Graeme Götz and was spoilt with gifts of appreciation including a special GCRO vignette about her contributions in the office. Truly, words are inadequate to express our gratitude and appreciation of the incomparable work performance and attitude Adele has displayed during her time at the GCRO. Saying goodbye is never easy, especially to someone who has been such a valued team member. We wish her a happy retirement and all the best now and into the future.