What is OPAL?

OPAL is a healthy lifestyle program that encourages everyone in the community to work together to create lot-slots of different ways to en-joy healthy eating and to have fun being active.

The way OPAL comes to life in the Mid Murray community will depend on your input and enthusiasm.

There has, and continues to be opportunities for everyone to be involved in OPAL activi-ties, so keep your eye out for OPAL and its messages in the community.

To find out more about OPAL visit www.opal.sa.gov.au or call the Mid Murray OPAL team on 85690100 or email cblacker@mid-murray.sa.gov.au .

Life’s brighter outdoors for Mid Murray kidsLife is definitely more fun and more active outdoors! And this is the theme set to inspire much of the OPAL team’s work in 2014, as we embark on a 12 month journey to ‘activate’ our local parks and places.

We all know that kids love being outdoors, sometimes all they need is the opportunity to get out there. The OPAL team is super-keen on making this happen because research shows (and common sense tells us) that kids are much more likely to move and be active when outside.

Kids spent 90 per cent of their time indoors, but they keep telling us that want to spend more time outdoors. The good news is, that by being outdoors and connecting with family and friends, children can build their confidence, independence and social skills.

Playing outdoors in nature is important for children, just like food and sleep. Kids who have the opportunity to play outdoors are fitter, stronger and more coordinated. It’s also good for their brains and helps learning, concentration, memory and sleep pat-ters.

Running, jumping, riding, climbing and chasing are great ways for kids to be physically active, and with this in mind OPAL has some ideas of its own to get local Mid Mur-ray kids outdoors this year.

Already we are planning workshops for kids to make their own kites and fly them in local parks. We are also running Geocach-ing projects (see page 2 article), the new way to treasure hunt in your home town.

Stay tuned into the Mid Murray Council website (www.mid-murray.sa.gov.au) and our Facebook page (Mid Murray Health Fitness and Youth) for all of the details on updates on these great programs.

Title Competition heats up at Swan Reach It was getting hot in the kitchen when guest Natalie von Bertouch helped judge OPAL’s healthy cooking challenge at the Swan Reach Community Fair. The challenge included a teacher’s, student’s, dad’s and service group’s category, which saw them cook up creative meals from scratch in front of a live crowd. Meals were judged on appearance, nutrition and taste. Winning dishes included honey and fruit topped breakfast oats, vegetable potato bake, tuna sandwich roll and chicken burger with special sauce.

Junior basketball

returns to Mannum

this summer

Junior Basketball has come back to Mannum, with an in-credible term of Aussie Hoops being run in late 2013. More than 60 children came along and tried out basketball at the Mannum Leisure Centre last year.

Now, in 2014, thanks to some fantastic support from local volunteers, Hoops will contin-ue to run again in Term 1 (for children between 4-8 years), along with a junior basketball competition (for children 9 years and older).

OPAL is always looking to support local children to get active through sport, and with this has worked alongside the Mid Murray Council and its youth and rec team to help local volunteers get basketball back off the ground in Man-num.

The newly formed committee need more volunteers to help coach, umpire and take on administrative tasks of the club,.

Anyone wishing to get in-volved volunteering, or look-ing get their kids involved should contact coordinator Natalie Davis by emailing ndavis@mid-murray.sa.gov.au,

or phone on 0409 098 806.

Diem’s lunchbox-lunchbox tip #1

Always pack your lunchbox with fruit and vegetables. It’s always cheaper than packaged snacks and is loaded with all the right things for children’s growth and development. Pack with dips or yoghurt to switch things up everyday.

February 2014

Sports club takes the lead on children’s health Coorong Mullet sandwiches, muesli cups, salad wraps, and kids recovery packs are just some of the new items that will be served up as part of the Mannum Football and Netball Club’s new healthy menu in 2014.

This is part of a larger commitment from the clubs to become a healthier venue, as they devel-op a pilot program in 2014 in partnership with OPAL and Sports Dietician Natalie Von Bertouch.

Volunteers from the clubs are committed to work with OPAL to develop a Healthy Eating Policy this season, which will ensure healthy food and drink choices are easy to make at the club.

This will coincide with the football club’s new kitchen development, set to be launched at the start of the season, which will offer more space for fresh food stor-age and preparation.

Mid Murray OPAL Manager Courtney Blacker has said that the clubs should be very proud of themselves in taking on a leadership role in supporting the health of their community.

“The Mannum football and netball clubs attract hundreds of fami-lies every week to their venue. They have always offered a great setting for physical activity, but now, with they will have the whole package – aiming towards a healthier, happier (and better perform-ing) environment for their members,” Ms Blacker said.

More info on the club’s project will be updated in the local media and on our Mid Murray Health Fitness and Youth Facebook page.

Geocache treasure hunting is here Although the term Geocaching sounds like a complicated sci-fi activity, it is far from this. In fact, Geocaching is a form of treasure hunting, and the OPAL Mid Murray team will be running programs in 2014 to help get more fami-lies and children familiar with this outdoor activity.

Geocaching is a worldwide phenomenon which has vari-ous online tools to help people take part. The lay-man’s version of Geocaching could be described as finding coordinates on a smart phone or GPS and tracking the position of the ‘cache’ (or treasure) from this information.

Coordinates are found online in various forms, most com-monly using free, or low-cost online apps. These include clues on the what people should look for, when the cache was last found, what you can expect to find, the difficulty and terrain levels in searching for it, and much more.

For more information on geocaching, check out geocach-ing.com. For those people who are interested in testing it out, the OPAL team can tell you from experience that there are plenty of caches hidden around our district – so you can get out and find them now!

Keep informed on the upcoming Geocaching activities being run by the OPAL team by ‘liking’ our Facebook page – Mid Murray Health Fitness and Youth, or staying updated with news at www.mid-murray.sa.gov.au.

Brekky theme wraps up in Mid Murray

In OPAL’s second year at Mid Murray, the Peel, Pour, Pop theme was about promoting having a healthy breakfast everyday.

Bright Spark Entertainment’s Peel, Pour, Pop educational show visited all junior and middle primary school students in the Mid Murray district to teach students about why it is important to eat a healthy breakfast everyday.

This was done through a fun and engaging show that even now (6 months later) still has students pondering how ‘Mr Goodbrekky’ managed to pour milk from a student’s elbow.

Other initiatives include school holiday breakfast cook -ups, label reading workshops for parents, ‘mix your own muesli’ activities and much more.

This year we’ll be wrapping up the Peel, Pour, Pop theme, so families should keep an eye out for new OPAL messages in your community news, local events, and schools and kindergartens.

Active outdoor loan kits at Morgan Library

The Morgan Library is much more than just books, and the new Family Active Loan Kits are just one of the great fea-tures they have on offer.

In 2013, the OPAL team worked along-side the library team to put together these great loan kids, which encour-age children to adapt the things they read about into practice.

The kits are based on four themes — Bugs, Flowers, Leaves and Road Safety. They include books on each of the subjects, and then children’s tools and toys to encourage them to get outdoors and explore, using inspiration drawn from the books in the library.

For example, the Bugs kit contains a book about creepy crawlies, a kids bug-catcher, tweezers and a magnifying glass. The Flowers kit includes a flow-er-press to encourage children to get outdoors and move by flower picking.

For more info, or to loan out one of the packs, pop in and see Lisa and the team, or phone them on 8540 0090.

Kindergym comes alive Eight Mid Murray women are on their way to becoming accred-ited Kindergym Coordinators and Coaches thanks to a partner-ship program established by OPAL, Gymnastics SA, and local schools and kindergartens. The OPAL program has subsidised training for volunteers from Mannum, Swan Reach, Morgan, Cadell and Blanchetown, and will continue to help these wonderful and passionate local peo-ple to establish Kindergyms in 2014. Already a group of volunteers – including Katie O’Shaugh-nessy, Leisa Shepherdson-Casey and Kirsty Smith have led Come and Try sessions in Swan Reach over the summer school holidays. The Cadell Primary School and Play Centre have also joined forces with the OPAL team to establish a Kinder and Coffee program. This targets physical activity in Kindergym style ses-sions for children aged 0-5 years old, and runs each Friday during school term at the Cadell Play Centre. Coordinators are happy to discuss opportunities to develop Kindergym in their area, and for families to join in during 2014! For more information or to get involved, contact OPAL on 8569 0100, or email cblacker@mid-murray.as.gov.au.

