What a turnout!
We had over 400 guests at the PVV Corporate Lunch yesterday afternoon. Over 400 people here to support us, hear our mission, and help us be the change we want to see.
It was an emotional day for many. The stories of the plight of police veterans struggling with their mental health often go unheard, but yesterday, they were told. We had a lot of conversations with a lot of you about this very thing, and a common theme was clear: why has support for police veterans and their families been such a long time coming?
It was the stories of Pat Daly and Jennifer Banks, our panellists, that struck a chord with a lot of you, and we understand why. We hope that their stories shed some light on what is a profound and continuing issue.
We’d particularly like to acknowledge our Chairman, Mark Azzopardi, the PVV Board, our Corporate Advisory Committee, our veterans and volunteers. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you.
We’d like to acknowledge the Police Minister, Lisa Neville, former police minister André Haermeyer, the Chief Commissioner Shane Patton and Wayne Gatt, Secretary of the TPAV.
We’d like to thank Shane Patton, for his ongoing support; without his partnership we would simply not exist.
We’d like to thank Clive Scott, Sofitel, for his role in the Corporate Committee and facilitating our lunch; Richard Henderson from R-Co, for our brilliant logo, Dan Copsey and his team at FMD for our website and particularly their patience as we workshopped our needs, Jacqui Felgate, our MC, John Silvester, and Tom Currie for his outstanding mid-lunch entertainment.
We’d like to thank our small band of volunteers; Jim Hilliard, John Stubbs, Jen and Keith Banks, Mick Cummins, Michael Hayes, Bob Marmion, Barry Traynor, Sharon Watson, Naomi Oakley and Peter Signorotto.
Finally, we’d like to (humbly) acknowledge our PVV staff who make this all work: Bec, Carla, Anna. We might be a small team, but we all have so much passion for PVV and what we do.
For everyone that made yesterday what it was, from the bottom of our hearts, we say thank you.
