MDS is excited to announce JAMM & SLAMM The Perpetual Corporate Wheelchair Basketball Challenge.

Wednesday December 5th - during celebrations for International Day for People with a Disability - will see a clash for corporate superiority in the Macarthur region! Has your business got what it takes? Our event corporate sponsors now include Perpetual Limited,  MG My Gateway, BCP Group Services, Wakeling Motor Group, The Commonwealth Bank, Clintons Toyota, a combined Macarthur Chamber of Commerce team (including Camden, Narellan, Campbelltown & Ingleburn) SWING South West Networking Group, Narellan Rotary (Team A & Team B!!), Ingleburn RSL Club, PCYC Campbelltown, C91.3fm and Gledswood Homestead. The concept has been embraced by the business community which is very exciting. The entire four courts and facility at the YMCA Indoor Sports Centre Minto will be taken over by MDS and C91.3 to make this event bigger than Ben Hur with Wheelchair basketball chariots!

The competition concept came from our Thursday games at Minto PCYC where MDS staff are involved in teaching and playing inclusive wheelchair basketball with a great group of young people to encourage fitness and activity. With everyone being “on a level playing field” where disability was the last thing on our mind, and point scoring the first, we realised it was an opportunity to raise disability awareness and change perceptions in society about your capabilities in a wheelchair.

The idea was organic and just kept growing. We decided we wanted to buy Basketball Wheelchairs to take a program through Macarthur High Schools. MDS would present a motivational talk, including disability awareness issues and a video presentation then we’d play a game of wheelchair basketball JAMM & SLAMM with the kids. We overcame the first obstacle when Paralympian Paul Nunnari talked the chair manufacturer down from $3,600 each to $2,500. Through the enthusiasm of Tony Eagar and Ray Slack at BCP, a local industrial manufacturer JNI Pallet Systems offered to modify a trailer donated by the PCYC to transport the chairs to the schools. All we had to do then was find a way to pay for the chairs. The JAMM & SLAMM was born.

The concept is to make MDS JAMM & SLAMM The Perpetual Corporate Wheelchair Basketball Challenge our inclusive corporate “golf day” said MDS Marketing Coordinator Steve Wisbey. “In our event corporate sponsors pay $2500.00 to enter a mixed team of six men and women to play the knockout comp, and for some extra fun and prizes we’re also encouraging them to put up cheer squads. The fee gives sponsors a wheelchair to be emblazoned with their corporate branding for the event and then through 2008 the sponsors will have their chairs seen by literally thousands of school kids, and the emblazoned logos and support will be a unique marketing opportunity until the next challenge in December 2008. At the end of the day there won’t be just one winner! The corporate team will be awarded a special trophy for the office wall, and we’ll have enough chairs to take this on the road.”

The support for this project has extended to the Federal Government through Pat Farmer MP committing financially to Macarthur Disability Services with a “Fit to Play” grant allocated to fitness programs for people with a disability including this project, and offering himself to play in the toughest on court action Macarthur businesses can dish out.

All sponsor teams will receive training/coaching prior to the event to be organised to fit in with their workplace am or pm time frames.
For more information on how your company can be involved in this exciting community project contact Steve Wisbey MDS:  0246 21 8400.