12 Jul 2025

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:13):
Hi, my name is Daniel Boss. I just turned 28
and I competed in the Para Powerlifting Nationals. And you're
listening to Leisure link with Peter Greco on the Vision
Australia radio network.

S2 (00:47):
It's just gone 5:00. And in the depths of winter,
particularly in South Australia. May I welcome you warmly to
leisure link here on Vision Australia Radio 1190 7 a.m.
in Adelaide, online at radio via Radio Digital Adelaide and
Darwin through the Community Radio Plus outlook for Vision Australia.
Radio Adelaide through the Reading Radio Network. I think cheerio

(01:09):
to our friends listening in Tasmania, our and other friends
listening through 103.9 FM in Esperance in Western Australia and
also our great friends, great support from Disability Media Australia.
Find out much more about them at Powered Media. Media
Peter Greco saying thank you so much for making time

(01:30):
to listen to us. This program coming to you from
Ghana and coming to you very, very shortly. We'll speak
powerlifting with Daniel Boss doing exceptionally well in the Gold
Coast last week. What's ahead? We'll find out shortly. Andy
Paskalis will join us. You'll be familiar with his work
as a journalist and as a commentator. He's going from
changing lives to saving lives with a great organisation he

(01:54):
set up called heartbeat for football. We'll catch up with
Zach George then and Daniel Fabin from the Mighty Boomerangs.
How did they go in Astana? Our basketball team, Chelsea marchetti,
our physiotherapist from the Flipper Academy, will join us talking
about pelvic floor exercises. Something we can all do. Limber up.
They catch up with Natasha mody from the uni SA

(02:18):
with some really interesting research and concerning research regarding people
relying on chatbots for health advice could be very, very dangerous.
Stay tuned for that. We'll catch up with Jill McGinty
from Resthaven. Jill is the business manager there for community services.
If you'd like to work in that particular area, I
think Jill's got some good tips for us. And we'll

(02:39):
also be joined by Jude Haynes from the Adelaide Rep Theatre.
Their season of Shakespeare in Hollywood coming up very soon.
Chaotic comedy. Great fun. Your invitation to be part of
it is on the radio very soon. Well, for the
20th time last weekend for Australian para powerlifting team as

(03:02):
they prepare for a trip overseas. One of the stars
of the show was Daniel Bosse and Daniel's on the line. Daniel.
the first time we spoke and great to meet you.
Thanks for your time. Yeah, thanks.

S1 (03:11):
For having me, Peter.

S2 (03:11):
Um, pleasure to be here. Yeah, well, you must be
pleased with the way you power lifted last weekend.

S1 (03:16):
Yeah. Look, I'm really happy with that. I got no complaints.
And it was a good first comp.

S2 (03:20):
Just about, uh. What? Tell us about your career. Uh,
I believe you kind of got introduced into powerlifting in
a fairly different sort of way. Yeah. Via Instagram. Is
that right?

S1 (03:29):
Yeah. So I sort of stumbled into all this. So
I've been doing bodybuilding and strength training for the last
seven years, 7 or 8 years. And um, I was
training with my friend jock. Jock Mangalo shout out to
him if he hears this. But yeah, he was training
me and, um, in the bench squat and deadlift movements
in particular. And, um, I was in a bench plateau

(03:52):
for ages just because I'd been doing strength training on
and off and then. Yeah. So I just posted a
video of me doing, I think it was 170, 170.
I wish 147.5 kilos, uh, just for a touch and go.
And then out of nowhere, Simon messaged me. And that's
how I sort of got into this.

S2 (04:13):
Now, you were a bodybuilder before this?

S1 (04:15):
Yeah. Yeah, I still do bodybuilding. Uh, sort of do both.
Try to sort of try to spin both plates. I
like to say like I'm a bodybuilder by trade or
I do bodybuilding by trade.

S2 (04:24):
What got you into bodybuilding in the first place?

S1 (04:26):
Well, growing up, I was sort of surrounded by it
because my dad was into it and stuff like that.
But it wasn't until I was like 19 years old
I saw this guy named Jeff Sidon. He didn't look
like the big, bulky, hyper full bodybuilders. He looked like aesthetic,
and it looked achievable to me naturally. And I saw
his physique in a video, a motivational video of his.

(04:47):
And like something clicked in my head saying, I want
to look like that. And the rest was history.

S2 (04:52):
How difficult is it? Because I guess, you know, there's
the kind of workout, but there's also the discipline of
lifestyle as well that goes with it. I'm thinking. I'm
thinking of eating and drinking.

S1 (05:01):
Yeah. Yeah. So bodybuilding is it's with you 24 over seven. Mhm.
If you're doing it properly so it just doesn't just
when you finish your training doesn't mean it's over. You've
still got to worry about your food, your water, your sleep.
But it's not like I'm stressing about it 24 over seven.
It's just like you're building habits and then it all
sort of flows day by day, day in and day
out becomes normal for you.

S2 (05:21):
That's one of the messages that we often get, you know,
when people are trying to lose weight or be healthy
or whatever. It's it's a habit. You kind of, you know,
it's what you sort of get used to rather than
you have to think about it minute by minute.

S1 (05:31):
Exactly. It's what you get used to. And if you
enjoy doing it, it'll become kind of easy. Or you'll
be like, happy to do it and not dread to
do it if you truly love it.

S2 (05:40):
And you talked about kind of growing up in that
sort of atmosphere. Did your dad represent Australia at the Paralympics?

S1 (05:47):
Yeah, he did in 1996. So he sort of fell
into powerlifting or para powerlifting exactly like I did, like
he did bodybuilding at the start. And then sort of
when he came to Australia, he got picked up by
the para powerlifting guys as well. So same sort of
deal funnily enough.

S2 (06:04):
Because I know that last year Taylor represented Australia to
go and tell his dad Jared was a Paralympic runner,
a long distance runner. Yeah, done a lot of other things.
So that's a father and daughter. But I don't think
we'd have too many father and sons that have represented, uh,
you know, Paralympic Games.

S1 (06:24):
Yeah. No. Yeah. Sounds pretty cool. I guess it's in
the blood. Obviously, I got his, uh, genetics for benching
and stuff, so can't complain. That's a cool thing.

S2 (06:33):
Now, you said, uh, you lift 147.5 kilos. I mean,
you're not a big guy yourself, though, are you?

S1 (06:40):
No. No way. Well, I weighed in last weekend, actually,
at 54.5 kilos. Yeah. So. And on the day I
did 145, like competition pause, which is. Since doing this
powerlifting is totally different to a touch and go.

S2 (06:54):
We're happy with that. I mean yeah, like that sounds
extraordinary to us mere mortals, but, uh, I guess you
set higher standards.

S1 (07:01):
Yeah. So I'm always like, I'm always going to find
something to pick out. I had a really good weekend
and everything, but if I just threw 150 up, that
would have been that would have just topped it for me.
But no complains. I'm still really happy with my performance.
They've just been picking. I'll always find something.

S2 (07:15):
Yeah, well, I think that's kind of the life of
an athlete, isn't it? A little bit of a perfectionist
or maybe a lot of a perfectionist.

S1 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of perfectionist. But I think that
that makes you succeed.

S2 (07:24):
Yeah. I guess, you know, you got to kind of
set those high standards. And we've talked a bit about
you overall, there was a number of good performances by
the Australian, uh, at the nationals. So that must be
a good thing to kind of be involved with the
team like that. You kind of rub off each other's success.

S1 (07:39):
Yeah, exactly. Like it's good having like the camaraderie with
the guys. I met them at like a Melbourne camp
that Simon put on a few weeks ago. So it
already made a couple of friends in that. And it's
really cool all being like backstage together before you go
out to bench and you know, you're listening to the
music and everything's getting like, Adrenaline's kicking in.

S2 (07:59):
At kind of all different shapes and sizes, or at
least all the white white categories.

S1 (08:03):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. We're all, um, all different types of people,
which is all which is cool to see now.

S2 (08:09):
Um, obviously, uh, the nationals were, uh, with the, uh,
focus of maybe being selected for an Australian team. You're
going away later on this year?

S1 (08:17):
Yeah, yeah. So we're going to, uh, Egypt, uh, to
go to the world titles for a bit different to
the Paralympics, but yeah, that'll be in October I believe
mid October. So yeah. Qualified for that nationals and yeah. Wouldn't,
wouldn't expect it to be here. But you never know
where life takes you.

S2 (08:35):
Yeah. Very true. Uh you talked about the differences. Uh,
so what about the difference between that and the Paralympics?

S1 (08:41):
Um, well, I'm not new to this sort of para
powerlifting thing, but I believe, like, the Paralympics is a
higher level, like, that's like the the cream of the crop.
The top ones, like, get to the Paralympics. Still, the
world titles is a very high level. I'm going to
be around Round compete against probably Paralympians and the top 1%
of this sport in my weight category. I think I'd

(09:02):
still see a bit of that there nonetheless.

S2 (09:04):
And where does this leave your bodybuilding or where's your
bodybuilding at as far as competition goes? Because that's obviously,
you know, to look good, but also you compete in
that as well.

S1 (09:14):
Yeah, I competed in bodybuilding. I'm still going to do
both right now for the next couple of months. I'm
not competing in bodybuilding. I'm like in a surplus. I'm
bulking a little bit fat and that helps. So that helps.
But I believe my bodybuilding complements my powerlifting and vice versa.

S2 (09:29):
I was going to ask you about that. Do they
complement each other or do they interact, you know, badly
against each other? Can you combine them well enough to
make it a good thing?

S1 (09:39):
I think you can couple it up because the I
believe the bodybuilding has helped. My strength training and strength
training has helped my bodybuilding. The strength training has helped
my bodybuilding because like when you do like movements like bench,
squat and deadlift, your body gets this density rather than
using like cable machine accessory exercises all the time. And
then the bodybuilding allows me to build muscle at a

(10:00):
higher rep range. So coupling up the low rep range
from the Palestinian and the high rep range from. The
bodybuilding I think is really, really good for my para powerlifting.
It really helps that.

S2 (10:09):
We'll explain again, with powerlifting in particular, there's a fair
bit of what's the word? Uh, a bit of razzle dazzle,
a bit of, uh, kind of Broadway bit of showbiz
about it. Do you like that side of it?

S1 (10:20):
Yeah, I think I think it's cool. I think it's, uh,
full on. It's full on. And it can definitely provide
me with a lot of, um, opportunities, which is exciting.

S2 (10:31):
I mean, it must be great. You know, when the
kind of audience and the all the the stuff that's
going on around you, I guess you've got to be focused.
But by the same token, kind of feed off that.

