I'm off to join the Circus....

I'm not sure how many times I have seen Circus Oz perform, I think I have seen possibly 10 of their shows and I think between Griffith, Sydney and Melbourne maybe doubled up on one of two of those as well. I didn't get to see the first season 35 years ago, but I do know a local couple who did and they are also still returning to see what this remarkable company of performers and story tellers have to tell and show us. 

Can I suggest the Evonne Goolagong-Cawley Arena

I understand that Margaret Court is entitled to her opinion, however her stance against same sex partners being entitled to be married under the Marriage Act, continues to be at odds with the majority of Australians and continues to cause pain. 

Reflections on the hidden impact of the Great War on our nation.

Lee Kernaghan, Guy Sebastian, Sheppard, Jon Stevens, Jessica Mauboy, Shannon Noll & Megan Washington got together a few years ago as began Commemorating 100 years since the Great War, 'Spirit of the Anzacs', a tribute to those that have given their lives, those who have served, and those that still today step bravely into the unknown to serve our country. 

Griffith Central Preschool Opening and Farewell

Aunty Gloria, John and Adrian, family and friends, thank you and I apologise for the next few minutes as I share what the last 30 plus years was like and what it has given me.  I also apologise at the start for the tears, those that know me understand that I'm a sook when I stand in front of crowds and even gatherings of friends is no better.

The Legend of Ben Hall NSW Film Premier - Griffith City Cinema

It was all action at Griffith City Cinema with the NSW premiere screening  of Matthew Holmes film The Legend of Ben Hall, which is due for national release on December 1st.  The film was written, produced and directed by Matthew and actually started life as a 40 minute short film funded through Kickstarter, when funding exceeded its production  goal, it began to take on this feature film shape, and I am certainly glad it did.

Beyond Year 12, The Class of 2016

Well Year 12 team of 2016, its here at last, that time you were told the focus of your school years, the HSC, the exam of exams, and its so important, you were told, that how you score in the various subjects over the next few weeks will determine your life outcomes. 

What a crock of crap. Seriously on behalf of every parent, Aunt, uncle and every teacher who drummed that message home into your head, so now it has become this huge Blob that threatens to consume your life, I want to say "we are sorry, we lied, we told a porky". The real truth lies within the community you live, the communities you will move and the world you are yet to discover. 

"Constance on the Edge" Documentary Film by Belinda Mason

Few of us know what it is like to be a refugee, to flee in the middle of the night, as your home or village is invaded and live in the constant fear of being captured, tortured or killed. Actually that statement is wrong, because Griffith is a community that is made up of refugees from wars and hostilities around the world for much of the last century. 

Conversations about Suicide

I would like to share a post from BeyondBlue's website on Suicide. If you have concerns about someone in your life who may be at risk or even yourself please contact LifeLine 13 11 14 or BeyondBlue's Support Service 1300 22 4636.

The impact of suicide is huge, not only does it impact on family, but also the community, the friend network. In Australia, Suiscide is the biggest cause of death for male and females 15 - 44 years and its getting worse. Its cause is complex, and its impact devastating. Maggie Dent, often talks about the layering of one issue on top of another and while most of us have the capacity to defuse the ticking time bomb inside our head, for some the adding of another layer ends up being too much. Tragically for those around the victim, they never know which layer was too much.

We need to have a conversation about this national mental health emergency. We need to say its okay to talk about how we feel, whats happening inside our head and why. Its okay to express how we feel about others we are close to and about the feelings that confuse us or what is happening in our lives that get us down.

At the moment, you will have noticed a lot of tweets, social media posts about this very issue, lots of young men and women are posting the tag #ITSOKAYTOTALK. This hashtag is the brain child of UK Rugby player Luke Amber who's brother in law became another victim of this mental health crisis in July this year. He wanted to encourage men to talk, because the UK statistics are as horrific as Australia's.

