Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 3)

Feedback – Gold Coast school.

February 23, 2018 / Trish

Feedback from a teacher at a school on the Gold Coast that I spoke at yesterday.

‘Students were mesmerised by Trish’s inspirational presentation today. Her delivery was heartfelt and authentic. She left so many messages for our young people… empathy, stop the bullying, never let anyone tell you that you can’t and to be resilient. You could hear a pin drop in the audience and numerous students thanked Trish for sharing her story and felt motivated to embrace their fears’

I really can’t thank you enough for helping our young people as they face their daily challenges.

Trevor, thankyou also for being so tech savvy and being such a big part of this.

Feedback.

February 22, 2018 / Trish

Another school visit this time in the Sunshine Coast area. 172 students consisting of grades 10,11 and year 12.
From the teacher that asked me to the school..
“The students were so impressed and learnt heaps. Trish helped empower our real strugglers. What a great message”.

First talks for 2018.

February 16, 2018 / Trish

This week entailed visiting two schools, one a high school the other a primary school. It is great to be back into the swing of speaking to schol children again.

Feedback from the Principal of the primary school I spoke at this morning:

Trish addressed 150 of our Years 4-6 students and 40 parents and staff today, as our Guest Speaker for our Student Leader Induction Ceremony. For 45 minutes, she had the entire audience enthralled. My only regret is that I didn’t include our Years 2 and 3 students in the presentation. Her life story was genuine, heartfelt and inspiring to every person in the room. Once finished, I asked the students to share one key message they gained from Trish’s presentation. Responses included: ‘Don’t let anybody tell you can’t do something’, ‘It doesn’t matter about your appearance, it’s what’s inside that counts’, ‘If you want something badly enough, you can do it’, and ‘If somebody says something mean to you, it doesn’t matter….as long as you believe in yourself’. I believe this was a life-lesson that could not have been more powerfully delivered and it will stay with our students for a very long time.

International Day of People with a Disability 2017

December 5, 2017 / Trish

Sunday 3rd December 2017 was #IDPWD International Day of People with a Disability. I was asked to be part of iFLY Indoor Skydiving (Gold Coast, QLD) https://downunder.iflyworld.com/ifly-accessibility who are totally geared up to include people with all ranges of disability to participate. Yesterday they gave 100 disabled people to try skydiving for free..

To say it was awesome is just an understatement.. I am so glad I got to do this, I don’t get to do many sporting things … this was just incredible.. The instructors were awesome, caring and just made everyone feel at ease and made the experience so worthwhile.

Who needs arms to skydive?

ABC TV. WOMEN’S WORK

November 5, 2017 / Trish

Recently the ABC TV did a stoty on my public speaking, my drawings and photography… Here are the links if you would like to have a look at them. I am just 1 of the women who the ABC are showcasing in their “womens work’ series…

.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-21/trish-jackson-thalidomide-survivor-motivational-speaker/9065548

If you would like to see the extended version of my story, then this is the link. This longer version was shown on the ABC morning news show.

Kindergarten fun.

November 5, 2017 / Trish

I spent the morning at a kindergarten with around 44 three and four year old children. What a great time we all had. I showed them some of my drawings and photography. We chatted about how I did things with no arms. I then read them a book, did puzzles, played with magnets, I was shown the hermit crabs they had. Lastly we did a music song about making pizza but we all played and used our feet to use the rhythm sticks to beat to the music. It was such great fun. The poor teacher aide kept getting cramps in her feet from holding the rhythm sticks in her toes… . this is the gift they gave me for giving up my time and visiting them.

Later that afternoon I did a radio interview about my life for a community radio station. Which was great fun http://phoenixradi2.wixsite.com/phoenixradio

Trip to Maryborough

September 5, 2017 / Trish

Took a drive up to Maryborough (216km) last weekend stopping along the way to spend Saturday night catching up with friends, then early Sunday morning we turned the car north for our last bit of our trip to Maryborough, where we had a lovely coffee and breakfast at Restaurant 71 on the wharf looking out over the Mary river.

After some sightseeing, it was off to the Anglican church hall for lunch, as I was asked to be the guest speaker for their annual lunch with around 94 people in attendance. Unfortunately, my A/V presentation did not go quite to plan (photos were hard to see, technology is great when it all works) luckily, I had my cards on display for them to see my artwork.

