President’s Report – December 2022

As the year comes to an end and I reflect on our year, I am truly grateful for all that CDMBA has been able to achieve this year.
We endeavour to support so many families in the multiples community. Our support coordinator, Shoba Willer, and her team, manage to ensure every new member gets support from our CDMBA community through welcome meals and online support. A large portion of our support services are only possible because of various grants we receive throughout the year. We are so lucky to have the opportunities to apply for grants. Our committee members put a substantial amount of work into ensuring we are successful for a large portion of the grants we apply for. This year we have been lucky enough to receive the following grants:
-City of Casey Community Grant
-City of Casey Training and Equipment Grant
-Victoria Department of Education Children’s week grant
-Inger Rice Grant (received in 2021 however most of funds were spent in 2022)
Some of the funds from these grants also go into funding the CDMBA playgroups. The playgroup coordinator, Jess, commits so much hard work into ensuring we have a playgroup for nearly every member’s needs. We currently run the following playgroups:
-Young Bubs every 2nd Thursday
-Wednesday Playgroup
-Friday open playgroup
-First Saturday of the month Saturday Playgroup
Another major avenue to help Casey and District Multiple Birth Association Inc. support the members is by doing fundraisers throughout the year. We had two big fundraisers in the last month. These were the Clyde Bunnings BBQ where we raised a whopping $1350 and then the Let’s Unwine Fundraiser we raised $350. Thank you to everyone who volunteered at Bunnings or stopped in to support us. Also thank you to Shoba for spearheading the wine fundraiser and to the members who purchased wine. We have the Bumblebee market this coming weekend, 4th of December, so please either drop off some baked goodies for the volunteers to sell or pop into Berwick Fields Primary School between 9am-12pm to say hello and buy something delicious to take home. We also recently launched the Kiddikutter knives fundraiser, these child safe knives spark a love for cooking in your little ones and helping parents prepare meals.
Recently I was lucky enough to attend the AMBA National Convention in Sydney with the Vice President, Carmen. The convention was such a great resource for all things multiple birth and club related. We learnt so much from the various information sessions we attended, and it was a great network opportunity to learn more about what other clubs do in regard to events, fundraising, support services etc. We hope to provide the members with some valuable information from convention in the next coming weeks.
Lastly, a major draw card for many members is the social events we host throughout the year. Coming out of covid and not being able to socialise in person for so many months really impacted many people. CDMBA hosted so many praiseworthy events this year, to name a few:
-Multiple Birth Awareness Week
-Easter Egg Hunt
-Mother’s and Father’s Day
-Multiple coffee catch ups at parks around City of Casey and Cardinia Shire.
We finished off the year with a wonderfully cheerful Christmas event. We had more than half our membership base attend on the day which is definitely the largest event of the year. After all the stress about what the Melbourne weather would do that day and whether Santa would be able to visit from the North Pole so close to Christmas and whether we had accounted for everything; the day turned out to be lovely, with our community coming together, being jolly and merry and enjoying each other’s company. A huge thank you needs to go out to the team that conceptualised and executed the Annual Christmas party. Congratulations on a truly successful event with tons of positive feedback. See pictures of the day in the newsletter.
Lastly, I want to say to the committee, thank you so much for all the voluntary work you do. Please know that we could not do this without everyone’s hard work. We are forever thankful for the time you have given CDMBA. You each have made an unforgettable difference to CDMBA and to our members. Behind every successfully organized event, playgroup, membership support service, social media post, newsletter and fundraiser, there is an extraordinary volunteer team. Thank you for a job well done. A very special thank you to Hilary for always proofreading everything for the club rain, hail or shine.
To the members of CDMBA, thank you for continuing to support our endeavours and staying part of the CDMBA tribe. We have such an amazing community of parents, and we are grateful for this.
Holiday Greetings! Sending you joy and goodwill to carry through the holidays and into the bright new year.