DSA Board of Directors

President Brent Phillips
B.A. (Criminology)
e - brent.phillips@deafsports.org.au

Sport is undoubtedly Brent’s biggest passion, and this is reflected by his involvement in sport at various levels. Brent currently works as Project Coordinator in the Major Projects Unit at Sport & Recreation Victoria. Previously, he was Senior Sport Liaison Officer for the Melbourne 2005 Deaflympic Games where he managed several functional areas, including four sports, Anti Doping and Games-Wide Results, to name a few. Brent was Manager for the Victorian Council of Deaf People and also worked at the Equal Opportunity Commission of Victoria.

Brent has lived in Melbourne all my life, apart from two years in the United Kingdom on a working holiday visa and is a third-generation Deaf person in his family. He served as captain of the seconds XI for the Melbourne Deaf Cricket Club, following in his father and grandfathers' footsteps. Playing cricket takes up Brent’s summer, while watching his beloved Western Bulldogs play in the AFL takes up my winter! John Lovett (former DSA & Deaflympics President) was behind Brent’s decision to barrack for the Bulldogs! Brent’s passion for sports has taken him to many places worldwide – he has been a spectator at Olympic, Commonwealth and Deaflympic Games, and one of his not-so-well known life ambitions is to visit every Olympic city - so far he have been to 15 out of the 21 Olympic cities.

As President, Brent aims to see deaf and hard of hearing athletes in Australia access the best sporting opportunities available in Australia in both the deaf and mainstream pathways. He is also responsible for Government Relations and DSA’s stated objective is to establish productive working relations with the Federal Government and all State and Territory Governments resulting in funding opportunities and increased recognition of deaf sports and athletes.

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Vice President

David F. Peters
e - david.peters@deafsports.org.au

David was born Deaf and represents the third generation of a Deaf family. David's parents, grandparents and 7 siblings are Deaf. David is married with two adult children. David attended Victorian School for the Deaf.

Having been involved with the Victorian Deaf Society (Vicdeaf) for 23 years in various roles and departments David is currently engaged as the Information Officer at Vicdeaf where he lectures to a variety of organisations about Deaf Awareness, Deaf Culture, Workplace relationships / communication. In addition to this he organizes information workshops for the community and is involved in special development projects on an ongoing basis.

David has a long history of involvement with Deaf sporting organisations;

• Deaf Sports Australia Treasurer (DSA) since 1985.
• DSA President from 1999 - 2003
• DSA DEAFLYMPICS Delegate (International Deaf Sports Committee) Congress since 1983.
• Participated in both summer (1985, 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2001) and winter (1983, 1987, 1995, 1999 and 2003) Deaflympics as both an official (Chef de Mission or Assistant Team Manager) and a DSA delegate.

David was also heavily involved in Melbourne's bid and securing of the Deaflympics 2005. Reflective of M2005 he was granted a two-year leave of absence from VicDeaf to take on a full time role as Group Manager of Sports and Venues for the Melbourne 2005 Deaflympics Organising Committee (M2005). His main responsibilities at M2005 were to organise Sport competitions and venues. This involved the coordination of venue hire agreements with all sporting venues and competition agreements with State Sports Organizations to run the 15 sport competitions, including sport medicine support for athletes and drug testing and daily Games time results posted on the website.

As a Vice President and Treasurer, David is focusing on the stability of DSA and seeking to ensure the Deaf and hard of hearing athletes achieve their goals with a professional approach. Also wish to and extending DSA programs for its members/community.

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Director

Phil Harper
PhD.
e - phil.harper@deafsports.org.au

Phil joined the DSA Board in January 2008. His portfolio responsibilities are 'Governance' and '2009 Taipei Deaflympics.' He has a long interest in deaf sports being a participant at past Australian Deaf Games (tennis and basketball) and plays basketball with the Eastern Grizzlies. He enjoys running having completed the Melbourne marathon and 2 half marathons and bushwalking. His new ambition is to work on reducing his golf handicap and is a member of the Victorian Deaf Golf Club. His latest craze is AFL Super Rules playing with the 0ver 45's 'Gummysharks'!

His current employment position is with the Australian Communication Exchange as their Community Liaison Manager. He is a current member of the Victorian Government's Victorian Disability Advisory Council and World Federation of the Deaf Expert Panel in Technology; a former Director of the Melbourne 2005 Deaflympics Board; former Manager of the Victorian Council of Deaf People; founding member and life member of Deaf Australia; and a Churchill Fellow in 1983.

In 2008, he completed a PhD thesis at Deakin University researching the topic of "Videocommunication over the Internet use by Deaf people in the workplace".

He is married to Carla Anderson and has 4 children.

Over the past 10 months, Phil in his role on the DSA Board, has facilitated the development of a 5 year Strategic Business Plan; co-ordinated the 2009 Taipei Australian Deaflympic teams selection process; assisted with fundraising program development and contacts with government.

Phil is keen to see DSA become strategically stronger and smarter, an increase in staff numbers and funding base; have a strong membership base and relationship and a high level national and international sports and youth talent co-ordination program.

Directors

James Ashley 

James involvement with deaf sport started 40 years ago, firstly with Rugby League and then Basketball, representing both New South Wales and Australia for each sport.  James is a veteran of the Australian Deaf Games as both player and official and has sat on many committees over a 35 year span.  This included Secretary of NSW Deaf Basketball, Director/ Delegate and General Secretary of Australian Deaf Basketball, Australian Deaf Sports Federation delegate, NSW Deaf Rugby League administrator, World Deaf Games representative, Trans Tasman Games for the Deaf representative, sat on an National / International Deaf Games Organising Committee six times, was instrumental to Sydney’s bid for the 2005 Deaflympics, founder of NSW Deaf Sports Association and then Deaf Sports Recreation NSW.  

Emma Merkas - details to come soon

Kathryn O'Brien - details to come soon

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