It is a beautifully sunny day in Clunes today. The students are busy with Community Service activities and music and there is a really lovely feel on the campus. As I look out the window of my office I can see students weeding and watering their house vegetable gardens, students carrying musical instruments down to the Bluestone Church, some students sitting at their outside table writing articles for the newsletter and a group carrying shovels and other gardening tools to take out to Lord Clyde Reserve.

It is hard to believe that we are at the end of Week 6. Group 42 are still busy with their projects and there are some wonderful practicals being worked on. With Presentation Day only just over a week away, students are working hard to finish their practicals and fine-tune their circus and music performances.

This morning I spent some time working with students and enjoyed 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 42 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 at 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.

Over the weekend we were lucky to escape the storms which hit Melbourne. We had a lot of very heavy rain and thunderstorms but did not have the hail in Clunes. The landscape has changed already since the big rains and there is a touch of green appearing. The campus grass is already making a comeback and we are very excited that our water tank is now half full!

Unfortunately, due to the heavy rains and thunderstorms earlier in the week we cancelled the Half Day Solo activity scheduled for Tuesday. Instead the students were given a well deserved morning in their houses to catch up. Students chose to work on their Projects, do a load of washing, read a book, etc. Although it was a shame we had to cancel the Half Day Solo I think that in some ways the timing of the morning rest was perfect. In the afternoon, “Self” classes continued as planned.

On Thursday the focus for the day was “Place and Time”. Students were given an overview of the history of the local area in the first week of term and then chose a particular time in history to explore further over the term. Yesterday the groups came together to share what they had learnt and to showcase the work they had produced. Students produced a variety of displays, artwork and short films to share with each other.

We look forward to seeing you all on Sunday 21 March for Presentation Day. An email will be sent out to parents early next week with more information. Presentations will commence at 10am sharp, so please be on time as it can be quite an anxious wait for already nervous students.

On Friday 5th march Wesley participated in a Clunes disco. It was held in the Clunes Community Centre and people came from all around to this event. It was full of loud music, little kids running around and a local person doing a back flip over 10 people! There was music ranging from Gold Digger by Kanye West to Fireflies by Owl City. Everyone got up and had a dance, even some of the teachers got up and showed off their moves. After the disco everyone was very pumped up and I’m sure it took everyone a while to get to sleep. The disco helped provoke people from around the Clunes community to go and catch up with Wesley College people at another date; one of my friends is doing just that. Even though this night was supposed to be a pool party or Friday night basketball; the disco turned out to be a success.

Church on Sundays is a great way to reflect on your Clunes journey and your faith if you have one. The elderly citizens of Clunes drive their cars up the hill to the Church on Wesley campus. It warms our hearts to see them singing so exuberantly and proudly on their Sunday mornings. Even if we’re not religious it’s a very calming and peaceful experience to have. To experience the breaking of the bread and all of the hymns they sing is one experience you’ve got to have in Clunes. It relaxes us for the start of the day and we come out of the Church ready for whatever comes.

Last Monday was the exciting battle between Green and Red. With Green winning every game against Red in the previous week, Red came in needing a new team strategy, and that they did. With an opening chant to blow away Green and take out the first 50 points, they were off to a great start. A round where the teams got to choose the games, Red started with a close game of pair’s soccer, but Red’s new team tactics and soccer star from House Three, kicked 2 or 3 goals for the team and pulled them through in the end. Second game was an amazing game of King Dodge ball. It was a tight start but Green’s persistence, co operation and patience came together and bought Green the game. Two games down and it came down to the last game. It had to be chosen by two brilliant players of the game, Leading Man from House 9 versus Tall Man from House 3. The paper, scissors, rock battle began, all time stopped still for this terrific battle of the best, with Red house picking the unlikely rock, Leading Man from House 9 picked it too, and with a quick choice of paper, the job was done. One crowned a hero, the other tossed to the side like uncooked sausage. Green given the choice of a wide selection of games, what would they choose but TEAM TAG, Green having the House 2 star of the game, it seemed an easy choice. With Red putting up a healthy time of 53 seconds, Green was sure to wrap this one up. All was good with Green team’s star still in the game with 5 seconds to go it seemed to be won, but with only a few seconds left she was taken out. It was left to one man, to crown his fellow Greens with a victory, all he had to do was last a few seconds. But Red had already thought of this option beforehand and put out a confusing play that caught Green by surprise. There was nothing that could be done, with one second left on the clock, the game was over. Red was victor to an amazing battle. Although Red won two out of three games, most of the bonus points went to Green. Obviously not enough points, Red won Monday night’s bout, an honourable win to a great team.

