change agency

also forgot to mention we'll be hosting a workshop with THE CHANGE AGENCY, Oct 29th and 30th

http://www.thechangeagency.org/

who seem to be very good web designers, publicisers and networkers

not sure how they came accross us and hope they'll like our lo fi condition!

:D

visions

came accross this fella Paolo Soleri in the last Guardian Weekly

http://www.arcosanti.org/theory/arcology/intro.html

there's some real synergy here with the way I envision the school progressing. thinking on it made me realise that its called the zoe community school 'coz its there to teach the community, ie community school, not just for kids

this focus on kids has perhaps afterall been in Hitchcockian terms a MacGuffin

kids are of course absolutely vital to community, and their care needs to be a priority

however it might not be the way in, infact it never has been in any of our plans. also Mike's proposal makes me realise this. and then, these concrete structures of Soleri, how concrete can be reapropriated into the organic, look at Hundertwasser and Gaudi.

our ideology is the same as our locality : zoe school - turn left before going up the mountain... or am I being obtuse?

speaking to dr sam the issue also arrose of how to get people in, somehow on their own terms, some how people need to be fascinated. from this comes motivations and hopefully inspiration

films - at night - a good way to draw in adults, generate conversation, establish themes, minimal investment
workshops - for everybody, sometimes kids, sometime adults. get uni science students showing kids amazing stuff
mountain activites- offer educational or interpretive walks on the mountain etc
pizza oven - a community pizza oven in the back yard :D

need to liase with Don Jones about fire options I spose

so, is it an arcology?

conservation volunteers australia

hello,

so hats off to the legendary Michael Foley, who has in prinicipal offered to help out with a three year lease, maintenance etc

IF cva receive a packet of sheckles visavis the former Mount Arthur school (RIP)

fingers are being crossed all around the meeting table in the boardroom

three cheers for Mike

(hip doodah, hippy d day, hip hip, hop hurray!)

x

check em out at:

http://www.conservationvolunteers.com.au/volunteer/conservation-experience-faq.htm

junk mail

what do we do with junk mail?

somehow its gotta be absorbed, digested and reconstituted

how can we feed all these folorn russian singles and defrancised sierra-leone princes into a worm farm

- cyber worms?

Greetings

Dear Sir/Madam,

Many internet users are aware of the numerous scams going on in our World today and though some transactions are genuine and seem rewarding, majority of the people are skeptical about dealing with strangers. However, relationships starts with a smile, greeting and so on then you can get used to one another.
I am 39 Years old Woman from the Republic of Moldova and a senior Investment Manager with the Societe Generale and Social security Bank in Ghana; I have a Son who is schooling in London.

I was introduced to late Engineer Mike Lamin who was the Special Assistant to former Liberia, on March 16, 2005 when he confidentially deposited the sum of USD$2,500,000.00 and 107,000 Carats of Gem diamonds in an Escrow/Call Account with my Bank. Engr. Lamin did not leave any beneficiary for this deposit and that made it impossible for the bank to contact any of his Family or associate to claim the deposit after his death. Having waited for two Years after his death, I decided to move the deposit into a suspense account without beneficiary and then find a reliable Partner in your Country who can assist me to withdraw this fund as depositor.

As an officer of the Bank I cannot directly claim/withdraw this deposit, thus I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive it into your bank account and we shall officially apply for the conversion of the diamonds into cash by the SG-SSB bank based on current World Gem prices. I have already submitted an audited approved end of the year Report for the year 2006/7 to our Bank head office, that deposit will never be discovered! I offer you 50% of the total deposit while 50% shall be for me.

I do need to stress here that there are practically no risks involved in this transaction. The transaction will be directly a bank-to-bank transfer. And to protect ourselves, we need to keep the transaction "entre nous"
On my side, I will perfectly arrange the transaction and transfer in your name. I will send you detail arrangement of the procedures that we shall apply to legally transfer the deposit into your Bank account, once I receive your confirmation.

Your timely response will be highly appreciated, Please include you detail contact information to enable direct communication subsequently.

Warm Regards,

Marina Vladimir
Tel: +233-218-14092

Nature Nic

Nature Nic: http://www.naturenic.com.au/

This young fella is interested in using the Zoe hall as a meeting
space for his projects with other kids.

I'm meeting his mum at 4pm-ish, I'll keep you posted.

:D

Lord of the Flies and Battle Royale

zoë has no overt power structure
the structure is about children having responsibility
children are to an extent free, in that they are responsible
this is a hard lession to learn
the problem is perhaps lord of the flies and battle royale
the question is about human nature
the answers are, I beleive, as various as people are various, 7 billion and counting
these days we seem to have a form of institutionalised irrasponsability so that individuals don't need to develop any
I beleive this is how we get into a mess
we dissasociate in so many ways
like the separation of family and work and leasure which we take for granted

we're working on it

the wonderful thing about working with stones is all the thinking it allows

working on the steps to the school is about the most practical way possible of working towards the school

so i think about school and i think about work and i think about sustainability and i think about community and i think what do i think about these things

work ---> community ---> school

i think thats the order it goes in

while I'm there I'm surprised by how the local sentiment seems to have transformed into a more positive veiw of what we're doing

So the time appears to be aproaching when we will need to have a clearer deffinition of what we're doing, a sort of umbrella under which we might gather for a while

the old school has rested and calmed and taken on something of a mythical or nostalgic quality

the Zoë. the Life.

so i want to try and discribe a fillosoffy
one that includes A.S.Neil
the Tasmanian curriculum
Sustainable Eduction
UNESCO rights of the child

more further...

