Tripping the light, Audrey loves in helping others

Audrey Ferris loves helping others.

The 2022 Orange Citizen of the Year was as surprised as anyone to get a call before Australia Day telling her the good news.

“I was only told about it 36 hours before, on the Monday evening, I absolutely had no idea I’d been nominated,” the long-time volunteer for multifarious local causes said.

“I was so shocked and surprised, I just felt that some of the other people that were nominated seemed a lot more deserving than me, I was quite flabbergasted,” Audrey said.

Modestly hiding her light under a bushel though, it was the community group that Audrey started nearly four decades ago for light-stepping locals and that she still runs, that highlighted her varied good works.

“It was the Orange Social Dance Group that nominated me, I started it more than 35 years ago and we’re still going strong,” she said.

“One area that was not put in, was that I was a Lifeline volunteer councillor… My dog was also part of the Delta movement where we took dogs into nursing homes… that was ‘Fanta’, he was a lovely dog,” she said.

The former Orange nurse also took her dance group into local nursing homes like Wontama to entertain the elderly, as well as being the “voice” for the former “newspapers for the blind” service so that they could hear local news.

“I used to record the stories from the CWD (Central Western daily) into a cassette (tape); I did that for quite a few years for Vision Australia,” she added.

Audrey, with more than one string to her bow, also runs a scrabble group, volunteers at the Orange Library and is Youth Coordinator at the Orange Coin and Stamp Club.

It is the dance group, however, that remains her first love with the past two years, she said, no easy stretch for those that love to trip the light fantastic.

“Dancing is the thing that I enjoy the most, but we were not allowed to dance at Orange City Bowling Club during the restrictions, so we only were allowed 10 groups of people at the community hall.

“People were allowed to practice, but it was limited. Sometimes, in lockdown, we weren’t allowed to dance at all,” she lamented.

This, as with many other community groups, inevitably led to a drop in enrolments as people were denied the opportunity to enjoy activities that they had previously taken for granted.

“We possibly lost 50 per cent of our members, we also had to hold-off our 35th anniversary we had planned; due to COVID,” Audrey said.

Dancing, she believes, is one of those essential human activities that provides a whole range of physical and social benefits from which we can all gain.

“Dancing is a wonderful exercise and there’s also the social aspect of meeting and talking and interacting with other people,” Audrey said.

Despite the false dawns over the end of the pandemic lockdowns of the past two years, she is now looking to get the Social Dance Group back on their feet starting-up again in the next few weeks.

“We may be able to get back in the near future; we really plan to start a new beginners group in March as well,” she said excitedly.

Interested in leaving the life of a wallflower behind and learning how to dance properly? Call Audrey on 6362 0068.