G'day folks,
well, I haven't managed to organise another blog post for over a year now ... It's a bit of a poor effort and I'm sorry about that! But ... I hope to make up for it with this post!
Ok, so what have I been doing for the last year? Well, firstly, like everyone else, I've been getting my head around living in a COVID 19 reality - because Reality Changed - bigtime! Down here in Oz, we've been fairly lucky so far ... our state governments have been doing a great job of keeping the numbers of infections and deaths low and trying to minimise the covid incidents that pop up from time to time. As I write this, however, greater Sydney is dealing with an outbreak of the Delta strain of the virus and is in the midst of a three week lockdown. In rural NSW, where I live, we have restrictions in place, but are not currently locked down. It's an annoying inconvenience that people all around the world are tolerating.
School is busy - as always. This year I have three year 7 classes, one year 8 class called "Instrumental as Anything" - designed to be timetabled practice sessions for dedicated young musos, and one and a bit year 10 classes. We had to learn about teaching from home early last year and I enjoyed that. Accessing Google classroom and providing the kids a bunch of work was challenging, but also very rewarding. Nicer once we were back at school though!
And what of my music? You may have read that my Bucket List buddy, Leigh, had moved to Hervey Bay and we were officially on hiatus, well, he recently moved back to the Gold Coast and The Bucket List is once again breathing the sweet air of complex acoustic musical performance. It's exciting! I'm looking forward to learning a few new tunes. We will be performing at Greens fundraising concert on July 31st at Rous Mill Hall - it's called Greens Unplugged.
And speaking of the Greens, my latest exciting adventure is that I am running as a Greens candidate for the upcoming local council elections for Ballina Shire Council. I've been thinking about it for bout 10 years now, and I really would like to take a seat at the council table on behalf of the environment. I am keen to do everything I can to honour the Ballina Council's recent declaration of a climate emergency - looking for solutions to difficult questions like "how can we as a community take action to significantly reduce our overall carbon footprint?" Not only am I looking at ways of protecting our environment through ecologically sustainable development, I'm also keen to do what I can to help make Ballina Shire a better place for all by ensuring open and clear community consultation on major planning issues and promoting the wonderful sense of community and the village-like atmosphere found in our towns.
well, I haven't managed to organise another blog post for over a year now ... It's a bit of a poor effort and I'm sorry about that! But ... I hope to make up for it with this post!
Ok, so what have I been doing for the last year? Well, firstly, like everyone else, I've been getting my head around living in a COVID 19 reality - because Reality Changed - bigtime! Down here in Oz, we've been fairly lucky so far ... our state governments have been doing a great job of keeping the numbers of infections and deaths low and trying to minimise the covid incidents that pop up from time to time. As I write this, however, greater Sydney is dealing with an outbreak of the Delta strain of the virus and is in the midst of a three week lockdown. In rural NSW, where I live, we have restrictions in place, but are not currently locked down. It's an annoying inconvenience that people all around the world are tolerating.
School is busy - as always. This year I have three year 7 classes, one year 8 class called "Instrumental as Anything" - designed to be timetabled practice sessions for dedicated young musos, and one and a bit year 10 classes. We had to learn about teaching from home early last year and I enjoyed that. Accessing Google classroom and providing the kids a bunch of work was challenging, but also very rewarding. Nicer once we were back at school though!
And what of my music? You may have read that my Bucket List buddy, Leigh, had moved to Hervey Bay and we were officially on hiatus, well, he recently moved back to the Gold Coast and The Bucket List is once again breathing the sweet air of complex acoustic musical performance. It's exciting! I'm looking forward to learning a few new tunes. We will be performing at Greens fundraising concert on July 31st at Rous Mill Hall - it's called Greens Unplugged.
And speaking of the Greens, my latest exciting adventure is that I am running as a Greens candidate for the upcoming local council elections for Ballina Shire Council. I've been thinking about it for bout 10 years now, and I really would like to take a seat at the council table on behalf of the environment. I am keen to do everything I can to honour the Ballina Council's recent declaration of a climate emergency - looking for solutions to difficult questions like "how can we as a community take action to significantly reduce our overall carbon footprint?" Not only am I looking at ways of protecting our environment through ecologically sustainable development, I'm also keen to do what I can to help make Ballina Shire a better place for all by ensuring open and clear community consultation on major planning issues and promoting the wonderful sense of community and the village-like atmosphere found in our towns.