CPSARA
CEREBRAL PALSY SPORTING AND RECREATION ASSOCIATION NSW INC
CPSARA aims to provide both sporting and recreational opportunities for people of all ages with Cerebral Palsy and other neurological conditions.
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There are many sports, events and levels of competition for you as an athlete to pursue. Participation in sport can be just for fun and fitness but can also be pursued to International and Paralympic level!
our
committee
President: Brian Berry
A Human Resources Professional with extensive experience in Human Resources, Line, Operations & Sales Management with a can-do attitude. Brian possesses strong interpersonal relationship skills, developed negotiation & persuasive skills.
He has assisted many small to large sized companies and corporate clients, supplying a full range of Human Resources functions, from Strategic HR to HR set up roles to specialised IR / ER assistance across a range of industries such as Construction, Rail, FMCG, Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical, Retail, Banking, Airline, Insurance, IT & Not for Profit Sectors.
Vice-President: Murray Bartram
Murray Bartram is an accomplished para-athlete, playing football for the NSW Football team and competing to national level in skiing. His achievements include playing at the CP Football Nationals over 4 years, attending many Pararoos Football camps as well as attending a Paralympic Ski Training camp in Canada. Whilst achieving elite athlete status in his sporting career, he’s learned what he really values from sport was having fun and that it was the backbone of good physical and mental health for him. Today he enjoys many recreational sporting activities including Heli skiing in Alaska, cross-country skiing in Australia, Snowkiting at Thredbo, body-boarding, mountain biking and learning to guide sit-ski and blind skiers. He has become involved in CPSARA to help encourage individuals to find enjoyment in sport, just like he did, whether it is competing at elite level or for recreation and fun.
Treasurer: Helen Banks
Helen is a Chartered Accountant with her own small practice, who is now semi-retired. She has enjoyed sport all her life, including running, cycling and swimming as well as being a ski instructor in both Australia and France. Helen was also keenly involved in her sons running activities during their school years, enjoying both the sporting element and the comradeship on the sidelines. Helen is keenly aware of the benefits that sport and physical activity provide.
Helen also volunteers with Landcare, with an interest in the revegetation of disturbed land to improve tree canopy, habitat and biodiversity.
Helen has been an admirer of CPSARA for many years and is very excited to become involved. She is looking forward to getting to meet you all.
Member: Marita Morgan
Marita has an extensive history both in recreational and competitive sport. She started swimming at the age of four and did competitive swimming for athletes with a disability throughout high school, making the National Junior Disabled Games twice. She has also been a recreational skier all her life and has recently got into wheelchair tennis. Marita is now managing a tennis centre, is an adaptive tennis coach and plays competitive wheelchair tennis. One of her career highlights is co-founding the Adaptive Tennis Hub to include all ages with a disability to participate in tennis recreationally and competitively. She likes representing Community Sport on the CPSARA committee to give back and help people with a disability get involved in recreational sport or to pursue their sport journey.
Member: Heather Berry
Heather is the wife of Brian Berry, president of CPSARA, and mother of Daniel Berry, who represented Australia in both Football and Athletics. Daniel sadly passed away in 2013 after a recurrence of a brain tumour. She has two other sons, Thomas and Joshua.
She is a mathematics tutor and used to be a netball umpire co-ordinator at her local indoor sports centre. In her spare time, she likes to play netball and also help out with athletics, including taking on the NSW para-athletics team manager position for the Australian All Schools Athletics Championships.
Heather has been involved with CPSARA since Daniel joined in 2008 and has helped out behind the scenes since then and later joined the CPSARA committee. She wants to keep helping to raise awareness of the sporting opportunities for people with a disability in memory of Daniel.
Member: Kerry West
My name is Kerry West and I am a physiotherapist and have worked with children with cerebral palsy and other physical disabilities for over 20 years. Having been very involved in sport as a young person myself I have always been passionate about helping the children I see through my work become involved in sport and have often struggled to find suitable opportunities and to know what sports are available. Over the last 8 years I have been more personally involved in disability sport as my 16 year old daughter has CP and competes in athletics in the throwing events. I am also involved in swimming as a medical classifier. It is great to see many young children with CP come through the classification process and participate in swimming through school and other pathways. I joined the CPSARA committee so that I can contribute to sharing information about sporting opportunities with more children and families, as well as increase awareness amongst health professionals especially physios.
