Starlight Children's Foundation
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Starlight brightens the lives of seriously ill and hospitalised children and their families throughout Australia.

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January 27th, 10:14pm 0 comments

Melbourne rules!

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Today we had a fabulous day in the RCH SER with many things happening all day. With five Captains, four vollies and heaps of kids, the room was full of action all day!! It was an anything goes day! Giant games of Pictionary, Charades, Uke lessons, Basketball competitions, dance offs and plenty of crafty glittery goodness, the kids were having a blast!

Our rad volunteer Lilli was showing Captain Bounce some new and exciting ways to use the face pain it turns out butterfly brushes are amazing! We ended up with peacocks, butterflies and a few snakes hanging out in the room with us. It was an excellent way to add colour and pizzaz to the room for the day.

Here is a photo of Lilli hanging out with a patient on the Wii. (Check out the cool Simba hat.)

Have a great weekend everybody!

Love Captain Bounce and Captain Cool

www.starlight.org.au

Posted
January 26th, 11:59pm 0 comments

WA's Very Own Australia Day Top Music Countdown!

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LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN!

It was an exciting Australia Day in the Perth SER this year when we decided to hold our very own version of Triple J’s Hottest 100 by having not one BUT TWO massive music polls during the day. Our 12 O’clock show kicked off the TOP 10 “TOON TUNES” as voted by the kids (with a few of the Captain’s fav’s thrown in for good measure!) We played all the most popular tracks from Animated movies (Highlights included The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Toy Story and Shark Tale and MORE!)

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL FOLKS! We had such a blast we opened up voted to include ANY SONG (with no rude words in it) that the kids of Princess Margaret Hospital were really into and the 3 O’clock show featured the HOTTEST 11 TUNES of the year. Katy Perry, The Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift and the cast of GLEE featured heavily and how could we possibly have a Starlight Room music countdown without THE BEIBS! It was a rocking  afternoon but a crazy mission behind the scenes of Starlight TV as Captain Fabulous and I raced around the control room trying to get all the music videos loaded and ready to play in time!

It was an epic task, but we all agreed it was worth it when we got to spend Australia Day listening to some great music and having a groove with all our little buddies in the Starlight Room!

Same time next year?

-Boy Cap (WA)

www.starlight.org.au

Posted
January 26th, 9:05pm 0 comments

Intergalactic Australia Day in The Starlight Room

Well chuck a few lamingtons on a hills hoist washing line, it’s Australia day in the Starlight room!

Over the past month we’ve been turning the new Victorian Starlight room into an Australian outback wonderland full of all sorts of wild creatures… and that’s not even counting the captains, who are wild at the calmest of times.

The entrance way is now an Aussie bush land, the control room is now an underwater reef world and the craft room is now a rain forest… It looks so realistic that Captain Chops was heard to say… “Wow where’d the craft room go? All I can see is this beautiful forest.”

But what better way to celebrate Australia Day than a massive game of indoor cricket and a guitar sing along.

Everyone got involved, even Pouchy the Super Kangaroo (see below), however she wasn’t very good at cricket as she just stood there and got out on the second ball.

What was important though was that everyone had a ball, not a cricket ball, an actual ball of a good time and made this Australia day the most dinky di, Blinky Bill, fair dinkum Australia day yet.

G’day mates!

Captain Ziggy

P.S. For new readers, Pouchy the Super Kangaroo is made out of paper and cardboard, but I still expected her to be a good cricketer. I’m not angry, just disappointed.

Posted
January 25th, 6:37pm 0 comments

The Adventures Of Captain Starlight - The Comic Book!

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I love comics!

I’m a huge fan of The Uncanny X-Men, I’m an avid reader of The Amazing Spiderman, and Batman is one of my good friends, whom I play foosball with every other Wednesday.
The only thing I love more than reading comics is drawing them myself.

So with that said, I’ve created the first ever "Adventures Of Captain Starlight" comic book series with the help of Captain Cool and the brilliant imaginations of the kids who visit the Starlight room.

Each episode will be about a different Captain and their adventures on Planet Starlight and its surrounding universes.

The very first issue finds Captain Cool becoming so cool he freezes solid and Blondie and I have to discover a way to thaw him out.

What’s even more exciting is that later in the year, Captain Cool and I will be turning the comic into a cartoon for the Starlight TV Channel so keep eye out for that.

Hope you like it.

Captain Ziggy

P.S. Batman isn’t actually very good at foosball.

I usually just let him win as he gets quite grumpy when he loses.

