Sport Blast from the Past: Mary Fisher
Mary Fisher is one of our most successful international swimmers.
A world class athlete, she is an advocate for the blind and has never let her disability stop her.
Living in Upper Hutt, she took up competitive swimming at nine, first representing New Zealand in Australia in 2007.
At the 2009 World Short Course Championships she featured prominently before setting a world record in the women’s 200m individual medley S11 at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
Mary always took her sport seriously, training daily with a determination to see how fast she could go.
At the 2013 IPC Swimming World Championships in Montreal, she won five gold medals.
At the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow, Mary secured a further five medals including three gold, and at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games she again broke a world record in winning gold.
Mary retired from Para swimming in November 2018.
Mary, 26, is well-known for her work as an advocate around disability and environmental issues and for her support developing Para swimmers and mentoring youth with vision impairment and their families.
In 2019, she was appointed to the board of Paralympics New Zealand.
What word sums up 2024, neighbours?
If 2020 was the year of lockdowns, banana bread, and WFH (work from home)....
In one word, how would you define 2024?
We're excited to see what you come up with!
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️