Mannum Fun Run attracts 240 Over 240 people put their best foot forward on Sunday 24 Novem-ber to participate in the third consecutive Murraylands APEX Man-num Fun Run and Walk event at Mary Ann Reserve. Participants were aged 0-80 years and distances between 1—10km, with the 5 kilometre walk the most popular . Organisers were rapt to have more than 40 children take part in the new Kids one-kilometre Dash event, something introduced for the first time after feedback from parents in 2012. Even some kids who still hadn’t expelled their energy after participating in the open age event and ran the Kids Dash too. Numbers of participants registered were up by about 10 per cent, and there was an increase in the number of runners compared to

previous years with many challenging themselves to go the extra distance in the 10 kilometre event. Major sponsor, Murraylands APEX, cooked up a free healthy breakfast for, including fruit sal-ad pancakes. The 30-plus volunteers who ran the event were thrilled with its success .

Your chance to win a children’s outdoor play kit

OPAL Parks and Places survey for families with children between 0-18 years Simply complete this survey and post back to; OPAL Program, Mid Murray Council, PO Box 28 Mannum SA 5238, OR complete it online at www.surveymonkey.com/s/midmurrayopal before Monday, 10 March for your chance to win. You may answer the survey anonymously, however to enter the draw please provide us with details. Name: ______________________________________ Contact number:______________________________ 1. How old is/are your child/ren: ______________________ 2. How often do you visit your local park or playground per month? ___________ 3. On average, how much time do you spend at your local park or playground on each visit?

__________ minutes 4. What activities do you normally do at your local park or playground?

Sport (organised competition) Sport (leisure) Playground Games Picnic Other. Please specify: _______________________________________________

5. What can OPAL do to help you and your family use your local parks or places more often? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paddling into the Record Books Don’t be surprised if you are walking through the streets of Mannum in May, and are suddenly surrounded by a flotilla of canoes of kayaks—it’s all part of a much bigger plan! An inspired group of volunteers from the Murraylands Regional Tourism Association Article (MRTA) are trying to get into the Guinness Book, with their inaugural Man-num Waters Paddling into the Record Books event being held in Mannum from May 3-4. On the Sunday, May 4, OPAL is partnering with the event organisers and Canoe SA to run a Come and Try Canoe-ing and Kayaking. This will be open to local children from across the Mid Murray district, and will give children a chance to learn about safety on the River, and also have a go at paddling around with supervised instructors. The event will also feature a program of other great activ-ities including music, performances, regional foods, dis-plays, arts projects and much more. For more on the event, find it on Facebook—Paddling into the Record Books Mannum South Australia.

Get the most out of your pumpkin at Cadell this Easter

The Cadell Harvest Festival offers a unique opportunity to talk about one of our much-loved, and high nutritious vegetables—pumpkins! The annual event, held on Easter Saturday (April 19) will play host to the Giant Pumpkin Competition. This year however, OPAL is on board as a spon-sor and wants to bring a different idea to the table (no pun intended). This year, OPAL brings renowned chef and nutritionist Mel Haynes, of Culineti-ca to the event to run workshops and cooking demonstrations on How to get the most out of your pumpkin. These workshops will be targeted at children and young families, with a unique style of cooking which supports nutrition and overall wellbeing. To keep updated on this event, check out their website at cadell.org.au.

Help us reach 500 Facebook likes

Council’s youth, health and arts pro-grams have set up a Facebook page to help communicate everything we’re upto to people across the wid-er Mid Murray district. The Facebook page features infor-mation on programs being run by OPAL, Fun 4 YOUth, Mannum Lei-sure Centre, Arts and Culture, Healthy Murraylands, swimming pools, Starclub and more. The aim of the page is to ensure you can stay up to date on the various projects of Council, and get involved as much as possible. We also up-date the page with great opportuni-ties for local grants, workshops, events, networking opportunities, facility upgrades, awards and more. To keep updated , jump on Face-book and ‘like’ the Mid Murray Health, Fitness and Youth page … help us reach 500 likes in 2014!

OPAL is a joint program of State, Federal and Local Governments.