All proceeds from the day will go to Compass! We are extremely grateful for the generous support we have received from the Sunshine Coast Turf Club and Hot 91.1 FM.

We hope to see you there, giddy up! :)

The event is going to be huge! Someone is going to win a $13,000 diamond and there are many different kinds of prizes to give away on the day. We’re looking to have around 200 people attend which means you get around a 1 in 200 chance to win a diamond worth $13,000! Which are very good odds for such a huge prize!

We are happy to announce that we have secured Corinne Grant as guest speaker for the day. You’ve most likely heard of Corinne, she is an actress: an original core cast of Rove Live, founding member and core cast of The Glass-House and a core cast of SkitHOUSE. She has appeared on Spicks and Specks, Dancing with the Stars and Good News Week. She is also going to appear in the movie Goddess this year. She is a writer for newspapers: The Herald Sun and The Age in addition to having written her own book. Plus she is a comedian! Her natural, down-to-earth charm and her quick wit have made her one of Australia’s best known, and most warmly regarded performers.

Hannah McEwan and Paul Taylor, the weather presenter and local news reader from Win TV have come on board as MC’s.

Tickets are $140 per person which will include canapés, a 2-course lunch (vegetarian and gluten free options available on request), drinks, live music and a $20.00 cash draw ticket (first prize $2,000). Dress code -  formal attire. This will be a really stylish and quality event. We’re not going to be asking you to reach into your pocket and pay for anything further – like raffles or auctions.

All proceeds go to Compass and will be used to help us develop our first Independent Living Training Centre (ILTC). The ILTC will provide much needed accommodation options for people with disabilities on the Sunshine Coast.

Heritage has been a wonderful major sponsor, working with us to make this event first class. Keep an eye out for our TV and Newspaper ads, as well as our posters around the Coast.

We really hope you can attend. You may have noticed the date is the Friday before mother’s day… We are aiming this event at women, promoting it as an event you can take your mother or daughter to, or your friends. However, you can most certainly come by yourself and men can definitely attend!

We’re looking to make this the premier women’s event on the Sunshine Coast. It will be an excellent networking opportunity and lots of fun.

Please email bookings@compassinc.org.au or phone (07) 5457 3716 to secure your place. Contact us to book a table of 10 people, or to arrange other group bookings.

If you have a friend who you think would like to come to this event, we’d really appreciate if you could forward this information onto them.

We hope to see you there! Click on the button below to secure your place.

Natalie Garozzo – Palmwoods Centre

Natalie is our newest staff member in the Palmwoods centre. Nat is married with two girls. She has worked in varying disability services over the past 10 years. Nat loves horses, cooking and gardening. She is looking forward to working with the trainees to continue to develop their independent living skills.

Kylie Southon – Caboolture Service

Kylie works for Compass in Caboolture. This is a community based program at the moment, working with one trainee. Kylie is married with two teenagers, who keep her very busy. Kylie has lived on the Sunshine Coast for the past 12 years, having grown up in Victoria. Kylie is enjoying her new position with Compass and is looking forward to meeting more trainees and families in the future.

Michelle Hodges – Caloundra Centre

Hi, most people call me Chelley. I live in Caloundra with my husband and 2 children. I love going to the beach and camping.

]]> http://www.compassinc.org.au/2013/05/introducing-to-the-team/feed/ 0 http://www.compassinc.org.au/2013/05/creative-woodwork/ http://www.compassinc.org.au/2013/05/creative-woodwork/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 00:50:53 +0000 admin http://www.compassinc.org.au/?p=2764 Caloundra trainees love to get creative with practical woodwork.

Here is a picture of Kobie and the coffee table that he made with fellow friends and trainer Rob. It took them three weeks to make this beautiful table for the new parents retreat at the Caloundra centre.

Just a few meters away from the Caloundra Compass front door, the swimming complex has become a vital part of our training program where the owners and staff go out of their way to create the best experience possible for our trainees.

The Aquatic Centre provides a myriad of opportunities to strengthen social skills, helping Compass trainees access the community with confidence and develop their independence. The young people pay their own entrance fee, sometimes order and pay for food after a session and comfortably join with the rest of the community in a relaxing ‘post-swim’ lunch.

Sensory integration and brain gym sessions take on an extra dimension in the water and trainees delight in experiencing weightlessness and increased flexibility and movement. Many trainees develop greater body awareness and integrate some newly developed movements into their daily lives.

Break-up days at the pool are sensational. The centre rolls out a gigantic and intimidating floating obstacle course – and the challenge is on! Not much stops our trainees, who literally fly over the rocking, wet, slippery aquatic ‘Mount Everest’.

Thank you to the management and staff, who welcome us warmly, support our fundraising and make it so easy for the trainees to access and enjoy their complex.

As you all know Norm has been away very ill, however I’m happy to say that some of the more immediate aspects of his health challenge have been addressed with a positive outcome. It will possibly be quite a long road but we are all supporting him as best we can. Thank you to all who sent in best wishes for him – I passed them on and I know they meant a great deal to him. In the interim Sally has been wonderful in taking on much of his workload. Thank you in fact to all the staff who have been real rocks!

Our annual audit is scheduled for mid-May and it’s been an opportunity for me to reflect on where we’ve travelled over the past 12 months. Previous years have seemed to contain such massive improvements and gains that this one has somehow felt quieter by comparison. The reality is we’ve been on such a steep curve over the past 10 years I guess it naturally levels out a little eventually. Then we started listing all the things that have happened over the past 12 months and I realised so many of the improvements have been behind the scenes in our systems, policies and procedures, governance, lesson planning, computer systems, corporate partnering, lesson planning and similar. They may not show on the surface but they make the days more efficient and the delivery of our support to the young people so much more effective.

I also recalled that in the first few years of Compass we tried to get a parent reference group together to support Compass’s efforts and programmes. After much emailing and conversation, I ended up sitting across the table from the one parent who actually attended the meeting. We had a good laugh and decided it probably just wasn’t something that people could fit into their busy lives. That said I thought we might try it again. (After all, we had a very positive turnout to the parent meeting about housing solutions…). The role of a parent reference group can include things like volunteering to help at functions, developing ideas to pass on to staff about new activities or educational programmes, organising & participating in working bees, helping with network connections to access services that can be employed by Compass and similar. If you’re interested in being part of a reference group that met monthly and did some of the above, can you please register your interest with Chanae on chanae@compassinc.org.au and I’ll get back to you to organise a get together.

Champagne Diamond is only a few days away. Please support this women’s event. It’s a 1 – 200 chance to walk away with a $13,000 diamond!! Also, thanks to the support of 91.1 Hot FM and the Sunshine Coast Turf Club, Compass will be the recipient of proceeds from the Ladies Oaks Day on Friday 31st May. Get along for a great day of fun and colour if you can.

Thank you and best wishes,

David.