Hawkesdale was proud to celebrate with and publicly acknowledge the efforts of two of its residents at the Moyne Shire Council Australia Day Celebration Tuesday 26 January 2010.
The first community award went to Mrs Julie Bos, who runs the local Post Office. Julie was awarded for her fine efforts and sheer hard voluntary work in many community activities including the following.:-
management, operations and appearance of the local Swimming Pool.
management of and fundraising for the local Shire Hall
voluntary audit work for local community organisations
active role on HADDAC (Hawkesdale and District Development and Action Committee) in the beautiful appearance of our town and Apex Park
expanding her post office to also providing basic provisions when the local milk bar closed down.
and many other activities
The second award was Junior Citizen Award to Jack Keegan, the Hawkesdale P12 College School Captain of 2009. Jack has been involved in many school and community activities, including the following:-
an awardee of a gold Duke of Edinburgh medal
member of the Moyne Shire Junior Council
Hawkesdale P12 College School Captain 2009
Hakwesdale P12 College SRC member
School representative at local, district and state level sporting activities
Successful member and player for several local sporting clubs
Participant in the 444,000 trees project
Involvement in the Willatook Hall and Reserve community activities
Congratulations to these two community members! A big thank you to them for their contributions to our community and to all those other unsung community volunteers!
Hawkesdale community members with Julie at the celebrations
Jason Mirtschin - former student addresses the assembly
Students investiture days are proud days for many. Our guest speaker, this year, was a former student who has returned to teach at school after 5 years teaching in London. Here is the speech made to the gathered assembly or prep-12 students, parents, staff and invited guests.
“Firstly I would like to thank the principal, Mr Distel for allowing me to speak today at such an important occasion us here at Hawkesdale P-12. I still remember sitting here – similar to you, listening to other guest speakers come in and talk, but especially I remember the times when we had past pupils come in and share their experiences. It was these times that I listened the most – I liked thinking that they were just like me. That these people had been given the same opportunities as me. And I would sit and wonder what I would do when my turn came around.
So I’ve thought long and hard about a theme for my talk today and have decided that it is that one word ‘opportunity’ that I would like to focus on. After all, it is the main reason why we are gathered here today. To celebrate the opportunity that a small number of pupils have been given to act as ambassadors, to help create school spirit and proceed as role models for younger pupils.
I’ve remembered a lot about my youth since returning to Hawkesdale. A lot of people have asked if anything has changed – and on the whole I would have to say no. People still come in talking about their summer staying in Port Fairy or Warrnambool, what they got up to at the folk festival, how their pre-season is going for football and netball and which person is having a party next weekend.
But a lot of important things to the district were changing at the time I was leaving here to go to university in Melbourne. The football club had merged with Macarthur, the Minimite shire offices had closed, the school had become a P-12 , the scouts were struggling for numbers and a few of the other small businesses were looking like closing. Which makes me think – how different would my life be today if I hadn’t have grown up in a community such as this one. I’m not sure that I would be as confident as I am today without them or whether I would be prepared to take the risks that I do today. The majority of us here should be grateful that our parents work so hard to ensure that these opportunities are not lost from the community.For without them I would not have been captain of the football and cricket teams, vice captain of the school or …..
So like some of you are or will be – I took physics with Mr Wines, Chemistry with Mrs Webster, Maths methods with Mr Quinlin, Specialist maths with Mr Hillman and English with Mr Jarrod. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at the end of year 12 but I was always encouraged to go to university. I wasn’t dux of my year at any point but my parents said that it was important that I got a qualification from university and that a number of doors would be opened if I did this. Any time I tell people that my average class size in year 12 was about 4 people I get some strange looks. But the individual attention you get means that the opportunity of success is increased dramatically.
So after I completed my schooling here I studied science at Melbourne University and was offered a place to stay on residence at St Hildas college. I highly recommend this experience if you get the chance to – most of my best friends were made while living there. I graduated after 3 years and still didn’t quite know what to do next. I decided that at some point I would like to travel and thought about the possible careers that would allow me to do this.So I enrolled in a one year diploma of education and then taught in Melbourne for 3 years to get some experience.
I then decided it was time to experience life in another country and took 1 years leave without pay from my school in Melbourne. I tossed up whether to go somewhere different like China or Dubai but had heard a lot of great things from my friends about living in London. So I decided to go to the UK to experience a different lifestyle. And five years later – I still feel that I could stay indefinetly in the UK or another country. Why? I could talk for days about the things I have been given the opportunity to do over the past 5 years alone but perhaps I will just mention a few things from the month leading up to when I left the UK at Christmas. The number of bands that tour London is incredible – I saw Kings of Leon and Coldplay in December, went away for the weekend with some mates from work to a country in eastern Europe called Poland to see the Christmas markets there, I went and watched the Lion King in the West End, I stayed in a village with the dramatic ruins of a castle built 600 years ago, I went ice-skating by the Thames in front of London Bridge and had some lovely meals at Spanish, Greek and Indian restaurants. All in one month!
