Name: Alf O'Neill

Suburb of Residence: Pascoe Vale South

Age: 54

Employment: Customer Service Manager at Office Choice South Melbourne, a privately owned stationery supplier to corporate and private customers. My role is to oversee the customer service levels of our company to ensure clients receive what they require in a timely manner, and to ensure any errors are rectified promptly to the mutual satisfaction of both the client and the company, data entry and staff training development and review.

Interests: Music, particularly older music, including funny or nonsense songs, Country music, and overall any kind of music which appeals to me. I enjoy barbecues when the weather is right, fishing although I haven't had the opportunity to do much of this of recent years. A percentage of my leisure time is spent ensuring I carry out my role as President of the V.B.C.A. to the best of my ability, something I enjoy immensely.

I was born in a place called Stawell which is located around 30km from the foot of the Grampians mountains, and which is famous for the Stawell Easter Gift. I resided, was educated and spent the first 30 odd years of my life there which was a challenge as I was born with congenital cataracts, and for the first three years of my life was totally blind, however, with surgery which by today's standards was fairly rudimentary, was eventually given about two percent vision.

My education was all undertaken in Stawell, and at the time, I doubt there would have been too many vision impaired kids who completed their entire education in the public school system. I moved to Melbourne for employment and spent about 12 years working for a statutory authority, and then moved on to Office Choice where I have been employed for over 12 years.

Blind Cricket: I was introduced to blind cricket shortly after I moved to Melbourne, and have as a result forged many valued and important friendships over the 20 or more years I have been involved both as a player and as a member of the Executive where I have performed the roles of Secretary, Vice President, and eventually President. The saddest time for me during the Blind Cricket journey has been to see our competition shrink from six teams to four because of a decline in player numbers, however, I am happy to see that numbers are in fact commencing to increase again.

I have just been re elected to the position of President for I think my fifth term of which I am proud.