Additional Non-Voting Member & Athlete Ambassador: Rae Anderson
Rae has been involved with CPSARA as an athlete since beginning athletics in 2010. Since then, Rae has competed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, 2015 Doha IPC World Championships while doing her HSC on the same day as her javelin competition, 2016 Rio Paralympics and 2017 London IPC World Championships. Rae is now focusing on becoming a Dual Paralympian after receiving several scholarships and sponsorships to become the 7th Australian to reach this feat.
Currently, Rae is in her 5th year of study at the University of Sydney, majoring in Indonesian Studies and Asian Studies (double major).
Rae is currently working with and promoting the CPSARA athlete mentor program and parent mentor program. Rae hopes this program will help to support the para sport community as she is aware of the impact a mentor who has experienced it all before can have on new athletes and their families on the new and unfamiliar para sport journey.
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Additional Non-Voting Member & Athlete Ambassador: Tamsin Colley
Tamsin is a student studying Exercise Physiology at UNSW. She hopes to get out of the course valuable skills to enable her to work with people with disabilities to help them achieve their sporting goals. What motivated her to become a CPSARA athlete ambassador in 2018 then be involved today was encouraging other people with disabilities to get involved in sport through all mediums including social media!
Tamsin has mild Cerebral Palsy and Autism, and is a proud para-athlete. She has been participating in athletics since she was 8 years old and has been a CPSARA member since then. As a T36 athlete, Tamsin represented Australia at the Rio 2016 Paralympics then Dubai 2019 World Championships in the 200m. She also represented Australia last year at the Para Asia Cup with the ParaMatildas!
CPSARA Athlete Ambassadors
Christian Georgallis
Christian Georgallis is a T/F36 Athlete in athletics, with his main events being the 100m, 200m and 400m. When he is not running, he is studying Business at Western Sydney University. He also works at Network Building Supplies two days a week, helping with their e-commerce side of the business as well as in the paint room. As well as this, he works for the Graff Group as their NDIS State representative for their Home Modification division.
He also has his own business called Global Controls Direct, the home to the Trolley Cage and Australia’s leading online stockist of high-end specialty building supplies. He looks forward to taking on the CPSARA ambassador role to help grow the awareness around the organisation within the Para Sports Community and help grow the organisation into the future.
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Tahlia Blanshard
Tahlia has been a CPSARA member since 2017 and is a competitive swimmer who was close to qualifying for the Tokyo Paralympics for the 100m Freestyle, 50m Butterfly and relays. She also plays CP football and has been dancing since she was 7. Sport has given her opportunities to develop friendships that have become like family, and makes her feel happy, included, and empowered.
Outside of competing and training, she is studying a Bachelor of Health Science (majoring in Exercise) and hopes to combine her passions for sports, health, and disability advocacy as a future career. She is extremely passionate about creating new sporting opportunities and encouraging younger athletes to have fun and reach for their dreams! She would love to increase recognition of all the incredible achievements of para-athletes at all levels- and this is why she wanted to become a CPSARA ambassador with CPSARA. Although she is still young and has much to learn, she would love to give back to the communities that have given her so much throughout her journey.
Secretary: Catherine Sherrington
Cathie Sherrington is the mother of Tamsin Colley who represented Australia for athletics at the Rio Paralympics.
Cathie has a background as a physiotherapist in aged care and rehabilitation settings. She now works as a research professor at the University of Sydney's School of Public Health where she leads studies investigating the benefits of exercise for older people and people with disabilities.
She joined the CPSARA executive team as she would like to help make it easier for people with physical disabilities and their families to find and participate in sporting opportunities. She would like more people to experience the enormous benefits Tamsin and others have obtained through sport participation. She also hopes to use her research expertise to undertake projects that design and evaluate strategies to encourage greater participation in sport for people with physical disabilities.
