CHERUBS Australia
Brisbane Get Together - Saturday 26th October 2002

CHERUBS Australia held it’s 2nd national Get Together in Brisbane in October 2002. A lot of effort went into planning and organising the get together resulting in a wonderful weekend. A very special thank you to Joanne Kjaersgaard and Linda West for all of their hard work and to Fiona Frew for her contributions. An extra special thank you to Emma West’s grandmother for donating the morning and afternoon tea in memory of her sweet cherub granddaughter.

Our group, although still relatively small, has almost doubled in size this past year and now has approximately 60 families. We had a total of 34 people attend the get together. Not everyone was able to attend on Saturday, but caught up with us either at dinner that night or for the family day on Sunday. It was wonderful to see such a large turn out and great support from our members. Our future plans include holding an annual get together in a different state each year. Perth will hold the 2003 Get Together and Sydney the 2004.

After introducing ourselves to each other upon arrival on Saturday morning, we broke into separate groups. One for the surviving families and one for the grieving families. This allowed all members to discuss their experiences with CDH openly and honestly without risk of upsetting others who had not experienced the same outcome. After breaking for lunch we returned to have a short ceremony to honour our cherubs. A candle was lit and the names of all of our Australian cherubs were read out. To complete the ceremony, we watched a slide show that featured photos our Australian cherubs. It was a beautiful way to end a lovely ceremony.

After the ceremony, we held a discussion on the future of our group and the possible legalities involved as we moved forward. Some of the ideas and decisions discussed are currently being implemented and the future for CHERUBS Australia is looking brighter than ever.

Throughout the day the older cherubs and cherubs’ siblings helped out by baby-sitting the younger cherubs. This allowed the parents to relax (at least a little bit!) and get to share their CDH experiences. The children were truly wonderful and made everyone very proud.

We met for dinner at a local restaurant and were given a good laugh by the confused looks of the staff. The parents of one of our cherubs ordered a bowl of ‘plain pasta’. We all know how fussy children can be with food and our cherubs are certainly renowned for this! “Plain pasta?” came the confused reply. “Yes, just pasta with nothing on it. Just cook it and put it in a bowl.” A tentative “OK” was given. Everyone received their meals and still no ‘plain pasta’. We could all picture the staff standing around in the kitchen scratching their heads and trying to figure it out. Finally the ‘plain pasta’ arrived – sprinkled with a green garnish! “YUCK, I don’t like that green stuff,” cried the cherub. In the end, we worked it out 

The next day we met for a family day at South Bank. The children got to swim in the beautiful man made lagoon with the dad’s keeping guard while the mum’s hit the outdoor market. After a lovely day our tired and emotionally drained group said their goodbyes.

A huge thank you to all of the members who helped organise the day and thank you to those that attended to make it the great success that it was. We are all eagerly looking forward to Perth 2003 – hope to see you there .