Your Lifestyle

Still Inspiring: May - Beverley Twibell

I'm an octogarian now but I don't think about age or how old I am. I'm busy day by day. I do think to myself sometimes, ‘Oooh..I wonder when the day's going to come when I die? Will I wake up and find myself dead one day?' But I don't sort of think along the lines of getting older. While I've got health and I'm busy, honestly I don't feel any different to what I did at thirty or forty.

I've been fundraising for a long time. When my children were tiny, we lobbied for a pre-school and a baby clinic for East Devonport and that goes back fifty years. And then, after I retired from work when I was sixty-one, my fundraising just grew from there. I wasn't retiring from life, remember - only from paid employment!

The Soroptimists were the ones who started Bride of the Year and did it for years. Then I read in the paper that they were going to discontinue it, so with my very optimistic nature, I thought, ‘I could do that. That would be a good fundraiser for SIDS.' So I phoned around my friends and asked if they would go into it with me, which they did. For one year. And then they fizzled out. You know how people do! I was left with two and then I was left with one and then I thought, ‘Oh it doesn't matter, I'll do it myself.' I was seventy five then and this year (2006) is my eleventh event. Over the years this event has raised about $120,000 altogether for SIDS and a further $30,000 for Menzies Institute to assist research into childhood diseases.

Bride of the Year is open to any bride in Tasmania who has been married in the last twelve months. The brides are each required to raise one hundred dollars which of course, goes to the charity. They just have to appear on stage in their gown, looking as they looked on the day, to be judged. They have to supply me with a photograph (which our Advocate newspaper puts in of all the brides) and they need to send in a little write up about their wedding and their dress so the lady compere can describe what they're wearing as they walk across the stage.

Every year we raffle a bride doll, a beautiful bride doll and we have supper afterwards. I make the wedding cake, I don't decorate it but I make it. It's been a really popular event and year by year now, I've got it all at my fingertips, it's so simple. I make anything from six, seven and up to nine thousand dollars.

My organising starts around April when I choose the date and fix the venue. I go around and get all the sponsorship and get the prizes gathered up. I organise the artists – we have some very good artists and some professionals which builds up the evening like a big concert. The bride numbers have dropped back a lot though. It's getting harder to get them. A lot of the brides are busy. They're trying to buy a home or they're renovating a home. Or sometimes they get pregnant. Or sometimes they just can't be bothered. Some of them say, ‘Well, I've had my gown all dry cleaned and I don't want to wear it and then have to get it dry cleaned again.' And I say, ‘Well, what's the difference? You're just going to hang it up in the wardrobe and in the end give it to an Op Shop! So why not wear it one more time?'

But anyway, you can't make people do what they don't want to do, so I just hope for the best. When you're organising events, things happen but I always think, when one door closes another one opens. And I've found repeatedly that something has come just when I needed it and I've thought, ‘Well that was meant to be.' I've found it time and time again. I try to be gracious enough to admit defeat and just move on with Plan B.

This will be my last bride of the Year. Maybe it has sort of run its course? I've decided to call it quits and move on. On to Plan B! And I'll still be involved with all my other voluntary work. At the moment, I am holding five or six voluntary positions: as secretary, president, treasurer and various things. My motto is: Be yourself, obey your instincts and have a go. I've always believed that your talents are meant to be used and used for the benefit of others if possible. We're all given certain talents. I mean, there's lots of things I can't do - I can't sing a note in tune. But everybody can do something.

They tell me I am a good letter writer. Whenever I write a letter, they always tell me, ‘What a beautiful letter!' I hear it over and over again. There was one old lady, I sent her a thank you letter for some crotcheting she'd done for us and I heard later that she said it was the most beautiful letter she'd ever received and she had it framed and put it up in her unit. Imagine that!

I always think there are three aspects of age: the chronological age, the physical age and the psychological age. My physical age is 100 % (I hardly have a sick day in my life) and so is my psychological age (I think I've still got my marbles!)…so why worry about my chronological age. You can be as old as you want to be: it doesn't matter how long it is since you were born, it's your attitude that counts.



Beverley has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for many charities and groups.