9 UPBEAT FUNKY MUSIC www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 ENGINE WHINES (GASPS) What is it? What's that? Yum. (WHINES) Don't want any, do you? What it affects is mainly he asks me for quite a bit, like how you spell stuff or 'How do you read this?' But you just get to a point where you just help him, and then he just improves on himself. So, what else do you need to do today, apart from work? Which... I see the mayor today,... doing the speech and Olympic Parent to Parent. What I love about Graeme is his personality and how fun he can be. Also, he makes me smile every morning with quirky comments. Pop! (LAUGHS) Uh-oh. Dad got your nose? He might have a disability, but it doesn't matter. As long as you're in love, you just see past it. As a romantic lover, he has a side effect of doing things. Like when he proposed to me, he didn't get down on one knee or anything. He just said, 'Will you marry me?' and anded me a box with the ring in it. (LAUGHS) That's all he did. Things that I'd like, probably, him to improve on in our relationship is help me out more around the house, especially when we both work. But he just comes home and just doesn't wanna do anything cos he's just had a big day. WATER RUNS You brushed your teeth? > Yeah. You haven't done that for a while. > I done it the other day. < Really? Yeah. And you just don't notice it. < Cos you haven't done it for so long. That's probably why. (CHUCKLES) (GROANS) (BLOWS RASPBERRY) Two, three,... (GIGGLES) ...four, five. Small wishes are, like, to maybe just have a night out from Lilly and just be the two of us, even if it's ten-pin bowling or something. Something fun that we can try and kick each other's arse in. QUIRKY MUSIC You know, he's just got so much drive for what he does. Goes like, um` Every job he has, you know, he puts everything into it. He's basically full on all the time. And if he does anything, like if he's going anywhere, he'll walk a wee bit, then he just takes off and starts running. Oh, he not here? Oh. He was walking by himself at 10 months old. And he barely crawled. Physically there's nothing wrong with him. Because he` when he was 2, he couldn't put two words together, so that's when they picked it up that he had a speech problem. Before he got to school, he had a teacher's aide at kindy, and had another extra session at kindy for his speech. Schoolwork is not very good English. But every other subject he was good at. He was in a special education class at high school. Sometimes he got picked on while he was in that class. But I stayed with a group of friends that supported me. We just guided him into what he wanted to do. You know, if he wanted to play sport, we just encouraged him to what sport he wanted to play. Come on, Jimmy, Bruce, Janelle. Catch the the ball right when it comes, OK? Then walk back to the line, OK? Yeah. Wayne, you're in here as well. All right, guys. Move up. Not too far back. Remember, you're gonna make it difficult for them; not impossible, right? So spread out a little bit, cos there's no gaps. So Graeme, Oscar, come forward. Any hand you want. MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY > OK. (LAUGHS) I was Graeme's mentor in his role as athletes' representative on the NZ Board of Trustees for Special Olympics. He's a very responsible, loving young man who's totally inclusive. You know, he doesn't pass judgement on anybody else. And you can see a good pass to Hayley. So now she's already there, and she hasn't got a guy marking her. Yeah. Pass it. PEOPLE CALL OUT He's very competitive. He wants to win. And when he's playing, he will play his hardest until his team are in front. When they're in front, he eases back and makes sure that the weaker players in his team get shots. Take a shot. Whoa! APPLAUSE If the other side catch up, then Graeme tries to put on a spurt to get ahead again, and the whole process is repeated. And I have him on sometimes, because there are times when that tactic comes unstuck and his team doesn't win. I'm gonna say 'many sports'. Yeah, all right. That sounds good enough to me. (READ) Special Olympics and the athletes' rep on the board of trustees. Yeah. Is there anything that's gonna make you nervous when you're speaking to this group tomorrow? And Parent to Parent, as far as I can remember, is dealing with parents who've got kids who've got some sort of difficulty one way or another. So it's` I think it's well worth mentioning that you have risen so far that while I was away overseas last year, that you actually took the whole session for six weeks; that that's what you're capable of doing now. That's a significant achievement, I think. That looks good. Do you want your pen back now? BOTH CHUCKLE UPBEAT, LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC As a father with Lilly-Rose, he's really good. He gets involved with