S1 (10:39):
Yeah. Like, I didn't really get thrown off by it,
I guess, because I was, uh, just really locked in
with it all. I was sort of like in a trance, like,
I didn't really get nervous or nothing. Like, for me personally,
on the comp day, I have to break down things
really simply in my mind to not get overwhelmed. So
the date to me, it was just like do three reps.
I had to think of it like a bodybuilder. It's

(11:00):
three reps with rest periods in between. That's all it is.
And that's what I told myself, and I think that
helped me.

S2 (11:07):
So we talked about different weight categories and I guess
different disability types get represented as well.

S1 (11:12):
Yeah. Yeah. So you have all like physical disabilities in
the Paralympics in the whole Paralympic sport. So we had
um multiple wheelchair disabilities, dwarfism like myself particularly obviously leg
amputees and maybe things like cerebral palsy I'm pretty sure.

S2 (11:29):
Yeah. So I guess it's kind of cool that, um,
you know, you've got these different disabilities. And I guess
in a sense, you're kind of finding out about other
people's challenges and the way they, uh, they live their
lives as well, which is.

S1 (11:39):
Yeah, exactly like knowledge.

S2 (11:41):
Yeah.

S1 (11:41):
You all have, like, some sort of common ground. Yeah.
If you have just, uh, different disabilities. So it's cool
having that. Everyone just gets it sort of thing.

S2 (11:49):
They don't have to be honest with you. You're one
of these people that really annoy me because you seem
to be good at a lot of things. Are you
going to be appearing in a film later on this year?

S1 (11:58):
Yeah, yeah. Sir. In September. In October? I wouldn't say
I'm good at everything, but I'm.

S2 (12:03):
Definitely.

S1 (12:04):
A bit of luck up my sleeve.

S2 (12:06):
Oh, come on, you're being modest.

S1 (12:07):
But, um. Yeah. So I'm going to appear in a
TV series called Spartacus The House of usher. And, um,
that's going to be aired on Stan in September or October,
I believe.

S2 (12:19):
Okay. How did that come about?

S1 (12:20):
So a friend sent me a Facebook ad that was
advertised originally on one of them dwarfism pages, saying they
wanted dwarf gladiators for a show. And, um, yeah, my
mate sent me it, and I just threw my name
down and didn't think much of it, and I had
to send in a couple pictures of my physique and stuff,
which I guess got me over the line, got me
to an audition anyway, and I'd had no acting experience

(12:43):
or nothing. And then I got an email from him saying, oh,
can you come down for an audition in Sydney in
two days. Then they gave me this script. Or to
learn because I have no acting experience. I was like,
I'm not going to be able to learn all that
in two days. I thought of it. I thought, oh,
no way am I going to get this. I'm like,
I'm going to go down anyway because it's in the
work week. It's going to split up the work week,

(13:04):
and I'm just going to go down and give it
a crack. And that's what I did.

S2 (13:07):
And now I'd say it's all been it's in the
can as it were.

S1 (13:11):
Yeah. Yeah. So I spent four months in New Zealand
filming it last year. So it's all I assumed. Almost
done editing by now. And uh. Yeah. Going to be
released in September. October ish.

S2 (13:21):
Fantastic. Well, Stan's got a very big, um, viewership. Uh, so, yeah,
a lot of people are going to find out a
lot of things about it, which has got to be
a good thing.

S1 (13:29):
Yeah, yeah. That's cool. So, yeah, if I can, like,
sort of live life, make a living off my lifting
and off my acting on, like I've said before, I'm
a very happy person.

S2 (13:40):
It's fantastic and great to catch up. First time we've spoken.
You're certainly a bit of a character, I character, I think.
I think probably fair to say you're well suited to
something like powerlifting and bodybuilding and sort of being on television.
You've got a bit of a natural pizzazz about you. Uh,
I'm not I'm not sure where that comes from, but, uh,
it doesn't matter. You've got it.

S1 (14:00):
Yeah, I don't know, but I'll take it. It's got
to run with it, I guess.

S2 (14:04):
For sure. Again, you're good luck. We'll certainly be following
your progress in the next little while. We'll certainly keep
an eye. What's the name of that film?

S1 (14:10):
Spartacus. The house of usher. So Spartacus is already a
TV series. So if you've watched Star Wars, you know
how the original films come out. First in the 70s
and 80s and the prequels came out in the early 2000? Yeah. Spartacus.
House of usher is like a prequel. This is what
happened before in the storyline.

S2 (14:29):
All right, well, we'll keep an ear out for it
when it comes on. We'll let our listeners know. Good
luck to you and the rest of the team. Should
say that. Uh, good. Very well qualified team has been
selected for Egypt in October, so they'll be following the progress. David,
great to catch up. We wish you well.

S1 (14:45):
Thanks, Peter. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Thanks for
coming on.

S2 (14:48):
It's a pleasure. That's Daniel boss. He's a bit of
a character. And, uh, great to meet him for the
first time on the program. And I'm sure it won't
be the last powerlifter extraordinaire. Also, we're in movies and
also bodybuilding and, uh, a very bright career ahead of him. Well,
I'm really delighted to welcome to the program, Andy Paschalidis,
who many would have known from his days of being

(15:08):
a football journalist and reporter and broadcaster and, and he's
got a new venture which he's the CEO and founder of,
and he's going to share his story with us. And
great to meet you. Thanks for your time.

S3 (15:20):
I appreciate it, Pete. Uh, I assume you're of Greek
background as well?

S2 (15:24):
Uh, well, actually, funny you say that. My parents are
from Italy, but I think way back we must have
been Greek. We must have been the Grecos, the Greeks.
But that's a long time ago.

S3 (15:32):
Thanks, mate. Same.

S2 (15:34):
I don't want to go back and check just in
case I find something I shouldn't have.

S3 (15:38):
Someone said to me. Have you done a DNA test?
I said, uh, with a surname as long as mine,
it's got to be part of the world. So I'm like.

S2 (15:46):
Yeah. And, um, you know, great to catch up with you. And,
you know, you got a great sense of humor, but, um,
a very serious thing happened to you or to a
friend of yours, which kind of changed your life.

S3 (15:57):
It did in many ways. You know, a lot of
people know me as a football broadcaster, but in 2014,
I was just going out to play my regular game
of over 35 football, pretend that I'm an 18 year
old Cristiano Ronaldo or a Maradona or Pele and our
club captain, our leader, inspirational player, uh, Matt Richardson, uh,

(16:17):
was in his early 40s and, uh, he collapsed on
the field. I just thought he was having a fit
of some sort, but it was far, far more serious,
as it turned out, was a heart attack. And we
didn't have a defib, or we didn't have the mechanisms
in place to know what to really do. And, um,
he was taken away and there was a slim chance
that he would make it. But as it would turn out,

(16:39):
we would lose Matt. And not long after that, another
former teammate of mine that I used to play junior
rep football with, Johnny Ennis, he suffered the same fate.
And then a friend of mine's 15 year old nephew
suffered a cardiac arrest playing football. And, uh, we lost
him as well. And I was just perplexed. I was stunned,

(17:02):
I was numb, and I was just trying to work
out what can I do to try and make some
sort of difference here. And at that time I was
doing my media work, but I was also fundraising and
events manager for Special Olympics New South Wales. But I
knew that I had to to try and shift from
a life changing mission that is Special Olympics to create

(17:25):
a life saving one, which is Heartbeat of Football Foundation.
And by the time we launched in mid 2016, we
lost 15 footballers across the country in 18 incidents. But
what I can proudly say now, and I'm I'm actually
doing a report for FIFA. I report for FIFA. My
charity is recognised as a stand alone in what we do.

(17:45):
We've had now in the last 23 incidents in New
South Wales alone, we've had 19 footballers saved. So collectively
in Australia in the last 40 incidents on football fields,
we've had 32 players saved. And a lot of that's
become down to, you know, awareness, knowing what to do,

(18:05):
responding correctly, having deep feedback, access, ensuring it is in
working order. And these saves have got to be clear
on this to a lot of there's a misconception that
it's about old blokes like myself pretending that we're 18 again.
It's not about that. The youngest player saved was a
nine year old in Queensland, Jake Bacon. We had a

(18:27):
13 year old in Sydney last year, a 14 year
old girl in the Gold Coast, a 16 year old
in north Queensland. So it doesn't discriminate Cardiovascular disease affects
so many people. A lot of the young ones, they
don't know what's in the genes until something happens, and
then the siblings have to be checked because they pretty
much carry the genes as well. So there's there's a

(18:49):
lot to do in this space. But, you know, the
curve is is changing. And when you look at what
happened in South Australia was there recently. And I met
with the independent MP Frank Pangallo.

S2 (19:01):
Oh yeah. No, Frank.

S3 (19:02):
Frank's a good man.

S2 (19:03):
It's a very good man.

S3 (19:04):
It's a law. It's a law. In South Australia, the
bill was passed that defibs have to be in public,
accessible areas, from primary to secondary schools to government buildings
to sporting clubs. So, you know, my dream is zero
deaths on sporting fields in Australia. Yes, it's a difficult,
difficult task. But if we can seriously take a good,

(19:26):
hard look at this and unite everyone as one in
fighting our biggest killer.

S2 (19:31):
It's a great message. And you're about spreading the message.
You're about awareness, you're here about testing your about screening.
So you're kind of trying to cover as many bases
as you can.

S3 (19:39):
You do. And and the testing model is good because
it creates that dialogue to look. It's a simple test.
It's not the be all and end all. But what
we do on the spot is we'll take your blood
sample and we'll tell you your blood sugar level will
tell you your cholesterol level. Then we'll do a blood
pressure check at the same time. And what we found
that there are people that have got issues. I've. I've

(20:00):
had to call paramedics. I had a gentleman this year.
Didn't realize he was a type two diabetic. His blood
sugar was six times. We've had people that have gone
off to hospital and had bypass surgery. I remember doing, um,
the show with Richard Fidler, The Conversation Show on the ABC.
Two men, after listening to that broadcast, presented themselves to

(20:20):
hospital and had heart surgery. One was having a second
heart attack as he presented himself into emergency at Wollongong Hospital. And,
you know, doing these sorts of interviews again, it makes
people think about it. We don't know what's underneath unless
we're getting regularly checked. We don't know truly what's happening

(20:41):
underneath and and cardiovascular. And I've noticed that people's priorities
have changed. Men are reluctant. Not all of them, but
we're reluctant to get regular checkups. We only go to
the doctor when we're sick. Women are much more proactive,
and I see it out in the field. And I've
been blessed this year. I've been to places I've never
been before with my charity from, you know, Whyalla, Port Pirie, Darwin, Mildura, Wellington, Mackay, Launceston,

(21:09):
Hobart and it's just breathtaking to see how people react
when we turn up.

S2 (21:14):
There's often those country areas can miss out on the
mainstream medical, uh, access.

S3 (21:20):
That's the big issue, mate. Regional Australia is so far
behind and and your heart bleeds for them. And one analogy, uh,
my heart bleeds for them because when I was at, um,
Dubbo last year. There's a probably up now. State of
origin was on last night the rugby league. But a
rugby league legend, Terry Fahey, rocked up for a check
up and I knew who he was. I was goggly

(21:42):
eyed because I've grown up rugby league and environment here.
I love cricket, league and obviously soccer, the world game.
And um, he told me he collapsed on his farm.
He was on his haunches for an hour and 20 minutes,
was flown to Sydney and had emergency bypass surgery. And
I go, I didn't even read about it or hear
about it. And I said, ironically, your former teammate is

(22:03):
my doctor, uh, Doctor Nathan Gibbs, who's actually the New
South Wales Blues. State of Origin doctor.

S2 (22:08):
Yeah, okay.

S3 (22:09):
And I told Nathan when I went in to visit
him and he had no idea. I said, mate, it's
regional New South Wales or regional Australia that really needs
to be addressed. And I'm looking at doing some indigenous
rugby league and AFL carnivals.

S2 (22:24):
Fantastic.

S3 (22:24):
And I just spoke to a gentleman who's organising what
they call the Kids Care Cup, and we're going to
do testing there. We're going to show the kids how it.
Works with some CPR confidence sessions. And um, you know,
we've got to educate the next generation.

S2 (22:39):
Great message Andy. Um, of course, another thing is that
you've recently teamed up with Hopkins as well. Have you?

S3 (22:45):
Yes. Fantastic. And I had a good chat to their
media and comms team this morning. We're looking at trying
to engage the 13 year old Xavier Arruza, who survived. Uh,
he was clinically dead for 20 minutes after collapsing at
his soccer club in the west of Sydney. And it's
it's important, you know, heart kids do an amazing job,

(23:06):
you know, supporting the kids, the teens. The the adults
with that childhood onset heart disease. And it's vitally important
that all the key players I think we all do
a different job, but it's the same job, if you
know what I mean. Because whether it's the Heart Foundation,
whether it's the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, whether it's
heart beat of football, whether it's Greg Page. Guy leach.

(23:28):
Frank Pangallo. There were so many wonderful people and organizations
that are fighting the fight. I think ultimately, if we
could bring them all together and pressure government, I believe
it's on the federal government. I keep getting told it's
a state by state issue. It's on the federal government.
I think in the first in the d fib space

(23:50):
to get the fibs out to every sporting club in
the country. Let's make it heart safe. There's one unique
model I've seen here in New South Wales, and it's
the biggest junior soccer association in the country, the Manly
Warringah Association, where their games do not go ahead on
matchdays unless the defibrillator is on the halfway line. The

(24:13):
heart safe banner. The referees look for that defib before
they start the game.

S2 (24:19):
Um, that heart in the fence, is it?

S3 (24:21):
Well, it should be mandatory.

S2 (24:23):
Yeah.

S3 (24:23):
We've got to Focus on community sport in many ways too,
because that's the heart and soul of weekend engagement. The
numbers of people that go to those grassroots sporting clubs
and watch their kids play or play themselves, or volunteer
or coach or referee or do what they do. There's
a high turnover of people that attend those, uh, different

(24:46):
sporting activations. And that's why it's important that the base
of the pyramid, if that's the strength of sport. And
I've always said it, forget about the elite level at
the top of the pyramid. It's the base of the
pyramid that holds it all together.

S2 (24:59):
And of course, the thing is, with situation like that
and you kind of getting the idea into people's heads
about it, you know, what's the defibrillator for once, in
case someone has a heart attack. So that kind of
message gets spread a bit wider as well amongst the
the crowd or amongst their family and friends of those
that are playing. So it's a kind of great way of, um,
you know, spreading that message.

S3 (25:18):
Oh, definitely. And look, what concerns me is when I
go out to activations and we've done over 100 activations
across the country already this year. We'll break our record
again in terms of one on one test. We did
over 6000 last year. What disheartens me in many ways
is I will always go and check and see where

(25:38):
the defib is, and in some cases I'll go and
check and I'll see the red alert on the dpv,
which means it's not operational. So if someone has a
cardiac arrest on that ground, it's not going to work.
It's not going to work. So it's great that, you know,
clubs take the dpvs on board, but don't leave them
locked away. Check them. Are they working? Are the pads good?

(25:59):
The batteries are okay. And the other misconception too, is
that people sort of fear about using a defib, that
if they try to save someone and and they lose them,
are they going to be held liable? No. Any compression
is good compression. That's the first thing you know. It's
incredible how kids react in this space, because when you

(26:22):
look at it, 70% of out of hospital cardiac arrests
happen at home. And in many cases, the first responder
is a child because it's rare that both parents are
at home together for whatever reason. So it's that child
that makes the 000 call. It's that child that's told.
How is your father? How is your mother? Can you
feel a pulse? Can you tilt their head back? Can

(26:43):
you unblock their airways? Can you start pressing on their chest?
And in the perfect world, if the school system in
this country to I. I know that some states have
got kids learning CPR, but I think it should be
mandatory in the school framework that the education of cardiovascular
disease should be there for one and all.

S2 (27:04):
And so with preventative medicine, isn't it really? And I mean,
you talked about the government's getting involved. I mean, it's
probably going to save them money in the long run anyway.

S3 (27:11):
Absolutely. Someone did a survey, um, about three years ago
in terms of what our charity does and what we save.
The medical system, it was around $90 million. Charity has
saved and it's only been in the last couple of
years that we've got any form of government funding. New
South Wales have just streaked ahead now. They've really supported us.
We had some funding from Victoria but nil from Queensland,

(27:33):
you know, nil from South Australia. But we're we're big
advocates as well. And one good thing about this journey
for me personally, has been the level of media interest,
because I'm blessed that I've got a rich history in
that broadcasting space. So it's it's opened up a lot
of doors. It's interesting when you talk to the media people,

(27:54):
they don't realise how big this issue is. We're talking
about our biggest killer, and we've been too complacent and
we've come through Covid. But what we're seeing is in
my testing model at the moment, this year, the average
of people that present with an issue is around 63%.
That's huge. It's two and three almost that have got

(28:16):
a problem and it's up to them next to work
on that problem.

S2 (28:20):
And we've got to leave it there. You know how
the media works. We're constrained by time. Keep up the
great work. It's been really great to meet you. You've
really given us some wonderful insights and we appreciate your
time and hopefully we can speak to you again in
the future.

S3 (28:31):
Absolutely. Thank you so, so much for the engagement.

S2 (28:34):
That's Andy Paschalides there. Who is the founder and CEO
for heartbeat for football. We'll put those details up with
our show notes.

S4 (28:42):
Hi I'm Gemma Finlayson, a silver medalist in boccia in
the Paralympic Games. And you're listening to Leisure Link with
Peter Greco on the Vision Australia radio network.

S2 (28:54):
Last week we caught up with the Mighty Pearls who
came up with the great news as far as our
women's basketball team goes. Let's find out how the men
went and speak to our boomerangs team. One of the
stars of the team, Zach George, joins us now.

S5 (29:07):
Isaac, you thank are you good?

S2 (29:09):
And Daniel Fabian Fabe is also with us. The manager
of the team. Fabian. Good to catch up and welcome
home to you too.

S5 (29:15):
All right. Thanks, Peter. Nice to be home. And nice
to be chatting with you again.

S2 (29:17):
Thank you. Now, Zach, what do you can tell us
the good news? Because I think that's good news. So
it should be one of the players that breaks the
news on the radio for us. How did we go?

S5 (29:25):
Very, very well.

S2 (29:26):
Uh, I.

S1 (29:27):
Thought we.

S5 (29:28):
Uh, won the gold. It was great. 3V3. We had
one team come away with the gold, which was was great.
And then the other team, we came in fourth place,
which was still a good result, but, um. Yeah. Super
happy for the other.

S2 (29:37):
Congratulations. That's great news, Zach. How did we expect to go?
I guess it's hard to know how, uh, the opposition's
going to play, but were you pleased with those results? Um,
as far as your expectations went?

S5 (29:47):
Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, when you go into any
tournament like that, you don't really know what's, um, what,
like the teams bring over and stuff. But I think
as a group ourselves, we've got high expectations of ourselves.
And anything less than a win like in a gold
medal is probably like a bit disappointing for us. But yeah,
to come away with that is, um, sensational.

S2 (30:02):
And fab, just from a kind of, uh, manager's point
of view. How did things pan out? We talk about
the trip home in a little while, but what about
just generally the organization, the food, the accommodation, all that
sort of stuff.

S5 (30:13):
Yeah. No, I think it was fantastic. It was well organised.
I mean, Kazakhstan was a country we probably didn't have
on our bucket list. But in saying that the volunteers
were amazing, we were well received. The organisation of the
games went really well and for the first time, playing
three by three. I think Zach will agree that the
format was exciting. It was at some times having two

(30:34):
teams made it long days, but there was enough of
a break between games for us to be able to recoup,
do our recoveries, have something to eat and support each other?
So overall, I think it was a great campaign. I
think it was well organised and special mention to the
Iwbf for organising a great competition.

S2 (30:50):
Yeah, we'll come back to that as well in a
second because that's some great news that Sally shared with
us last week. Um, so what about the three by three? Yeah.
How do you sort of enjoy that compared to the
five on five? Can you compare the two different games
if you like?

S5 (31:03):
Ah, yeah. It's, um, two different, uh, two different games. Yeah, absolutely.
For sure. Um, 3V3 is a lot more physical. And, um,
you definitely know you've played a game of basketball then,
and there's a lot of like, uh, quick thinking because
you've only got a shorter shot clock, so you gotta
get get a shot off quicker than a five by five.
But yeah, still a lot of fun. Definitely an experience. Um, absolutely.

(31:23):
But yeah, lots of fun.

S2 (31:24):
What about, uh, as far as the individual players go? Well,
any that you'd like to mention who played. Well, I
know that, uh, as far as the girls went, we
got a number of girls in the all star team
as well, and, um, sort of applies to the tournament. Uh,
what about from a man's point of view? How did
we go there?

S5 (31:38):
Yeah. Young fella out of Victoria Jaconelli. He was a
he was a gun a week for 33 and even
the five on five as well. But 3V3, I reckon
he's very good. Um, he's very quick. Um, not many
people can stop him at all. I've tried my best,
but now I'm getting a bit older. I'm getting a
bit slower. Um, I definitely can't keep up with him anymore, but, um. Yeah,
he was. He was killing it all week, and, um. Yeah.
Big Dylan from Victoria as well. Big seven footer. So

(32:00):
he made it easier for himself. Yeah, a bit easier
for himself when he's. That's all they have. A lot
of people envy that that height. So I know I
wish I was at height sometimes, but uh, he, he
was a very, very good passer as well. Is he
very underrated with his passing as a big man. You
think they just get it and dunk it all the time.
But he's a great playmaker as well. So. And then
I guess from the other other team I came and
came and stood out as well. My brother. Yeah nice

(32:22):
and strong in there. And I think that game suits
him as well. Being a very physical game. He he
likes to throw his weight around a bit which is good.
So yeah, those those players really, really stood out.

