Page 4249 - Week 11 - Thursday, 17 Sept 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Roland Manderson
Canberra Times fun run
Filmlink
Menslink
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (5.54): Can I lend my support to the good wishes for Roland Manderson as well. We on the Liberal Party side of the house have always found Roland very good to deal with. I think he adds a lot to the Assembly and he will be a great loss to the Greens, and indeed to the Assembly; so we wish you very well in your future career at Anglicare. Well done.
I would like to speak about a couple of issues. Yesterday I spoke a bit about the fun run and I neglected to mention the winners. I would like to congratulate Anthony Haber, who won the men’s and won overall in the time of 30 minutes and 29 seconds—only about 20 minutes in front of me. So it was pretty tight. Well done to Anthony. That is quite an extraordinary time. You would know, Mr Speaker, that three-minute kilometres over 10 kilometres is really moving. That is quite extraordinary.
Indeed, I had the opportunity on Sunday to speak with the women’s winner, Hannah Flannery, who did a wonderful job in a time of 37 minutes and 28 seconds. Well done to Hannah. I saw her; she was beaming afterwards; she was very excited about the win. It is quite a wonderful achievement to win, with so many competitors.
I neglected yesterday to also mention the Heart Foundation and the wonderful work they do. They are associated with the Canberra Times fun run and, of course, thousands of dollars are raised for the Heart Foundation. Well done to everyone involved.
I would like to briefly also talk about Menslink and the Filmlink workshop which I attended on 5 August this year. Filmlink is a film-making workshop that teaches young people how to make short films. At the workshops, young men, mentorees from Menslink’s mentoring young men program, worked alongside their mentors to make very short films. Participants had the opportunity to be cameraman, director, story-boarder, actor, editor or all of these things as they explored the art of film making. And we all enjoyed watching the results of that work. It is, I think, a wonderful opportunity for the young men to get involved.
Menslink is an organisation that I have been involved with for a number of years, in a less formal role these days as a friend of Menslink but as a former Menslink mentor. It is a not-for-profit organisation that promotes the value, wellbeing and social participation of young men and boys. It achieves this through its own dynamic community mentoring, therapeutic professional services and community activities. Its current programs are mentoring young men and the young men’s support network, which includes the life coaching service for young men and boys 12 to 25 years of age.
I have always had a lot of time for the work that is done by Menslink, formerly with Richard Shanahan and these days with Glen Cullen and Bryan Duke. They are people
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .