Page 2427 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 2 August 2017
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out. This is how you met people; this was how you networked in your street.” Joan was not one to shy away from challenges, referring to her arrival to Canberra without family as an opportunity to “make or break you. We warmed to the people and the people, I gathered, warmed to us.” Joan embraced her neighbours and the broader Canberra community.
This humble, unassuming, take things as they are approach was summed up by Tim Gavel in the City News on 17 August 2011. He wrote that Joan, in 1967, wanted to enrol her children in a learn-to-swim program. “The only problem was that Dickson pool didn’t have a learn-to-swim program.” So Joan established one. What started as a simple gesture to ensure that her children received swimming lessons evolved into a more than 40-year relationship with swimming. Joan “presided over the sport for almost 20 years”.
In 2011 Joan was inducted into the ACT Sport Hall of Fame for her contribution to swimming in the ACT. However, it wasn’t just swimming that Joan embraced. Joan also served as chair and board member of many community groups, including the North Canberra Community Council, North Ainslie Primary School, Turner Primary School, Lyneham High, Dickson College, the ACT Council of Parents & Citizens Associations, the ACT Schools Authority, the YMCA, and Friends of Albert Hall. In her spare time Joan also volunteered with Girl Guides ACT and Alzheimer’s Australia ACT. As well as her induction into the ACT Sport Hall of Fame, in 2003 Joan received the Order of Australia Medal for her service to swimming and her service to the community. In 2010 Joan was named volunteer of the year at the ACT Sports Star of the Year Awards.
Joan was so committed to her community that when self-government was introduced in the ACT she ran as a candidate for the Residents Rally in 1989 and then the Moore independents group in 1998. In fact I note that Michael Moore has a tribute to Joan in his column in the City News today.
As my colleague Ms Lee mentioned in the chamber yesterday, we live in the best city in Australia, and a huge part of what makes our city great is the people who live here. I never met Joan Kellett, but to me she embodies the spirit of those who have helped make Canberra the great city that it is.
Vale, Joan Kellett.
Cystic Fibrosis—Santa Speedo Shuffle 2017
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (6.36): Before I make my own comments I add my condolences to Joan’s family. She was, indeed, a great lady and she will be missed.
Ms Cheyne spoke about people dressing badly and running around the lake in order to raise funds, so I thought that we should bookend the adjournment debate by talking about other people dressing badly and running around the lake to raise funds. I want to talk about the Santa Speedo Shuffle that took place on Sunday beginning at the
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