Social action for social change was one of the courses in the last group of courses at Clunes. During the course we went on two excursions, the first to Tuki trout farm where we learnt about how something like putting in a wind farm, which would be good for the environment, can have a negative reaction instead of the expected positive. Jan and Bob told us about there fight with community to put a wind farm into there property and we had a look around the trout farm and at the sheep and animals on the farm too. For our second excursion we went out to Maldon where we met Mandy who showed us around her and her husband, Ron's, sustainable house. They are not connected to the grid and all of their power they produce themselves through solar panels located on the roof of their house that was built out of mud, rocks and some of the walls had empty glass bottles in them for decoration. When we got back to campus we showed the class our presentations that we had made on a famous person who made a social action that made social change.

In Solutions For A Small Planet I had to finish of my Project, which was an environmental Snakes And Ladders. (I had been in Melbourne and missed all the classes, so I had to catch up on the work). In the Snakes and Ladders we had to have 100 perfectly ruled up squares and for every line (10 lines) we had to write 4 environmental facts that would either move you up some spaces or down. All up we had to have written 40 questions. We then had to add the snakes and ladders, I had one going from 99 all the way back to 2. and then we had to colour it and make it look nice. When we finished that we watched a video about genetically modified farm animals. And finally we got a turn to play other peoples games.

This Tuesday was the last session for the "Solution For A Small Planet." The coarse was great fun. We did a lot of fun and unique activities. First we went on planting plants in our vegetable garden. The next day we went to visit some folks living in the low energy house that they have built and use the electricity that they produced. On day three in class we made our very own snakes & ladder game and on the last day we had fun playing each others games. The whole course taught me a lot of how we are affecting the environment and how we can make a change.

The big day has come. The Presentation Day!! On Sunday we will do what's called a presentation day. In presentation day we show and tell all the things we did during Clunes, which means presenting our projects. We have to present our webpage, our practical, our logbook and the other thing we did in our project. Most of us are well prepared and finished the speech already but some of us haven't even finished the practical yet. Everyone is nervous so that is why on Saturday we will have a rehearsal for the presentation day. I hope I can present without any problem.

With Presentation Day coming up on Sunday 15th of June, everyone's been busy finishing off their projects and getting ready to present. Presentation Day is all about being able to show your family and your peers' family what you've done for your project and how your journey at Clunes went. Each student does a 5-minute presentation in front of their mentor group and family. They talk about every aspect of their project and how they came to complete it in the time of the 8 weeks. The day is busy but fun for everyone with a circus and music performance by the students.Edith :)

Believe it or not everyone: Clunes is almost over!! The last week of our time here at Clunes is fast approaching and it's going to be proven to be a very busy week with many activities planned and a lot of cleaning to do! The run to Mount Beckworth is a part of the running program and the people who do the Rec program will still walk to it. Wednesday night will be our last disco, which will be a lot of fun. Friday night is the All Night Movie night where we all take our sleeping bags into the Jube and have a movie marathon that will go from 7pm to 6am after which we'll have a big cooked breakfast supplied by the staff. During the week, all students will also be busy cleaning their houses and making sure it's ready for the next group to arrive. Although it will be very busy, there won't be any courses or projects to worry about which will give everyone more time to enjoy the last of their time here!! :)

Every Friday morning all the students on campus have to do community service, excluding those who do music. One of the options to enrol in is publishing the Clunes Newsletter. Students who enrol in this activity meet at 9:45am at the staff house with their computers and some ideas on what they can write about for the week's newsletter. The teacher in charge of running the newsletter for the week asks students what they would like to write about and assigns them a subject if they can't think of anything.

It has been a stressful week for all staff and students in Clunes as presentation day will soon be upon us. The project has been a six-week process where students have worked on the 5 parts of their project, essay, practicum, logbook, web page and speech. All students have been rushing their last parts of their projects. Many including myself need to work harder on their web pages and practicals so that they are completed. On Sunday the parents will see a variety of different presentations when each student will make a speech on how they think they went on their overall project. Everyone is excited and a little nervous for the big day. On Saturday everyone will have a major rehearsal so that everyone is as prepared and confident as they can be for the main day.

