News

The Oceanic Palliative Care Conference 2023, presented by Palliative Care Australia, was held last week at the ICC in Sydney from the 13th to the 15th September.

We had a fantastic group of volunteers facilitating the smooth running of the conference. Volunteers were kept busy directing delegates to workshops and concurrent sessions, helping at the registration kiosks, wrapping gifts for the speakers, and answering general queries.

During the closing ceremony, Palliative Care Australia CEO, Camilla Rowland made a point of acknowledging the mammoth contribution of volunteers, especially the arranging of decorative table centrepieces for the gala dinner. There were over 90 tables at the dinner and volunteers spent many hours putting together beautiful floral and light arrangements for each and every one of them.

Kate Bowman, Manager, Palliative Care NSW Volunteer Support Services, was in charge of overseeing the volunteers that offered their time to help, some staying as late as 11 pm on the Thursday night.

“I am very grateful for the volunteers that kindly offered their time and expertise for the OPCC 2023. We had a great team who worked together well and I am certain their support helped contribute to the success of the event. We had many people comment how wonderful it was to see palliative care volunteers engaged at the conference. I hope the volunteers found it interesting and enjoyed the experience.

Once again, we would like to send our gratitude to all the OPCC volunteers. A big THANK YOU to everyone who gave up their time to help out,” said Kate.

Main picture: OPCC volunteers

Left to right on left hand side – Jacquie Martinez, Binu Alackal Kuruvilla, Nadja Lawrence, Roshini Rajeswaran.

Front to back on right hand side – Carmel Vowles, Sylvia Nilsson, Grace Lee, Paula Sidney.

Not pictured – Melody Huang, Carl Peterson, Liz Rutledge, Hazel Stein, Carolyn Wilkinson, Barbara Chapman.