Page 3968 - Week 10 - Thursday, 20 September 2018
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sponsors were the Audi Centre Canberra, Capital Clinic Physiotherapy, Kidspace Occupational Therapy, The Smart Centre Massage, and LGR Productions—Lachlan Ross. Elite athletes who attended were Lauren Wells, Scott Reardon, Vanessa Low, Jayden Sawyer, Vivian Williams and para-cyclist Sue Powell; from Brumbies Rugby Kiahan Bell-Chambers and Bayley Kuenzle; from the Canberra Cavalry Liam Sherer; and from the Canberra Capitals Keely Froling, Lauren Scherf, Maddison Rocci, Kelsey Griffin, Mariana Tolo, Kristy Wallace, Hannah Young and Kelly Wilson. Others who were there supporting the day were Jess Bibby from Shotclock Espresso, Cancer Council, Heart Foundation, BCS, Every Chance to Play, Netball ACT, Molonglo Brigade RFS, ACT Fire and Rescue, The Runners Shop, Subway Charnwood, Woolworths Charnwood, and HART Sport. There were Ginninderra volunteers Corrinne Henderson, Luke Allard, Brian Daly, Jodie Collins, Mortisha Rauraa, Eden Thomas, Jodie Collins, Emma Fitzpatrick and Tim Porter. And of course, importantly, there were the competing school athletes from Miles Franklin Primary School, Evatt Primary School, Florey Primary, Giralang Primary, Kaleen Primary, Macgregor Primary, Radford College Junior School, St John the Apostle, Weetangera, and Yass Public School.
It is hard to know what kind of effect this day had on improving sports participation amongst our young people, but my daughter has been doing hill sprints ever since and I would say that that is a pretty good measure of success. The smiling faces of the participants who received the fabulous award of the ceremonial relay batons from the Commonwealth Games 2006 that Cameron Crombie had managed to find in someone’s garage somewhere and were donated to the event—that was surely a good measure of children who will take that memory with them forever. Certainly the parents were impressed, noting that some of their children were born in 2006 during those Commonwealth Games.
It was very exciting day, a really fantastic effort bringing something like that together in such a short period of time. And the enthusiasm of all of those wonderful athletes that we have in the ACT who contributed their time freely and spent so much time with those children, inspiring them to see the future athletes and rising stars that they can aspire to be for themselves.
Elizabeth Elliott—tribute
Neurofibromatosis
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (5.00): I want to speak today about a very special person that I know, named Elizabeth Elliott, or Libby. Libby was just four years old when she was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis 2, or NF2. NF2 can be passed down through genes or, as in Libby’s case, it can occur spontaneously.
NF is a condition which results in tumours. For some people the tumours grow externally and they can be prolific. But for some people the tumours, equally prolific, grow internally, tumours on the spine and tumours on the nerves, including places like the optic nerve and auditory nerves. Libby is a young girl who, at four, was diagnosed with tumours in these places. She had to have surgery immediately—when entering preschool—because one of the tumours was pushing her eye out of its socket. Libby has since had more tumours on her spinal cord and at the base of her brain.
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