Lismore town’s longstanding support of Cancer Council fundraiser

For about 20 years, Sandy Gibson and her friends have been among the hosts for Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea. This is why they think it’s so special to their communities.

Hot cuppa: Lismore’s Sandy Gibson at her Wooltrack Store. Picture: Dannika Bonser

LISMORE’S Sandy Gibson quickly downplays her involvement in fundraising for the fight against cancer.

After all, she says, it is almost impossible to not be affected by it in some way.

“Nobody in our lives has been untouched by cancer. Nobody can say they don’t know someone, or haven’t had a family member (affected),” Sandy says.

“It’s just so out there now for families to be coping with it, and coping with it in their stride.”

For roughly 20 years, Sandy and a group of friends — Wendy Webster, Sheila Brett and Gwenda Shaw — have hosted an event for Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea at Lismore in western Victoria, raising thousands of dollars for the Cancer Council.

Lismore and nearby Derrinallum, which also supports their events, have populations of about 400 each, but both Sandy and Sheila, who lives at Mt Bute, say the communities’ generosity defies their size.

And everyone chips in to help.

“It’s a very generous little town,” says Sheila. “We get through traffic, we get people going to the service station or cafe. It is close to everyone’s heart, the cancer morning tea. And we have fun.”

According to the Cancer Council, last year almost 28,000 people hosted an Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea event, with an estimated 895,000 people attending.

Neither Sandy nor Sheila can remember exactly why they decided to hold their inaugural morning tea all those years ago. But they, too, have painful memories of the impact of cancer has had on loved ones.

Sheila was just 13 years old when she lost her mum to bowel cancer. Her mum was just 46 years old when she died.

Shop front: Sandy Gibson. Picture: Dannika Bonser

And Sandy recalls her aunt who had a breast removed due to cancer in the early 1950s. The good news was the cancer did not return.

“It’s always been in my mind, but that wasn’t the driving force. I think living in a community such as ours, we’re a fairly caring community and because it is a little country town we’re always careful and look after each other,” she says.

“We had a couple of little ones to start with and then they just got bigger and bigger. You don’t even have to ask people to come, really, people say to you, ‘When is the cup of tea for cancer’ morning?”

Sandy hosts the morning teas at her shop in Lismore, Wooltrack Store — she says it means people do not feel like they are intruding into someone’s home, and by default it means there is an open invitation to the whole community to attend.

She says they often try to have a theme to the gatherings, which act as the perfect icebreakers to get the conversations flowing. Over the years they have asked guests to bring a special recipe to share; their special tea cup; unique tea towels. For the latter, Sandy said a woman turned up with a tea towel that had been given to her mum in a care package after the 1944 Cressy fires. The tea towel had never been used.

Sandy says there are also cancer survivors in town who like to attend, and if they are comfortable, sometimes they will share their experiences with the guests.

Whenever the next morning tea is held, Sandy has her own story to tell.

After a lifetime spent outdoors, she had started to get her skin checked for skin cancer. She had been checked last May, but when a visiting clinic came to Lismore towards the end of last year, she made a snap decision to go, since it was local.

“She said to me then, had I waited until May, which is probably when I would have gone back, she said it would’ve been in my lymph glands and I would’ve been in big trouble,” says Sandy.

Sandy had to go back twice to make sure the entire growth removed.

“It’s only a tiny thing and I’ve survived, and I am keeping an eye on it all now.

“I am not the only one.

“And I think what is happening in our area now, we are having skin checks come in, they come to our health centre … and I think people are more conscious now of going and having skin checks.

“I kept saying to the GP that does my skin checks, I will have to have something happen sooner or later because of the lifestyle and the way we treated our skin.”

This year, the official date for the Biggest Morning Tea is Thursday, May 28, but Cancer Council says people “can host anytime that works for you”.

And although gatherings are likely to be different due to coronavirus, every dollar raised helps, they say.

Due to the threat of coronavirus and the impact that is likely to have on gatherings, Sandy and Sheila say they will likely postpone their morning tea until they can get together.

After all, “being together” is the best part of the event, says Sheila.

“Particularly this year we will have to have it later on because people will be looking for things to go to,” she says.

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