Posted
January 24th, 9:25pm 0 comments

Australian Faces

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Captain Crazy and I are very excited about Australia Day which is ONLY two days away. You can already smell the BBQs and hear the cricket on the TV, right? So this morning our focus was to celebrate the faces of Australia with a face painting extravaganza. We had everything: gum leaves, the Aboriginal flag, a possum, the Tasmanian tiger all the way through to a clown... an Australian clown.
By the afternoon, however, the face painting turned into something more serious. It became ART! Basically Maeve, Kane, Renee and Ella had a delightful afternoon painting Captain Crazy’s arms, neck and forehead. What a great day, thanks for a blast guys!
ACT Playroom
Posted
January 24th, 8:24pm 0 comments

Surprise Visitor to Randwick

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We love surprises at the Randwick Starlight Express Room, and in particular, we love surprise guests! As the Captain Starlights, volunteers and kids were busy playing games, painting the craft wall and watching the movie, a silent, not so little mouse, snuck into the Starlight Room to offer us all a big surprise.
We were all so delighted to see Mickey Mouse in the house, complete with sparkly jacket and pants to match. Mickey posed for many, many photos, and even played a PS2 game with one of the kids!
Possibly the most delighted of all was Captain Freckles. She was so excited to meet the Mickey. Stay tuned for more adventures and special guests from the Randwick Starlight Express Room.

Signing off
Captain Plaits

www.starlight.org.au

Posted
January 24th, 7:43pm 0 comments

Aussie Stingers Make a Grand Entrance

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Fresh off their history making win at the Water Polo Pan Pacs, the Aussie Stingers headed to Sydney for a 3 match test series against the USA, and took a detour to the Randwick Starlight Express Room. This was the first visit from the Aussie Stingers to a Starlight Express Room but it took them absolutely no time to join in the fun. With Just Dance on the big screen, the team members jumped at the chance to dance, and to compete for dancing title. One team member was quoted as saying, "I think we should stick to the water". A big thank you to the Aussie Stingers for their much appreciated, impromptu visit, and a massive congratulations from all the kids and Captain Starlights on taking out the 3 match test series against the USA.

Signing off
Posted
January 24th, 3:54pm 0 comments

Captain Starlight gets Crafty!

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Thanks to our friends at the Gallery of Modern Art here in Brisbane (GOMA), we had a fantastic day getting all arty! As part of the Matisse exhibition, GOMA is touring a ‘Drawing life for kids’ Workshop, celebrating artists. We here in the Starlight room were lucky enough to be included in this amazing workshop. With our very own journals and templates, kids were able to create art works based around themes such as ‘all about me’, ‘My imagination’, as well as being encouraged to observe everyday life. One of our favourite activities were the self-potraits of our 18-year-old selves – as most of us Captain Starlight’s are well into our 4000’s, this was quite a stretch!

Take a look at our creativity!

Captain Harmony

www.starlight.org.au

Posted
January 23rd, 9:47pm 0 comments

The Ultimate Volunteer Challenge!

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Today in the Victorian Starlight Express Room, Captain Starlight and the kids were graced with the presence of not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 AMAZING volunteers! So we put them to the “ULTIMATE VOLUNTEER CHALLENGE” to see who would come up trumps.

First they had 3 minutes to make the best headband out of pipe cleaners. With the kids being the judges, there was a tie between Rachelle and Lucy so paper, scissors, rock determined Rachelle to be the winner.

Next challenge was Just Dance on Nintendo Wii. David was the winner of this challenge and even won the kid’s vote of Best Dance moves!

The last challenge of all was a game of Uno Stacko. It was a long and intense game with kids and Captains gathered around to watch who would be the first to make the stack fall to the ground. In the final moments, David managed to scrape by without the stack toppling over and Rachelle put her piece on top without it falling over too… until she celebrated too early and kicked the table, making Uno Stacko fall to the floor!

So, it was David who won the Ultimate Volunteer Challenge but in the end it was agreed upon that all of our Starlight Volunteers are the ultimate champions.

GO TEAM STARLIGHT!

www.starlight.org.au

Posted
January 20th, 4:00pm 0 comments

The ultimate dog pampering experience with The Hoff

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A HUGE thank you to everyone who turned up to have their pooches pampered by the Hoff - David Hasselhoff and his celebrity team mates at Sydney Park as part of the first Celebrity Apprentice Australia challenge and in support of Starlight.

To keep our programs for seriously ill children running, The Hoff and his team invited all dog owners to come along and show their support by making a donation and in return have their dogs washed and get a photo shot with the whole team.

Thank you to The Hoff and his team for supporting Starlight and of course our lovely volunteers, supporters and their four legged friends for coming along. It was so great to see you all turn up to lend your support! :)

And don’t forget, you can help Starlight grant life-changing wishes at any day by donating, becoming a facebook fan or holding a Star Party!!!

www.starlight.org.au