Thank You, Team Fete 2025!

It takes a village to create a village within a village.

That’s what organising the fete feels like—building a miniature version of our own Carlton North, just for one (rainy!) day. A tiny food court, tiny shops, tiny ponies, and tiny people running around, having the best day of the year.

The fete is a major event powered entirely by parent power. Sure, we could outsource it and still have an amazing day—but without the same heart, and without the incredible funds we raise. It’s the endless hours we put in and the goods we donate that make this day so valuable. Raising $72,000 is an enormous achievement for our small school, and that money will go a long way.

Music, dancing, homemade food, volunteering, tiny ponies, tiny cars, cakes, flowers, and sangria—all delivered in an accessible, inclusive, and sustainable way. That feels good to me and it feels even better to belong to this community. Thank you to everyone who helped create this tiny utopian village, even if it was just for one day.

Lots of love, Catherine

Thank you to these Fete leads. Powerhouses who can really pivot and are never defeated.

Logistics: Erica Slocombe, Pip Dwyer, Ruth Williams

Inclusion, Volunteer Roster and many other contributions: Kylie Lee (what can't this woman do!)

Finance: Trish Harrington

Principal: Matthew Ferguson

Office Oracles: Gaby, Trish, Janai

School staff, teachers and students

Communication: Jess Adam

Graphic Design: Ingrid Smith

Social Media/Sponsorships: Nardia Saunders

Sponsorships/PR: Mattia Hunter

Signs and printing: Glenn Giblett

T-shirts - Ange Mullen and Glenn Giblett

Silent Auction: Raylyn Fonseca

Stage: Lucy Marshall, Ben May, Rachel Snedden

First Aid: Zee, Phil, Caroline, Dave, Marnie, Coran

Wash Station: Alice Knowles, Mike Bogwitz, Kate Silvagni

Plumbing: Shannon Fry

Bar: Steve Mifsud and Krissy Fry

Crepes: Hamilton Moore

Curry: Lisa Needham

Balkan Bites: Gia Cari and Bari Nuhiji

Crayfish Rolls: Laura Di Florio and Anthony Yotis

Okonomiyaki: Yuki Hojo

BBQ: Andrew Logan and Charlie Perry

Jams: Erin Tibbitts and Sian Fitzpatrick

Mystery Bottles: Denise and Eli Atallah

Cakes: Gabby Rodgers and Kate Horton

Plants: Sarah Morgan

Flowers: Carli Dunchue

Toys: Emily Corcoran

Craft: Amber Stewart

Craft Activities: Indira Kulafi

Clothes: Kathleen Lang

Books: Isabel de Silva

Rides and tickets: Kris Dearricott

Kids Zone: Rebecca Kelly, Bess Barr, Clare Burrows, Jess Adam

Henna Hands: Kiran Sahni

Ponies: Georgie Lewis

Box Maze – Kathryne Houchin

Kids Food – Jane Galvin, Olivia Wilkins

Many thanks also to the school families who donated goods and their time to help.

Catherine Doggett

We give a huge thankyou to the amazing, unstoppable, unflappable, incomparable Catherine Doggett, who was moving house at the same time as running the whole fete! How she did that, know one knows. Your positivity is contageous and we don't know how we could have done it without you! Thanks so much for your ongoing committment to the school and community.

-All of us

Ingrid Smith

Shout out to Ingrid for the amazing fete graphics you saw around the place and to Ange and Glenn for organising the t-shirts!

Joy and Kathleen

These two spent hours and hours here at school over a number of weeks, sorting clothes and books. Thanks so much for everything you do. Trish and I miss you already.

-Gaby

Stall Thankyous

Clothes

Thank you to all the volunteers!

Sorting:

Lisa Monotti, Louisa Emslie,Alison Knott, Bronwen Boerlage, Joy McCaffrey

Fete set up and on the day:

Krissy Fry, Annabel Barker, Audrey Message, Emilia Quijano, Kate Cavanough, Louisa and Owain Emslie, Joy McCaffrey, Alison Knott, Coran Lang, Zoe Kutrzyk Khema Bopitiya, Kales Somasundaram, Annabel Barton, Michelle Barnett Doosie Morris

-Thanks, Kathleen

Cakes

Everyone who baked and brought something along, couldn't do it without your delicious contributions!
The 5/6 Students that helped pack and distribute the boxes (Laila. K, Sunny.A, Liam.C, Nina.K, Mia.S, Stella D, Mia.K, Norah.D, Heidi.J, Evie.D, Adriana.H)
All of the lovely parents that volunteered their time on the day to help on the stall,; Liz, Emily, Emma, Claire, David, Safia, Hazel, Sasha, Roelie, Gabe and to the parents & Amanda who walked past and offered help and joined in!
Gaby, Sarah & Cassie, who helped distribute boxes, printing labels, get the messages out
Donations from Green Refectory, Calle, Filous Patisserie and Biscotteria
-Gabby and Kate

Kids Zone

Thanks to

Tristan Cook, Henry Tinsley, Sharron Billings, Alistair Duncan, Marika, Grigor, Dharamjot, Michelle, Toby Mullen, James Stoller, Steve, Dhiraj, Adam Licciardi for volunteering and supplying the ping pong table. Ryan Carters, Emma Carr, Mietta Walsh, Paddy Mann, Tom Shiels, Year 5&6 kids and Kara for making the mystery bags, Year 5&6 kids who volunteered on Kids Zone: Charlee A, Adriana H, Evie D, Rupert B, Thomas G, Oscar P, Mia S, Amelie V, Nina K, Mia K, Will B, Aires K, Norah D, Jacqui W and Stella D, Alumni Volunteers: Audrey, Alice and Amelie, Chris for loaning sports gear

- All the families who donated chocolate, soft toys and prizes

- Fitzroy Junior Football Club - for loaning the AFL target and donating lots of AFL prizes

- Adrian Caruso for supplying GWS prizes

- Liz Plant for supplying disco equipment

- Russ (Nina’s dad) who built our brand new Jaffa smash game

- Clare Burrows who built our brand new toilet roll toss game

- Clare, Jess & DJ who have run kids zone and the choc toss for years - this was their last fete and we’re looking forward to having them back as kid zone customers next year!

