What a wonderful way to wrap up OMRF’s 2026 event calendar!
Our final Club Otago lunch was filled with great food, great company, inspiring speakers and plenty of laughs along the way.
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us at Fable Hotel, and to the Fable team for sponsoring the venue and serving up a delicious meal.
Following a Foundation update, Associate Professor Mike Garratt from the University of Otago’s Department of Anatomy shared insights into his research, funded by an OMRF Laurenson Bequest Grant in 2024. His work exploring how a mother’s diet influences her offspring’s health was fascinating, and we’re proud to support research making important contributions to our understanding of health.
Guests also enjoyed a little networking with a twist! Each table had a name written in braille, and everyone had fun trying to identify whose name it was (thank goodness we all had name labels!). Julie Woods (“that Blind Woman”) kindly created these as part of her goal to write one million names in braille, giving guests a very special keepsake to take home.
Julie’s talk was truly inspiring. Her message? When you’re asked to do something outside your comfort zone, don’t automatically say no. Instead, why not say “Why Not” - the two words that have shaped Julie’s life since she was told in 1997 that she would never see again.
A heartfelt thank you to our guests, our Club Otago Patron, Mercy Hospital, our Club Otago members and our generous prize sponsors: Julie Woods, Ron Esplin, Challenge Marketing, Paper Plus Dunedin and Rialto Cinemas Dunedin. We’re incredibly grateful for your support.
Special thanks to Ron Esplin for donating a reproduction of a University of Otago painting for our silent auction.
OMRF receives no Government funding and relies on the generosity of our community to help fund world-class medical research in Otago. These events are therefore incredibly important.
