Spinal Cord Society of Australia

Pasta Puccini

George and Barbara once again opened up their wonderful home, Happy Valley, in Traralgon for the annual “Night under the Stars”, also known as Pasta Puccini

 

Over 250 people attended the function where the guests were wined, dined and entertained by Tim MacCallum and the Geelong Tenors.

 

We must acknowledge our major sponsors, Stryker, Depuys, Smith and Nephew as well as the Century Inn did the food. Through sponsorship and ticket sales we raised over $30,000 for the Society and we would like to acknowledge the wonderful donation of $1000 by Dean and Sarah MacDonald.

 

George and Barbara are hoping to organise a similar Night under the Stars next year so mark the 3rd week in February in your diaries.

Ann's Clan

Ann’s Clan, a group of friends of Ann Hoskins who is a C4 quadriplegic, recently organised a “Family Fun Day” to celebrate Ann and her achievements as well as raise money for the Spinal Cord Society of Australia.

 

The group organised a full days entertainment with lots of things to do such as, arts & craft activities, face painting, colored hair spray, massage/pamper stall, BBQ, refreshments. There was also a silent auction and entertainment by Tim McCallum, Sweethearts, Soul Sister Swing, Wondrous Merry, Geelong Chorale, Angels Of Joy etc..

 

The event raised over $12,000 and was a wonderful success

Inaugural Spinal Cord Society Race Day

Jenni Franklin, her family and friends organised our first race day and Jenni wrote:

We held a Race Day at Flemington Race Course on August 20th as we were fortunate to have a race donated to us by the Victorian Racing Club, which we named “SCSA for Spinal Research”.

To make the most of this generous offer, we booked out a restaurant on the third floor of the grandstand over looking the whole racecourse, as well as the city, and invited guests to a lunch. Many SCSA members supported the day and invited guests to join them. We had 310 people attend our day- a great response as we had initially only planned for 150 guests.

Through friends and their friends we received many generous donations which we raffled, auctioned, or gave as door prizes. Our early aim was for $5,000 and our dream was $ 10,000.00; however, we were blown away by our final figure- around $25,000! We would like to thank “Crackers” Keenan, who was our MC for the day, for his help in encouraging people to part with their money during the auction!

It was a great day with friends and family all coming together to watch our race, as well as to promote the profile of the Spinal Cord Society, and raise some much needed funds.

Due to the success of this event, many guests have pre- booked tables for next year, so it looks like we have an annual event! We will inform members next year when the day is and we welcome any members with their family and friends to join us at this enjoyable event.

Jenni went on to say:

We have been offered the opportunity to hold a luncheon in a restaurant at a winery next April as another fundraiser event. If any member would like to find out about this event please contact us. We would also love to hear from people who have some personal contacts, or contacts through friends, who may be willing to donate some products or goods for us to auction at either event (the winery or the race day). ALL of our race day items came through personal approaches; any ‘cold’ letters we wrote to electrical companies, accommodation places, restaurants etc for donations received a nil response. It seems the personal knowledge of SCSA is necessary to receive goods for fundraising events.

If you wish to contact us about our restaurant day at Witchmount Winery early 2007, or with the names of people we could ask for donations of products please do so.

Jeni and Alan Franklin,
34 Rosstrevor Cres. Mitcham, 3132.
03 9874 2101.
Jenala8@bigpond.net.au

Lions Clubs “Bangers Bash”

Lions Clubs across Australia have raised and donated over $100,000 in 2005-6 through their Bangers Bash events. The Bangers Bash is a sausage sizzle organised by local districts to raise money for the Lions Spinal Cord Fellowship. The purpose of the Fellowship is to raise funds to support the Spinal Cord Society Australia Inc. in funding Australia scientists or clinicians to study the latest techniques of spinal cord injury both within Australia and the USA to the extent that the knowledge and experience so gained shall be made available to the Australian public.

 

Annual Scientific Meeting

This year the Society participated in the Australian Medical Research Congress which was held in Melbourne from 26th November - 1st December 2006 and attended by over 2000 delegates from all over the world.

Our theme was – “The search for a cure for Spinal Cord Injury – from laboratory to bedside.”

The SCSA sponsored one session on Spinal Cord Injury and Mesoblast (http://www.mesoblast.com/) the other and we invited three international speakers to attend:

• Dr Ping Wu (Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience & Cell Biology University of Texas. USA.)
• A/Prof. W. Cafferty. (Department of Neurology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.)
• Dr Stephen Davies (A/Prof. Baylor College of Medicine. Houston. USA) – who had to cancel at the last minute due to illness.

These were joined by Australian researchers Dr Giles Plant (Red's Spinal Cord Laboratory, University of Western Australia.), Dr Kathy Traianedes (Australian Stem Cell Centre, Melbourne.), Dr John Forsythe (Department of Materials Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne) and Prof Brent Reynolds (Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland.)

The sessions were chaired by Dr George Owen and A/Prof Paul Simmons. (Center for Stem Cell Biology, University of Texas Health Science Center. Houston. USA.)

The sessions were well attended and the abstracts can be downloaded.