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Our very first Golf4Health event here in Australia was a big success!  

We began our planning back in July and secured a local venue, Wynnum Golf Club, who had experience in hosting charity events and were excited to help us bring our first event to life! With our venue locked in, and our date set for November 11th, I began the mammoth task of finding sponsors and selling tickets (something that proved to be a lot harder than I could have ever imagined). 

 Over the weeks to come, I would learn something that I’m sure everyone who has ever worked for a charity before would know… 

People love to say they will help. But actually getting people to open their wallets is an incredibly hard thing.
And I GET IT. November is a busy time leading up to Christmas. Here in Australia home loan interest rates are going up every month. The cost of living is rising, not to mention people have their own charities that hit closer to home. Perhaps they’ve had a mother with breast cancer or a friend with depression. The average Australian can’t even comprehend that there are people without access to basic health education. They wouldn’t know anyone who has faced this kind of hardship. It is so far out of our (Australians) day-to-day realm that getting our mission to land on them feels like an impossible task. But THAT is why it is so important. And it is for this reason, that we just don’t know how lucky we are, that kept me motivated to continue and speak with as many people as possible. 

I posted on social media accounts almost every day to get the message out about what we do. I shared with my partners work groups, my brothers work groups, with local businesses and with anyone who would give me 5 minutes of their time. 

During this period I personally emailed over 100 businesses for sponsorship. You can guess how many got back to me. This was my next challenge and I felt extremely defeated. 

Until… My first company got back to me! My local gym! I was so excited that they offered to donate prizes to one of our top teams on the day. This small gesture gave me the motivation to not give up and before I knew it a few more companies had gotten back to me. We ended up with some fantastic prizes and donations for our goodie bags. Hotel accommodation at a 5-star hotel in Sydney, restaurant vouchers, golf hampers, local gin producers, muesli bars for on the course, and much more! We had around $6000 donated in prizes. It was a huge relief to finally have some gifts for the day and it really helped me to sell more tickets for the event.

We didn’t have a complete sell out. We ended up selling 36 of the 48 tickets but we also had people come along to support even though they didn’t play. I even had some older golfers who had played at the club for over 30 years come and speak with me and make a cash donation after hearing about the work of the Health Promoters. It was truly so special! 

On the day I had my sister, my mum and my brother’s girlfriend helping me! I had custom shirts made for us and we ran around making sure everyone was having a great time. Two photographers came for free to take lots of photos of the event which was incredible! Everyone said they had so much fun, even though lots of people hadn’t even played golf before. 

All up, we raised around $3000 for our first ever event. It cost me around $1200 personally to put on the event with all of the little costs that I wasn’t able to get sponsors for. But all up I am really really proud of our first event. We reached a lot of new people who are all extremely excited for the next event and I know it will be even bigger and better. 

 I wanted to say a huge thank you to George and Regina for supporting me through my first event. It was a lot of hard work, and definitely a few tears, but I’m so grateful to be a part of the Health Promoters and I’m sure this is just the beginning of what we can do together. 

 Bring on 2023! 

 – Tamara