I am delighted to complete this article on behalf of Suzanne Camm. What an eventful week we have all had with continued wet weather prompting the campus to slow down and enjoy each other’s company. This week the students will be re-visiting the Birches Creek site to plant the trees that they have been nurturing throughout the term. On Wednesday evening local community members were invited over for dinner in the student houses. It was an eventful evening, with a fire alarm sounding at the beginning of dinner, however feedback from all of the locals was nothing but praise for the students’ cooking, conversations and their maturity. This week also saw the completion of the ‘Place and Time’ focus group. On Presentation Day an exhibit of all Place and Time work will be on display at the Hannah Street House. I encourage you all to make the time to view the wide array of presentations including videos, art work, models and stories. There is high anticipation surrounding Presentation Day next weekend and students’ Clunes Projects, Circus and Music performances are all progressing well. Please check your emails Monday evening for information on start and end times, where your child will be presenting and the running order of the day.

On Tuesday it was a focus day for everyone. I was in the Pre-history class. In Pre-history it was the last chance to finish off our projects. What we had to do was find out about a certain part of pre-history. The choices were Marine life, Plant life, Insect life, Land life and questions about Gondwana. We all started researching on our laptops and our teacher complained about how generation Y never uses books. We weren’t allowed to talk about Swine Flu and any High School Musicals, or email each other in class, but we all did. Most of us finished our work, and then completed the assessment, with one question being; Is Muse not the greatest band ever? Which was a rhetorical question. It was a fun, relaxed class and we all enjoyed it.

Thursday of Week Six, we had another self-day. For the morning part we were supposed to have a half-day solo, but because of the rain and the ‘extreme’ weather conditions we had a catch-up day. All students had the option of catching up on sleep, rest, emails, work and food, but we all had to stay in our own houses. After our catch-up we got to have lunch so it was a calm morning. Another thing that happened was that the water main burst so houses 1, 2, and 3 didn’t have water, so we couldn’t do the dishes after making a huge mess. We had to spread butter with a spoon, and we couldn’t shower or flush the toilet for a while. After all that we had Self class. Girls Self was held in the Jube, first we recounted what we had already done in Self. Then we continued with our windows, which was really fun because we got to get really creative with everything. After Self we had finished classes for the day, and were able to sign out or just relax.

The last visiting weekend of Term Two started off with only a few parents and family making their way to the township of Clunes. There were not as many visitors as the middle weekend, the majority left campus on that weekend. It was a joy to see all the families come together and share emotions, as they had not seen each other in five weeks. The Saturday started as usual but it differed from all other Saturdays, as I knew I would be seeing my family that day. At four o’clock I left for Ballarat and had a great time-sharing stories and experiences from the Clunes program. On Sunday when I came back to campus all the parents had left and it was time to sit back, relax and watch a movie.

The Self class on Thursday June fourth was a simple and relaxed way of ending the day. We all finished off our ‘windows’ which were portraits of Mt.Beckworth. With that, we all stuck different things on the portrait, labeling experiences, memories and things about ourselves onto the picture. The session became interesting when we all had to do something for our future and what we thought was going to become of us in the future. The portraits are layered with the things of our pasts at the bottom (the ground) things of our present (Mt.Beckworth itself) and things of our future (the sky). The end of the day was relaxing and fun and was a great way to wind down the day.

Last Saturday I did the shopping for House 6. I was a bit worried because if I did badly we wouldn’t have much to eat for the week! I already had a shopping list, which we made in logistics on the Wednesday before the shop. We went to the IGA first, where we get everything except vegetables and meat. I went through as quickly as I could so I wasn’t waiting in the back of the line to pay and luckily I finished second so I didn’t have to wait very long.
Next stop was Bob the butchers, to pick up the meat. Then last stop was the greengrocers, where we bought the vegetables. I had heaps of extra money to spend here so I bought $80 worth of vegetables. Once I had finished I raced back to campus to unpack, so we could sign out earlier. Overall, I actually found shopping quite fun; my best tip would be to finish as quickly as possible in IGA and not to get caught in the lines!

