Page 4148 - Week 13 - Thursday, 31 October 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Griffin, and it was a great success, particularly for such a new event. I was pleased to join in an opening lap on the Friday afternoon—I know Mr Wall was there at the same time—and I managed to get in a few other laps over the course of the weekend, although perhaps not as many as I would have liked. This year Lifecycle has so far raised nearly $80,000 for the Leukaemia Foundation. With funds still being received, that is not the final total just yet.
The event was started by friends Mark Blake and Carl Sueli, based on Carl’s experience with a Leukaemia Foundation unit in Sydney while receiving treatment at Westmead Hospital for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The vision of the organisers was to raise funds for the establishment of a purpose-built accommodation facility for blood cancer patients. With a very generous donation of almost $3 million from the John James Foundation, already this vision has come a lot closer to reality than the organisers first imagined when they started this charity event.
The John James Foundation has plans for John James village that will provide residential accommodation for patients undergoing blood cancer treatment at Canberra Hospital. The plan is to build six units as a short-term residential facility for patients, and the families of patients from regional areas, who need to be close to the hospital for regular treatment. The ACT branch of the Leukaemia Foundation will manage the facility, which will also include meeting rooms and offices for its services.
Lifecycle, with the injection of capital from the John James Foundation, is now focusing on raising money for the ongoing costs. Money raised this year will help toward the total. In terms of the Lifecycle event, 255 people participated, including 55 children and student entries, indicating that Lifecycle is very much a family-friendly event. They have done it by having two different laps: people can ride a five-kilometre lap around the central basin of Lake Burley Griffin and then there is a longer, 20-odd kilometre lap around the whole lake. Of course, people got hungry over the weekend, and I gather more than 600 sausages were sold. More than 2,700 kilometres were cycled over the weekend.
These events cannot happen without the work of volunteers. There were more than 70 hardworking volunteers, many of whom worked tirelessly throughout the weekend, including in the dead of night, contributing to a total of 600 volunteer hours. I make particular mention of the team from Point Project Management, who, as an organisation and as a business here in Canberra, were very much behind the organising of this event. The staff from that organisation played a major part in the logistics of the weekend.
I also note the top achievers of the weekend. The most distance travelled for a female was by Tamerra Mackell; the most distance by a male was by Levi Johns; and the most distance by a team was by the aptly named “Boneshakers”. The top fundraising individual was Chris Black; the top fundraising team was again the Boneshakers. Special mention should also be made of the team entries from Florey Primary School—their team name was “Cognitive Revolution”—and the Red Hill Primary School.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video