In 2014, 2864 Australians took their own lives. This is almost eight people per day -- one every three hours.* There are also seven suicide attempts every hour nationwide, The solution is not to judge, but instead create a space where people feel safe to tell you how they feel, be compassionate and empathic, make a difference and reach out. Suicidal thoughts or behaviour indicates a deep unhappiness and does not mean that the person has a mental disorder.

Shane's Story on BeyondBlue's website is a great start to understanding how we can be better at making a difference. BeyondNow is a support application that can be with you everyday to help you overcome the feelings you have and also help you indertsnad how others may be feeling and how you can help and support.

What is BeyondNow?

Convenient and confidential, the BeyondNow app puts your safety plan in your pocket so you can access and edit it at any time. You can also email a copy to trusted friends, family or your health professional so they can support you when you're experiencing suicidal thoughts or heading towards a suicidal crisis. 

For the Web -based application click this link and share it with friends. If you have a SmartPhone IOS or ANDROID the Links are here iTunes and Google Play

Each of us can make a difference, #itsoktotalk, take the time to ask and then take the time to listen, and stick around.

* Hunter Institute of Mental Health - Suicide data 2014 analysis from Hunter Institute of Mental Health 

The Art of Relationships

While this blog is mostly about the Arts, I want to share with you my experience today, which is a demonstration and a reminder of the critical importance of connection and the ART of Relationships.

Celebrating NAIDOC Week.

Poster is by Wiradjuri artist, Lani Balzan. The theme for this year's celebrations is "Songlines - the living narrative of our nation"  

While Capt Arthur Philip and the rest of the Colonists may have thought the local indigenous people who greeted them were unsophisticated by European Standards and seemingly nomadic. They in fact had a strong and long history with the land, and held their knowledge and history in Songlines that go back to the dawn of time and the Dreaming. 

Passed on from generation to generation, and in some places recorded through complex carvings on trees, or painting on walls of caves, and carved into rock, this ageless narrative tells of a history and connection to people, land and the landscape that extends further than any other culture or civilisation on earth.

The poster while it depicts all the songlines from across the county coming together, is remarkably similar to the Aboriginal Pedagogy which is defined in the 8 ways of learning. 

This Aboriginal learning framework is expressed at its simplest as eight interconnected pedagogies involving narrative-driven learning, visualised learning processes, hands-on/reflective techniques, use of symbols/metaphors, land-based learning, indirect/synergistic logic, modelled/scaffolded genre mastery, and connectedness to community. (8 ways Wiki) It is more complex obviously when viewed as each nation, family or group add their own culture, history and important understandings to the system. Learning is not seen as linear, but an interconnected, fluid and evolving.

How we learn - culture way

1. We connect through the stories we share.
2. We picture our pathways of knowledge.
3. We see, think, act, make and share without words.
4. We keep and share knowledge with art and objects.
5. We work with lessons from land and nature.
6. We put different ideas together and create new knowledge.
7. We work from wholes to parts, watching and then doing.
8. We bring new knowledge home to help our mob.

NAIDOC Week will also see the close of the remarkable Exhibition Murrumbidgee MarraMarra which has drawn record crowds to the Griffith Regional Art Gallery.  

However prior to that happening, the Gallery has played host to a Gala Event to celebrate NAIDOC week.    The evening celebrated the significance of culture in telling stories, Songlines that have passed down through generations, and also reinterpretations of personal stories.  Murrumbidgee MarraMarra is visual art experience, powerful, evocative and filled with both ancient and modern ways of telling story. 

Tonight we heard from one of those visual artists, Ms Veronica Collins.  I met Veronica years ago when she created works for an exhibit at the Cottage Gallery.  Veronica worked alongside Di Tarr and they lived and breathed that local exhibition and the one that followed in Sydney.  Veronica's work is framed within the strong geometric patterns that define Wiradjuri work, and yet is post modernism at its finest.  Veronica spoke of her work and also surprised the audience with a new project is part of.  Her artwork is being reproduced on clothing and it looks wonderful.  Emdar Designs is coordinating and the printing is being done locally as well.  