On Wednesday each week we have House Day. On this day we have three classes: logistics, community living and house meeting. In our logistics class we have houses 2,3,6 and 10. To start off we talked about the shopping for the week and what tips the shoppers have. We also discussed the best meal of the week for every house. After that we planned the meals for the week and did the shopping list. This took a long time because we had to write out all the ingredients for all the dinners. After that we had community living with houses 1,2,4 and 6. We talked about anger for a while until our teacher realised we were all very tired, so we did meditation for the rest of the lesson. Last class for the day was house meeting, where all the house members sit down and have a chat with the house leader. We do the house roster and other housekeeping things. Most weeks someone cooks pancakes as well.

On Wednesday the afternoon run was cancelled due to the rain and weather warnings. The runners were instead taken down to the community center to play indoor soccer and basketball. Unfortunately there was a mix up and a local netball game was being held, meaning that there was no room for the running group. The runners were then driven back to campus and it was decided that a game of outdoor soccer would be held. It was a fun game as the rain caused mud and a lot of slipping and laughing. The game was between the ‘plain team’ and the ‘red sash team’. It was a very close match but in the end red won by one goal.

On Sunday afternoon one of the courses that was held was Green Fingers. In this course the students experience working in the garden and being able to get their hands dirty. In last Sunday’s class the students planted silver beet in their veggie patches and got rid of any weeds. They also collected willow branches, stripped them of their leaves and started weaving them into circular shapes to be used as climbers for plants. The class also began their week’s environmental homework and this week the topic was based on community and home.

Last Wednesday night every house had a member of the community over for dinner. The members of the Clunes community had come to help the students cook dinner two weeks prior to last Wednesday. All the houses invited their friendly helpers back for a nice meal. As some houses were just sitting down to eat the fire alarm went off. The students were stressing, as they didn’t know whether the alarm was a drill or not. Some houses started calling the duty phone to see if it was a drill. Once they found out it was a real fire alarm everyone got their guests out of the house in a swift movement and took them to the basketball court for head count. Then they were quickly moved into the town hall out of the cold rain. Everyone was talking about how the alarm was set off and which house it was. It turned out that something in House 8 had set off the fire alarm, which they are still not sure what it was.

Last Saturday Night Fever was Performance Night, run by the students. There were a number of acts. Many of the musicians performed their music pieces and got a great response. With songs like Valerie, Killing in the Name of, Seasons of love, Love song, Fall for you and Seven Nation Army. There were also some surprises from houses 3,4 and 13. House 3 performed ‘Wake me up before you go’ grilled. House 4 performed an original poem for their house leader. House 13 decided at the last minute that they would perform Dani California only singing about 2 lines. The last song of the night, Killing In the Name, kept blowing the sound limit, as it was so loud. They had to restart the song twice and still didn’t end up getting through the whole song.

Last Sunday night we had our regular movie night. This week it was the funny ‘Bend it like Beckham.’ This was about an Indian Girl living in England that loved to play soccer and was really good at it but her parents wouldn’t let her play. Going against her parents wishes she still sneaked out and played soccer in the park until she was spotted by a girl and asked to join a real training all-girls team. Even though most of the people there had seen the movie one too many times, there were still a few who hadn’t seen it before and everyone laughed and enjoyed the movie together.

Place and Time is one of the many classes we participate in here at Wesley@clunes. This week it was our final class and I was participating in the ‘Modern Era’ class. We had to finish up our work, finding a building in Clunes and researching about it. There had to be two or three panels of information, each one corresponding to an era of the building in time (the last one could even be in the future). Once we had gotten together our information we would place it with each panel and on each draw, paint, sketch or anything else arty, construct the picture of what our building looked like in the specific era of time.

Dear Michelle,

We were all very impressed by the way your students performed for our children, teachers and parents at the Seven Hills Cluster Music Day on Wednesday. Their enthusiasm, skill and sheer versatility was amazing!

Thank you so much for all your own organisation, Michelle, and for bringing the Year 9s along to work with us, showing our students just how joyful music can be.

Could you please pass on to the students our heartiest thanks and congratulations for a terrific job?

Take care and have a great weekend,

Marg.