:D

Danu's Direct Action Theatre Workshops

To start at Zoë, Monday 14th July 3pm

I'll have to wait and see what its all about!

Stone steps

I've started to bulid the stone stairway up the front bank. Its a seriously large project but one that should make a huge difference to access and the all important 'first impression' of the building. Its great work, digging and shifting some big rocks. Started last weekend and spent most of the intervening week at work looking forward to getting back into it again.

Picked up a hitchiker on the way home last Sunday. He came up to help with the stone work and seems very keep to help with the school. Then he asked to rent a studio space. His name is Danu. He told me he's been wanting to make a connection with this project for a long time.

I should include some photos of the work. Trick is to create it in a way that it will remain safe for children. Hoping to make it possible to space out the stairs enough to get some pine-bark and eventually mossy bits in the spaces, for a soft landing when someone takes a tumble. Bound to get icy too.

Music for children

Ann Wolfe came to see me at work today,

she specialises in marimbas < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimba >

 

and music education a la Carl Orff < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Orff >

which makes for something wonderful

she asked about the hall and I explained its not in the best repair, but as she is focusing on children's workshops we would love her to have a look and if she's keen, try a couple of workshops there at no charge

if we need to improve the building in order to facilitate the workshops, we'll need her input

if its possible to develop workshops on an ongoing basis then we would like something along the lines of $20 each time (less than an hour) which would go toward maintenance and developing the building

I told her I hoped that in time we would be able to develop a new school from community workshops based on child centred learning but we are currently under-resourced

she said she'll be in touch over the next week or so.

Ann is a Fern Tree local of 25 years who runs Fiddlestix Music for children 0 - 5 years and has a B.Ed (early childhood)

I'm thinking of two kids particularly who'd love it.

- David

David visits Kinokuni in Japan

Horisan is Japan's leading expert on Summerhill and a friend of A.S. Neill's. After translating all of Neill's books into Japanese and struggling with the Japanese bureaucracy for years he opened Kinokuni school in '92.

David spend an afternoon there in March. More details will be posted soon.

http://www.kinokuni.ac.jp/page003.html

Jamin and art students moving in

A group of 8 students are considering taking over the hall as a long-term studio project. This will see some great synergy with the zoe project and give us an opportunity to get some much needed maintenance on the exterior, decks and grounds.

:D

Strong winds damage building

The winds (170km/h) blew a skylight over to Summerleas road in the wee hours of yesterday morning, and a strip of guttering is up a nearby tree. We'll be calling in the insurers to see some return on all that dosh we've been forking out.

While on the roof we noticed that if it doesn't see some fresh paint soon the it'll rust off.

Sally Davis is in PNG

Sally, the newest member of the Zoe Committee, is taking some time out to volunteer in PNG. We look forward to seeing her return with this amazing experience under her belt!



Well PNG is truly amazing; we are surrounded by ancient culture. This place feels like it hasn’t been ruined by fast western ways yet.

It is something like 95% of people own their own traditional land and people still live very traditional lives due to financial situations and lack of outside influence.

The highlands are so beautiful. Luscious green rolling mountains with valleys filled with jungle life. People still hunt with bows and arrows here, our security guards have bows and arrows too!

The highlanders are really small people; around 4-5 foot tall and so damned lovely I can’t believe it. We are cuddled everyday by everyone in Goroka just about!

Dwayne, Lozi and I are stared at everywhere we go, most westerners come here to make money or as missionaries and I think Goroka is real happy to meet some down to earth whities.

Me and Dwayne chew lots of beetle nut which everyone loves, at first I didn’t like it but now I am quite addicted, we will come back with black teeth! Argh!

Our work is really dysfunctional and I guess that’s the reason they needed volunteers but sometimes it is all a bit much, the performers are all lovely but it just is all over the shop. We work full time and it is so tiring, just because of the lack of structure, hygiene and time management.



We have made really good mates with our security guards, with one in particular his name is Reuben and he doesn’t speak English. He is so beautiful and comes from another world, he has taken us to his village and cooked us a Mumu with his family, they have all sort of adopted us, it is very sweet and makes life up here feel full.

It is still really common for people to get all their traditional gear on and dance for almost any special occasion. We have seen quite a lot of sing sing.

Only one generation ago, people used to eat other people and killing people was like playing soccer they say, the highlanders dressed up and went to war nearly everyday, so wild!




Dwayne has also been volunteering at the Goroka museum which is really cute, so you can imagine the collection coming back to Aus if they let him!

Lozi goes to a school where he wears a tie! It is so weird, but he is slowly fitting in. The kids here are encouraged to play rough, there is no such thing as time out for hitting, they think it makes babies and kids tough. Poor Loz has been getting whacked but a lot of it is out of pure love but it has been confusing for him. I’m slightly worried about how wild we might all be soon!



I love it here it is so amazing and raw and real and fucked up and beautiful and confronting and wild. It is definitely worth seeing, and it really isn’t that dangerous, just few people have given the whole place bad reputation.

going on

not a hell ofalot this summer, the best bit was having forrest whitton come up and talk to me about all the incredible things he makes out of foraged timber in play grounds. Tres exciting!

Just saw this nice link from the good greens in switzerland: http://iwouldntsteal.net/

So, keep busy.

And send us your ideas of what makes education relevant in these times, how kids can play active roles in society!