Getting involved may seem like a commitment that requires time and thought and there may be reasons why now is not the right time. But there are other ways that you can support the Home that don’t involve much more than having a good day out. We organise our own charity Golf Classic, and are part of the Rotary Charity Regatta annually.

We also host an annual Art Exhibition of our own artist’s works. And if retail therapy is more your thing, we offer various gift items and other merchandise for sale from time to time. You can look out for current information here.

TOUCH 2009
Sunshine Art Exhibition

Sunshine’s annual art exhibition opened on the 31st of July at the Ku-ring-gai Art Centre in Roseville. The exhibition showcased around 60 artworks and saw the debut of works of art from our Paper Studio. It was a huge success.  The gallery being closer to home and within our community led to more public exposure with most of the works sold over the three week exhibition period. 

The exhibition received nothing but positive comments from everyone who popped in for a look. Everyone was intrigued by the works and the amount of talent on display. Staff worked well with each client over the past year, fine tuning skills and abilities and nurturing encouraging some fantastic pieces of work. Judy Harris, Coordinator of the Ku-ring-gai Art Centre was amazed at the number of works sold.

Artists will be rewarded for their efforts with a percentage of sales, with the balance going towards the continuance and improvement of the art programme. Well done to artists and all Art Studio and Paper Studio staff alike !

Mini Olympics Carnival

On the 23rd of October 2008, 12 clients made their way to Beaton Park Athletic Track in Wollongong to take part in the Mini Olympics Carnival organised by Community Participation together with other similar organisations across NSW. Jean Scott, Matthew Gow, Brendan Stanley, Alyssa Conwell, Bettina Anderson, Cameron Woolfe, Alan Dennis, Jenny Anthony, Margaret McCleod, Brad Tarrant, James van Miltenberg and Susan Onions all showed fine form that particularly cold day.

The Carnival consisted of a series of track and field events for participants with intellectual disabilities, and also included events for participants with visual impairments and mobility issues. The large number of volunteers from local schools made the day a huge success. Community Participation ensured that there were enough volunteers for each participant to be paired off with a volunteer for the day, who saw that they got to their starting line, got them off the blocks and cheered them on.

Community Access, Pymble’s Team Leader Lindsey Rellis accompanied our clients to Wollongong and reported that the best part of the day wasn’t the winning, it was the sense of community, the friendship offered by the volunteers and the sense of camaraderie between participants. No less heartwarming was the sense of mateship that the day engendered with every Sunshine client and staff member cheering on the sidelines – all batting for the same side, members of the same family – the Sunshine family !

Sunshine’s 30 Chairs Golf Challenge 2009

Sunshine held its annual golf day fundraiser – this year, called the 30 Chairs Golf Challenge, because of the fact that it was raising funds specifically so that our aged care villas in Parklea can upgrade their 30 old and unstable chairs to new, disability friendly models – on the 23rd of March 2009.

As always, the day was thoroughly enjoyable for everyone there. The weather was favourable and the course, challenging as always; the perfect recipe for good golfing. The superb food at Pymble Golf Club and the wit and charm of our auctioneer and MC extraordinaire for the evening, Andrew Buchanan was absolutely the icing on the cake.

But let’s cast our rose coloured glasses aside for a moment. Yes, the number of players on those beautiful greens were down by 30% this year as compared to 2008 - you see, no one is recession proof, no matter what efforts you employ to stave off the inevitable. However, the bottomline, in terms of what the day managed to garner towards the work that Sunshine does was down by only 10%. That was indeed significant and is due largely to the generosity of donors who contributed prizes, goody bag items and drinks towards the event, and of loyal supporters at the dinner auction. It goes to show how every donation be it in cash or kind, small or large raises the bottomline for Sunshine.

There were even questions and eyebrows raised prior to the event as to whether it should have been allowed to go on with it’s reduced numbers. And the answer to that is “Yes”.  Whilst raising vital funds for Sunshine is one of the top priorities at days like these, it is not our only priority. Our other equally important objective is to meet our supporters and to thank them for their continued support. Events like the golf days are golden opportunities to meet Sunshine supporters, to thank them and to share recent developments with them first hand. This we did, and in our eyes, that made the day a success.

On behalf of everyone at Sunshine, we thank everyone who contributed to that success  - thanks to you all, Parklea will have their 30 chairs !

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