her, anything that she wants to do. Um, the only thing he doesn't like doing is reading her stories. But he makes up stories, which is the main thing. Lilly finds it hard when he just rambles on and she can't understand. And, yeah, she gets frustrated with him if she can't understand what he's trying to say. But we've told Graeme to slow down, and he does. Ready? One, two, three. Me do that myself. All right. CLUNK! Another one. Aim for that one. FAIRGROUND MUSIC PLAYS GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC Graeme's one of our aluminium fabricators. He essentially makes the doors for us. Quite technical. When we took Graeme on, er, approximately four years ago, we did interview a number of people, cos it's quite` Nelson's quite restricted for employment, and Graeme did stand out from the crowd. He's willing to learn and change and put in a hand to help the team. From day one, Graeme's always been like that. He's almost first in every morning. Usually last out as well. FUNKY ROCK MUSIC Graeme in speedway? I hate it. (LAUGHS) It's not my thing, but it's his. But I just support him as much as he wants. ENGINE REVS ENGINE WHINES He's got quite a few things on his plate, with Special Olympics and everything else, like his basketball and Fulton Hogan League. It does take a bit out of us. He does tend to forget` Specially at speedway, if I come out to watch him, he tends to forget that me and Lilly are there watching. And he goes and sees everybody else apart from us. I wonder sometimes if he's overcommitting himself. I know he's got lots and lots of interests. And he loves them all. But whether he should, sort of, ease back on some of them. Once you marry and you have kids, that's your priority. ROCK MUSIC CONTINUES There. Thanks. See you later. See you. He's not really a person that takes you on a date. Nah. He would rather just go to the speedway track and watch speedway. That's our date, apparently. Unless your friends make you go out on a date or just have a night to yourselves, it's not really a date. You just sit in the movies, or he's like, 'Ooh, speedway track instead?' (CHATTERS) You always get bored. (CLEARS THROAT) It was seven years ago since we've been on a date. Really? He hasn't taken you for a date for seven years? No! That's useless. (SQUEALS) That wasn't really a date, though. Oh, careful. No, careful of Brucie, please. WOMAN: And what would your ideal date be? > A really nice home-cooked meal, just alone time with no speedway talk. Come on, take me on a date. > SMOOTH, JAZZY MUSIC Hello, hi. Hi. Hello, I'm Jenny. Graeme. Hello, Graeme. Nice to meet you. I work for the mayor. Just go through that way. The last one. Oh, OK. After you. Graeme Porter. Hi. Really nice to meet you. I'm Rachel. Lovely to have you here. You got held up in traffic? Oh, it's a problem at the moment. It is. Do you wanna come into the office? Yeah, come on through. Come` Come through. Do you get nervous? I still get nervous, public speaking, so. Yeah. Do you get nervous? Yeah. Uh, I think the main thing with public speaking is to be yourself, Graeme. So I think to be authentic. And people have come to hear you talk, so they wanna hear your story. So just, um, remember it's you; tell your story and then people will engage with you through the, uh` through the speech. Look, another thing I think's really important is that if you've got something you feel passionate about and you want to talk to people about that, don't be afraid to put out a challenge. Because you've got the opportunity to really influence people through this role and make them think about life differently. So, um, you know, positive challenges, ask the audience to question themselves and think about what they're doing to make this a better community. Oh, it's a real pleasure. I'd love to do that, Graeme. So, where's next? Oh, of course, yeah. OK. Just one more. Dad! What? What are you doing? Silly. WOMAN: It takes great courage to do public speaking. So the man I will be introducing is no stranger to challenges in his life, and so it takes great pleasure for me to welcome and introduce to you today Graeme Porter. INTRIGUING MUSIC (GIGGLES) (GIGGLES) No. No? Boom? Yeah! TROLLEY RATTLES Uh... toma` Raah! Raah! Rah! Rah! Raaar! (IMITATES TYRES SQUEALING) (BABBLES) WOMAN: Graeme, what are you up to? > INTRIGUING MUSIC CONTINUES FIERCE SIZZLING Damn, damn, damn. > This way. Really? SULTRY MUSIC (CHUCKLES) Um, not that bad. Just your race cars, isn't it? I didn't bring up speedway. All I brought up was race cars. SULTRY MUSIC CONTINUES Thanks, babe. It looks beautiful. He told me that he'd had two serious goals. One was to get married, which he did, and the other was to be a father, which he's achieved. WOMAN: What are your wishes in life? > Captions by Tracey Dawson. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016