The Big Day Out was a Wesley vs. Highview sports day held on Thursday. Highview College is situated in Maryborough and were hungry for competition as they are the only private school within around 75 kilometres radius around them. The netball game was the first game of the day with both sides putting on a competitive and entertaining contest. The Wesley netball team put up a good fight although Highview were too strong. The Football was played at a high intensity right throughout the day with Wesley leading for most of the day. Numerous players from both sides had never played football before a prime example of how the day encouraged participation from all. The final football scores were 98-26, Wesley too good for Highview. The football was followed by a special lunch where students that didn't play sport helped cook the sausages and burgers. The basketball was the last sport of the day, with a number of Wesley students eager to win the shield. Highview lead for most of the game although Wesley did hit the lead late in the game. Highview withstood the late surge from Wesley and took out the game and shield. The whole day was played with great spirit and enthusiasm and all participants should be congratulated

On Thursday, every student went to the Community Centre for the Big Day Out. Highview College from Maryborough came to the Community Centre as well to play footy, netball and mixed basketball with us. Most students played sports, but other people made lunch, took pictures and checked score. When people who made lunch arrived at the Community Centre, other people were playing netball and footy. We put cookies, bread, lettuce and other things on the table and cooked sausages for lunch. When people were playing footy and netball matches, people who didn't play sports just watched matches. For matches, we won footy, but we lost mixed basketball. I don't know about footy and netball score, but I know mixed basketball's score and it was 50 : 26. During the lunch, girls served cookies for us. After matches, we took picture when Robert Grant was talking about matches. When Highview College students left, we collect rubbish and clean the Community Centre. Everyone liked Big Day Out except some people who didn't want to play sports or didn't want to do any job. I think Big Day Out was good for everyone because they could check their sports skills and communicated with Highview College students.

On Monday, Red, White and Orange cluster had Cluster Sports in the Community Centre. We walked down to the Community Centre without making noise. In the Community Centre, we had to make chant for our cluster and Orange cluster sung last because we got points before we walk down. Red won for the chant. After that, we played soccer with a partner. Two people had to hold their hands. For one match, we needed four pairs of people and we had subs to change so everyone played it. Red, White and Orange versed each other so made matches fair. I don't know about the score about soccer. After soccer, we played a game with a ring. People who were holding yellow stick called Jedi had to catch the ring when someone is throwing it to them. We also had subs so everyone could play game. I don't know about any score because I didn't see or heard the score. Over all, everyone enjoyed Cluster Sports because sports that we played were not that hard so everyone could play easily.

Mt Beckworth is on next Wednesday where all the runners in the running program run together for 10 kms and break off at there own pace up the Mt Beckworth hill. The run program has been going all term, where all the runners have run 3 times a week, we run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. After a couple of weeks the runs change, either in distance, or with hills, and the Friday challenges. The running group is well established now, and there is a great feel about this group of runners, there's great encouraging from everyone either in voice, or helping people run. There are some great runners in this group, but they don't just run for themselves, they encourage all the other runners and the group runs really well pushing each other to the end of each run. Mt beckworth will be physically and mentally challenging for all who run, the run will take its toll on the body of the runners immensely, but it is up to the runners to see whether they have the mental strength to push up the hill without stopping and get that extra star to there name on the board. Everyone will be physically ready for the run seeing as they have been running all term, and the morale of the group will be high with expectation of getting up the hill. As for the recreation group, the group who didn't want to run up Beckworth. They will have to walk up beckworth and meet the runners at the top.

On Monday night the top team in white competed against red and orange closely behind. It was a great night for sport, with two good games being played; they played pair soccer, which the white team won each game with surprise little package Jolyon Peters kicking the winning goal against the red team off a free kick. When Red and Orange competed in pair soccer it ended up in a draw with a late goal from a girl, which was contested fiercely by the red team but ended up in a goal resulting in a draw.The next game was Jedi hoop where the white team dominated again with a couple drops of the hoop at the start by the goalie with the stick, but the team got it going and won convincingly and in great form for the finals next Thursday. The red team are always competitive with Andrew Lipson pulling off some amazing catches, which were fllukes but a great talent Andrew has with the stick and catching the hoop, which helped his team to beat orange. Now the orange team are a solid team who do they're best and just get unlucky each week, hopefully they can do well in finals with all the rest.

On Thursday the 12th of June we had a sports day, where about 40 year nine kids came from Highview College Maryborough to play different games against us. We all had to sign up for a sport that we wanted to play. The choices were footy, basketball or netball but if you didn't want to play anything you could sign up for helping out on the day. The things that you could help with were cooking the BBQ lunch, umpiring a game, scoring and also running out water to the footy players. Over the day Highview won the netball and the basketball but we won the footy. This was a really good day because it gave us the chance to meet some new people and it was also a good chance to do something different and it gave us a break from our normal classes.