If someone had of told me 10 years ago that I would be doing some of these things I probably wouldn’t have believed them. But each opportunity that I have been given has led to another opportunity later on in life.
I’ve seen and done a lot of amazing things in this time. I attended the last soccer world cup in Germany and watched Australia play Brazil, I took a train through Russia, Mongolia and ended up in China to see the Olympic games, I’ve taken a camel ride in the desert in Tunisia – Northern Africa, I’ve raced down a slope on a bobsled at 200km per hour in Estonia in Eastern Europe, I’ve visited medieval cities like Prague in the Czech republic and sat in the town square at night while it snows around me, I’ve seen ruins from ancient times in Italy and Greece, I’ve stood on battle fields and concentration camps from world wars where 1000s of people were being eliminated each day, but more importantly, I’ve made new friends with people all over the world.
I always get a lot of people coming up and asking about what I have been doing for the past 10 years. But probably the question I get asked the most these days is ‘what am I going to do next? I know what I’d like to do – such as learn another language, keep travellingto new places, share past experiences with people I care about, perhaps learn to play the piano better…. But I’ve started to ask people that same question ‘what are you going to do next? Too often the reply is ‘I guess the same thing I have always been doing’ or ‘I don’t know – I wish I could do something like you but I don’t think I can’. And maybe if I pause for a moment – that is something that you should think ask yourself about. What opportunities are there going to be for you? Do you want to get 10 years down the track and think ‘I wonder what would have happened if I had of just…’ Maybe that is a good place for me to finish today.
So, let me also pass on my congratulations to everyone who has been elected today. I hope that you take this opportunity seriously and use it as a chance to make a positive contribution.”
Thank you for your attention and all the best for the future.
Pancakes are traditionally made on this day, Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent for Christians. Students, from years 8 to 11 at our school, under the leadership of Mrs Gow and Mrs Keith, cooked pancakes, selling them for 50 cents each to raise money for the bushfire appeal. Toppings included sugar, lemon juice, jam or maple syrup. They were yummy!!
Various fund raising activites were held in Hawkesdale, starting at school, with some of the year 9 girls selling a variety of coffees at the parent/teacher interview day/evening. The year 9/10 home economics class baked a variety of treats to accompany the coffees, including cupcakes with the distinctive pink ribbon atop. The girls made over $200, so a great effort – girls!!
View how they did it, by clicking on the link below:-
Then an even bigger fundraiser was held in the local hall. Specially decorated bras were strung between the gum trees lining the main road through Hawkesdale. There was free admission but it cost $5 to leave the event!!! This raised a further $1000.
See the streets of Hawkesdale with the bras strung across the lines, by clicking on the link below:-
For anyone who is not Australian, the picture below is of a koala that my cousin found in the backyard
They are the cutest animals but not up close. They grunt like a Wild pig/hog or a bear. They are also very dangerous. They are an Australian Native animal and they are one of my favourite animals for a very good reason. Just look at it!!
In the last week of term 3 Wild Action, (www.wildaction.com.au) visited Hawkesdale P12 College. Xavier and his menagerie of native Australian animals came to school. It was a fast-paced, action-packed show with the opportunity to touch many of the creatures including a tiny squirrel glider, green tree-frog, stumpy-tailed lizard, short-necked turtle, black-headed python and salt-water crocodile. One of the largest animals was an olivine python – about 3 metres long and growing up to 75 kg in weight! Students from grade prep through to year 10 enjoyed the demonstrations.
A letter from Rachael, in grade 6 to a school in the USA….. My favourite sport is netball, but I like other sports like Basketball and Soccer. I have two brothers , a mum and dad and a sister.
My dad is a shearer which means he makes his living by shearing sheep. I like all the different animals and I like to play with my brothers and sister. I live on a farm just out of Hawkesdale. My parents own 150 acres. My family put a dorset ram over the ewes, the ram gets the ewe in lamb. Sometimes the mother doesn’t look after the lamb. So my dad picks up the lamb and brings it up to the house and we put them in a warm spot and feed them about every 5 hours.
We own one bull and seven cows. We sell the calves when they are about nine months old. We own four ducks, us kids have a duck each. There names are Browny, Troubles, Cuddles and Straunie.
