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Junior Dancers' Dedication Wins Awards Reward

The following article first appeared in The Mercury on 19 May 2019. Written by James Kitto. 

Congratulations to our very own Casey-Rae McCrickard on her nomination for Outstanding Coach and Teacher. 

HOBART dance company House of Dance has raised the roof this year after being nominated as a finalist in multiple categories at the national What’s On 4 Kids Awards.

Each year the national What’s On 4 Kids Awards shine a light on the best in Australia’s kids’ activity, party and family entertainment industry.

The Hobart dance school was this week nominated for best local preschool and school-age activity in Australia.

It follows its 2017 success at the same event when it won an award for its Baby Ballet Program.

House of Dance dance coach Casey McCrickard (Friends' School Dance Teacher) is also in the running for an award after she was nominated for Outstanding Coach and Teacher Age 2-12 years.

House of Dance director Michelle Williams said she was delighted by Ms McCrickard’s recent success.

“Casey is one of our best teachers of young children and dancers,” Ms Williams said.

Sweet Big Dreams

‘Check out this amazing video about Year 9 student, Freya Downie, and her business ‘Freya’s Delights’ as well as life on her family farm. Courtesy of Women of the Island.

All Hands On Deck

Recently, Friends’ Technology Teacher, Zach Sonstegaard, and his partner Katrina were on the ABC’s Gardening Australia program. Their story was about a permablitz - a volunteer fuelled working bee where complete strangers and old friends come together to work, plant, share, learn and have fun.

Zach and Katrina went through the whole process of designing and building their house together, as well as the garden. They received an email from a friend of ABC Guest Presenter Hannah Maloney about doing a segment, with their ‘blank canvas’ garden chosen as an ideal location.

As Zach shared with us, ‘Kat and I already had a good idea of what we wanted, but we didn’t really have a timeline for when to complete particular stages of the design. Hannah was great in helping narrow down the specifics and gave us loads of expert advice in regards to specific plants, layout, ergonomics, etc.’

The ABC segment was filmed over the last weekend of March (2019) and the garden is growing and working well.

'We’ve done loads more work on it since then, and we’re absolutely loving it. Food-wise, we’re mostly just eating lots of Asian greens and other lettuces at the moment, but are getting ready to plant another 20+ fruit trees in the next couple of months,’ says Zach.

For more information, check out this website.