THANK YOU AUSTRALIA

I am deeply honoured and quite stunned to have received an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in the Queens Birthday Honours list. Actually gobsmacked is probably the better word. I also feel rather emotional about it all.

I am currently in Winnipeg – far from Australia and family – as this news has been announced. It is rather surreal actually. I knew it was about to happen as they contacted me just prior but never count your chickens is my motto!! Just didn’t seem possible that such an honour would be bestowed on me.

I have to tell you that I went on the website on Monday to check if it was actually real – and it was! I had no one to tell so I shared with my dear friend Eleanor Nielsen as I saw her as I walked into the room – I was busting to tell someone! Little did I know that she was going to be on the podium next (as she had not been up all week and was not named on the program but she was facilitating a discussion panel!) and lo and behold, she told everyone – so they all stood and clapped – all a bit embarrassing!

I have, in the last day, received an incredible amount of congratulatory emails from so many places – amazing who reads the papersJ. Some of your messages have reduced me to tears – the people who have bothered to write to me, to share their feeling of how they felt on hearing my news – it is truly an amazing feeling that is quite beyond words. I am truly blessed to know so many fantastic people.


I have this afternoon been faced the dilemma of how to acknowledge all this correspondence and what to say to the members of Dragons Abreast Australia and the wider community – what is the protocol with these kinds of things? I don’t know!


Dragons Abreast has always been different and so I decided that the best way to do this was to write this note to everyone and share this incredible time with you in some small way.


This honour is very humbling and I want to use this moment to acknowledge the special angels who are no longer with us, who have shared the dream and the vision, walking closely beside me as we have establishing Dragons Abreast over the last 10 years.

Most importantly I want to acknowledge publicly that none of this would be possible without the fantastic support that I receive from my family. My husband Steve, my daughter Sasha and my son Wayne, whose unwaivering support and love sustain me always.

I do not know who nominated me for this honour or who has been involved in some collusion!! And probably I never will - but thank you all so very much.

With deepest thanks to each of you that have supported me personally and Dragons Abreast Australia on this incredible journey - a journey that has not ended either - not till we have a cure for breast cancer!


Kindest regards
Michelle Hanton