Solutions for a Small Planet

In the course “Solutions for a Small Planet” we learnt about the effects of food on the environment and global warming. We learnt that seasonal and local produce is much better for the environment and then completed a cookbook of seasonal and local recipes. For my recipe I did a summer recipe of eggplant with tomato and basil and then we chose one recipe to have for our sustainable lunch. Last Tuesday was the last day of our courses so for “Solutions for a Small Planet” Tim and Kathy took us out for the day. We set off early that morning and made our way to the Tanakori Animal Farm where we planted trees to help offset the impacts of our lunch for the day. After we had planted about 80 trees we drove to St. Georges Lake near Creswick. It was a very hot day so before we started cooking our sustainable lunch everyone had fun splashing each other and getting wet in the lake. We had chosen to have a barbecue for lunch with chops, sausages, vegetable skewers and potato salad. It was a very yummy and enjoyable lunch. After lunch we had some watermelon and pineapple for desert and then Tim read us “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss and we did some reflections on the story and what we had learnt throughout the course. After our enjoyable day out we came back to campus to do our last self-assessments for the course.

Darcy M.

Big Day Out

On Thursday, to celebrate all the courses being finished all the students attended the “Big Day Out”. Firstly we got a sleep-in until 9:00 a.m. and left on the buses an hour later. The big day out consisted of going to Kirks Reservoir to have a relaxing day out of Clunes Kirks reservoir is a fresh water reservoir with a park behind with heaps of grass land and big round trees which are climbable and having a relaxing day. All day people played games such as cricket, Markers Up and Truth or Dare. While some people just lay in the clouds, climbed trees and talked. For lunch the teachers cooked sausages and veggie burgers on the barbeque. Overall it was a relaxing enjoyable day.

Jake B.  Photos: ?

Draw the Line

On the first day of “Draw the Line”, Fiona talked about portrait drawing. We were given a piece of A3 paper and were to draw the person across from us as life-like as possible. After we had done that Fiona stood on a table and said the class had to draw her from head to toe. Then we had volunteer models from the class that stood on the table. We all had to draw them but all of them were facing different ways. Because the model was placed in different positions, all of our drawings were different. On the second day were learnt about an artist called Keith Haring. She explained to use that drawings can be done in just lines. She laid down two long pieces of paper and the class was separated into two and we had to draw little drawings all over the sheet of paper. The aim was to make it so there was no white left on the piece of paper. On the last day we were told about our course projects. We had to do a painting using different lines and it had to have a meaning in it. Everyone used a lot of Keith Haring’s drawings. A lot of the meanings behind the painting were based on Clunes or about people’s goals at Clunes. Then if you had finished your project you were able to draw little T-shirt designs. After everyone had finished their projects each person stood up and explained the meaning of their drawing and the meaning of it. All in all everyone enjoyed the course.

Lauren C.

Cluster Evening Recreation

Cluster on Monday was very exciting. It was between Blue and Breen. The scores were very close all night leaving a tense atmosphere throughout the night about who would win. The night started out with time to make up a chant. Although both chants were good, blue came out on top. Steve and Nin then added up everyone’s cluster colours and then we started with the first game. It was rebound Frisbee where you had to try ad hit the backboard with the Frisbee. It was much harder than it sounded. The scores were tied and it was taken to a shoot off with green just winning. Next up was a basketball shoot out. Half way through the game it wasn’t looking to good for blue as more that half our cluster had been shot out. Zoe some how managed to knock out the remainder to green cluster and win making the scores even. The final game was very important to both clusters as it would pick the over all winner of the night. Four-way continuous cricket was the last game. This game was quite confusing to the blue team as not many people in the cluster had much experience when it came to cricket. The final scores were 26 to 46 leaving green in the lead. Overall the whole night was a lot of fun and every one was good sports.

Mimi D.

Red vs Yellow

On Thursday night at the community centre it was Red vs. Yellow in cluster sports. Both teams were pumped because it was the second last game until cluster finals. Once everyone got to the community centre, Red were the first team to sit and got to choose who went first in the chant, but first there was 7 minutes on the clock to create a chant. Once the 7 minutes were up Red chose for the Yellow cluster to go first. Yellow cluster had a fantastic chant with cartwheels involved. Then it was time for the Red cluster to show their chant. Red cluster gave another fantastic chant being louder and longer. The judges decided that Red cluster won the chant. After the chant the judges recorded the colours scores with Yellow getting most points. The first game of the night was continuous cricket. Because Red won the chant they chose Yellow to bat first. With a great game the Yellow team ended up with a total of 36 runs. Red was astonished at Yellow’s score. Red came in pumped and played inspirational but fell 10 runs short, making Yellow the winners. The second game was basketball knockout. It was close the whole way through, but Yellow got a break getting out key players for the Red team and taking the win with a 3 on 1 ending. The final game was Rebound Frisbee. Because Yellow won the last game they chose Red team to go first. Red were inexperienced but got a total of 18 points in 2 minutes! It was Yellow’s turn now and 2 minutes were set on the clock. For the first half of the game it looked like Yellow were going to win but failed to get high scoring in the second half and Red won the game. The scores were close the whole night but in my opinion Yellow just got over the edge

Brandon W.

Making Connections

In Making Connections this week we had speed dating. Half the group sat in a circle and then the other half of the group sat in another circle in the inside facing the people on the out side. We had to talk to the person facing us; we had to talk to about our experience at Clunes. There were questions we had to ask, we had to ask how they had like Clunes and their favourite memories. We also had to find out their funniest memory and what they are going to miss most. After about three minutes of talk to the person in front of us the people sitting in the inside moved around one person and we had the same conversation with the next person. It was funny because friends sat next to each other and so they had the same funniest moment so you heard some of the same stuff more than once. Most people are going to miss the people and the fun of Clunes and are looking forward to the cluster finals, the Mt Beckworth run and the movie night. Most people had lots of different funniest moments like the Clunes show and nights in their house. Everyone I talked to has had a great time at Clunes and is really going to miss being here with everyone.

Kate D.

MOVEMBER

Movember is a range of men’s health issues and the cause is for men to grow moustaches to raise money and awareness. Money raised during Movember is used to fund research and intervention, issues related to prostate cancer which is a bigger health issue than breast cancer and also the beyond blue initiative which is about depression among men. At Clunes the older men are all growing 'stashes for the course with donations coming form everywhere. Movember is a great cause with lots of fun involved.

James P.