The intense fitness program is coming to the last stages of it’s core pumping routines, with only two weeks left, the FITNESS CHALLENGE is in everyone’s sub conscious thoughts. Not only does this program focus in on the core muscles, but they will start training for the colossal 12 kilometre walk to Mount Beckworth. These trusty fitness programmer’s will arrive at Mount Beckworth on the day that the running group attempts to climb the beast of a mountain, most would say it’s impossible but they believe that with the support and encouragement of the fitness group while they scale the mountain, they will find the energy and pull through to defeat Mount Beckworth, something that they couldn’t do without the fitness programmer’s support. True brilliance that fitness group with their great leader. Through the weeks of intense core pumping routines and endurance pumping water exercises, to the yoga and meditation lesson, this fitness group is ready for anything and will attack like the hungry cougar at any opportunity. Good luck to all fitness members in the highly anticipated fitness challenge 2010.

One Wednesday we had a solo day which was cancelled because of the bad weather. The solo day was for our self class. The plan was to go out to Mount Beckworth and spend three hours on our own in the bush. Instead of that we had our normal self classes and we talked about the full day solo that we do on the last week. We will go up to Mount Beckworth and spend six hours in the bush reflecting on our journey of Clunes and how good or bad it has been. We also finished a sheet we had started on our first class of self. It was a window image and we had to cut out pictures of the past, present and future.
Tuesday was our last self class for term one G41.

Every Thursday we have two cluster plays for a fun and enjoyable games. We play all sorts of games including parent soccer, king doge ball and three pin bowling. With Red cluster being the first cluster at the Jube, they got to choose the first game. They had a choice out of 10 games and they chose partner soccer with Red taking out the first game. When Blue had a turn to choose they chose king dodge ball which they won and the last game was up to both cluster to choose they same game and that was three pin ball which Blue cluster won. Congratulation to Blue cluster for having the M.V.P of the night.

After 3 classes of work throughout the weeks all of the Place and Time groups presented their projects for the rest of the campus to see on Thursday afternoon. The classes consisted of Pre-History, Gold, Aboriginal History and Modern Era. Each group split off into smaller groups to do a project about some aspect of what they were learning about. Some people made posters, dioramas, skits, and one group even wrote a song. Each group put a great deal of effort into their presentations so that when it reached time to present each group knew exactly what they were meant to do. Each presentation lasted a couple of minutes and the presentations went for about an hour and a half. Now all of the students have learnt about our past and have a better understanding of what events changed the way we live today.

The running teams have been getting prepared for the upcoming run up Mount Beckworth. The team started the term running 3 kilometres and have slowly worked their way up to running up and down Mount Hollowback twice. With only two weeks to go everyone is starting to see how real Beckworth is and how possible it will be to run it. At the start of term many people thought that Beckworth was an impossible task that they would never be able to accomplish, but throughout the term people have started to see that this is not the case. Everyone is getting fitter and learning how they should be eating in order to feel good on the runs. More and more often people are able to run the entire time without stopping and many people are managing to even push themselves to sprint the last straight of the run. This term has been filled with determination and teamwork. Everyone can say that the run team has made them determined to tackle Beckworth in the couple of weeks to come.

On Saturday night we had a Campus Karaoke Night where we all sat in the Jube and those who were brave enough stood in front of everyone for a solo or in a group to sing. It was interesting to see who actually could sing and who couldn’t, who took it seriously and who had the most fun. The points were tallied up and the highest scores were revealed although it was all in good spirits. I don’t think anyone really cared about the final result, just the enjoyment along the way.

On Monday a small group of people went to Bunnings and Spotlight to buy supplies for our mentor project practical pieces. Meanwhile, many people back on campus were starting their practicals—many of these include sewing pieces, stories, films, picture books, photography, mosaics, songs, organised events, scrapbooks, sporting equipment, models, and many more. For our mentor projects we are asked to write about something that we’re passionate about and somehow link it into the theme of Clunes, Rural Australia or Community. This gives us the opportunity to show the diversity of these three themes and how while each of us are different in many ways we all have something in common.