Melina Joy announces taking a back seat and moving on to pastures new!
30th May
After 33 years as founder and Managing Director of Melina Joy Opticians, Melina will be transitioning to pastures new next spring, April 2025.
Melina opened the doors of the practice 31st March 1992 and started a brand-new business. There wasn’t an Opticians on the site previously and there were no previous records brought from another business. She really did start it from scratch.
Initially the company status was Sole Trader and comprised of Melina as an Optometrist, Tom as a Dispensing Optician and Jackie on reception. From the beginning Melina has been the driving force, trying new strategies, investing in new equipment, such as the Optomap retinal scanner in 2006 and employing new staff.
The practice has had four refits, including some major reconstruction and now boasts three principal Optometrists, four Dispensing Opticians and three administrative staff.
The practice has great professional relationships with the local consultants, in hospitals and private clinics. Melina knows many of them either personally or through her position as a livery man of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers.
Along the way Melina has been an avid supporter of local businesses through membership of the Chamber of Commerce, for many years she was a judge and sponsor of Heathfield show and has supported local young people by providing free eye examinations for Heathfield Works.
It hasn’t only been work, work, work though! As part of developing the practice, Melina has always put a lot of effort into the team. There have been lots of team-building days including lunch at the Shard, a tour of Brighton Pavilion and a trip in the i-360. Aswell as Christmas dinners, one year we all did the Race for Life in Tunbridge Wells and Melina once cycled the 112-mile Ring of Kerry for the British Heart Foundation! We regularly have staff meetings, usually brightened by an external trainer and as many of you have seen on Facebook, ‘craft club’ is a regular event!
The company structure has also changed, in 2015 it became a limited company and Melina welcomed David and Catriona on to the board as directors. As part of her succession planning, Melina has been gradually reducing her hours within the practice and handing over the running of the business. She has been returning to Ireland and visiting her family more regularly.
So, from April 2025, having grown up on a farm in Ireland, her plan is to leave the business in capable hands and split her time between the UK and Ireland where she has friends, family and a herd of cattle to nurture!
