With just over a week until Presentation Day, students are fully engaged in their Clunes project practicals and there is some great work being done. Today students are working with their Learning Mentors on how to write and deliver their Presentation Day speeches. The whole campus is looking forward to you visiting the campus on Presentation Day. An email with more specific details will be sent to parents within the next couple of days. Yesterday the whole campus group visited the Ullina Landcare Site and planted the tree that they have been nurturing for the past eight weeks. Our partnership with the Ullina Landcare Group began a couple of years ago and the Lord Clyde Reserve Site is now a place, which our students visit on a regular basis as part of our Collective Potential and Environmental Sustainability programs. I am writing this sitting with students in the Staff House listening to their chatter about the week that has been and the activities they have been involved in. It makes me really proud of what we do here and the opportunities that we provide for our students. This is not to say there have not been challenges, but it is from these challenges that the most learning has occurred. Group 39 are a great group of young people and they have all had successes in different ways. One of the great aspects of our program is that there are opportunities for everyone. The Wesley @ Clunes staff are an amazing bunch of committed educators and work extremely hard with each group of students. I am sure you can imagine the myriad of issues they work through with individuals, houses and the campus as a whole. We look forward to seeing you on Sunday for a 10am start.

The class of Modern Era is such a great class and has to be remembered. I have learnt a lot about the Clunes history in this class, but our teacher mainly taught us about how Clunes was the first gold rush town in Victoria. In this class we have done a great deal of artwork, which will be presented on presentation day. I have learnt plenty of skills in this class mainly drawing skills because I don’t draw often and this has been a real challenge for me to complete. It takes a heap of patience, time and precision to be an artist and I have just started as a beginner. I really enjoyed having time to work in a quiet environment because you don’t get that much time to yourself when you are in Melbourne so it was a great opportunity. These skills might help me in the future because if I wanted to become an artist then I would get the chance. I feel good that I am having a piece of my artwork displayed.

On the weekend it was my time to shop for the house, I was a bit nervous about it because it was my first time shopping for the house and I thought I’d stuff it up. I had to re-write the shopping list because the other was drawn all over and I could barely read it. I had to report to the staff house so the teacher could talk to us about what we needed, we needed our houses green bags, our shopping lists, a pen and a calculator. Once we had sorted that out we got our blue shopping carts for the Green Grocers and went down to the IGA. Once we arrived outside the IGA we left our blue shopping carts outside and got a shopping trolley from the inside and started shopping. It took me about 45 min to do the shopping in the IGA not counting the time I had to wait in the line. Once I had done the IGA shopping I went to the Green Grocers, the staff there were very friendly and helped out a lot with what we needed and we also got a free orange juice from them. Once we had done the shopping we went back to the campus and unpacked our shopping, most of the house was happy with what I had got so I was happy that I did a good shop.

Thursday, the day of the half solo, the Half-Day Solo was supposed to be a grueling preparation for the dreaded full day solo, but of course after a savage chain of severe weather warnings, the day was called off, although the students still had to participate in recovery activity in their house. The reason behind the recovery activity in our house, was because the “General feeling of the campus at the moment is lethargy” – Teacher. The recovery session involved getting our computers right after morning meeting and “chilling on our computers”. We could do anything from work to hardcore gaming. After the 3-hour meditation period, we were allowed to sign out for lunch. When we got back from our much needed lunch break, we proceeded to go to the bluestone church, where we learnt how to be men and did the second window out of our “Self Window Project”. The day was full of productivity.

The Running Program over the last six weeks has been a great success. Students have chosen to run up Mount Beckworth on the last week of their Clunes experience. Last Monday the students were meant to run up five hills in better preparation for Mount Beckworth but the weather conditions canceled that session. On Wednesday the students ran up the five hills very well giving the students much confidence to run up Mount Hollow Back on Friday. Students have to run up Mount Hollow Back twice this Friday for their Friday challenge. This is the first time in Clunes history that any running group have ran up Mount Hollow Back. On Sunday students will be running in a compulsory seven kilometre run, all student must run on Sunday if they want to continue in the Running Program. Mount Beckworth day happens in only two weeks, good luck to all runners running.

Green and Red Cluster had a very hard fought cluster night last night. Both teams picked up almost maximum bonus points with some points taken off both teams in the silent walk. For the chant you had to use as much space as possible on the basketball court. Green won the chant with an excellent routine. The first game was decided by Green because they were first to arrive. The first choice was between Ring of Death and King Dodgeball. Green chose King Dodgeball because Red cluster romped the Ring of Death in the past. Red won the King Dodgeball 2 to 1. The next game was Frisbee-ball, the game was tied 5 to 5 after 3 minutes each. The game was then decided from a new game that was invented by a Green house student. The game ended up 70 to 55 in favour of Red. The last game was chosen between Pair Soccer and Jedi ball. Red chose to do Jedi ball because Green had recent success in Pair Soccer. Red struggled in the Jedi ball after a double MVP player was injured during the opening minutes. Other Red players stepped up but were not successful. The end score was 4 to 1 in favour of Green. Both teams scored maximum points on the way back but points were lost for Green house after water was poured on students. MVP was won by Red house and notable mentions went to two Green players and a Red player. Red won the night by 155 points.

Last Sunday afternoon Environmental Art took place. The Class was taken by the four student teachers; it was their last lesson at Wesley@Clunes. The class began in the Jube where the students watched a short clip about the environment and Green Peace. After that they moved to the Bluestone, where each student started drawing up ideas for stencils to show people how to protect the environment. After the stencils were cut out they were painted onto a massive sheet, which will be shown around campus sometime soon.

On Tuesday the class of Golden Era headed out on the buses for a guided tour of what Clunes would have been like in the gold rush times. The tour was interesting and the students learnt that there were over 50 pubs and brothels in the Clunes area. The tour consisted of ghost stories and tour around the outskirts of Clunes. The students later attended a tour through an old bank and were shown the vault which was really interesting to see how the old technologies worked. In all the tour was fun and everyone involved learnt a lot about Clunes history.