NBO SESSION 1,2 and 3 TERM 3 23 JULY

All
Just catching up with our blog info has been an effort after the festival. The CD launch has been well accepted, it is a disappointment that a few members could not attend ,being overseas or overworked but we did a good job and had a few guests onstage as well.
I am pleased withe the efforts on the CD and have a number of ideas to carry us forward. Our next big event is the bush dance at Rob and Wendy's place at Landsborough on Sept 21. Can you let me know if you can attend ASAP as we need to organize billets.
At the last 3 sessions we have been working on Sweeping the Snow From the Door, and Wendyanne Waltz . I have posted these on the tunes site as well as the complimentary Sunshine Waltz and Passing Shadows waltz. I plan to do these over the next few months.
There has been great sadness in our little community with the the passing away of Cassie Hammond who was an inaugural member of our group, as was her father, Greg. I remember her as a sweet quiet child who looked on me as a big fat dinosaur but played what I asked her to. Also sad was the passing of Chris Duffy, one of Australia's greatest banjo players. He was 63 many of us knew and admired him. Finally Bruce Williams faced the loss of his step-mother as well.
The next few weeks will be spent trying to round up as many BO members as possible and rehearse our CD tunes. Dave Isom had the idea of us busking on a sat morning with council approval to sell CD's and advertise. We need to get ideas about who, what and where.
grg

Revisioning Newport Workshop - Key Thoughts and Ideas from the Festival

The visioning workshop to imagine living in a greener and cleaner Newport was attended by 25 festival participants. After a brief introduction involving a description of the Transition Town concept and a social exercise to make acquiantances, 3 working groups were formed to quickly brainstorm ideas from the prompting question "if you could wave a magic wand, how would you want Newport to look in 2020, 8 years from now?"

A surprising number of common themes arose after 10 minutes of discussion. Every group wished for less cars, better bike paths, and better public transport. All groups envisaged more edible gardening, including community gardens, street and verge gardens, more fruit and nut trees, and community orchards. Other common desires were the reclaiming of used industrial land for community purpose, less waste generation and more recycling, greater community participation in community centres and local enterprises, more sharing of resources and better work/life balance, and interest in locally generated renewable energy.

After reviewing the thoughts of each group 5 common themes were identified. Participants were then invited to choose their favourite idea for a further 10 minutes of imaginative brainstorming. The themes were Social Life, Local Energy, Local Food, Transport, and Less Waste.

The Social Life group imagined building on local resources and organisations to engage and communicate with more sections of the community, the creation of a tool sharing facility, a local film club and a community newsletter.

The Local Energy group envisaged a local community owned power generator using solar panels on the roofspaces of large community assets with some simple but empowering community financing arrangements.

The Local Food group could see grand designs for community gardens and orchards, street food gardens throughout the town, community shared chooks, water and land sharing, food sharing through weekly markets and swaps, more community picnic spots and even a children's farm that emphasises the source of food.

The Transport group thought through better bicycle usage support and considered greater provision of local services within walking or cycling distances.

The Less Waste group could see community composting facilities, support for local traders to compost their waste, school recycling programs, refunds to encourage recycling, encouragement of greater reuse of resources, and a complete rethink of waste generation, including reductions of packaging and dealing with waste locally.

Transition Hobsons Bay are a grassroots community group inspiring and creating a more sustainable future. The workshop was a fun, interesting further small step along this journey.

Festival photos

We had a huge weekend at the Festival, far too many wonderful events to mention, but there are some great photos on our Facebook page (opens in new window) - check them out!

We Felt The Rhythm!

‘Feel The Rhythm’ Workshop presented by Peter Vadiveloo – 23^rd June

The final workshop for this year’s series was Rhythm/Percussion led by Peter Vadiveloo. Our group of 16 participants was a good mix of male/female, youth/adult, and levels of experience, all gathering for 4 hours to feel the rhythm! And that we did…

The workshop began with hush while Peter demonstrated a sequence of voice, body and instrument percussion. This performance was magnificent, and mystifying… 

Peter then guided us through each action beginning slowly and precisely. By the end of the day we were confidently running through the very sequences that had looked impossible 4 hours earlier.

As you can see by the photos, the beginning of the session required serious concentration.   A few hours later were all so relaxed getting into the rhythm, it was tricky taking a photo without blurring!

Peter provided a vast range of percussion instruments and throughout the workshop we had an opportunity to have a go at a variety of drums, tambourines and shakers.

Peter is a brilliant leader, personable, dynamic and very thorough. Participants left the workshop uplifted, with a more confident and improved understanding of playing rhythm.

A fantastic afternoon - much focus, laughter, enthusiasm and exhilaration.

A number of people commented afterwards that although they’d looked forward to the workshop the afternoon far exceeded their expectations.

 

Peter is running a one-hour workshop at our Newport Folk Festival this weekend.  This workshop will be held on Saturday 7^th July, 1-2pm at the Newport Scout Hall.