Page 5482 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 16 November 2010
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Goulburn to watch our nephew/cousin Trent Soley play his first game of soccer and what an absolute delight it was. Words cannot explain the warm feelings we all got this morning. Trent has grown up watching his twin brother, Luke, play soccer (quite successfully) and for a long time showed no interest in playing. It was all too hard for him. That was until now. The excitement was bubbling over before he left Goulburn to travel to Hawker. He said to his Dad, Brian, “Please stop the excitement Dad”. It was almost too much for him. To see that amount of joy in Trent’s face is priceless.
Please accept our heartfelt thanks and pass on our thoughts to all of your assistants—you obviously put a lot of time and effort into bringing this program alive. We will support and promote this program any way we can.
With kind regards, Sue, Steve and Ryan Soley.
That parent’s sentiments obviously capture the emotional words that I have had from a lot of the parents who have attended these Football-Connect development programs. I would like to pay particular compliments to Pat McCann from Capital Football, who is the assistant technical director, and the wonderful work that he and his team have done; and to Merryn Brown, Capital Football coach and coordinator of the Football-Connect program as well.
I have already mentioned Donna O’Brien, the president of Weston Creek soccer club. She was coach at the open day and Football-Connect Sundays. She was also involved, along with Conny Ehlers, a former Weston Creek soccer player and a parent of one of the children who has been involved in these afternoons. Both Conny and Donna have been involved in setting up an introduction day at Turner primary school, where they provided football sessions for about 30 of the Turner students.
Chris Logue has been very much involved as an assistant at the open day at Waramanga and with the Football-Connect programs at Hawker. Colin Townes has been assisting with the coaching each week at Football-Connect at Hawker since the opening day at Waramanga.
I would also like to make mention of a few events that will take place in a few weeks time around International Disability Day on Friday, 3 December. Vision Impaired Sport ACT have invited me and others to attend the VISACT sport carnival on Friday, 3 December at the Australian Institute of Sport in Bruce. I would hope that more of us from the Assembly could attend this. The VISACT sport carnival will be the final event of the hugely successful blind sports in schools program that has been run in three primary schools and three high schools in terms 3 and 4. There will be 10 to 12 teams participating in the sports of blind baseball and junior goalball. There are a number of events scheduled.
Also, as part of the International Disability Day, on Friday, 3 December, 2010 at the AIS, there will be a whole host of activities scheduled, including an opening ceremony, athletics, basketball, bocce, cricket, sailing training and swimming. It will continue on Sunday, 5 December. All in all, I would commend to the Assembly some of these activities that are coming up. (Time expired.)
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