Nick Marvin talks about Perth Wildcats

May 20, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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Perth_WildcatsLogo.jpgA lot has been said in the media recently about the survival of the NBL, Australia’s premier basketball competition. A restructuring of the league had several clubs opting out which threatened to cause the whole competition to collapse. In a country where basketball isn’t high on the sporting ladder, it’s important to make sure that the game grabs the attention of Aussie sports lovers.

Things have started to turn around over the past few weeks but in the middle of the confusion came rumours that the Perth Wildcats could be facing extinction. Thankfully that’s not the case but they are seeking extra corporate sponsors to sure up their future. The Perth Wildcats is the most successful professional sporting team in Perth, Western Australia with 4 national championships and 20 consecutive finals appearances over the last 25 years.

The developments and progress towards the 2009/10 NBL competition is progressing well. Whilst the Wildcats have outlined some key criteria for participating, we are very committed to playing this season.

However, as we seek to build a sustainable club, we can not rely solely on the generosity of our owner and chairman Jack Bendat.

The Wildcats do more than play basketball. We pride ourselves on our community engagement at schools, hospitals, juvenile detention centres and work in remote and regional communities.

Whilst we seek sponsorship for the high-profile activities on game night, we also want WA companies to sponsor our community work.

Over the last week, I have witnessed first-hand the great support we have across our state and the vacuum our absence would leave.

I hope what we do is important enough for Western Australians to get behind us in a real and meaningful way through corporate sponsorship. – Nick Marvin – CEO Perth Wildcats

Yesterday during my morning programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM I spoke to the Chief Executive Officer of the Perth Wildcats, Nick Marvin, who outlined where the competition is heading and spoke about the future of the Perth Wildcats.

One of the most impressive aspects of the Wildcats is the culture that is evident in the team members and support staff. In a time when we continue to hear about the bad behaviour of sports people both on and especially off the field, it’s extremely refreshing to hear about the values that drive Perth’s premier basketball team.

If you’d like to hear what Nick had to say about basketball, Perth Wildcats and the responsibility of modern sports people, just click the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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Sonshine FM and Social Media

May 19, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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Sonshine_logo.jpgIf you’re a 98.5 Sonshine FM listener, either in Perth or online anywhere else in the world, you might like to know that you can now follow your favourite radio station on Facebook and Twitter.



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One more reason

April 16, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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I had to stop for a few minutes during my ride to work this morning.

As I was cycling over the Swan River across Windan Bridge I noticed a guy leaning over the railing watching something in the river below. I looked out to see a few dolphins splashing about in the water.

I continued across the bridge and once I got down to ground level beside the river I stopped to watch for a few minutes. Another cyclist stopped beside me and told me that he’s seen the dolphins at various places in the river three times in the past three weeks.

It was a marvellous opportunity to see these wonderful creatures enjoying the perfect conditions.

There are certainly a lot of reasons that I enjoy cycling to work – and this morning I added one more.



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A step back in time

April 5, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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A lot has happened over the past year. I won’t bore you with all the details but there have been some fairly major changes and life events within twelve short months.

  • We’ve lost two close family members. Both died way too young.
  • The radio station I work for has moved across the city.
  • We decided to move house and are still going through the ‘sell one house buy another’ process.
  • Our ten year old son James spent five weeks overseas with Pauline’s mum.

There have been plenty of other things happening, most of which can be found in my blog posts from the past year.

On this day last year I was getting ready to leave Perth for an amazing adventure. Below is some of what I wrote early on Saturday morning the 5th of April 2008. At the time I really had no idea what was going to happen.

I’m the only one up in my house at the moment but very soon we’ll all be sharing our last breakfast together for ten days.

I have to be at the airport at around 9:45 to fly out at 10:45. Between now and then I need to put all the clothes my Pauline has so wonderfully prepared for me into my case and then double check that I have everything I need. (I just know I’ll forget something.)

Over the next couple of days I’ll fly from Perth to Sydney then to Los Angeles then Miami and finally on to Haiti. I’ll be in Haiti for around a week before I repeat the entire process in reverse.

I feel totally unprepared but I’m sure that’s what long flights are all about. The flights will give me time to finally stop and soak in the information that I haven’t had time to process so far. I’ll read about Haiti and find out a little bit more of what to expect, I’ll read the instructions to my audio recorder to make sure that I know what I’m doing when I start interviewing people from Compassion and those they serve.

That was the start of my journey with Compassion Australia to see the amazing work they do in developing countries.

Little did I know that I’d only spend a couple of days in Haiti and that we’d have to enlist the services of an armed police escort to get us to the airport to leave the country as fires and violent protests took over the city of Port-au-Prince.

Over the next few days I’ll re-visit some of that trip and look at the highs and the heartbreaks.



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Dancing with Flapper

March 23, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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Many years ago, in a studio in Tuart Hill, there lived a character named Flapper.

If you were a kid growing up in the 80s in Perth you might remember Channel 9’s Flapper and his show Flapper’s Factory.

Yesterday, during an outside radio broadcast for Activ at McCallum Park, we saw Flapper return to the stage in a one elephant show. Seeing him brought back memories but how could we have ever prepared ourselves for the absolute thrill of being invited to dance with the little blue elephant?

The video below shows fellow 98.5 Sonshine FM announcer and broadcast engineer Ash Wright, Flapper and myself dancing up a storm.

I did a little research on Flapper and found this recent article at Perth Now. Here’s part of the article talking about Flapper.

Jen Dunstan, creative director of production house, Elephant Productions was at Channel 9 with the Young People’s program department which was created by fellow director Keith Woodland in 1977.

“Keith came to the station with drawings of Flapper the elephant – so he is the father of Flapper,” said Ms Dunstan.

“This new creation was opposite to Fat Cat and Percy Penguin who were quite tall and on Channel 7.

“Some of the little children were finding these characters large and ominous in height, so he created a character which was more kid level.

“The head of the animator for five year-old Flapper lived inside his top hat and operated his eyes – the first time ever in Australia that had a character with moving eyes.”

Flapper became the Nine mascot and had his own show Flapper’s Factory, then came Flapper’s Super-heroes and at the demise of this program came Clash of the Creatures.

I love my job. Where else would you get paid to dance with a blue elephant?



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