The month started with a very chilly morning at the Victory Memorial Gardens on Sunday 3rd July for the Reserve Forces Day Commemorative Service. We, along with 2017 Quest Entrants Sarah, Katharine and Angela, helped the RSL sub-branch by distributing programs to those who attended. The service honoured our fallen comrades and supported the ANZAC centenary. Australian Army Colonel Steve Jobson delivered an inspiring speech reflecting on the past 100 years of the defence forces involvement, to those who were brave enough to withstand the chilly and foggy morning.
A Mayoral Reception for the Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research was held on Wednesday 13th July. We joined a diverse group of Wagga locals, as well as many who had travelled afar for the conference including international keynote speakers Prof Kenneth Kidd (University of Florida), Prof Erica Hateley (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), and Dr Irini Savvides (author Willow Tree & Olive, Sky Legs). During the Reception we were privileged enough to hear welcomes from Wagga locals in 7 different languages. Even though we could not understand what they were saying, it was incredible to celebrate such diversity within our local community.
Saturday 16th July saw us head to Rules Club for our very first Make-A-Wish training day. It was incredibly exciting to meet and get to know the other like-minded members of our community, who are joining forces with us to spread hope, joy and strength within our local area, via establishing a Wagga branch. We will begin to spread the word about the amazing work we will be doing with Make-A-Wish in the coming months, so be sure to keep an ear out and support this wonderful cause wherever possible.
Our official overseas trip to our Sister City in Noerdlingen, Germany is fast approaching. On Thursday 21st July we had a Sister City Committee Meeting to discuss our itinerary and begin to finalise the activities we will partake in, to represent our city, whilst we are there. It is an incredible honour to be able to travel to Noerdlingen as a part of our reign, and we are both incredibly excited about this opportunity. Stay tuned for further details over the coming month before we depart early September.
Our last event of the month was a luncheon with the Laurel Club ladies at Legacy House on Tuesday 26th July. We enjoyed an informal chat with the ladies over lunch, before we presented them with an unscripted talk about our term as entrants and activities/events we have been able to partake in during our reign so far. The ladies were full of questions for us to answer, and some were even able to add their own insights from connections with the Quest, with a few having relatives who had entered and/or reigned in the past. We look forward to returning to Legacy House when we return from our trip in October to enlighten the ladies on our travels overseas.
We completed our monthly radio interviews with 2WG and StarFM and also had an additional radio interview at 2AAA, in which we spoke about our term as entrants and our reign as titleholders thus far. Don’t forget to tune in on the first Monday of every month to hear what we’ve been doing and what’s coming up in our diary of events. Alternatively you can read our blog or request our attendance at events. If you would like to contact us, please email [email protected].
We are both incredibly grateful for the opportunities we have had thus far in our reign and thank you for your continued support