Over 30 years strong: Bobbin Head Cruising Club's legacy of supporting Cure Cancer
By Emily Usher | 2 September 2024
Cure Cancer is thrilled to be shining a spotlight on the incredible long-term contribution of our valued supporter, Bobbin Head Cruising Club…
The Bobbin Head Cruising Club's 2024 BarbeCURE® event.
Bobbin Head’s annual Cure Cancer BarbeCURE® has become a particular highlight on our yearly calendar. Held across their fleet of boats, which are decorated for the occasion with Cure Cancer flags and bunting, club members hop from boat to boat, tucking into tasty food, catching up with friends, and snapping up luxury raffle tickets and auction prizes.
These legendary BarbeCURE® events have garnered support from the likes of celebrity chef Adam Moore, who many will recognise from his regular Studio 10 segments. Adam is regarded as one of the world’s top corporate chefs and has been kind enough to offer up his time, food and skills in support of Bobbin Head's BarbeCURE® events, even creating bespoke dishes and menu items and cooking them up himself for guests on the day. The team at Bobbin Head work so hard to create his wonderful event, which brings so many together for a truly vital cause.
Dr Heather Murray (centre), who is generously funded by the Bobbin Head Cruising Club, with long-time supporter and Club Member, Ngaire Callaghan (left), at this year's BarbeCURE® event.
Cure Cancer are fortunate to have the support of so many wonderful partners, donors, and fundraisers, but one relationship we are particularly grateful for is that with the incredible Bobbin Head Cruising Club.
Bobbin Head Cruising Club is Cure Cancer’s longest serving community fundraiser, having backed the organisation for over 30 years and counting, raising close to $600K in total. This outstanding support has helped fund breakthrough science from brilliant emerging researchers, demonstrating the power of kick-starting unconventional ideas and setting new trends in cancer research.
Celebrity chef Adam Moore at Bobbin Head's BarbeCURE® event this year.
Last year’s Bobbin Head BarbeCURE® raised an incredible $107,379 to support Dr Heather Murray’s pioneering research into Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) – an aggressive type of blood cancer which affects over one thousand Australians of all ages every year. Only one in four patients who are treated for AML will survive 5 years past their diagnosis, a statistic which researchers like Heather are determined to improve.
Dr Heather Murray, based in the University of Newcastle, is working with international collaborators and using advanced proteomic techniques to identify new potential therapies for AML. Her research is focused on analysing how cancer cells, particularly leukaemia cells, function differently from healthy ones. She hopes to improve patient outcomes through targeted therapy.
Heather was delighted to host Bobbin Head club members on a recent tour of her lab, so they could see firsthand the incredible research their donations are making possible. "To see where the Club’s philanthropic giving was being utilised, and the discussions that ensued, further emphasised the Club's ongoing constitutional objective and commitment of fundraising for Cure Cancer,” says Ngaire Callaghan, a long-time Bobbin Head Member and long-time Cure Cancer supporter.
The Bobbin Head Cruising Club visited the University of Newcastle for a lab tour with Dr Heather Murray, whom they have funded.
This year, their BarbeCURE® raised an astounding $104,435, which will go towards funding a hugely promising research project into melanoma. The research will use advanced technology like mass spectrometry to examine the metabolism of melanoma in patients, in an aim to better understand how changes in metabolism are linked to the diversity of melanoma tumours. This will be combined with transcriptomic evaluation, which studies the genetic information of tumours at the single-cell level and in their specific locations in the tumour environment. More than 18,000 Australians are diagnosed with melanoma every year, making this country the skin cancer capital of the world, which is why research like this is so desperately needed.
The Bobbin Head Cruising Club's 2023 BarbeCURE® event.
As well as the projects already mentioned, Bobbin Head Cruising Club have funded groundbreaking research into an array of other cancer types over their three decades of support, including endometrial cancer, a type of gynaecological cancer that has unfortunately seen little progress in the past century and is desperately in need of more funding.
Celebrity chef Adam Moore (far left), Bobbin Head Cruising Club Commodore, Grant Cunningham (second from left), long-time Member and Cure Cancer supporter, Ngaire Callaghan (fourth from right), Cure Cancer CEO Nikki Kinloch (third from right), and Dr Heather Murray (far right) at this year's BarbeCURE®.
From everyone at Cure Cancer, we would like to extend our most heartfelt thanks to everyone at Bobbin Head Cruising Club for their ongoing commitment in supporting cutting-edge cancer research. And a special thanks to Ngaire Callaghan who has been coordinating the club’s annual BarbeCURE® over the past 10 years.
Because of their efforts, Cure Cancer can fund the next generation of brilliant cancer researchers.
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