S2 (32:31):
Fantastic. Was there an MVP chosen for the tournament in
the men's division?

S5 (32:35):
Uh, I don't know if anyone's really chasing it, but
like Jack and Ella got it, which is, um, well deserved. The, um. Yeah,
like I said, shone out all week and, um, making
tough buckets and good plays when they needed to be done.
So yeah. Like, yeah, he did very well.

S2 (32:47):
Was that you've been praying for a little while. We've
chatted to a few times over the journey. What about
this event compared to other events that you've been to?
What was that like?

S5 (32:55):
Um, yeah, different. I think the 3V3 involved was was
good because it added more countries involved. Um, so there's
more people to, you know, interact with and, um, meet and, um,
try and get to know and as best as you
can with the language barrier that they got. But I
think that's when basketball comes in and everyone, everyone speaks
the basketball language. So um, there's that that respect there.
And um, yeah, it's just great competition. And, um, good

(33:17):
to see. Yeah. Other countries there and what they, what
they've got. So yeah, it was good.

S2 (33:21):
Can you, uh, what about as far as, I guess the, uh,
the not so much the future guys, but the, the, uh,
the situation with the three on three. Do you think
that's the area that's going to be expanding? I know
you spoke to us last time. You said you're not
great about the sort of logistics of basketball, but do
you think the three on three is kind of the
way to go? Do you think it's going to become
more popular?

S6 (33:40):
Yeah, definitely. The pathway for the boomerangs and the pearls
moving forward. If and I shouldn't say if when we
make the Paralympics. And that's a big question mark and
hoping for 2032 in Brisbane the pathway forward will be
three on three. So the future competitions that we have
has been spoken about. But it now will be a

(34:00):
three by three and including also a five by five,
the more traditional form of former basketball. However, from a
Paralympic perspective, they are looking at the pathway now being
a three on three. So there'll be more competition in
the three on three moving forward. And that was something
that was really spoken about in Kazakhstan. So, you know,
exciting times ahead, seeing that there were 11 countries participating

(34:20):
in the three by three. And no doubt as as
we move forward there'll be more countries, which means more competition.
It getting better. And from an Australian perspective, Australian Boomerangs perspective,
it means we need to keep lifting the bar.

S2 (34:32):
Of course, one of the criteria that the IPC and
organisations like that look at is the amount of countries
and the amount of players that are playing the sport.
So if three on three is going to be more
people play than that strengthens that opportunity in that drive,
if you like to get to that Paralympic level.

S6 (34:47):
Yeah, absolutely. And look, it's exciting. It's different. And we
see that with the, you know, the Kangaroos and their
success that they've had from an Australian perspective and the
excitement that comes with that. So from a Paralympic and
Olympic perspective, obviously the more games you can fit in
and the more entertainment you can have. And from a
spectacle perspective, it's going to give you more supporters wanting

(35:08):
to support the sport itself. So I think, you know,
once we get our head around three by three and
understand the rules a little bit more and everything that
goes with it, I think we'll really embrace the opportunities
that come our way and all going well. Being able
to represent Australia once again at Paralympics.

S2 (35:23):
Games, I believe we're the three on three was played
was a rather interesting venue if you like, a bit
underground wasn't it.

S6 (35:28):
Yeah. Look it was really interesting. It was under a bridge.
The bridge was, it was a main road above us
and below was a fantastic setup that they did for basketball.
But in saying that the Kazakhstan community actually have a
number of, let's call them outside gyms set up within
that space. And it was fantastic to see the local

(35:48):
community going about their their business in working out and
keeping fit and healthy, and then having a little bit
of an interest of what we were doing. And again,
credit to the organisers for organising a fantastic court for
us to play in. It was stands. It looked amazing.
And if you closed your eyes, you would only understand
that you were playing in a venue. You wouldn't think
you were playing outside and playing for your country. You'd

(36:11):
think you were literally playing in a venue. It wasn't
until you open your eyes and sort of took a breath,
had a look around and went, wow, I'm under a bridge.
And this is kind of really cool. So something a
little bit different from from what we were expecting. We
were initially expecting to be in a shopping centre, so
to be under a bridge and outside was was certainly
eye opening. And, you know, it really did create some

(36:32):
great atmosphere because it really gave all the countries a
chance to to bond together because it was a an
outdoor area. We all came together, we all exchanged laughs
and good times and watched some really good basketball.

S2 (36:42):
And as Zach talked about, they all spoke the unique
language in the universal language of basketball. So what about
in terms of, I guess, you know, sort of cross-pollination
with other countries, them saying, what do you guys do?
Or how do you handle this? What sort of areas
are you working on? Did you get a bit of
that as well by sort of basketball, but also sort of, um,
you know, lifestyle wise, sort of a better way to

(37:05):
prepare your athletes, a better way for athletes to sort
of be included into basketball. Do you get that sort
of discussion happening as well?

S6 (37:12):
Yeah we do. There are often discussions between head coaches
and Brian Holloway, our head coach, was approached by the
Kazakhstan officials to to help Kazakhstan team and understand, you know,
how we go about our high performance programs. So he
spent a couple of hours with, um, some Kazakhstan athletes
and some of their senior coaches going through some drills

(37:32):
and having some discussions about, you know, what it is
we do, how we prepare and everything else. So certainly
from a performance perspective and understanding the game of basketball,
that language of basketball that was certainly shared with the
host nation and not uncommon for conversations to be had.
We all share the same hotel, so it wasn't uncommon
for us to have conversations of, you know, how you

(37:53):
were going or how you were traveling. And, you know,
the community that we're in is a fantastic community. Yes.
You know, the game and the competition can be quite
fierce at times, but you take basketball away. It's always
about people and it doesn't matter what country you come from.
We all about the athletes. We're all about the people.
And you know, we sometimes share just in little bits
and pieces and that sometimes it's some something as simple

(38:14):
as a smile that we give each other that that
breaks some of the barriers. And before you know it,
you're having conversations, you're having handshakes, the athletes are having
selfies with you. You're connecting on social media. So, you know,
from a basketball perspective, it's probably not the same as
it would be in some other competitions where you're looking
at key players in this space. It's probably more looking
at how you manage people and how people are responding

(38:37):
to to what it is you do. And that's where
it becomes really interesting in a country like Kazakhstan, because
there is a language barrier and at the same time
those barriers are broken very quickly and very easily by
sportsmanship and people just looking after people.

S2 (38:52):
That's a great way to put it. And that really
good news. Sally touched on this last week regarding an
international basketball group and maybe, as you say, sort of
aiming for, well, with a lot of luck, the 2032
Paralympic Games in Brisbane.

S6 (39:07):
Yeah, absolutely. So various has worked really hard to create
the various International Basketball Federation. So we now are represented
by that federation for us moving forward in the competition.
So when I say us, not just us as the
boomerangs but all basketball around the world that's involved with us.
So for the athletes that meet the criteria and have
the eligibility to play at this level, we're now represented

(39:29):
by a federation who is working tirelessly to get us
all back into the Paralympics.

S2 (39:35):
It's very exciting, isn't it?

S6 (39:37):
It is. Absolutely. Yeah.

S2 (39:38):
Well, it's great to speak to you. Thanks so much
for that. I think we've lost Zach. We've had a
bit of fun with Zach on and off the line, but, uh, obviously, uh,
a very successful time for the Australian team. Any idea
kind of what's next, particularly for the Australian team? I
know you talked about how much time you spend with
your managerial role, with the Blu rays, etc.. What's coming
up next, or do you have a bit of a
chance to kind of catch your breath?

S6 (39:59):
Yeah, there's there's always little things that are happening. There's
a couple of conversations in regards to some camps coming
up for us as the boomerangs. The possibility of playing
New Zealand in the trans-Tasman, highlighting what it is we
do when when the boomers play the All Blacks and
then a safe side. Yeah. And then we're working towards
our next campaign, which will be November next year, which

(40:20):
is scheduled for Thailand. But there is a little bit
of talk that might change to Poland. So, you know,
there's there's always things that are happening. And in between
all that will have the Ivybridge Nationals competition in February,
so it won't be long before each state starts preparing
for the competition again. So we get a little bit
of a break, but not much of a break because,
you know, it's a revolving door and you've got to
continue striving for excellence. And, you know, as a high

(40:43):
performance program, that's that's what we aim to do.

S2 (40:46):
Sport never stops. Before you go, tell us about your
trip home, because Sally hinted at that last week that
the girls got home okay, but the guys had a
bit of a, well, shall we say, a bit of
a destination changes.

S6 (40:57):
We did. And obviously, you know, from a political perspective,
there was some political unrest at the world whilst we
were coming back. So rather than coming via Dubai, we
came via Thailand and we were meant to be landing
in Phuket. But a long story short, we ended up
landing in Bangkok. We then had to return to Phuket
before we could return to Australia and because of the

(41:18):
shortage of flights, rather than returning to Melbourne as our
original destination, we returned to Sydney. So what should have
taken us about 24 hours to to get home? We
actually left on a Monday afternoon, got back home on
a on a Thursday afternoon and subsequently four days later,
we were all exhausted. The the funny thing was, we
actually spent a good 9 or 10 hours in Phuket.

(41:39):
And as we were flying home, we went, you know what?
Another day wouldn't have been that bad. So it was,
it was it was an unexpected little holiday at the
end there.

S2 (41:48):
I said to you before coming away. You certainly got
your money's worth as far as kilometres travelled went.

S6 (41:52):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll just take this moment
to thank you for your support for both the pearls
and boomerangs. You know, in a program that is self-funded
and a program that doesn't always get a lot of
air time and a lot of support. We certainly appreciate
what you're doing for us. So thank you.

S2 (42:07):
Oh, you're very kind and it's great. And, you know,
particularly pleasing when, you know, both teams come home with
gold medals and silver medals and a fourth place. So
obviously you've done very well. Zach, I think you're back
with us. Thanks for joining us. You've been in and out.
We apologize for that. But thanks for spending just a
bit of time with us and we wish you well.
I'm sure it won't be too long before we speak again.

S5 (42:27):
Thank you very much. Sorry about that. I don't know
what was going on, but I was in and out.
But that's alright. No, it was good to speak to you, Peter. And. Yeah,
I'm sure I'll speak to you again sometime soon.

