Our Community
A Mural for The Spotted Handfish
During Term 1, Sam Ibott from Marine Solutions contacted the School to request some Friends' painters to ‘jazz up his office space’ in New Town. A team of very talented student painters were assembled to envisage Sam’s ideas for his very large, blank office space. Our team of 13 students put the hours spent painting towards service hours for their Clemes Certificate. Sam offered to donate a significant amount of money on behalf of these students to a charity/cause of their choosing which the students discussed and chose as a group. The Spotted Handfish Rehabilitation Project was chosen as Jane Bamford, one of our Art Technicians, and Sam were both helping with the project. It took our students six days and many buckets of paint but they finally finished and are very happy with the end result.
The current Handfish project aims are to get the best statistical estimate of the population, looking at each individual colony to see if there are changes in abundance and the demographics (i.e. are there enough juveniles). Where the Artifical Spawning Habitats are deployed, the project hopes to see improvements in numbers and an increase in juvenile handfish. They are also very keen that the captive breeding program is successful and that they are able to return some handfish to the wild.
Our Art Aid, Jane Bamford, has been making the Artificial Spawning Habitats for the project, using ceramic materials. Ceramic materials are fantastic for these habitats as they are not susceptible to being eaten by Sea Stars, which are largely responsible for the destruction of Handfish breeding habitats. Ceramic habitats are a more natural alternative to plastic habitats.
The funds donated on behalf of the Friends' students have been used to deploy an additional 800 potential spawning substrates available to Spotted Handfish in Bellerive. The CSIRO has a further 4200 to plant before the start of the breeding season in spring and they are optimistic that this will lead to the increased breeding success of the species, and help to boost their threatened population.
A big thank you to Sam and his wonderful team at Marine Solutions for approaching our students with this project and for their generous donation on behalf of our students.
Diversity Day
The Friends of Diversity group at Clemes organised a Diversity Day for the beginning of this term. The group decided that it was important for Clemes students to recognise and celebrate diversity within our community. On the 30th of April, the first assembly of the term, the Friends of Diversity group invited local LGBTQ+ activist Rodney Croome to come in and speak to the Clemes cohort about diversity and the hardships that LGBTQ+ people went through in Tasmania up until the anti-discrimination laws took effect in 1997. Rodney also talked about the importance of change in our society. The next day Clemes held its first-ever Diversity Day. Students were asked to wear casual dress in the theme of 'think colourful but dress authentically'. Diversity day was a huge success, celebrating diversity and raising over $500 for the local organisation 'Working It Out', whose aim it is to educate people about LGBTQ+ issues.
Reuben (Reu) – Creating Beautiful Spaces for our Children
Since early 2016, Friends’ Early Years (FEY) has been extremely fortunate to employ a very talented graffiti artist, Reu, to add interest to our outside play and learning spaces. Ros, our FEY Administrator, discovered Reu and his work in an article published in the City Mission magazine.
Ros was captured by Reu’s story and passion for art.
Reu has been creating art for over 25 years and despite some challenging personal times is now flourishing. His much-loved grandfather, who was a high profile artist in Melbourne, nurtured Reu’s talents. He sadly passed away when Reu was young but had managed to teach his grandson drawing techniques and created an interest and
artistic flair that continues to this day.
Since 2016 Reu has been very busy not only creating beautiful spaces for FEY but has also completed some creative projects for MONA, undertaken private commissions, received a number of significant awards in his field and most
recently been employed by the Hobart City Council doing what he loves – producing art.
Thank you, Reu, for your creativity at Friends and for delighting so many children on a daily basis, with your wonderful artwork.
Kaity's Inspiring Story
Recently, our very own Kaity Fassina (P.E teacher at The Friends' School) competed at the Commonwealth Games, winning Silver in the Weightlifting! The Mercury have kindly agreed for us to share this inspiring article (written by Tracy Renkin, published on 9 June in The Mercury Newspaper) with our community. In this article, Kaity discusses being herself, despite pressure from others and society.
You can check out the article here: