As many of you know Phil Olsen has been contributing to this forum over a number of months now and has been giving advice to many off us poor souls thinking of the move down under.
I thought it might be a good idea if I added a form on the site to allow any prospective poms moving to oz to carry out a free initial assessment with our very own welsh resident migration agent!
For what it is worth, I think people would also appreciate it if Phil could be persuaded to add his e-mail address to every post that he writes via the auto-signature thing. He only publishes it occasionally at present, meaning that people who want to consult him might have to go scratching about trying to find it on a particular thread, can't remember which thread it was on and so forth.
They don't necessarily only want free assessments, Some people need the sort of sterling help that Phil has been trying to provide for some of the truckies.
Phil, in short, does too much hiding of lights under bushels in my view!
I will add my email address to my signature and help out where I can.
Thanks for the kind words Gill. The main reason for my approach to assisting people on the forum is that I believe that this is a community and there should be a courtesy and respect for the people that subscribe. Tim is a 'moderator' of infiltartors which may have alternative agendas, and I believe he does a great job of protecting the community.
There is also a courtesy in asking the community to accept you through the right channels and that is why I spoke with Tim before announcing that I am an agent.
I'm here to help and hopefully be part of a community that will last for a long time, both on line and when we welcome our friends to Australia.
With warm regards
Phil
__________________
Phil Olsen BEng ACA MMIA
Registered Agent number 0637276
email philipo@imaus.com.au
I think you're right about the community feel of the site Phil and your contributing to alot of the posts certainly makes it feel that your a fully fledged member and not an agent sat on the outside.
Congratulations of your 10 years in Aus by the way.
Ali
__________________ I am toopositive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful and too determined to be defeated!
I think that whichever way Phil provides advice, either through the pages in this forum, or through his business, it will always be given with a great deal of honesty and in the best interests of the members here or his clients. He has already offered a great amount of advice; and promptly; to the messages posted on here.
We are thinking of moving to Melbourne in 2 and a half years. Do you know how long the application process takes, and once it is (if) approved, how long we will be given before we have to take up residence in Oz?
We applied for 136 skilled visa. It took 7 months from start to finish. Once you have your visa you generally have 12 months from your medical or police check (whichever was dated earliest) to make your first visit to Aus to validate your visa and 5 years to move permanantly.
EG our visa was granted July 12th 2006, we had until May 18th 2007 to make our initial entry (we'd had medicals done 18:05:06) but could not arrive to live after 12 july 2011.
__________________ I am toopositive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful and too determined to be defeated!
For all the reading up and questions I asked prior to coming... I'm amazed at how much I still don't know!
It's only been 3 weeks, but we love it so far and even made an offer on a house! Hubby has started work, the kids go to school on the 31st, they're eager to go and I'm ready for them to go!! I start work on Feb 5th, which should make things all seem pretty normal.
Ali
__________________ I am toopositive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful and too determined to be defeated!