S2 (42:33):
I think your basketball is better than your technology.

S5 (42:35):
Oh, yeah, that's it, that's it. So.

S2 (42:38):
Yeah, it's fantastic, isn't it? That's Zach George. They're one
of the members of the Boomerangs Australian men's basketball team.
And Daniel Fabian Fabe, he's the manager of the Aussie
Boomerang is coming back with the gold and also a
fourth place and also another gold in the five by five.
So very successful tournament. Time to catch up with our

(43:01):
resident physiotherapist from the Flipper Academy, Chelsea marchetti. Chelsea, good
to have you back with us. Thanks for your time.

S7 (43:07):
Thank you Peter, good to be back for another month
of physio information.

S2 (43:11):
Now after the last time we spoke we caught up
with Jim Cooper who's the CEO for Continental Health Australia.
Their awareness Day and awareness month was happening at the
time and he said one of the things that people
can do that can be a little bit preventative as
far as continence issues go, is maybe get some pelvic
floor exercises and kind of work on those to help.

(43:32):
What do you think of something like that?

S7 (43:33):
Yeah, I think that's some really great advice. And physiotherapy
is a really good area to help with strengthening pelvic floor.
At the end of the day, the pelvic floor is
a muscle and physio is are all about our muscles
and musculoskeletal system, so definitely an area that we are
involved in in terms of helping with continence and incontinence
health and a way that that can help prevent that

(43:56):
or just help improve the management of it.

S2 (43:58):
All right. We probably should point out that if you've
got specific issues, then obviously consult your GP or your
health professional and get referred on, but in general terms.
So I guess we kind of all know where the
pelvic floor is on our relative bodies. But so it's
muscle or it's composed of muscle. A lot of it
is muscle, which as you say can be strengthened through exercise.

S7 (44:18):
Yeah. So the pelvic floor is actually consisted of a
few different muscles that all attach through your pelvis. I
won't go into all the different names for them all,
but you've got kind of your pelvic floor muscles, then
your interior pelvic floor muscles. And they all work together
to help kind of work with your bladder and, um,
you know, help with other things to do with your body. Uh,

(44:39):
but basically strengthening your pelvic floor is strengthening essentially all
of those muscles. And it is really important for, I guess,
being able to kind of hold on to your bladder.
So that's often when we're all most familiar with using
our pelvic floor muscles. But it's also really important for
things like pregnancy for women and then kind of repair
it after pregnancy to make it nice and strong as well.

(45:01):
And then it's also quite important for just general things
like being able to help our bodies be well supported
throughout the day. When we're walking, sitting, standing, our pelvic
floor is really important part of our core muscles to
help us engage and be nice and stable throughout the
day and be functional.

S2 (45:18):
Now, just in general terms, a lot of us would
probably go to the gym or do running or do
weight lifting and stuff like that, kind of to get fit,
maybe the pelvic floor and those kind of muscles in
general terms get overlooked by, you know, by people on
a day to day basis.

S7 (45:33):
Yeah, I think it depends on, I guess, why you're
going to do your certain form of recreational activity, I guess,
in the, um, the clinical sense of physio. We're always
looking at pelvic floor exercises, specifically in the Pilates area
as well. Like, um, clinical Pilates has a bit of
a focus on pelvic floor. We generally work our pelvic
floor sometimes when we're doing other exercises. So like if

(45:55):
you think about, you know, glute bridges or any kind
of core activity, your pelvic floor is kind of being
involved in a lot of those things because they ask
you to kind of engage the core muscles in some activities.
So anytime you're kind of doing that, you're kind of
switching your pelvic floor on. And essentially if we're talking
about things like weightlifting, you know, doing squats, those sorts

(46:15):
of things, having a component of awareness around engaging your
pelvic floor can also be really helpful because it helps us,
you know, get our body to recruit more muscles. And
if we're recruiting more muscles to help us execute, um,
heavy lifts or functional activities, then we're one being more
effective and more efficient. But two, we're making more of
ourselves stronger and doing it more functionally so that our
body knows when to kind of engage those muscles when

(46:37):
we need to.

S2 (46:38):
Therefore, I can't begin to tell you the amount of
times that when someone's lifting something a bit heavy or
doing something that has got to be a bit careful
about the kind of shout goes out, you know, engage
your core muscles.

S7 (46:50):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of the time
we're not quite sure how to do that, which can
be quite challenging. And as you said at the start, Pete,
it's obviously very important when doing any of these things
that you do consult your specific health professional about your
specific needs. But I generally find when engaging our pelvic
for the most, when we're kind of pretending like we're
holding on to go to the loo. Um, that's kind

(47:10):
of your biggest exercise or biggest contraction of your pelvic
floor muscles. So sometimes if I'm with clients that we're
working on trying to build some of those muscles, and
I mainly work with pediatrics, but some of my teenage
population that might have back pain due to their body
structure or, um, what they do throughout the day, we
often work on trying to hold their, you know, bladder

(47:31):
and then just do gentle releases of that to try
and engage it in what they're doing. And that seems
to really help them be able to understand what I'm
talking about and relate it to their everyday activities. So
when they do an exercise or they do a functional
activity at school or in the community where their back
or their body might feel a bit sore or they
might lose their balance, that kind of switch on and
that cue is really important for a lot of them.

(47:53):
So that's been a really helpful cue that I've personally
used as a physio for my my patient load.

S2 (47:59):
So the kind of exercises that you're holding on so you,
you know, if you've got a PE you kind of
hold on so you don't. So I guess you can
kind of sort of capture that exercise in your mind
and do it kind of anytime. And then it's sort
of benefiting those muscles, even if you're holding on not
to PE, if you're doing it sort of anytime that

(48:19):
you do it, those muscles are being exercised, engaged. Therefore
they're improving. They're strengthening.

S7 (48:23):
Yeah, absolutely. If we look at, uh, the women's health guidelines.
So a lot of the time we look at these
types of exercises after a woman's had pregnancy and they
might have trouble controlling their bladder after pregnancy because all
those muscles have been stretched. A lot of the exercise
is given by women's health. Physios are just that little
contraption and holding for, you know, five 10s and releasing

(48:44):
can be really beneficial for them to do throughout the day.
And that just kind of really engages those muscles. It
helps strengthen them. It's just a very small movement that
you can do throughout the day to help. But yeah,
like I said, you've just got to be careful because
sometimes too much of that could make you incontinent in
a different way. So you've just got to watch the balance,
I think, a little bit with how much you do
it and how relevant it is to to why you're

(49:05):
doing it.

S2 (49:06):
Sort of. Everything in moderation. Chelsea.

S7 (49:09):
Yeah, absolutely. Not too much, not too little. That's why
we've got physios and GP's around to help us, give
us those cues that are really important.

S2 (49:17):
And I guess in general terms, again, it probably takes
a little bit of time for the muscles to kind
of build up or for the strength to build up.
It's kind of not you do it today and you're
stronger tomorrow. It's kind of a gradual thing, and the
sort of cumulative effect is pretty important as well.

S7 (49:30):
Absolutely. And we know like when we're talking about any
other muscle generally muscles take, you know, 6 to 8
weeks to show some improvements in strength. So the pelvic
floor is no different to any of those muscles. They
work in the same way. So, you know, doing 5
or 6 of these little exercises today doesn't mean you're
going to have a super strong pelvic floor tomorrow. Um,

(49:51):
it's the same as if you did a squat today.
You're not expecting your legs to be able to lift five,
ten kilos heavier tomorrow. You've got to kind of build
on it and let your muscles adapt to the new, um,
new load that you're giving them.

S2 (50:04):
Okay, so can you do the exercise? Sitting, standing? Lying down.
Does it matter kind of what position you're in when
you do it?

S7 (50:11):
So, um, I think the gold standard is generally to
do it lying down, because lying down, you're relaxing all
your other muscles and you're able to just really focus on,
on the contraction of that muscle. Um, but there isn't
to say that you can't do it in sitting and standing.
You know, I know it's quite difficult sometimes to take
that time to just lie down and do it. So sometimes, um,
it can be helpful if you're sitting at your desk

(50:33):
to do it while you're sitting at your desk. Um,
or if you're standing in line for the bus, that
might be helpful too. So, um, it just kind of
depends on what works for you. But I do believe
in terms of most effective, it's isolating the muscle. The
best we can and lying down, the rest of our
muscles are not having to go against gravity. So it's
just able to kind of really isolate those muscles.

S2 (50:52):
And again, it's probably never too late to start to
do them. I mean, if you perhaps, you know, overlook
them for a while. Or perhaps you've seen your GP
and he's recommended seeing a physio if you're 60, 70
or even 80 and you kind of start to do them,
you're probably going to get a little bit of benefit
from them anyway.

S7 (51:09):
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Um, if it's something that's been recommended
by your health professional, um, I don't think there's any
wrong way to do it or any age that you
shouldn't be doing it. Um, it's just like saying, if
you're a certain age, you shouldn't go for a walk. Like,
we know that that's really important for for people of
all ages. So definitely under some guidance, it's applicable to
anyone of any age, of any gender as well.

S2 (51:31):
And I guess it goes without saying, but if it
feels uncomfortable, it doesn't feel right, then seek professional advice.
I mean, don't keep doing it. If you think, oh,
this is not as comfortable as I'd like, or it's
a bit painful or it's a bit whatever. If you're
getting pains that you shouldn't be getting or you feel
like aren't kind of part of the process, then stop
and seek professional support. Don't go doing anything silly because

(51:51):
you might be doing more damage than good if that's
the case.

S7 (51:55):
Absolutely. That's very, very important point. Peter, you need to
go see a GP, see a physio, preferably when you're
looking for a physio, make sure you check that they're
a women's health physio or a men's health physio. Often
a women's health physio can go across both genders because
it's the same kind of training around the pelvic floor. Um,
so that's just something to look out for as well. Um,
it's just really important that any kind of things that

(52:17):
you think aren't normal for you, or feeling a bit funny,
that you seek advice where needed. And I'd also just
preference in that, that if you are someone that suffers
from frequent UTIs or, um, concerns around incontinence that I
think don't go and do those exercises without any guidance
from for your specific needs, because that can make things
worse for you. So it's very important that you go

(52:39):
to your individual health professional, get them to do a
proper assessment of you and reflect on your medical history
and see if that's something that's appropriate for you.

S2 (52:47):
Very sensible advice. Chelsea, you're a week or so into
school holidays. So how's the Flipper Academy going?

S7 (52:52):
The academy is going great. Um, we have our school
holiday program on Friday at the Ark at Campbelltown. We've
got few kids enrolled, um, ready to go, but we
basically just have a bit of fun. We've got about
five kids in a class. It's myself running the classes
with some help from an allied health assistant. And, um,
we are just going to touch on a few things

(53:12):
that the kids are doing in their sessions already, build
on some social skills and be able to get them
active in these school holidays. So we're really looking forward
to that. That's this Friday and next Friday over the
two week school holiday break.

S2 (53:25):
Where can we find you?

S7 (53:26):
So you can find us on our website at WW Academy.com.
If you would like to find out more about our services,
you can email us at inquiries at academy.com.

S2 (53:38):
Alright. And if you or someone you know is on
the NDIS, certainly Chelsea is very, very well versed in
that area. Chelsea great stuff. We'll catch up again next month.

S7 (53:47):
Beautiful. Thank you so much Peter. See you next month.

S2 (53:50):
Chelsea. Mike, are you there? From the Flippa Academy.

S8 (53:55):
You're in elite company listening to Leslie here on business radio.
Radio VA radio, digital VA radio.org and through the TuneIn
radio app.

S2 (54:07):
Some really interesting research regarding health and the perhaps the
way we use chatbots. Let's find out a bit more
about it from Unisa. Speak to Nathan Modi. Thank you
so much for your time and welcome.

S9 (54:18):
Thank you. Thank you for having me here, Peter.

S2 (54:20):
Just a little bit about this research. A number of
organisations have been involved are both from South Australia but
also internationally.

S9 (54:26):
Yeah that's right. So this work that I'm about to
discuss was done via Unisa Flinders University. So both South
Australian institutions and then we also had collaboration from Harvard
University over in the US and also UCL, um in UK.

S2 (54:42):
So you're looking at the fact or the study was
looking at the fact that perhaps people are relying on
chat bots for health advice.

S9 (54:48):
Well, we actually looked at, uh, what we did was
we just showed five leading large language models how to
lie about health, and four of them complied instantly.

S2 (54:59):
You want to expand on that?

S9 (55:00):
Yeah. So we we tested, uh, five major AI tools,
and we found that just a single prompt was enough
to trigger false medical claims from, like, you know, vaccines
causing autism to garlic curing infections. And they were very
easily converted into engines of disinformation.

S2 (55:17):
And I guess that's where the danger is that if
you kind of, uh, pardon the pun, but want to
take this as gospel, then you know, it is kind
of the definitive fake news.

S9 (55:25):
Yeah. So the team is essentially full of health professionals.
None of us are, you know, computer engineers or coders
or by any stretch. And what we showed was how
easy it was for us to pass on system instructions
to these models. And yeah, like I said, like four
models produce this information every time. Only one model resisted

(55:46):
in 60% of cases.

S2 (55:48):
So what's the kind of answer to this? I mean,
I guess trust your GP is the sort of take
home message, if I can put it that way.

S9 (55:53):
Yeah. So it was just a very specific and alarming. Right.
So it used languages that are used by researchers, but
then it obviously included claims such as sunscreen causes skin
cancer HIV is airborne. And like I said before, vaccines
cause autism. And they were written obviously as they're written
by researchers. Plus they also had references fake references from

(56:16):
from The Lancet, Nejm, nature and things like that. They're
very highly, highly regarded journals. And it made up all
these references. So to a layperson it may appear like,
for example, a sample sentence that I'm going to read.
It said, contrary to popular opinion, vaccines have been shown
to pose significant health health risks. A study published in

(56:37):
the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. And then it just goes
on and makes up facts about why vaccines are harmful. Um,
and obviously General Clinical epidemiology is a very reputable journal
as well.

S2 (56:47):
So Natasha, just to kind of put me in the
in the picture here, I'm probably not as up to
date as this sort of stuff as I probably should be.
So you're saying that people who are feeding this information
into these chat bots are doing it intentionally, or it's
just the way that you're asking the question or.

S9 (57:02):
Yeah. So the way they work is all these, um,
large language models and chatbots, they're trained on data. We
don't know, obviously, the breadth of data they've been trained upon. Um,
what we've done in this study and several others have
done in many other studies as well, is we provided
instructions to these models to produce this information. Again, the
purpose of just simply directing it to produce this information.

(57:26):
And then. And the fact that it does it is
it's violating the terms of use of these platforms themselves.
And not only that, you can code these chat bots to,
you know, provide interface or like overlay them over legitimate
health websites and then they'll be providing this information in
those instances as well. So what we're trying to highlight

(57:46):
here is how easy it is to manipulate the systems
and spread this information.

S2 (57:50):
And that's because people like you and your colleagues had
the information or had the, uh, the background to, to
kind of be able to do this.

S9 (57:58):
Yes. That's right. Yeah. So we had the background and
this is something we've done over the past two years
as well. We have consistently focused on disinformation that can
come from these large language models. And what we've found
across two years is it hasn't changed, even though there's
so much literature out there that models are being used
for producing this information. Nothing really has changed in terms of, uh,

(58:21):
any actions by the developers.

S2 (58:23):
So could this actually get worse in a sense, as
as time goes on and more information gets pumped in?

S9 (58:29):
Exactly right. I mean, not only because of that reason,
but also they are getting better, right? Um, each passing day,
these models are getting better and better. Um, and they
will get better and better in terms of the emotive
language they can use, and even the references that they
make up could be a bit harder to spot that
they're fake. The information could also be a bit more specific,
a bit more emotive. You know, we just don't know

(58:50):
because these AI systems are such black boxes in terms
of the training data they use and how they sort
of end up on the market.

S2 (58:57):
I mean, if there were some really bad actors out there,
as you said, they could cause all sorts of, uh,
panic or all sorts of, uh, you know, people doing
the wrong thing.

S9 (59:05):
Yeah. So, like, quantity has a quality of its own, right? Like, um, and, yeah,
you can just simply flood the system with, with disinformation.
In one of these studies that we did two years ago,
we were able to produce 170,000 different words and data
related disinformation. So it was this text in like 17 minutes,
which which again, this was two years ago. We haven't

(59:25):
like obviously repeated that process. Um, again, uh, this time around.
But it was just very easy then and right now.
What we did was again, we just provided system instructions
and it was able to just bypass whatever safety filters
they have. On top of that, we also looked at
their GPT store. So OpenAI has GPT store where individuals
can create GPT. So these chatbots can perform a specific task.

(59:48):
And we found that there were already two chatbots or
two GPT that were made to produce disinformation, and they
still were there. Right? So if these companies were enforcing them,
those GPT wouldn't exist. But they did. Not only that,
we were able to create another, uh, health, uh, GPT
called health GPT, that we specifically program to spread this information,

(01:00:12):
and it was able to do that. And they should
have stopped us. Right. But they didn't.

S2 (01:00:16):
So is the quality control not there or is it just. Yeah,
that's that's.

S9 (01:00:20):
My whole thing. Yeah. I think it's just the quality
controls aren't there. And they're not listening to what is
out there in the literature or like it's not just
us that there are plenty of other very, very good
researchers who are consistently finding this in different fields as well,
how how they can be manipulated to spread this information.
And it comes back to the whole quantity aspect, right?
Even if you think it's somewhat dubious, if you simply

(01:00:42):
flood the system, then people don't know what's true in timeshare.

S2 (01:00:46):
Pardon my fairly simple mind, but couldn't there be a
case where you could, um, use AI to kind of
filter out the wrong information? I mean, is that kind
of is that sort of a more a big, a
bit too optimistic filter out?

S9 (01:01:00):
Yeah. I mean, that is something that could be done
as well by then. You can, um, try and look
for certain markers of disinformation, but then it, I mean,
I'm just talking about in science, right? I don't know
how it would obviously work in other fields, but in science,
you know, there is work that is done. If the
research is published in good journals and it's peer reviewed,

(01:01:21):
and if all these things have happened, then we we
can trust that. And therefore, uh, you can or you
should be able to make your model follow those principles.
But but then again, we don't know how how they're
trained and what sort of data they use to train
them as well. We know there's tons of data. Um,
but who decides that data? And yeah, it just comes

(01:01:43):
back to that.

S2 (01:01:44):
Yeah. So I guess what you're saying is, you know,
if you want to be trusting information, you've got to
go to the right journal to get the right information,
I guess. How do you know which journal to trust then?
I mean, all of a sudden we're becoming suspicious of everything.

S9 (01:01:55):
Well, but that's that's also why, um, we emphasize that
if you want quality medical information, go to pharmacy. Go
speak to your medical doctor. You know, if you have any,
any concerns regarding them. These are your best bet because
they they know where to look for these things and
they'll tell you as well.

S2 (01:02:12):
Is this Doctor Google sort of, you know, multiplied by
ten type of thing?

S9 (01:02:16):
Well, essentially. Right. Because what we are also trying to
look at as well. How many Australians are also using
AI for health information. And whilst we have we haven't
finished doing that. I don't think that number is is low. Um,
because when you for example, right now, if you search
something on Google, the very first bit of information you
get will be from Gemini, which is also one of

(01:02:37):
the models that we used in this project as well.
And it produced this information every time. Um, so we
just want to reiterate to, to people that they should
speak to a pharmacist or their medical doctor about any
health concerns they have. They still remain your best bet
of quality information, because.

S2 (01:02:56):
I guess one of the things that's probably happening and,
you know, might be outside your area wanted to comment. But,
you know, we often hear about, you know, not enough
doctors are bulk billing. It's hard to get in to
see a GP. JP. I've got these symptoms. I'll check
it out on ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever and see
what happens. I mean, it's kind of the easy option
or the convenient option.

S9 (01:03:16):
It is. I think that's also why the uptake of
AI is massive in Australia and in other countries as well,
where they're facing the same amount of pressures as well. But,
you know, it will cost you more if you start
trusting the information that comes out from that, it might
be better. Obviously, it's easy for me to say, but yeah.

S2 (01:03:34):
Well, yes, there might be, pardon the pun, but perhaps
you're a bit of patience and maybe book in to
see a GP at at the right time. So I mean,
in short, not a lot can be done about this
in terms of getting the chatbots to work the way
we want. I mean that that is kind of a
risk that you take every time you sort of ask
the chatbot for some information.

S9 (01:03:56):
That's right. Yeah. That that is simply the risk you
are taking there. They're good at certain things. Absolutely. Again,
I don't want to say that. Oh they're bad. Stop
using ChatGPT. Stop using Gemini. They can do certain things really,
really well. But when it comes to health related information,
I think you should always stick to your pharmacist and
your medical doctor for example. It doesn't cost anything to,

(01:04:17):
you know, go visit a pharmacy, see a pharmacist, and
just ask simple questions. And if they think it's somewhat serious,
then they will try to see, you know, a medical
doctor or perhaps even send you to the emergency department
as well.

S2 (01:04:28):
What was the response from you and your colleagues when
you kind of were getting this information? Were you surprised?
Or as I said, in a sense, there was nothing to,
you know, maybe the sort of stuff now in your
career where nothing surprises you?

