Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Brian Duggan at Rua Red, Dublin

mmm this might be something interesting to on on Monday - make up for missing the parades this year ?
Brian Duggan at Rua Red, Dublin

Friday, March 09, 2012

Mum's Biography

Written by Jeandre' Coetser

Simone Allison Coetser (nee' Le- Fleur) was born in Durban, South Africa. She was classified as a Coloured meaning she was of mixed race. Simone was brought up as a Seventh Day Adventist and this had a great influence on her culture and principals. As a child she was friendly , happy and outgoing. She loved going to school and her favourite subjects were mathematics and history.

In primary school Simone pretended that she was not scare of frogs and crabs. The boys in her school like to scare girls with them. Simone was scare of being pinched by the crabs but did not think that the frogs were too scary. She realised that if she acted brave by carrying the crab the boys would leave her alone. Now she is not scared of frogs and crabs. Simone faces fears and challenges instead of running away from them.

Simone has lived in number of places. In South Africa she lived in the following towns: Durban, Johannesburg, Nelspruit, Pietermaritzburg, Port Sheptone, Heildeberg and Helderberg. In the USA she lived in Connecticut for a month and in New Jersey for eleven months. She is currently living in Banbridge, Northern Ireland.

As a teenager Simone worked part-time in a factory and as a babysitter. She has also done a few different types of work including being a secretary, Au Pair, education officer, administrator, tutor, mentor and a teacher.

Many people say that Simone is interesting, open-minded, friendly, creative, great organiser, inspiring, caring, faithful, passionate, extrovert, helpful, good public speaker, team player, self-motivated, confident and displays exceptional leadership.

One of the special things that Simone has done was carrying a special torch (in Durban) that travelled throughout South Africa and was taken to the Women's World Conference in Beijing (China)1995. She and another teenager handed the torch to Dr. Frene Ginwala who was the first non-white and female Speaker parliament in South Africa.

She is proud of organising a 24 hour indoor cricket fund-raiser for Reach For a Dream and doing missionary work (helping /with a building project) in Malawi for three weeks.

Simone's favourite quotes are “Live Life to the Fullest”, “ Life is a painting and you are the artist so go ahead and paint yourself a paradise”.