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North West New England
Special
Olympics
NWNE SPECIAL OLYMPICS TEAM ARE OFF TO MELBOURNE TO COMPETE THIS MONTH, AND WE FIND OUT WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN UP TO IN PREPARATION FOR THIS. WE WSH THEM ALL THE VERY BEST AT THIS LEVEL OF COMPETITION ...
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an you tell FOCUS a bit about the NWNE Special Olympics? Special Olympics North West New England is a sporting organisation which involves athletes from a region that encompasses Tenterfield, Inverell, Narrabri, Armidale, Walcha and down to Tamworth. The athletes involved all have an intellectual disability and enjoy the opportunity to engage in social and sporting activities. Currently we have 24 athletes who enjoy tenpin bowling, swimming, football, golf and lawn bowls at different times of the year. The athletes train in tenpin bowling (Armidale Sport and Rec Centre) every Wednesday night from 5:30 to 7:30pm all year round, Football is held on Mondays 4 - 5pm in the winter terms (Phil Wheaton football fields), golf, 4 - 5pm (Armidale Gold Club) and swimming, 6:30 - 7:30pm (TAS pool) are held in the summer months on a Tuesday. Lawn bowls is held every Friday between 2 - 4pm at the Armidale City Bowling Club. When does the team head off, and what preparation have they done? The NWNE athletes are participating as part of the NSW team at the National Special Olympic games in Melbourne. They leave Armidale on Sunday 19th and have a night in Sydney before departing for Melbourne on Monday morning. The opening ceremony will be conducted on Monday afternoon and
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the competition will start on Tuesday and run through to Friday. The athletes will head back from Melbourne on Saturday. They will have the opportunity to meet up with friends from around NSW they have met at previous competitions. What local businesses helped support the team? We have been very fortunate to have some wonderful local businesses who supported our recent fundraiser by donating numerous prizes. It was encouraging to see the support businesses were happy to give when they knew the cause involved. One business in particular, Harvey Norman Electrical, has taken on board our cause and the Franchisee Scott Geddes, has been amazing in the support of our athletes. The Armidale City Bowling Club allowed us to have a room to hold our fundraising event, and Phil Wheaton was fantastic at publicising the event throughout the club on the night. Is this an ongoing event that the local community can support? After the national competition, athletes will attend regional and state competitions, which always costs a lot of money due to the distances we have to travel. We have ongoing fundraising events like the barbecue at Bunnings. Anyone who would like to donate to NWNE SO are always welcome, as our athletes are all on pensions and save hard to attend the competitions. The next regional competition is at the end of November, when we will attend a
tenpin and golf competition at Coffs Harbour. Also, following the National Games, the Australian team to travel to the World Games in Los Angeles in July 2015 will be announced. If any of our seven athletes from NWNE are selected to compete there, the fundraising will be ramped up significantly, as each athlete will need to raise a large amount of money to attend. Unfortunately there is no sponsorship that our athletes receive when they attend these games. Each athlete attending the National Games has had to raise $3,300 to participate. Can you give us some background on the team members? Maxwell Wayte will be competing in football and has competed in a few previous international events. He was selected for the world games held in Athens in 2011 and the inaugural Asia Pacific competition held in Newcastle at the end of last year. Virginia Bligh, Joshua Smith, Stephanie Rowe, David Currie and Will Brunsdon will compete in tenpin bowling and Sarah-Jane Schulze from Narrabri will compete in swimming. Dave Currie joined Special Olympics recently and is very excited to be attending his first national competition. Stephanie Rowe is also attending her first National Games and is keen to find out what happens at these events. Joshua Smith and Virginia Bligh have attended National Games previously but it has been few years since they last attended, and they are really keen to go again. Will Brunsdon
had his first international experience with Special Olympics at the Asia Pacific competition last November in tenpin and is thrilled to be attending his first national competition. Where to from here? What does the future hold? The athletes who compete at the National Games are eligible to be selected for the Special Olympic World Games in 2015. The other NWNE athletes will continue to do their weekly training leading up to regional competitions that they will compete at. State competitions are held each year, and the athletes try to compete at several of these, which allows them to be eligible for selection at future national competitions, which are held every four years. All athletes need to have trained for at least six weeks leading up to any regional competition and must compete at a regional competition before attending a state competition. Therefore the athletes are constantly training, and a few of them are involved in up to four of the above sports, which makes for very busy athletes. It is exciting to see the progress they make and the excitement they get from a successful competition or training event. Thanks Kirsty. Kirsty Brunsdon NWNE Sports Co - ordinator 0410 923 797 kbrunsdo@as.edu.au Facebook: North West New England Special Olympics.