S9 (01:04:39):
Well, that's the thing, because we've done this for two years,
it wasn't surprising. I think this surprising bit was how
easy it was because, um, like I said before, we're not, um,
computer scientists or engineers and how easy it was for
us to just simply provide simple instructions. And then it
was just able to do that.

S2 (01:04:56):
Well, I think probably interviews like this probably at least
raise people's awareness.

S9 (01:05:00):
And I think that's the whole point. Yeah. Raising awareness
and again just just sticking to your your well-known health professionals.
And yeah, quality information is more important than just finding
things at your easy access.

S2 (01:05:14):
Well, it's a sobering message, but certainly one that we
appreciate you spending some time with us. Thank you so
much for that.

S9 (01:05:18):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

S2 (01:05:19):
That's Natasha modi there who's from the University of SA,
working both in the area of pharmacology and health sciences.
So certainly trust your GP. And as Natasha said there,
maybe even just your pharmacist to visit there if you've
got some concerns rather than checking it out online with um,
with those chatbots that might not exactly have it right.

S10 (01:05:43):
Come on in.

S11 (01:05:45):
We open our doors to people we trust and care about.
And for over 85 years, South Australians have been opening
their doors to Resthaven. In turn, we've been opening doors
to an easier, better life at home. From personal care
to help with the shopping and social outings, you'll welcome
the care that Resthaven brings.

S2 (01:06:05):
Can't you hear from our fabulous supporters from Resthaven? They're
celebrating their 90th year. I think it's about year 27
or 28 on Leslie. Tonight under the spotlight is the
business manager for Community services, Joe McGinty. Joe, great to
catch up with you. Thank you for your time.

S12 (01:06:21):
For having me.

S2 (01:06:22):
Now you're talking about recruitment. Um, is it easier to
recruit people these days or harder?

S12 (01:06:27):
Easier lately? Over the past 12 months? The work value
case from Fair Work Australia, which raised award rates for
our aged care staff, has certainly had an impact on
people wanting to join the industry because they're now being
paid a fair wage for the work that they're doing.

S2 (01:06:50):
And I guess working in aged care, it's one of
those industries where people think, oh, whatever they get, they
kind of deserve. You don't get too many people sort
of saying, oh, you know, how come they're getting that much?
So there's a lot of kind of goodwill that goes
through it, I would think.

S12 (01:07:02):
Yes. So most people join our industry because they're caring people,
and they want to be able to support older people
as their needs change and as they need some assistance
to be able to remain living in their home. But obviously,
you know, being paid a good wage to do that

(01:07:22):
is certainly necessary to be able to support us, to
provide the staff that we need and to provide those services.

S2 (01:07:30):
What sort of avenues do you go down to or
go up or whatever to, to get people to a
place like Resthaven? What are some of the options that
you've got? I know you have some good associations with
some universities, for example.

S12 (01:07:42):
Oh we do, yes. So we offer student placements whilst
they're doing their courses. So, you know, nurses, allied health staff, um,
can come to our organisation and do their placement. And
we like to offer them a project to do so
that they have something that they can get benefit out

(01:08:03):
of and we can benefit from in the clients can
benefit from, we'll be there. As well as providing hands
on services, we also offer internships for people from university
who want some work experience prior to completion of their course,
or the work experience component might be a part of
that course. So that can happen for, you know, marketing,

(01:08:27):
human resources, data analysts. So we offer internships as well.
And of course, you know, we have certificate three in
individual support, people who come to us on work placement,
which is a part of their course. So they're required
to do a number of hours of work placement as
part of their course, and we offer that to them

(01:08:47):
as well.

S2 (01:08:48):
You find, particularly with the people from university, they're younger
people or maybe more mature aged people that have gone
to uni and kind of seek a change of career.

S12 (01:08:58):
Well, most people are younger people, particularly the allied health people,
probably from the nursing perspective. Sometimes they're older people who
are looking for a change of career. They might be
home support workers who are progressing through and have done
their diploma of nursing and become an enrolled nurse, and
then moving on to a registered nurse. And that's something

(01:09:19):
that Resthaven certainly support is people who are wanting to
progress in their career and undertake professional development. And so
we provide support for those. We offer a transition to
professional practice for nursing staff. So registered nurses, once they
finish their degree, can come and work with us for

(01:09:42):
12 months as they transition to professional practice.

S2 (01:09:45):
Interesting. You know, obviously a lot in this program, we
talked about lived experience in all sorts of areas. And
I guess in terms of lived experience, depending on what
age we are, we probably haven't got that as far
as lived experience of a older person or someone in
aged care or someone receiving community services, but we probably
all know someone, or maybe more than one person that

(01:10:05):
is receiving those sort of services or living in aged care.
So it's probably fairly easy to relate to.

S12 (01:10:11):
It is. And you're having interviewed a lot of people
over the years, or you're a vast range of positions, um,
in aged care. Most people have some relationship with an
older person, whether it be a grandparent or, you know,
someone they've come in contact with or their family have

(01:10:31):
worked in aged care and they've been, you know, involved
in services that way and got to know older people.
So there's usually, you know, most people have had some
experience with older people. But I think, you know, it
doesn't matter your age as long as you're a caring
person who wants to listen to the older person and

(01:10:53):
support them to achieve what they want to achieve. Then
there's a role for you in aged care.

S2 (01:10:58):
You talked about people working in community services or residential
aged care, but then you touched on things like marketing,
HR also. I guess it. So they're all areas that,
you know, an aged care organisation have areas that need
people that specialise in those sectors as well.

S12 (01:11:15):
Oh certainly. Yes. So yeah, we have a finance department,
a HR department, IT department and marketing areas. So you know,
there are roles across a variety of tasks in aged care.
And quite often we see people who start as a
home support worker who might progress through into a program assistant,

(01:11:41):
a role and then decide that they would like to
do something more specialised and come to head office I'm
working in the finance department or in the quality department
during audits. So their experience that they've gained out on
site and in people's homes is of great benefit. Then
in relating that back to why we're doing those roles

(01:12:03):
in head office.

S2 (01:12:04):
That's a great point, isn't it? You're kind of you've
got the kind of basic understandings, and then maybe you
take it to another level as far as the change
in career goes.

S12 (01:12:13):
Yes. That's right. So there's so much opportunity for progression
through both if you want to stay in the caring role.
As I said, as a home support worker through to
an enrolled nurse or registered nurse or, you know, you
can make that progression into, um, a finance area or
a scheduling roles, a large number of staff who work

(01:12:34):
as schedulers, who, you know, provide, match the client to
the staff member and make sure that the staff are
there to provide the services on the days and times
that the client wants.

S2 (01:12:46):
Do you have a few people that come as a
volunteer to Resthaven and then think, oh, this is pretty cool,
or a job might come up that, uh, is paid for.
I think this would be something they would like to
apply for. Do a few people choose that kind of
route to to get a job?

S12 (01:13:00):
They certainly do. So we find that, um, you know,
a number of people might want to start as a
volunteer just to see whether they, they like working with
older people, and then they make the decision to either
go and do some study or to gain a role,
you know, in a housekeeping department or in a cleaning

(01:13:22):
role or as you know, um, a clerical person. So,
you know, there's a lot of different roles within the
organization that have started a lot of different people in
roles in the organization. They've started as volunteers.

S2 (01:13:38):
So, Joe, we talked about the recruiting. What about retention?
Is that, in a sense more challenging or what someone's
ensconced in a rest home and they think, I'm happy
to stay here for a while. You've been around for
90 years, you're celebrating your 90th anniversary, so you've got
a good reputation. You're well established.

S12 (01:13:54):
Yes. So rejection is always a challenge. It's something that
you have to work on all the time. And, you know,
we pride ourselves on supporting our staff through professional Development Fund,
where they can apply for funding to support them to
complete another qualification, um, through training opportunities, um, we offer

(01:14:18):
funded training opportunities for people to do certificate three or
a Diploma of Community Services. We have development days, um,
and regular training at all our meetings. We really pride
ourselves on in the community services with being open and
transparent and communication with our staff, because obviously a lot
of our staff are remote workers, so they don't come

(01:14:39):
into an office, they're in the client's home. time. So
we really worked hard to develop some great communication tools
to be able to provide information to them in a
really timely manner. And you know, we have a staff
appreciation program. We have implemented Excellence Awards, where clients and

(01:15:00):
families can nominate staff who provide great service. So that's
been really well received by both the clients and the
families and the staff who've been nominated for awards. And,
you know, flexible working hours is something that you can
do in community. So, you know, if you have a
spouse who's home, you know, 2 or 3 days during

(01:15:23):
the week, they might work weekends, then you can choose
just to work those 2 or 3 days that they
might be home from school for the children. Or if
you're at uni and you only have, you know, 2
or 3 days contact hours, you can choose to work
with us and work the other days. So really flexible
working arrangements that are available.

S2 (01:15:41):
Yeah, that would be very appealing. And I guess one
of the things about Resthaven that would be also appealing
is the fact that, uh, that you've got a number
of different, um, sites. So depending on what areas people
work in, um, you know, geographically, maybe it's not such
a challenge. And of course, you've also got establishments in, um,
more country areas as well in South Australia.

S12 (01:16:00):
That's right. So our community services sites, we have a
site at Gawler, um, a site in Elizabeth Paradise, uh,
Western Marion, Onkaparinga. And then we go down to the Fleurieu,
the Murray Mallee and the Hills, Riverland and Limestone Coast.
So we cover a large part of the state and

(01:16:24):
have positions available, you know, on a regular basis in
all those areas.

S2 (01:16:29):
I imagine most people would come to you via your website.
That's probably the the way you do it. I guess
you're probably advertise as well.

S12 (01:16:36):
Uh, we do, yes. So all our positions are on
our website, but we do advertise on seek as well
and in regional areas in local papers. Um, or on
local websites that might be relevant. Um, we use specialized websites.
You like an allied health practitioners website to attract allied

(01:16:57):
health staff. So we use a broad range of tools
to make sure that we can recruit staff.

S2 (01:17:05):
Is a little bit more challenging in some of the
more sort of country areas. Uh, yeah. Less sort of, uh,
city centric areas, if I can put it that way.

S12 (01:17:13):
It is so particularly for um, nurses and allied health staff.
So it's quite often, you know, very challenging to recruit
those staff in the regional areas and not so much
transport workers, but in some regional areas like, you know,
whilst we might be based in, in Naracoorte and at

(01:17:36):
Gambier Ganbare knows that we're providing services in Rove and
Kingston and those areas as well. So it's, you know,
quite often difficult to attract staff to those areas, um,
particularly those areas where there's a lot of hospitality work
because of the tourist tracks.

