It has been another successful week on campus. Students have coped brilliantly with the rising temperatures, although they were very grateful for a surprise sleep in, a reward for their impressive behavior over the past weeks. The final block of courses has concluded, with students commenting positively upon the experiential aspects offered. Just a few of the activities across the four courses included; a trip to an organic vineyard, a visit to Tuki Trout Farm, to learn about Wind Farms, a talk by Tony Ghosthawk, a Native American Indian who imparted tribal wisdom to the students, and the creation of a ‘locally grown’ recipe book.

Many students at the moment are working studiously on their Clunes Projects. Having completed the 1000 word research essay linking to either Clunes, Rural Australia or Community, students are now completing the practical component of their projects which could be anything from teaching a skill to local Primary School students, painting, woodworking, cross stitching, drawing, interviewing, sculpting and many more. Students aim to have the practical components of the project completed by the time they return home for the Easter break.

This week the TIC (Teenagers In Clunes) organised a very successful disco for the campus. The students thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The TIC contribution and leadership throughout the term has been commented upon positively by staff and students and has been a credit to all involved. With everyone looking forward to the upcoming Easter Holidays and a well-earned rest there has been an air of excitement around the campus. The staff and students wish everyone a safe and happy Easter and we look forward to seeing everyone returning after the break.

Regards

For the second session of ‘Solutions for a Small Planet’ the students were lucky enough to visit an organic vineyard called Captain’s Creek near Daylesford. This vineyard grows all their grapes organically and they even grow some organic vegetables. The vineyard was not very large but everything was neat and well tended. A total of four families work at the vineyard. The farm owner, Doug, explained to the students about the positives and negatives of working an organic farm. He told the students that it was extremely important to follow the guidelines of organic growing because it was quite easy to lose your license for growing organic products if you did not follow the guidelines correctly. Doug told us about his ways of conserving water. He expressed his concern for some other farmers whom he said had poor irrigation systems, which wasted a lot of precious water. He then took us to the vines and a few students chose to pick a few bunches of grapes. The grapes were extremely juicy and sweet and refreshing. Throughout our stay at the farm we learnt a lot about growing organic products and the importance of water saving. It was an informative session that reminded us that not all our farmers are as well off as Doug because of the water problem. Overall the session was a success with a lot of learning and a lot of juicy grapes.

Every Friday afternoon, if we are not enrolled in music, we take a trip with some staff to a significant or historical place in or near to Clunes. Last Friday we visited an old mine in Creswick, which was called ‘The New Australasian Mine’ no 2. In 1882 there was an incident where the mine flooded. 27 miners were trapped in the mine for 3 days. We heard the story of one man that had survived. He wrote every detail, from when the water started to rise, to his attempt at escape and then the rescue after being stuck in a cramped space for 3 days breathing foul air. We saw the entrance of the mine and we climbed up one of the nearby hills which was a mullock heap to see the view. We learnt a lot of information about mining and about life back then. We got a better insight as to how people had to live and what they had to go through. The tragedy we were told about was horrifying and sad. I am glad we still do not live with such dangers and disasters. Only five men survived and even though a rescue team came they made a few errors, for example they brought up a hose from Melbourne to pump out the water but it was not long enough. Many people suffered from this incident, not only the people that died but also the wives and children of the men and even friends.

For the past few weeks a group of boys from Wesley have been going to train with the local Clunes footy team, the ‘Magpies’ on Wednesday nights. The Magpie boys are a lot smaller and younger than us. We normally start with a lap to warm up, and then do a few stretches. After we’ve done that we go into a bit of lane work where we just run up and down in lanes handballing and kicking the ball. Then depending on which night it is, we do a different drill that goes for a bit longer. We sometimes do a bit of goal kicking or a running drill. After all that, we do another lap to warm down and we pack up and walk back to campus. We are going to continue going down there because we are starting to make a few friends and we are starting to earn the respect of some of the locals.

On Monday and Thursday nights we have Making Connections, which is about getting to know all the students on campus. This week we were given a topic and we had to talk about the topic for 30 seconds then our partner would do the same but with a different topic. Then we switched partners and got given different topics. This activity is a great way to get to know another person in a short space of time. It is otherwise known as speed dating! We were also given a playing card and whomever had the same card that was chosen had to get up in front of the whole group and talk about a topic. The topics varied from packages to rainbows to sparkles. Some of the people struggled to talk for 30 seconds on some of the topics. Stay tuned for another update next week and who has made connections!