Music was via what is now regarded as the oldest wind instrument in the world.  Our young artist did an outstanding job in producing the haunting voice of the Didgeridoo. 

The young dancers then began their stories.  The first half reflecting traditional dance.  They emerged from the Centenary Spears Installation and this in itself was very moving.  However i fell apart with the very modern dance that was created to the music of Gurrumul Yunupingu and Blue King Brown "Gatha Mawula Revisited".  Its a stunning song to begin with and this young team of dancers gave it another level of emotion.  Tears Tears Tears.  

Wiradjuri man, John Muk Muk Burke then gave the next part of this extraordinary feast of narratives. Story Telling takes on many many forms.  He told his story of his family and his journey to his awakening as a Wiradjuri man.  He unpacked his own story against some of the great wrongs that been brought upon our First Nation.  Reciting his poems, brought full circle to the Songline theme of the 2016 NAIDOC Week and gave meaning to the narratives of a proud people not just being about something in the past, but that these stories, histories truths and ways of being , knowing and becoming are connected to today and the future.

We are moving forward, our community is slowly lifting itself up and out of ignorance, and racist intolerance.  We have people people who are working together to build up Aboriginal young people and give them ways of telling their own story and also pf participating.  Hopefully as we continue to learn about each other NAIDOC week will become a focus for everyone.  

Tonight was brought together by so many people, Council Staff , community members and I want to say thank you. 

Original Worx - Ben Ceccato Band Live Album Volume 1

I dropped into the post office other day and there waiting for me was a small CD Box, hmm I knew what this was. It was all rush rush to get home and pop this into the CD machine and what for the 1's and 0's compressed and burnt onto the disc to be translated into music to fill my world with and also have a peak into the songwriter and musicians mind and heart.

Boat People - One man's journey to safety.

Thank you Ruby Blumer for this link to the Area News. Politicians, (or their spin doctors) create and build campaigns based on suspects fears of a population, or create bogeyman so the focus shifts from the real Job politicians are there for.

It has been very easy to demonise refugees as Boat People, because its far removed from the real lives of most people. Most of us have never been exposed to what these people have had to survive through, day in and day out for much of their lives and indeed for some its generational. We don't know what it is like to flee the place you love and grew up in, to leave family, friends and everything familiar and just run. We don't know what its like to languish in a "refugee camps" for years on end, no job, no education, nothing nothing nothing util even the hope in your eyes dies and fades.

What does story telling tell us about ourselves and who we are.

In my presentation, on Technology in EC, that I recently delivered to the leadership teams in GoodStart Early Childhood Services at CSU Wagga, I used this short film by Jason Silva to open and focus our thoughts. 

The Power of Story is the early childhood story and I think the story of humanity.

What's it like growing up in Regional Australia?

We are a lucky people, whether you are recent arrival or your have lived here all your life, there are many reasons to say this is a good place to grow up and also to raise a family.

The creation Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme in the early 1900's included the establishment Leeton in 1912 and Griffith in 2016. Narrandera which was already well established has continued to grow, though often as a poorer second or third cousin.

Both Leeton and Griffith share a unique bond with our national capital, all three cities were designed by American Walter Burley Griffin and his partner Marion.  All feature the linked circular roads and linked avenues.  It's interesting looking at these designed today, because they reflect the strong geometric patterns found in the Wiradjuri People culture and story telling. 

“Why, this car is auto-matic. It’s system-matic. Its hyyyyydro-matic. Why, it’s greased lightning!”

