Joanne Linskey

Defining Determination

Joanne on her Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award Expedition on the Shannon, Ireland.

Adventurous Activity

It is sometimes difficult to imagine Joanne being particularly active in her life, but against all the odds she has succeeded in many physical fields. She is a keen equestrian, and is daily up at the stable where she keeps her horse, Robyn. With the determination of someone who doesn't admit failure except in the most dire of circumstances (and even then she often does not), Joanne has completed all of her Duke of Edinburgh Award Expeditions at all three levels of the Award. In her Bronze and Silver Expeditions she walked, with the longest recorded day coming in at a gruelling 14 hours from breaking camp to arriving at the next. Her Gold Expedition to the River Shannon, Ireland, was the most recent extended adventurous activity, and she holds a BCU 2 star tandem open canoeing award for her training, as well as the intense satisfaction of proving those who said "you can't do it", entirely wrong.

The Level Headed Friend

Joanne at on her final uniform day at the end of the U6 year 2006

Joanne is renowned for her ability to provide just the advice that many people need, and for her lifelong friendship with Ella Smyth, with whom she has shared many adventures, from their escapades through the guiding movement, time at both BRGS and Northern Primary School in Weir, and on all of their Duke of Edinburgh Award Expeditions, along with innumerate other times they have spent together.

Medical History

Joanne's is a colourful medical history, one of her more noticeable features being cerebral palsy, which limits her mobility, due to its effect being mostly in her legs. It is a pity that she dislikes pain, as she has had to cope with a number of invasive procedures to straighten her slightly iffy legs using metal plates, some now thoroughly embedded in her femurs. It was once noted in an operation that a loud crunch was heard as a surgeon was using an angle grinder to cut the bolts from one of the plates in her leg. On closer inspection, her leg was not broken, but the cutting blade was. Like so many students, she would not be here were it not for modern medicine.