The personal story of a cancer victim who just keeps fighint
Incredible cancer mum, Sheree McLeod, and her team raised $28,524 in the Mother’s Day Classic last year.
An annual tradition, the Mother’s Day Classic fun run and walk provides the community with a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day and raise funds for breast cancer research. See you on 11 May 2014!
Mother’s Day Classic’s overall contribution to breast cancer research since the event began in 1998 is a staggering $19.8 million, making the event Australia’s largest funder of National Breast Cancer Foundation research. In that time, 5 year survival rates for women diagnosed with breast cancer has increased to 89%. But, with research, more can be done. For more information on where your money goes, see the 2013/14 Classic Investments.
You can register for the Brisbane event this May.
There are many ways to join in the fun and be part of Australia’s biggest charity fun run. Most people will participate in the 4.5km and 8km run or walk, starting and finishing at the Cultural Forecourt, the Parklands South Bank. If running and/or walking isn’t your thing you can still join in the fun of the day by volunteering to help out.
Alternatively, you can come along and support all walkers and runners and join in the entertainment and activity taking place around the course.
If running and walking isn’t your thing you can still join in the fun of the day by volunteering to help out.
If you wish to make a stand alone donation to the Mother’s Day Classic for breast cancer research, you can do so from our website and find out more about Sheree’s fundraising efforts in 2012 and 2013 at the Mother’s Day Classic website
It’s official. The Kenmore and district Chamber of Commerce is now the CCIQ Brisbane West Chamber of Commerce.
The release from CCIQ West reads “We are excited about re-launching the Chamber with our biggest breakfast to date. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk will be joining to us at Riverglenn to present his vision for Brisbane.
“This breakfast isn’t just for members, we would love to see family, friends and colleagues as we think this is a wonderful opportunity to ask the Lord Mayor about Brisbane’s economy and future.
“This event will be a sell out, so make sure you book online soon so you get a seat. Those arriving on the day without a receipt email from their online booking will be required to wait until all pre-booked patrons with receipts have been seated”
The silly duffers forgot to provide the details with the invitation but Westender has scraped them from CCIQ West’s website and provides them here for you.
Lord Mayor Graham QuirkDate: Thursday 2oth February 2014 Time: 7:00am to 8:30am
Venue:
Riverglenn
70 Kate Street
Indooropilly QLD 4068
Some of the cast of 12 Years as a Slave at one of the many awards
Brilliant, unrelenting, brutal. 12 Years as a Slave is sweeping the film festival and award circuit as a major film event, a classic work of art that will resound historically and redefine the relationship between reality and film. But it is almost unwatchable.
It is Django Unchained without the humour, cartoon treatment of violence or happy ending. It is Wolf Creek, Saw and the worst snuff movie you can imagine without the convenience of fiction or the comforting tropes we are used to in Hollywood film.
It is the unadorned slice of reality from one of the worst episodes of humanity’s cruelty.
In an era where the brutality of the church, the Salvation Army and the state to the children in its care have us shaking our head at the bottomless depravity of humankind, you would think we might flick past something as remote as negro slavery in the United States with just a passing thought.
Christopher Pyne would certainly prefer it that way. “of course we should recognise the mistakes that have been made in the past. But … we don’t want to beat ourselves up every day.”
As producer, Brad Pitt, has mounted a project that unflinchingly beats us up over our absolute inhumanity to those over whom we claimed dominion. It barely even discusses theissues or allows another point of view, it is simply the unbelievable reality that a nation’s wealth was built on the blood of its indentured labourers who were tortured into submission and killed when they objected.
It is a history that is common across the colonial world and Christopher Pyne’s discomfort is shared by most decendants of the imperialists who inflicted such torture on the indigenous and enslaved peoples who did the hard work of building the empires that established the riches we now enjoy.
Steve McQueen as director does not allow us to consider such issues intellectually he simply holds our nose to the whipping post. We are spattered with the blood and broken flesh, sickened by the whimpering of the whipped as they are treated by their peers afterward, and broken hearted as the raped and battered women sob for their daughters dragged into prostitution and their sons to labour as “beasts of the field”.
Because of this, it is hard to imagine anyone queuing to watch this film. It is hard to recommend that you see it. It will disturb and confront you, it will make you sick to the stomach, you will not be able to think about anything else for days.
It is not often that an almost unwatchable film lines up for awards and critical acclaim but it is happening. This is not just the sentimental awkwardness that follows films that deal with difficult issues. This is because the film is almost perfect.
When Tarantino took his distinctive touch to the same topic with Django Unchained there was criticism of the brutality, the use of the word nigger, the depiction of dogs mauling human flesh. There are no such criticisms of 12 Years as a Slave.
It is so real, so brutal, so believable there is no room to question its veracity. You cannot argue with the film, you simply have to come to terms with the history.
As education minister Christopher Pyne claims he does not want relativism to obscure the truth. Brad Pitt and Steve McQueen have crafted the perfect antidote: the unadorned truth stops the argument once and for all, dead in it’s tracks.
“Here is the reality, deal with it.”
Watch this film and weep. Or, watch this film and be filled with a consuming anger and passion to fight to find the good within us all and unseat the cruel and oppressive from their thrones.
Ghost boy in full flight at a previous Poetry Award
Now in it’s third year, the esteemed KURILPA Performance Poetry CUP will be taking off at 2pm, Sunday 23rd of February, at 91 Cordelia Street, Sth Brisbane on the edge of Musgrave Park.
Sponsored by local creative community group, the Kurilpa Poets, the Kurilpa Cup is open to all comers and free to enter.
Aside from the fabulous cup itself, the winner is presented with a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and a book of verses! (and $50 in an envelope.)
This years poetic Judge Judy is the Legendary Ghost boy.
Westender has two free double passes to the film of your choice at the French Film Festival. Tre bon!
The festival is organised by Alliance Francaise and features 42 films over four weekends in March. To get your taste of la cinema de France all you have to do to enter is outline in 25-50 words a French film (real or fictional). Westender and Alliance Francaise will review your entries, select a winner and publish it (along with our second favourites) in the March edition.
Submit your entries before February 14 – search “French film” at westender.com.au. The winner will be notified by email and the ticket will be available for collection from the Alliance here in West End (down by the markets on the corner of Jane and Montague).
To set the barre here is one of our scribes’ synopsis of the 1994 film A Pure Formality.
“Depardieu is the intellectual: ignorant, lost, afraid. Polanski is the interrogator, oozing charm and disdain. One room, hundreds of questions, a matter of life and death. The suspense lasts until the last scene. Where were you, what happened, why are you here? The answer, of course, is a pure formality.”
Remi Harris and the Gypsy Jazz project laying down a surprise twist for Putting on the Ritz in West End today
Remi Harris and the Gypsy Jazz Project are playing the Brisbane Jazz Club at Annie St Kangaroo Point tonight.
Remi Harris is an exciting young guitarist and composer, he is widely regarded as one of the UK’s Top Gypsy Jazz Guitarists and has performed at Buckingham Palace and Live on BBC Radio 2. A Brisbane Jazz Club exclusive show.. Check out the project’s website.
Westender caught up with them down by the river on Boundary Street, settling down a few licks of Putting on the Ritz.
