With a life-long interest and passion for poetry, she is currently working on a special arts/literacy project entitled 100 Views in several schools, both here and internationally.

The documentary 100 Views celebrates community through poetry, artwork and a festival.

Her documentary 100 Views Kathmandu made while volunteering in Nepal this April, is being shown on community television in several states.

Her collection of Australian poetry, All Along the River, and upcoming novel, Fire Song, are both in development with the ABC for publication in 2009.

Brian McGuigan AM, former managing director and still a director of McGuigan Simeon Wines Limited, has been at the forefront of the Australian Wine Industry for more than 35 years.

Mr McGuigan is one of the wine industry’s most versatile and well-known figures, utilising his skills as a winemaker, viticulturist, marketer and communications specialist to take his wines all over Australia and around the world.

Brian McGuigan established his position as one of Australia’s foremost winemakers and marketers when he founded the Wyndham Estate Wine Company at Dalwood in the Hunter Valley in the 1970s and 1980s.

As managing director of the Wyndham Estate Group he built one of the most successful wine companies in Australia.

The brands covered by the Wyndham Estate Group included Richmond Grove, Montrose, Poets Corner, Craigmoor, Saxonvale, Hunter Estate and the Amberton Labels. He built sales of the company’s products to in excess of 1,250,000 cases.

During his time with Wyndham Brian and his wife Fay saw great potential for Australian wines in the International market place. Accordingly, Wyndham also became one of the leading exporters of Australian wine to the world.

Following the sale of Wyndham in 1991 Brian

established a new company; Brian McGuigan Wines, in 1992 through a publicly listed Company.

In the 10 years since the formation of the Company growth has been extraordinary with total sales now approaching eight million cases.

Brian’s faith in Australia to produce premium quality wines is evidenced by the fact that the McGuigan Company now controls and manages some 18,500 acres of vines throughout Australia putting it amongst the top grape growers in Australia and the world. Exports continue to be a major focus of the McGuigan Simeon Wines

operation.

More than 67 per cent of total production is allocated to satisfy the demands of the International market. The success of McGuigan Wines in both Europe and the USA and New Zealand has been outstanding and with the quality of McGuigan Wines supported by their policy of controlling their own vineyards the future of export sales seems assured.

Ben Austin OAM is a record-breaking world champion swimmer from Wellington, in central-west NSW.

Ben lost his left arm from just above the elbow at two weeks of age, when complications following his birth forced doctors to amputate.

But he never let his disability hold him back.

The son of the local

swimming pool manager, Ben

started swimming at the age of four and played rugby league, rugby union and water polo for his home town.

Despite taking up competitive swimming at 19, only six months before the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games, he went on to win Silver in the 200m Individual Medley and even dined with the Queen in the lead up to the Games.

Ben was the first Paralympian to get a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport and won several Gold medals in the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

Ben is a proud role model and is keen to inspire people with disabilities to achieve their goals and compete in mainstream events.

He was a Young Australian of the Year Finalist in 2003 and in 2004 was recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to Australian sport and advocating on behalf of people with a disability.