Paramotion for the Shoalhaven

PARAMOTION - Stand Up and Play !

It's all about inclusion ...

This could be a story about a friend, a son, a daughter, a husband, a dad, a sister, a brother, a neighbour or just a person you see whose life can be restricted by a significant disability or if using a wheelchair for access and mobility.

This is all about INCLUSION.

Loneliness and isolation are often unfortunate companions of disability. We have the opportunity for those people, especially young people with disabilities, to rejoin a society that loves conversation and participation in something ‘sporty’.

Social inclusion is at the core of we as human beings. The flexibility of the Paramotion allows people with disability to rejoin society in so many ways.

Just recently, we stumbled upon a young man, James Gribble, who created a company called Empower Golf through tragedy and a desire to remain connected to his friends and community.

https://empowergolf.com.au.

Check out THIS VIDEO to see one of our friends using the Paramotion!

This could be anyone doing anything your imagination desires.

Check out THIS VIDEO to see Phil using the Paramotion!

LOVING LIFE WITH A DISABILITY ... Stand Up and Play

The Paramotion was originally designed for disabled golfers but is customised for people with disability to be included in sports and leisure activities. This could be the tip of the iceberg in supporting and including people with disabilities: weddings, lawn bowls, fishing, archery, table tennis, gardening, darts, and snooker ... the list is as long as your imagination.

The therapeutic benefits for the physically limited are unbelievably immense. It stimulates metabolism, stretches the muscles, reduces spasticities, promotes circulation and digestion, stretches tendons and ligaments and prevents joints from seizing up.

Thanks to this piece of equipment, wheelchair users and all those with disabilities are discovering a new and unimagined level of freedom, inclusion and independence. Being able to stand up makes you included and boosts self-esteem, one can finally stand up and face others at eye level and that alone has a profound and lasting therapeutic effect, you are part of society, you are truly included.

With your help, we hope to raise enough money to purchase a Paramotion and dedicated trailer. The Paramotion would be a starting point for people with a disability, young and old, to return to a life of camaraderie and friendship and to dramatically change the lives of those wanting access to freedoms and pleasures of life in our local area.

Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club, St George's Basin Country Club and Vincentia Golf Club are extremely supportive of this venture and have embraced the opportunity to actively support the disability community in this life-changing venture. The Club Professional and trained members will house the Paramotion, teach others its operation and make it available for the myriad of use by the wider community, not just golf.

This will be a single purchase without need for future funding as Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club have accepted responsibility for ongoing care and maintenance.

Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club is a Not for Profit club and is totally committed to ensuring they are a club that promotes and practices inclusivity, supporting all matters regarding the Paramotion including but not limited to, advertising, teaching, supporting people with disability, maintenance, security and housing of equipment, loaning out and booking of machine for general use across the Shoalhaven region (the Paramotion comes with a purpose built trailer)

We will promote the inclusivity opportunities exhibited by the Paramotion to the broader Shoalhaven community, the disability sector, schools, clubs, NSW Golf and Golf Australia to ensure that people with a disability know this amazing machine and facility is here for their use at Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club and other clubs that we know will express great interest in their support of inclusion and that those with a disability will be actively supported by the various Club Professionals and staff in its function and use.

The need is great. The cost relative to outcomes is negligible. We have an engaged club, and others will join, a highly motivated group driving the Paramotion initiative ready to act and engage the broader community in utilising the Paramotion.

The initial committee that will administer the funds :

Phil Smith - retired Principal, Past Chairman Relay for Life.

Phil Kennedy - Retired Accountant FCPA B.Acc. Noah’s Inclusion, Sporting Coach.

Rob Russell - President Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club

John Dyball - Australian of the Year NSW Final 4 - Local Hero. OAM

Every dollar raised will go directly toward the outright purchase of Shoalhaven's first Paramotion to be accessible and utilised from Shoalhaven Heads Golf Club and elsewhere.

Our research suggests at least 150 local residents with a disability will benefit in the short to medium term through access to the Paramotion.

We are engaged and ready to act, offering the Shoalhaven as a ‘go to’ region for people with disability looking to STAND UP AND PLAY IN LIFE. The ability to just stand up is so easily taken for granted in our day to day life. Imagine the sheer joy of being able to stand up after having spent so much of your life restricted to the confines of a wheelchair !

Phil and many others like him have a great passion for all sports, particularly golf, and a deep desire to play the games they loved, with friends and family, once again.

The sense of inclusion and belonging and, above all else, camaraderie, is the thing the disability community miss the most.

A disability takes so many things away. A disability means continually having to make adjustments as well as deal with disappointments and frustrations.

Every donation to the Paramotion will change someone's life forever.

The ability to rejoin sporting and social society is indeed a physical, social and emotional GAME-CHANGER !!

We anticipate not just being the first here in the Shoalhaven but the start of many Paramotions to be seen and used, offering a dramatic change in the existence of people with a disability in our region.

The Paramotion is about us caring for others.

This Paramotion will be life-changing for hundreds in the Shoalhaven.