Shane Warne and his foundation

The Shane Warne Foundation. This was a foundation for the children who were suffering from cancer. Shane Warne was inspired by David Rogers whose charity is called Challenge. Together with 10 children, David, Warne and the children went to the US for recreation where they did a variety of things that the children would otherwise not have been possible for the children. They met with various celebrities during the trip. Warne called it Trip of a Lifetime. This Trip of a Lifetime actually ended up changing his outlook towards life. This happened during the one year he was banned just before the 2003 ODI World Cup.

The team

He deposited 50K AUD with some friends chipping in with 50K of their own. It came upto 250K AUD. The board of the Shane Warne Foundation consisted of Glenn Robbins, David Evans, Andrew Bassat and Eddie McGuire. Russell Crowe, Greg Norman and Elizabeth became the ambassadors with Shane Warne as the Chairman. Warne trusted them completely because all of them were successful in their lives of their own and they wanted to give something back to the society.

Brad Grapsas was the CEO. The foundation launched certain events like poker nights, footy finals, gold days and Boxing Day Breakfast to earn money for the cause. Dermott (I must say I do not know who he is) a Celebrity Apprentice celebrity, chose the Shane Warne Foundation as his charity of choice. He gave around 250K AUD to the foundation. Campbell Brown attempted to cross the English Channel for the cause and donated another 250K. The number of celebrities that Warne met with and became friends through his Foundation was enormous. Some of them stood with Warne throughout his life. Eddie McGuire, his team member, went to the Monash Hospital for cancer patients to sing the Collingwood team song to the children who were huge fans of the club.

Controversy about The Foundation

The foundation did well until 2016 when it closed down. In the end, the charity donated 4.1 Million AUD to the children. They not only funded the cancer affected children but children with various other ailments too. It was a rewarding experience for Warne and his team. Chris Martin, the Spanish singer, visited some of these children including Aiden Buchanan whose parents died in the traumatic bushfires near Melbourne.

In November 2015, Melbourne Age took potshots at the foundation. The reporter alleged some irregularities on the part of The Foundation. Consumer Affairs Victoria, that investigates such irregularities, conducted a thorough investigation and found that apart from one late lodging of accounts in 2015, every other parametre was clean. Consumer Affairs cleared The Foundation of any wrongdoing. In 2016, the foundation announced that in light of the committee not finding any wrongdoing, they would wind up their operations and make a final distribution to its beneficiaries. Warne and the board members were hurt because of the wild accusations. The final straw was when the foundation was raided on Christmas Eve. All the accounts were handed over and everything was found to be inorder. The witch hunt continued when Warne had enough and decided to close down.

Shane Warne – The Musical

Eddie Perfect sought Warne to perform a musical in his name with Eddie acting like Warne. Warne was hesitant initially but eventually agreed. Eddie Perfect persuaded him to accept the musical. When he saw the performance, he was completely surprised because of some of the things that Warne did during his childhood, somehow, Eddie came to know about those like having beers and watching TV while his mother was cleaning the house etc. Not many people are that lucky to have a musical written about them. Warne thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Melbourne Days

He writes about his another favourite game, football. In 2017, there were more than 100K people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the AFL grand final. Richmond won that title against Collingwood. Football is closely followed in Melbourne and Warne was a huge football fan. His first passion was football until the age of 19. The AFL is fast and hard and it is often known as Aussie No Rules on the basis of the speed and freedom of movement and the physical contact. The players did not wear any sort of padding and hence, careers were short. The craze for the AFL players in Melbourne is as big as say a Tendulkar in Mumbai or a Christiano Ronaldo in Portugal.

The Moomba festival

It is a free community festival that happens every year during the Labour Day weekend in Melbourne. It is a day that celebrates all things good about Melbourne and crowns two local people for their contribution to the city. In 2015, Warne was crowned the King of Moomba and Pallavi Sharda was crowned as the queen of Melbourne. The Moomba parade involved in taking him through Melbourne city during the Moomba Parade with 80,000 cheering. Melbourne is an excellent city where the people have lots of fun. Warne was completely bitten by the Melbourne bug.