Memory is a funny thing isn’t it, one minute you’re happily sitting in aisle D seat 51 at the Griffith Regional Theatre in 2016 and next minute, the music swirls around you and suddenly I’m back at Tulloch Lodge, Wagga Wagga, an off campus student accomodation unit run by Student Services at RCAE (Riverina College of Advanced Education) before it grew into a University. It’s 1978, and the music of Grease and the dance moves seem to occupy all of our time outside of study and drinking. We knew every lyric, dance move and had ourselves choreographed to dance (and sing) every part the building at any time of the day or night, we had even created dance moves for the grand double staircase. Grease filled our lives, it connected us and made that first year of college easier and more alive. It was also a musical for our time, the sexual awakening and taboo subjects of the early sixties were brought to stark attention in sharp script for film that had a PG rating at the time.

Step forward from 1978 to 2016, and here we have a Catholic High School, once again stepping up and out on these bold subjects and not glossing over them. Marian College students and the educator team, have placed before us “Grease”, and bring to life Danny, Sandy, Rizzo, Kenickie, Doody, Sonny, Putzie, Frenchy, and the even Vince Fontaine. The cast do an outstanding job as a well rehearsed ensemble to bring the biggest smile to your dial, so big that at times tears rolled down my cheeks.

School is about a lot of things, we mostly think its about learning stuff, the reality is about learning who you are, who you aren’t and it also allows you to discover things about yourself and what you can do that you never really knew. We often never see this when we are in the moment, but time allows us to reflect back and we can see those sparks of knowing that rose up for periods of time.


The creative and expressive side of us, is the one of the important links often given less attention in our high school years. The focus on Literacy, Math, Science and sport often taking the limelight and being seen as critical to success in future years. Drama, Music and Art are often relegated to the side and seen as less critical to our future. However, our story as humans, from as far back as the beginning of the Dreaming, through the Songlines of our first nation people and through the stories that tell the journey of modern civilisation from the Sumarians to now, is told through song, dance, story, art and imaginings created by and presented by artists. Creative spirits give voice to who we are and how we see ourselves, so it is with this focus that Marian Catholic College and its education faculty, continue to give this a place of significance every couple of years to t’s expressive self.

Continuing the tradition of the big musical, that for me started under Mechelle Anderson and Make me a Star, a home grown effort that gave opportunity for talent to shine. With the return of Don Hillam to Griffith and in particular to Marian College, we had the promise of his experience in musical theatre and cabaret in Wagga Wagga over many years, being brought to the drama team at the High School. From Fame, The Whiz and now Grease, Don Hillam and his magical team, have not disappointed. He spirited us back to California 1959 and Rydell High School and also to our own pasts.

The set and use of the stage, tells us the guy behind the wheel knows about theatre and how to make it tell your story. His cast is big, choreographed and can sing. His Rizzo, well what a voice, and his Danny and Sandy are well matched in voice, quality and voice, the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds bring the comedy, chorus and also the big issues of the day to the fore. The ensemble behind them, well what more could you ask for.





Once again the use of a live band, this time sitting high above the stage, really tell us this school is nurturing a range of talent and creative elements. It’s a very classy band, tight, on time and well orchestrated, they shine bright, but never overpower the voices of the cast. In other productions there have always been standout voices, strong and vibrant, sometimes they outshone other cast. Tonight though, the voice of Rizzo really matched the character, as it should, the rest of the cast sang their hearts out, but didn’t over power each other, to me it was maybe the first time that attention had been given to really having voices that blended and matched each of the characters.

We are blessed in many ways, given the world and the troubles that impact on peoples lives and happiness can seem so far away. We have schools in our community that make the effort to go that extra mile so that outstanding moments like tonight can seem commonplace or expected. It’s not, its hard work, tonight is an outcome of educators, facilitators of learning and enquiry showing what is possible when support is given in all facets of a students life. Tonight we saw how literacy, maths, and science manifest themselves through creativity. This is an example of the fundamentals of learning telling our story through art. It’s a powerful reminder of what makes teachers really want to do this job, this is inspiring and humbling.

Congratulations to the faculty and leadership team at Marian Catholic College, the families and especially those inspired young people who stepped up on the stage and into the limelight, its a brilliant show and you should feel immensely proud of the value of this production, how it looks, sounds and feels. Powerful beyond words.