Solutions for a small planet, was one of the last courses that we had to do. This course was mainly about environmental sustainability and how we could make a change in our homes. We learnt about global warming and how it's affecting us. On the first day we were introduced to what we were going to be doing and then we got given $80 million and we had to come up with about 12 issues that were going on around the world and then we had to spend the money we had on the issues that we thought were the most important and that should be dealt with. Some of the other things that we did during this course were making an environmental snakes and ladders. For this we had to work with a partner and come up with different facts and points to put on the board to inform people about what they can do to improve how they use electricity and water around the home. Then for our second assessment task we had to do this by ourselves and we had to re-design Hannah Street House to make more eco friendly. We had a limited amount of money to do what ever we wanted to the house without knocking it down.

Black and White was the theme and dress code for the first TIC group organised event of the Term. At Four O'clock the preparation started with balloons being blown up and streamers being thrown around the room. Big Black Curtains were hung over the door ways and multicoloured as well as florescent lights were in place. At Seven O'clock the Jube started to fill with people dressed in Black and White. The dress code was strictly Black and White only and the only colour that was seen in the Jube that night was the Flashing coloured lights. At 7.30 the TIC group got on stage to commence the party, the music then kicked off and the dancing started. The night was a huge success after much preparation the only negative reported on the night was the constant music changing. When the slow songs came on the girls got their dates and 90% of the room were on their feet dancing. The energetic and excited vibe got people moving and the overall involvement in the night was outstanding. The Night turned out to be a massive success with a try out of the 10 minute socialising rule turning out to be a good additive to Saturday Night Fever. In Conclusion the night was a fantastic way to celebrate Group 34 and it was thoroughly enjoyed.

For last week's Saturday night fever the Tic Group organised a Black & White party. The Jube was transformed into a dance club for the night, with black & white decorations: balloons, streamers and a black & white movie playing on the big screen. Everyone came dressed up in as little colour as possible; most of the outfits were amazing and creative. Girls wore beautiful dresses and had great accessories, guys wore anything black & white that they could find: hats, ties etc. The music was loud, fast, and fun to dance to, with Will helping to DJ, there were also slow dances for the couples that came.Overall, Saturday was a really great night and a great chance to relax and have fun with friends. We all danced, talked, laughed and had a great time. Looking forward to next Wednesday's Beckworth Party, which will be a celebration of all of the Beckworth runners and of the end of Clunes G34. May all of the next Clunes Groups have as much fun as we have, we'll miss everyone here.

Over these past two months, Clunes students have been learning all kinds of circus skills to perform for parents and friends on Presentation Day. The performance will be after lunch at 1:00 in the Jube, and will include performances in Juggling, Diablo, Plate Spinning, Hula Hoop, Yo-yo and Poi. There will also be a Magic Show, Mime artists, and a brilliant acrobatic finale.We've been practicing and learning about Circus every Saturday afternoon since the first week and are all super excited to be performing on Presentation Day. It's going to be a great farewell from all of us thanks to Dan, EJ & Rob - Goodbye Clunes!

One of the courses that was an option for week 7 was Eat Green, It was related to local foods and produce, food miles and the way food is made. On the first day of the course we went to Donegan's Farm in Ascot. The 20 students that were participating in the course learnt about the way working farms operate. Donegan's Farm grows potatoes and the workers their explained how they were made compared to many other potato growers. Joe and her husband at the Farm showed us around the paddocks and the animals. Time was spent playing with the 7 day old orphan lambs and the chickens. The second day of the course was spent in the Bluestone choosing and researching recipes, the class was split into 4 groups, one for each season and we were asked to find a meal for that season. For each recipe we had to find out how many trees would be needed to offset the meal and how many food miles the meal needed. At the end of the lesson we then voted on the two best recipes that we would make the next week for everyone to enjoy. When Tuesday came around we set out to a small property in Franklinford which had a small renovated church on it. The object of the day was to plant 100 trees in our seasons and then enjoy our meal of Chicken and beetroot salad with Pasta Marinara. The meal turned our extremely well and beside the weather the day was a great success!The entire Eat Green course would like to thank The Guilford Landcare for donating 100 trees, with Stakes and Guards, especially to Mr Maurie Dynon. It was a very generous donation which contributed very much to the turn out of the day.