Today was one of those dream days when everything works like clockwork including the weather, the team of volunteers, the participants and their helpers. It was so lovely to see our team, some for the second time this week: Warwick, Tony, Malcolm, Barry, Helen, David, Brian, Ralph, Steve, John, Jay, Col, Marc, Jim, Lyn, Jackie, Michael, Amaru and Khy. The only problem with this perfect weather was the lack of breeze at some stages, making a long and paddling sort of sail a necessity if we were going to give everyone a turn.
The SACC bus arrived down at sailing almost half an hour before their expected time, a lovely surprise as with 18 participants and some of their 24 helpers, it was going to be difficult to give everyone a turn. However, before 10 a.m. we had people into their life-jackets and onto the almost calm water. A special thrill was seeing Luca in a different setting than from the usual family group, and meeting some truly inspirational people, both participants and helpers. What a lovely end to the school year for Pryce, Miles, Mark, Luke, Annamieke, Georgia, Cameron, Kiahna, Nam, Tyron, Gianui, Joel, Will, Adam, Luca, Peter, Christopher. Their camp helpers were students from a variety of courses at Sydney University who have finished their studies for the year, and elected to go back to uni for a week’s volunteering so that they could offer a few day’s respite to some families who have one or two kids living with a disability. Several of the students commented that they are amazed by the fact that the children behave like regular children in such a huge number of ways, constantly reminding their carers of their abilities and their fighting spirit to have fun and get into mischief.
In fact, by 11.30, when the breeze had deserted us completely, and paddling was the order of the day for boats returning to the pontoon, the fantastic SACC helpers had lunch ready upstairs on the veranda. Participants and helpers wandered upstairs for lunch while the volunteers put the boats away, then went upstairs to join them and socialise.