-Rebecca and Bess

Rides

It was a very wet weather year for our rides team. Aussie Events and Farmer Daryl did a great job in keeping the fun alive. We want to thank our ride stall volunteers Olivia, Amanda, Clare , Monet, Rachel and Kristen for selling so many tickets.And Rachel Hawkins name after mine on rides. You we my partner on rides, risk and lemonade making 😊

We also want to say a big thank you to the kids for your patience and enthusiasm for the rides. There were times we needed to stop them for the rain and you were so understanding. We hope the next fete is sunny and you can enjoy the rides even more.

-Kris

Fairy Floss

Thanks to our wonderful fairy floss volunteers, Tiffany, Rose, Abi, Dan, Sara and Holly. It is a sticky business!

-Olivia

Alumni lemonade

A massive shout out to our school alumni Abigail, Alice, Amelia, Ethan, Margot, Olivia, Oscar, Oscar, Rose. Talon, Tilly and Zoe for running the alumni lemonade stall this year. Life gave us lemons with the weather and they made lemonade. We loved seeing their beautiful faces back at school.

Henna hands

A huge thank you to Kiran for running the beautiful Henna Hands stall again this year. The designs were just gorgeous and the kids loved the experience.

Jams

We wouldn’t have a jam stall without anything to sell, it takes months of work and results in very sticky kitchens. It’s a real team effort - big thank you to our makers - Kylie, Michelle, Richard, Rachel, Julia, Catherine, Fiolmena and Sarah. Thank you to Senserrick and Ozfreshherbs for their generous donations.

Big thanks to everyone that came to the jam labelling sessions at school, and thanks to those that donated jars, it meant that we had something to put the jam in!

Thank you to our wonderful volunteers on the day - Michelle, Miranda, Zoe, Brooke, Laura and Kath.

Also thank you to everyone who came and bought things, it was a pleasure to see everyone and talk about all things jam and chutney!

-Erin and Sian

Books

Book stall takes up many human hours and there are so many people to thank!

I’m going to call out a few contributions in particular, but so grateful to every single person on the large team who helped out.

Many thanks to:

Joy for getting us off to a cracking start and collecting most of the boxes.
Briony & Pip for revolutionizing the sorting system and seeing it through from start to finish.
Amy for most volunteer hours put in - also from start to finish. With such good cheer! Thank you!
Jimmy for the huge donation of books.
Lauren for taking sorting to new levels in crime/fantasy/young adult.
Olivia for the most beautiful presentation of the children’s section.
Catherine Trundle for waving her magic wand and huge brain over the book stall set up - did you check out our award winners and MAGA (make authoritarianism go away) sections?
Pauline for some fabulous bow tying (and sticking it out to the end on Saturday!)
Don for his enthusiasm and long hours over Sat & Sun
Also very grateful to everyone who worked hard to sort book donations in the month leading up to fete and who worked on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Deniz, Kate, Bec, Hazell, Erin, Ronan, Lizzie, Sarah, Annabel, Megan, Paddy, Raaf, Anusha, Murale, Ian ….and my sincere apologies if I’ve missed anyone.

Love to you all xx

-Isobel

Logistics

All the logistics helpers were special (including Kylie and Dave Hansen, Bronwen Boerlage, Sarah & Dave Morgan, Dhiraj Joti, Charlie Perry, Nick - husband of Catherine, has a different surname, Dan Cass, Shauna Toohey, Marc & Bec Slater, David Van Royen, Daniel McFarlane, Henry Tinsley, Josh Lumicisi, Lucy Marshall, Safia Desai & husband, Ryan Leary, Dom De Nardo, Paul McGorrey, Marcella Wells, Nimai Horton, Erin Tibbitts, Maggie Lewis, Gautam & Liz Mukherji, Michael Dunn, Ex Red, Steve Vick, Andrea, Lev, Daniel Rodger’s, Adrian Ubaldi, Ange Mullen)

**special mention** goes to teacher Brendan Opray, Cam Davie, Amanda & Marcus Lau, Ronan, Michael Wheelahan, Warwick Mihaly, Glenn Gilbert, Daniel Pejic, and the unstoppable Matt Lewis (any omissions are entirely the fault of the logistics crew's failing memories 😂)

-Erica, Pip and Ruth

Chill Out Zone

Massive shout outs to everyone who helped us enable families with additional needs to be seen, included and celebrated.

Special thanks to: CNPS’ Support Group for Parents and Carers of children with Additional Needs and as well as: Megan Quinlan, Alice Knowles, David Hansen, Kristen Derricott, Jane Bilby, Jane Galvin, Gaby Shortis, Jess Adam, and of course Cath Doggett. Thanks also to school staff for reading the social story with their classes; and all our stall holders and broader fete committee for embracing what we were trying to achieve to enable our whole community to take part in fete day.

-Kylie

Team Kids

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