As a season, spring is often when we feel a kick up in our energy, a ‘spring in our step’ after the cooler darker days. Just like plants regrowing their leaves or bursting through the soil the displaying their bright colours, we too come out of hibernation and spread our wings, doing more outside of the cosy confines of our homes. Our Spring Fair marks this seasonal shift and creates an opportunity to come together as a community.
Our Spring Fair is so much more than a fete. It’s a Beltane festival – that is, a festival of spring – complete with a maypole. It’s the vibe that comes with this intention to celebrate spring, and hold Steiner values at the core of the event that so many of us love. It’s an event with heart and soul and we all feel that, just as we do with all of our school festivals. There are some traditions specific to the Spring Fair that continue to be a highlight of the festivities, such as our maypole dances and the puppet show, the curry and the chai. These things are not the essence of the Spring Fair, but they are part of what we look forward to on the day, part of what brings us together so we feel and can be part of the beautiful community that we have in our school.
One the day you may have been part of the scratch band for the maypole (did you know ANYONE can pick up an instrument and play), you may have supported your enterprising children with their stall. Perhaps you sat in the Amphitheatre to watch some performances, or walked slowly, hand in hand to Ironbark for the puppet show. Did you see the wonderful display of our curriculum made by staff in the Overture Hall or notice the new ribbons on the maypole loving dyed and ironed by our craft group? Of course, you ate delicious food, and no doubt walked the path between the main areas, seeing all the stalls along the way. Did you ride the unicycles, what a unique new thing to have at our Spring Fair!
There was so much good stuff. And whilst I’ve heard that the maypole stands out as a highlight, as does making the fair happen, it’s the coming together that people seem to love most. And we can’t do that without you.
There are many many hours of preparation that go into creating this wonderful event. As a sub-committee, we feel really proud that despite the hiccups along the way and a significantly smaller sub-committee than is ideal, we were able to make this happen, and we’ve made significant operational, administrative and communicative changes to make things smoother, easier and simpler for next year. Hooray! We’ve invested in things that created more efficiency like the slushy machine and more pots so we could have more curry. We’ve heard your overall wonderful feedback, and we’re working to continue to tease out some of the more complex challenges such as food lines, people showing up to help and communications (we know, they’re challenging!). The P&F are committed to making improvements, constantly learning from what went well and what needs to be thought about differently so this can be an event we all enjoy no matter our role in it. Oh, and we’re inviting you to have your say (anonymously) with a few quick questions here: https://forms.gle/1YmF6Ayv612ewGGMA
Additionally, the Spring Fair creates a significant bump up of funds for the P&F which do SO much good work for the school, always seeking to spend the money they manage transparently and with bigger goals in mind. This means that what you spent on the day, you will absolutely see come back into the community, benefitting your families and in particular the students.
Thank you so much to the following businesses for supporting us with reduced prices on our goods: Wiffens in Fyshwick, Homegrown Meats and Cooleman Court and Baker’s Delight Cooleman Court.
And thank you to everyone who supported us, in big and small ways to make the day happen. We’d especially like to thank the contributions of the staff: Nick H, Jimmy, Mick & Craig from the Site Team, James, Angelina, Nick W, P&F members: Gemma, Elene, Karen, Tarsha, Emma, sub-committee members: Monique, Amy, Tim, Eloise, Vannessa, Rosee, Patrick, Marnie, Tarsha, Erin, Thamy, Karen, Sandeepa, Greg, and other community members: Stephan, Joshua, horticulturalist Emma, the craft group and honestly, probably lots of other people that this is author can’t remember off the top of their head. You’re most definitely NOT forgotten, this author is just human too, so here’s a blank line for you fill in with whoever you think deserves a specific mention, including yourself _________. Thank you for helping us make this event what it is and what it will continue to be. A beautiful tradition of our school that celebrates Spring and brings us all together.
The Orana P&F and Spring Fair sub-committee.
