Onesie Party for Responsible Gambling Awareness Week - June 11, 2014

Responsible Gambling Awareness Week run is May each year, and this year ran from May 26 to June 1. It was decided to hold an event at The Couch to talk about the issues and problems that irresponsible gambling can cause. One of The Couch volunteers, Mohan, had a very personal experience with the dangers of excessive gambling, and agreed to work with Sharon from The Salvation Army to tell his story. Unfortunately, we were unable to organise the presentation during the Responsible Gambling Awareness Week, but it was deemed important that this message still gets delivered, even if a little late.

Mohan tells his narrative.

As serious as issue as problem gambling is, we wanted to have some fun at The Couch too, so the idea was that we would also make it a ‘Onesie Party’. Sharon brought along some onesie costumes, so all our volunteers could dress up in some entertaining outfits.

Sharon with The Couch volunteers.

Some volunteers managed to source their own onesies, whereas other borrowed from Sharon's collection. Gary brought in a rat/mouse costume which Robin donned (Having forgotten his promise to bring in his "cousin's" Pikachu outfit). Not sure it if it is technically a onesie (the head seemed to be a different piece), but Tien still had fun typing knots in the costume’s tail.

It looked like a pig's tail by the time Tien had finished.

As well as the fun of volunteers (and Peter) in onesies, we also got a treat of getting to eat some pizza from a nearby restaurant that night! When the pizzas entered the room, many hungry eyes were on the boxes! In fact, after dinner, a student from Italy said he was rather impressed with the quality of the pizza! This, unfortunately, could not be said at our last pizza dinner.

All this talk about gambling had made the students hungry, so we decided to supplement the pizza with some meat pies.

Unfortunately, your humble narrator was tasked with picking up said pizza, so cannot share much information on the presentation or what was discussed. Fortunately however, Kaushika was paying attention and her article will soon appear in the next newsletter! There will be an announcement on The Couch’s Facebook when it is published.

This photo was taken with the spirit of Where the Wild Things Are. Taking it was a big of an exercise in frustration trying to get the volunteers to keep still, but your narrator is hoping there will be another chance for a Onesie Party, and a second chance to get the photo he has in mind!

More photos in the photo album.

If you, or someone you know, is suffering from excessive gambling, it is recommended you visit the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation to seek assistance.