I go to school at Hawkesdale P-12 College. School starts at 9:00 and finishes at 3:30. I get up at 7:30 and get home at 3:40. I catch the bus to school. I ride my bike to the corner of our road to catch the bus. I am on the bus for about 10 minutes.
At school we have different subjects like art, humanities, science, library, sport, ICT, (information communication technology) writing and literacy. There are 22 people in my class.
We have about 250 people go to our school. Our school is just up from the swimming pool. In the first term the teachers take us up to the pool. My teacher is Ms Murnane. In the first or second term we have a sports day. That is where we do lots of different sport activities like long jump, high jump and other events and races.
Hawkesdale is about 40 minutes away from Warrnambool.
There are lots of different things in Hawkesdale like the pool, Apex Park, the football club rooms, pub, post office, hall, kindergarten and three churches. The grass is mainly yellow around Hawkesdale at the moment, because we have recently had a drought. Normally, Hawkesdale is a very pretty little town with lots of well mown road sides and beautiful trees.
There are about 500 people that live around Hawkesdale. Most people around Hawkesdale live on farms. Mainly sheep, cattle, dairy and a couple of blue gum plantations.
Victoria’s capital city is Melbourne. Melbourne is the biggest city in Victoria.
It is summer here in Victoria. The weather is mainly sunny, sometimes it rains and thunder storms. Some of Victoria’s best attractions are FlagStaff Hill in Warrnambool, Tower Hill, Lake Pertobe, Sovereign Hill, Grampians, Bendigo mine.
About 2 years ago there was a big fire in the Grampians. It was close to Hawkesdale. It was horrible seeing all the animals hurt and all the trees black and on the ground.
Australia is the smallest continent but the largest island in the world. Canberra is Australia’s capital city.
There are different animals in Australia such as the Koala, Snake, Possum, Kangaroo, Platypus, Emu, Cockatoo, Kookaburra, Wombats and other interesting animals. There are lots of different native grasses and trees as well.
Grade two was asked what they did over the holidays. Here are their replies in one sentence. MS Paint was used to draw a picture of what they did.
Jelena…
My brother and I went through all the puddles in the water and my bike nearly sunk as it was so deep!
Henry….
We went to the footy at the MCG in Melbourne, to watch Hawthorn and Sydney but Hawthorn won!!
Caitlin….
We went to Geelong and I got new clothes and a new pair of shoes.
Sophie….
It was my birthday in the holidays and I got a caseful of presents, a birthday cake that was shaped as an 8, and my cousin Charlotte came to sleepover.
Karen….
I went to the football and to Pins and Play in Warrnambool, and to the park in Koroit and to the swimming pool.
Josh…
I went to the movies to see Speed Racer and Kung Fu Panda and I went to the footy at the Telstra Dome.
Jessica
In Warrnambool, I went to Fun4Kids and to the theatre and I got my face spray painted.
Jacob….
I went to the MCG to see Sydney versus Hawthorn and Hawthorn won and I went Aylish’ house to have a sleepover.
Jesse…
I watched the film Kung Fu Panda and I went shopping and put stuff on layby for Christmas and I went to Lachlan’s house.
Today, Friday 13th June, we participated in a show and tell video conference on skype with Collaboration Nation. It was great to see the people from Collab to come in after school. The time for us was 10:00am but for them it was like 8:00pm on THURSDAY night not FRIDAY! We learnt so much from them such as: They have a place where you can buy donuts called Duncin’s donuts, they are really into baseball like we’re into AFL, some of the students there support the Sixers basketball team and they dance and cheerlead.
It was so good to be able to talk to kids from another country. All they seemed to do was laugh. That made us laugh too. They were easy to talk to and easy to understand. It was good to be able to see what kids our age are like, their interests and the way they look and speak. It was so good.
One let down for me was that the smart board had lines in it which annoyed me a bit. Another thing is that the time went too quick. Unfortunately we had recess and it was getting too late for them. I could have spent a lot longder talking to them.
It was so much better than the blogging thing we did with them becasue we got to see the actual people. The blogging was awsome but this was so much better.
Hope you guys from Collaboration Nation had as good of a time as I did! Enjoy your holidays. Think of us when your off relaxing while we are sitting in school, having fun!! I’m kidding school aint fun – not usually anyway. Enjoy!
On Sunday, June 1st, the first day of winter in Australia, a small gathering of the Hawkesdale community celebrated the erection of a new sign. This sign displays some of the notable features of Hawkesdale and surrounding areas. It is hoped that it will encourage tourists to stop in our small town and enjoy some of its attractions.
Tim Williams, a local artist was responsible for the delightful artwork on the sign. His contribution was acknowledged in the speeches that followed the barbecue.
