WHEN it comes to helping children in their own area, members of local Variety
Bash team the Runaway Brides don't hesitate to jump in, white gowns and all.

 Over the five years the team has participated in the Bash numerous local
children have benefited from donations and grants from Variety SA and founding
member Sandra Lukin said it was the primary reason the team continued to
participate in the annual event, which is why they were so happy to hear about two more local recipients.

 Local swimmers Jade Calverley and Ellie McInerney are among the 2013 recipients of Variety's Show of Hearts Sports Scholarships. The scholarships will help with the cost of coaching, travel costs and entry fees for events for the girls.

Ellie, 11, received $5000 to enable her to improve her skills through specialist coaching and compete in carnivals around South Australia and beyond. Jade, 13, will get $3000 a year over two years to help her pursue her Paralympic dreams as part of the Paralympics Development Team with the opportunity to go to Rio in 2016.

They will both compete in the 2013 Australian Age Multi Class Championships in Adelaide later this month. "The Brides are very excited about $10,000 coming back to local kids and their families," Mrs Lukin said.
"We are always excited to hear when Variety helps out someone local."
The Brides have raised more than $100,000 for Variety and Mrs Lukin said more than that had come back to the Lower Eyre Peninsula in donations and support for local special needs kids. Variety SA marketing and communications manager Bridgette Whittle said apart from fundraising for Variety teams often helped identify children who would benefit from Variety's support, such as the Runaway Brides who supported Ellie and Jade's applications.

 "It's great when our Bashers and fundraisers are able to find in the community kids that need assistance and help them get it."

As printed in the Port Lincoln Times 4th April 2013

The Lower Eyre Peninsula Swim team proudly walked away with overall second place following their enthusiastic participation in the 2013 SAPSASA Country State Championship Meet on Friday 22nd of March 2013. This was a significant improvement from last years overall 7th placing. 32 swimmers represented the region with a number of swimmers travelling over with extended family and friends. For some this was their first swim at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre and the demands of official marshalling procedures, electronic timing systems and intense organisation between individual finals, presentations and team swims left swimmers running on a competition high for days afterwards! 

Team captains Yemaya Coleman-Smith and Max Lambert delivered a heartfelt thanks to their fellow competitors, parents, team manager Andrew Casanova (St Josephs) and coach Carol Veldhuyzen who have put in many hours of hard work at training following the official selection of swimmers into the team some months ago. Yemaya worked hard throughout the meet to present her best performances against a tough field in  her age group. She smashed out a fantastic time in her freestyle final to record a personal best of 33.71. With the finest of margins between 2nd and 4thMax also recorded an impressive freestyle time of 31.47 (4th) and walked away with an individual bronze in the backstroke 40.69.

Congratulations to Harrison Adams who walked away with two individual golds and a team gold medal. He has consistently delivered many personal best swims throughout the season and SAPSASA was no exception. He  completed the 50m freestyle in 35.46 and 50m butterfly 42.30. Also medalling in the same age group were Max Black (silver) in the freestyle 35.84 and breastroke (bronze) 52.03 and Kilani Coleman-Smith (silver) in the breastroke 51.43. Blitzing the pool in the 4 x 50m freestyle relay to take out the 11yr old gold were Harrison Adams, Max Black, Cameron Akehurst and Henry Nelligan. 
 
Also proudly walking away with a team gold medal were the girls 10 year old freestylers. This was their first chance to represent the Lower Eyre Peninsula and they did a fantastic job of managing the pressure of competition. Congratulations Jasmin Clark, Jamie Ford, Dana Reidy and Larissa Sporer who finished 6 seconds infront of the rest of the field. Jamie Ford went on to win an individual gold medal for her gutsy performance in the 50m backstroke (46.10). 

Ellie McInerney provided the team with lots of opportunities to support her on the presentation podium with a gold medal in the girls 10 –13 year old backstroke (1.01.95), a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle (2.04.03)
and another bronze in the 50m freestyle (54.71). 

Zac Kenny competed well for the team progressing through to finals in the 10 year old breastroke and butterfly. He narrowly missed a medal in the breastroke finishing in 4th place (54.99). Also performing well in
the breastroke were Indiana Copeland who medalled in 3rdplace in the 11 year old girls (47.07) and Georgia Kenny (13 year old girls) who finished in 4th position completing the race in 46.14 seconds.

Team performances continued to reap plenty of rewards with the 12 year old girls narrowly walking away with silver in 2.27.25 from gold medallists Barossa and Light (2.26.46). Great swims from team members Asha Edwards, Xanthia Clark, Yemaya Coleman-Smith and Brooklyn George. The 11 year old girls also had the silver medal snatched by less than a tenth of a second to finish in bronze medal position. Gallant swimming from Moet McCathie, Issy Scott, Jessie Ryan and Indiana Copeland. And so too did the 13 year old boys who finished in second place to Gawler by the smallest whisper (.09 of a second). Almost bringing it home in this race were Max Lambert, Kieran Stephens, Christopher Bawden and Conner Barry-Secker.

Other swimmers to manage excellent performances were Tommy Ford who secured the silver medal for the second year running in the 12 year old  backstroke with a personal best swim in the final of  40.56 and Kieran Stephens who improved his 50 butterfly time between his heat and final to finish in 4th position (43.85).

A huge thanks to all of the vocal supporters who made their presence felt during the competition. Selection for next years team is initially based upon performances at the Lower Eyre Peninsula Primary School Carnival held in late October with final selections being made on individual personal best performances. In 2014 swimmers who are born in 2004 will be eligible to participate in the SAPSASA State Carnival.