A DAY OF GOLF, WITH A HIT OF LIFE LESSONS

The Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service’s (WRHS) annual Pacific National Hunter Valley Charity Golf Day is one of the most popular fundraising events on the Hunter Valley calendar. This year the event at Rydges raised approximately $30,000 for the lifesaving service.

Attendees didn’t just have a day out on the fairway; they came in for lunch and to hear from two incredible Australian Olympic athletes: gold and silver medalist swimmer Brooke Hanson OLY OAM and water polo superstar Nathan Power.

WRHS Regional Partnerships Officer Norma Burri said it was an awesome day to kick off the year.

“It was such a fantastic day. The event was sold out, and everyone had a great time with the various activations out on the course. We had 144 enthusiastic players and supporters out on the fairway and about 160 for the luncheon afterwards.

“As always, we couldn’t put on the day without our Naming and Hole sponsors and we even had a car giveaway on Hole 10 sponsored by Hunter City Motor Group. Pacific National has been supporting the service and the event for 16 years now and we had the opportunity to acknowledge them with a Milestone presentation for the over $500,000 they’ve donated during that time,” she said.

Brooke Hanson is one of Australia’s most recognised Olympians who won silver in the 100m breaststroke at the 2004 Olympics and a gold as a member of the 4x100m medley relay team. She represented Australia over 25 times at major international championships.

She said coming to speak at the WRHS event was a no brainer.

“As someone who has always admired the service and what it means I’m really passionate about the cause. I always love a fundraiser too where we want to raise as much money as possible, but I understand the impact the WRHS has on the community here.

“For me I wanted to empower the audience to live their best life, the importance of gratitude and self care and take them on my life journey of elite performance being an Olympian but also strip it back to how I live my whole 168 hours each and every week,” Brooke explained.

Nathan Power is a proud Novocastrian who has had personal connections to the WRHS for many years. He’s the Captain of the Australian Men’s Water Polo team and has competed at both the Paris 2024 and Tokyo 2020 Games.

“It’s such an important cause and something that supports our region. Even though I’m not living in Newcastle anymore, I’m a proud Novocastrian so to be able to support something that has been and always will be so pivotal to our region is a wonderful opportunity.

“I was out on the fairway and I always find these days to be a great community vibe, and it’s a lot of fun!”