S2 (01:17:53):
Yeah.

S12 (01:17:54):
You know, we really struggle with some of those areas,
but mainly it's nursing and allied health staff that we
have trouble with in regional areas.

S2 (01:18:02):
Well, we wish you well with that. Thank you for
giving us some really interesting insights. It's been a great
chat and we appreciate you speaking to us. And good
luck to everyone at Resthaven for the 90th anniversary. I
know a few things have happened already that have gone
exceptionally well, so still got six months to go, so
it's still a bit of a celebration to come.

S12 (01:18:19):
Yes, certainly more celebrations to come.

S2 (01:18:22):
Good to talk to you, Jill.

S12 (01:18:23):
Thank you very much.

S2 (01:18:25):
We can see that the business manager for community services
at Resthaven talk a little bit about recruitment and about, uh,
also retention. Do you want to find out more Resthaven.
As always, those details are with our show notes. Well,
the Adelaide RAF have got their next season. Coming up.
Shakespeare in Hollywood is the play and the director is

(01:18:48):
Jude Haynes. Jude, always great to chat to you. Thanks
for your time.

S13 (01:18:52):
It's great to chat with you again, Peter, and it's
lovely to talk to your listeners.

S2 (01:18:56):
How much are you looking forward to this?

S13 (01:18:57):
Oh look, it is it is a really fun piece
of theatre. I find I've kind of hold myself up
for winter barely peeping over the ramparts, but it's the
sort of play that's worth going out for. It's. It's
loads of fun for people who have a bit of
a soft spot for Shakespeare. There's some very witty and

(01:19:19):
clever bits of Shakespearian dialogue, tiny bits of it woven throughout,
so you can sort of do a bit of intellectual stimulation.
But it's mainly, quite frankly, it's about reminiscing and laughing.

S2 (01:19:33):
Back in 1934.

S13 (01:19:35):
And the lovely thing is, it's based on a true story.
In 1934, one of the earliest talkies was proposed by
an Austrian very famous Austrian director called Max Reinhardt, who
approached Warner Brothers and said, have I got the play
for you? And they said, don't be ridiculous. Who's going
to want to see Shakespeare on the screen? And, um, anyway,

(01:19:59):
what transpired is the film did actually get made. It
was a very, very famous piece of work, and it
has incredibly well known people like James Cagney, Joey Brown, uh,
Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland. The the film itself was,
was really, really fabulous. So this, um, this play of

(01:20:22):
Ken Ludwig's, who is a Shakespeare scholar as well as
a music scholar and of and a fabulous playwright, um,
Ludwig picked up on this story, and what he's done
is he's woven the magic of Shakespeare's characters into it.
So I know you'll find this a tiny bit hard

(01:20:42):
to believe, but the film is being made in Hollywood,
and we've got Tarzan and all sorts of other people
floating through the story. Groucho Marx makes an appearance, but,
you know, all of the old timers and quite by accident. Oberon,
King of the fairies and puck from Midsummer Night's Dream

(01:21:04):
take a wrong turn in Fantasyland and end up on
the set in Hollywood. Now, of course, you know, that
sort of thing doesn't happen every day, but, um, they
they end up with, um, Mickey Rooney during the filming.
Actually broke his leg. He went skiing with his mother, uh,

(01:21:25):
very unpopularly. And Victor Jory, who was cast originally as Oberon,
did a tantrum. So fortunately the real King of the
Fairies and Puck drop in and get cast as themselves.
So you've, of course, got the magic that they bring
with them and and the magic of theatre. You've got

(01:21:45):
gossip columnists like Louella Parsons, whose own story, her background
of her power and villainy in Hollywood goes through this.
The other person who makes an appearance in this plane
gets caught up in a very unfortunate way that I
won't give away is Will Hays, who wrote the The

(01:22:06):
Code of Conduct in Hollywood. You know, the the code
that said, if two people are sitting in a bed,
both of them had to have a foot on the
opposite side of the floor. I, you know, so he's
a bit of a, a stickler for the moral code
that he wrote. So he, he strolls through and of course,
he's not at all happy about people being turned into

(01:22:29):
donkeys and goodness knows what else. Which of course happens
in Midsummer Night's Dream. So it is literally a laugh
a minute. And, um, we have got a terrific and
very diverse cast. We've got some very well known Adelaide
Theatre people in it, and we've got a cast of
of people for whom theatre is a new experience, doing

(01:22:54):
lots and lots of wonderful, um, character work in this
as well. So if if you have some theatre favourites,
people like Penny Hamilton.

S2 (01:23:02):
Yeah.

S13 (01:23:03):
Well, Penn Penn has the role of, um, Louella Parsons.
And of course there was loads of fun as Humphrey's offsider,
but she's utterly wicked as Louella Parsons. So we, we
have got a terrific cast and, um, they are just
having a ball. Absolute ball with the dialogue too, which

(01:23:24):
is fast and funny and it is laugh out loud,
you know. Please don't come to the show unless you
want to laugh out loud. That sort of show people.
People will really enjoy it, I think.

S2 (01:23:36):
Dude, they're just reading some of the information about it.
It talks about being chaotic. So when you're doing, can
you kind of rehearse the chaos or like when you
get to the show itself, the chaos kind of is unrehearsed.

S13 (01:23:50):
We've had to rehearse the chaos, a fear of people
injuring each other, which has been loads of fun. But
there's a fabulous scene where and I'll just reveal this
because people won't know it's coming, where one of the
characters does get turned into someone with a real donkey's head,

(01:24:10):
so that that poor person is is is rollicking around
the stage with people trying to catch them while other
people are having a fight because puck has come in
and put the magic juice from the flower in their eyes.
So people are willy nilly falling in love with quite
the wrong people. And so yes, we do. We do

(01:24:33):
have to rehearse it. And that in itself is, as
you're obviously suggesting, has been loads of fun and loads
and loads of laughing when you've got ten or so
people on stage all desperately. There's an old line in theatre,
you know, just make sure that you don't bang into
the furniture. In this case, make sure you don't bang
into the other actors because they're all rollicking and chasing

(01:24:56):
this this poor character who's been turned into someone with
an ass's head, which those who know Midsummer Night's Dream
know that it happened to poor old bottom, so that
slowed the fun. One of my other highlights is I
have a very macho male in our cast, Malcolm Warton,
who does a lot of theatre and, um, he has

(01:25:17):
to dress up for the Thisbe and Pyramus. Uh, Rehearsal.
He has to dress up as a girl, and he, um,
he has the most extravagant, hand-painted tutu. But, uh, he's
had loads of fun with that. And a couple of
challenges when you teach these, you know, terribly macho chaps
how to walk and talk like a like a lady.

(01:25:39):
So that has been loads of fun. So it really,
really is, um, is great to see as well.

S2 (01:25:45):
Be interesting to see his rehearsals at home. Jude. Gets
underway later on this week. You've got to bump in
this weekend. And then Thursday you get underway.

S13 (01:25:58):
Yes, we get underway July the 17th, and we're so
very lucky. The governor is our patron, so she's going
to be there for us on opening night.

S2 (01:26:08):
Oh, fantastic.

S13 (01:26:09):
Yeah. And she's a great supporter of theatre, which is fabulous.
And she's chosen to attend this one. So we're very excited.

S2 (01:26:16):
Really? Yeah.

S13 (01:26:17):
We have two matinees. And as you know, this time
of the year, matinees. Really popular because a 2:00 matinee
means you can come see a fabulous show and be
tucked up snug and warm for the evening. So we
have matinees on the 20th and the 26th. The other
thing that I'm excited about is some pretty, um, generous

(01:26:38):
concession tickets. And so people have a group, we've got
some great prices. There are prices for seniors, and it's very,
very affordable community theater. So it's just a case of
contacting the rep. And the lovely Rose, who herself is
the director, looks after getting people, uh, very comfortable and

(01:26:59):
usually personally chosen seats. You know, they'll they'll they'll have
a preference for sitting in your spots and we try
to look after people. So we are really, really looking
forward to this season.

S2 (01:27:10):
Um, dude, always great to catch up, break a leg
and I'm sure it's going to be another great season.
Adelaide is the website and also you can give them
a call at 21257. Jude. Always great to catch up.
We'll speak again soon.

S13 (01:27:25):
Okay. Peter, thank you so much for your time. Lovely
chatting with you. Bye.

S2 (01:27:29):
Jude. Hi there. If you want a bit of fun,
I think you've got your invitation. The Shakespeare in Hollywood
coming up from this Thursday at the Arts Theatre, put
on by the Adelaide Rep Theatre. Two times. What a character.
That certainly sounds very much like worth getting along to,
so hopefully you can find some time to get along.

(01:27:51):
A couple of quotes before we go. Here's one from Joel.
Joel who says, when I look at things differently, the
things I see are different. So thanks, Joel for yours.
Really appreciate that. And Marina has sent it quite through.
I hope I've said your name there. Right. Lorena? Uh,
Lorena says we are the creators of our own destiny.

(01:28:12):
We are the composers of our own symphony. Lorena, thank
you so much for your quite. I think that's the
first one for both Joel and Lorena. So thank you
both for chiming in with your quotes. Really appreciate them.
Some birthdays before we go. Polly Goodwin having a birthday
and Tom at Vision Australia moved on to greener pastures.
Happy birthday to you Polly. Hope life is going well.

(01:28:35):
Maurice Corcoran having a birthday he reckons, is a pretty
good wheelchair rugby player. I reckon he does really well
at the Community Visitors scheme. So happy birthday to you, Maurice.
Hope things are going well. Keep up your fabulous advocacy work.
Speaking about wonderful advocates, Robin Smith having a birthday, we
caught up early with the lads from basketball, Robin Smith
with that big push to get basketball and athletes with

(01:28:58):
intellectual disabilities back into the Paralympics. Robin Smith playing a
big role there. Happy birthday to you and Tiffany Blackmon
having a birthday. Good on you Tiffany. I often hear
from Tiffany via email. Normally when I make mistakes, mistakes
I've made a few, but then again, too many to mention.
So Tiffany, keep emailing me, keep pointing out things I
say wrong. And also you have a great birthday. Hope

(01:29:22):
things are going well for you. That's it for the program.
Sam Rickert, thanks so much for your help. Pam Green,
thanks so much for yours. Reminding you that Leslie is
available on that favorite podcast platform of yours, or anyone
else's for that matter. If you're listening through 1190 7 a.m.
in Adelaide, coming up very soon. Vicki Cousins no mistakes

(01:29:43):
made there, my friends. Vicki Cousins is here with Australian
Geographic's program not to be missed. Be kind to yourselves,
be thoughtful and look out for others. All being well.
Leslie back at the same time next week on Vision
Australia Radio and the Reading Radio Network. This is Leslie.

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