Last Wednesday on the 12th of March my house (2) had a community member join us for dinner. Keith from the local Health Centre was invited over at 6.00pm by one of our house members. Steph was the chef for the night and cooked Munmin, which was a delicious Chinese dish (her dad’s recipe). At first it was a bit awkward and we found it difficult to make conversation but after about 10 minutes we were all chatting and laughing around the dining table. We heard a lot about Clunes and about Keith’s life. He is now about 80 years old and has been through a lot and has many stories. After dinner we all had chocolate cake that was made by Penny and myself, (Keith told us it was delicious). We then sat around our Pit (Lounge) area whilst Issy and Rachael performed for us. Issy played the piano and they both sung a Missy Higgins song. Keith and all the other house members were very impressed. We had lots of fun but unfortunately he had to leave at 7.00pm. So after our performance we all headed down to the Campus’ entrance gates and waved goodbye to Keith.

This week’s Cluster Sports was especially interesting with green cluster winning their first round the previous week and determined to keep their winning streak intact. Red cluster, however were not going down without a fight. The competition began with each cluster presenting their chants and red’s chant slightly edged green’s and they were awarded twenty-five points. The first game involved throwing a Frisbee into a basketball hoop. With red winning the chant they opted to watch green throw first. After a slow start, green came back to score fourteen points by the end of the three minutes. Red began with an even slower start but eventually crawled to twelve points, which just was not good enough to beat green. The second game was a cricket-like game, which was extremely quick. The competition was again close but green came out on top with Luke scoring the winning point. The third game was a basketball elimination game, which was quite challenging. Through a stunning turn of events red players were more numerous and green were left with three unlikely players Sam, Luke and Tim. As the competition grew tighter Sam and Luke were both eliminated and green’s chances rested on Tim’s shoulders. Tim was about to shoot the winning hoop before Alex INTERCEPTED and hit Tim’s ball away before he scored a tap in. Cluster sports this week was fun and exciting and everyone enjoyed having a bit of a run.

The course Social Action 4 Social Change was about making change in a social group. For our project we had to make a presentation on someone who has made a significant change locally or globally. We researched people like Muhammad Ali and Aung san Suu Kyi. We also had to choose a project to make a change of our own. Some of the actions people did included selling hand made bracelets to raise funds to help save the whales and another group did car washes which raised money for another charity organisation. Both of these activities were very successful. Both of these projects were held on Sunday at the Clunes Market. The Car wash group got approval and advice from the local water authority as to how to wash the cars using a minimal amount of water.
During the course we went on an excursion to Tuki trout farm to learn about wind farming and to see the different point of views that the community thought about the wind farms. Some of the community members who are the neighbours of Tuki do not like the look of wind turbines and do not like the amount of noise they make. They are worried that the noise could disturb the cattle and the people who live there. But some of the farmers (Tuki included) want the turbines on their property to get the money and the energy that could be produced by the wind farms.

In ‘Beyond Civilisation’ this week we had to endure real life torture. Last Thursday, Dan told us that he had a big surprise for us on Tuesday. He told us to wait outside the Jube with no books, no iPods, and no laptops. All of us were very eager to find out what this big surprise was. Dan arrived and split us up into groups of 4. He then started asking us questions about whether we had mobiles and Myspace and MSN. Bryce and Kye were the odd ones out, who didn’t have any of these things. So Dan called us into the jube one group at a time. As we walked in we saw lollies, chips, soft drink and a Playstation2 on the big screen. We got very excited, until then, Dan, the worst person in the world, directed us under a table tennis table and gave us a bowl of bird seeds and told us to sort out the bird seeds into different colours. But while the rest of us were doing this, Bryce and Kye sat on beanbags drinking coke and eating lollies while playing Playstation2. All of us under the table were a bit peeved off. Even Scott walked out after about 15 min. Dan pretended to get a bit mad so no one else left, we were all a bit scared. After an hour went by, and we were about half way through our bowl, we finally stopped. Everyone was very mad at Dan after this. But he explained to us that this is how much we take our lives for granted. This is what we do at home, while kids on the other side of the world do slavery jobs like this. After all this it really opened up our eyes and we appreciated doing this course, and learned a lot.