When I finished my presentation I was overwhelmed, even a little embarrassed to receive a standing ovation from all the attendees. It is amazing how people both children and Adults relate to stories of my life. If only I was a famous sporting Celebrity or a would-be politician I could easily get speaking engagements to share my story, being an un-known name makes it harder to find places who want to hear my story.

Thank you to Tricia for asking me to be the guest speaker.

On the Monday, I spent the morning whale watching on Whalesong out of Hervey Bay, with Trevor and some friends. I was very excited to be going whale watching, it must be one of the things that you have on your bucket List. The experience is just amazing when you see your first whale. I was excited at the prospect and hoping with everything crossed that I would get that one, award-winning shot that I could be proud of but the odds were stacking up against me. The first thing that was against me was that it was a very rough day on the water, now I don’t usually get seasick, I have only ever been seasick once and that was more than enough, it is just the worst feeling, I took a seasickness tablet just in case, I didn’t want seasickness to spoil my day. Sadly, many people on the boat were a very lovely shade of green, happily I was not sick at all. When I got on the boat I promptly headed to the bow of the boat and plonked myself down and that was going to be my spot for the day nothing was going to move me from that spot because being a bit rough in the water you had to hold on to the railings with all your might to steady yourself. This leads into my second thing stacking up against me of taking any photos, I don’t have any arms to hold on, so I had to wrap my legs around the railings of the boat to anchor myself. Which is why I grabbed my spot at the front of the boat as I knew there was no way I could ever walk around the boat once it set sail. My feet were not only busy trying to hold on but were also trying to hold my camera so that I could take photos. My wonderful hubby stood behind me so that I did not fly backwards off my seat in case my feet let go of the rails, he too had to do this while he was holding on to steady himself. It was not rough the whole trip just when we got out of the bay it got rough, so most of the time it was very pleasant. When I got home to look at my photos I have beautiful photos of either the sea or the sky, there were just no whales swimming or jumping in any of them, they were just pretty shades of blue photos, then again none of the other passengers were taking photos with their feet, so I’m pretty excited that I have at least half a dozen that I am quite happy with. It just makes these photos all that sweeter because of the effort and difficulty of me taking photos with my feet.

Don’t tell me I can’t. I can!!!

Tuesday, I headed off to spend a couple of hours at Maryborough special school, with Teacher Rose and her art students, though I think the whole school showed up. I did my first special school presentation, after complicating of my presentation and answering their questions a group of us did a quick smiley face foot drawing then we changed students then did a quick painting of a football again with our feet. Thank you to Rose and Maryborough Special School. I had a great time.

The beautiful hall at Maryborough.

Foot paintings from the kids at Maryborough special school.

I was given a beautiful plant at the end of my presentation.

More feedback from teachers at schools in the Toowoomba region.

July 9, 2017 / Trish

“I can” is my new motto after hearing Trish’s story of diversity. Trish was very interactive and open with the students and no question was unanswered. A very worthwhile speaker.

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I thought Trish’s talk on Thursday was inspirational and she aimed it at a level suited to the little ones also. She showed them

photos and videos which helped them to understand how she copes with daily tasks in her life. They were so amazed at the drawings that Trish does

and the photos that she takes. The length of the presentation was just right for the P-2 year levels. We went back to the classroom and the Preps

shared their ideas on what Trish had told them and also about how everyone needs to give things a try and not give up.

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Regarding the guest speaker yesterday, I could say that children in my class were very interested in what Trish had to say and amazed at what she can do. I thought Trish came across as a warm and encouraging person with a good message for children.

From a school in the Toowoomba region.

June 26, 2017 / Trish

The children of 5M were all very attentive and listened carefully to what Trish was saying about her life. They were inspired and very accepting of her situation and her skills. When discussing her in class afterwards, they commented on how bad it must be for her to be treated horribly by community people, as she spoke of in the session.

I asked them about what they would do if they saw someone needing help in the community and they were all full of great suggestions.

If her talk touched just one child, like it did this teacher, then it was worth coming here for the day!

Thank you for bringing such a shining light to our hum-drum lives!!

We live for moments such as these!

Feedback from Nobby state school, Queensland

February 27, 2017 / Trish

Extract from Nobby’ school’s newsletter. Thank you Nobby for having me at your school and for allowing me to use these photos on my website.

All of the students were asked to say one word to describe you. I have attached the Wordle that was created using those words (the larger the word, the more times it has been said.