Albany

What’s Your Cancer Story?

If it hasn’t touched your life yet, I can almost guarantee that it will.

We don’t like to talk about cancer so we can sometimes start believing that we’re alone in facing its cold hand. The reality is that since I’ve started talking to others about cancer I haven’t encountered even one person who hasn’t been personally affected in one way or another.

With that in mind I’m determined to do something about cancer and the grip it has on so many lives.

What’s your story?

Please use the comments section of this post to share your story. Have you been touched by cancer? Are you battling cancer now or beaten it in the past? Does a loved one have cancer? Have you lost a friend? If you’d rather not leave your story in the comments section of this post, you can go to my contact page and send me an email.

Help spread the word.

I’d also ask you to share the link to this post through your blog or whatever other means you have available. At the bottom of this post are buttons for sharing the details on StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg Reddit or even emailing the post to others. Just click your preferred button (or all of them) to get the word out.

I’m about to undertake a bike ride of over 500 km to raise funds for Cancer Council Western Australia.

I’ll be joined by ten other cyclists and each morning for a week I’ll be sharing cancer stories on my 98.5 Sonshine FM radio programme before hopping onto my bike just after midday to cycle to the next town.

Here’s the itinerary:

Monday 15th November 2010: Albany to Cranbrook 91 km

Tuesday 16^th November 2010: Cranbrook to Katanning 80 km

Wednesday 17^th November 2010: Katanning to Wagin 55 km

Thursday 18^th November 2010: Wagin to Pingelly 100 km

Friday 19^th November 2010: Pingelly to York 87 km

Saturday 20^th November 2010: York to Perth 97 km

TOTAL: 510 km

The team is hoping to raise over $15 000 for Cancer Council WA.

My personal goal is $1000. That means that I need 10 people to donate $100.

Can I ask you to consider donating $100 to help those facing cancer through Cancer Council WA? I know that not everyone can afford to give so generously so please feel free to give whatever you can. Every amount of $2 or above is tax deductible in Australia and will make a difference for so many.

You can donate directly by following this link.

The link will take you directly to the Cancer Council’s secure site. If you do donate to support me, can I ask that you leave a message on the site to tell me that you’re supporting me so that I can track those sponsoring my efforts? Alternatively you can email me to let me know you’ve donated.

If you know anyone in any of the towns along the way who you think would be a good contact, please let me know. If you can think of any other way you can help us with the event, please contact me.

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Riding for Cancer 2010

Aug 5th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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I’ll be riding my bike with a little more purpose in the coming months as I start preparing for a ride from Albany to Perth this November.

The ride follows the success of last year’s ride from Perth to Albany.

Last Year’s Ride

In February 2009 my wife’s sister passed away at the age of 41 from cancer.

In the weeks leading up to her death I was throwing an idea around for a bike ride from Perth to Albany. The ride would take my morning radio programme on the road to broadcast from a different town each day.

I wanted to give people who had been touched by cancer a chance to tell their story. Whether they’d lost a loved one or survived cancer, I wanted people to have the opportunity to break the silence and let people know that they’ve been through some deep waters. I wanted others who have been touched by cancer to know they’re not alone.

That ride happened in October last year and was very successful in so many ways.

As well as giving people opportunity to tell their story we raised around $15 000 for Cancer Council Western Australia.

Ride for Cancer 2010

So now we’re doing it all over again but in the reverse order. We’ll be cycling from Albany to Perth with the event taking place from the 13th to the 20th of November.

I have a number of cyclists ready to take part and once again I’ll broadcast my radio programme each morning before hopping onto my bike just after midday to cycle to the next town.

The task now is to finalise the team of cyclists and support crew. I’m hoping that we’ll have around ten to twelve riders. We’ll be followed by support vehicles which will carry all our gear.

If you’re part of a business that would like to partner with us on the journey, I’m looking for some sponsors for the cycling jerseys. There are different levels of sponsorship for various sized logos on the jerseys.

I also need your story. Have you been touched by cancer? Are you battling cancer now or beaten it in the past? Does a loved one have cancer? Have you lost a friend? If you’d rather not leave your story in the comments section of this post, you can go to my contact page and send me an email.

Sometime soon I’ll let you know how you can donate to Cancer Council Western Australia in support of the ride.

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Lost and Found

Oct 26th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

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What’s the strangest place you’ve found something you’ve lost?

On Friday evening I was getting organised for bunking down in the Cranbrook Baptist Church as part of last week’s ride for cancer from Perth to Albany.

I noticed something on the stage of the church. It was a USB thumb drive. I picked it up and figured that it must have belonged to someone from the church but it looked strangely familiar. It looked just like one that belonged to my wife Pauline which went missing in January this year.

I knew it couldn’t have been the one we’d lost because we’d never set foot inside that church before. The next morning, curiousity got the better of me and I asked Ash, our technical expert, to check out what was on it. Sure enough it was full of photos, our photos.

I’m guessing that it must have got caught up in my sleeping bag and seeing as Friday was the first time I’d used the sleeping bag since January, it must have dropped out when I was unpacking.

We’d searched high and low for the thumb drive at the time but we’d pretty much given up all hope of seeing it again. Who would have guessed that it would turn up in a church hundreds of kilometres from where it’d been lost 10 months later?

Have you found things that you thought were gone forever? What has been the strangest place you’ve found something? I’d love to hear your story so please drop me a line in the comments section of this post.

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Perth to Albany – The Final Day

Oct 24th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

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We cycled just over 100 kilometres to make it from Cranbrook to Albany yesterday afternoon. The conditions were cold and sometimes wet but with the end in sight we powered on towards our goal.

We had a wonderful overnight stay at Lilac Cottages, overlooking the water, before four of us got up earl for a little extra cycling up Mt Clarence.

You can still donate to Cancer Council WA by going to the secure donations page.