Pet Day



Shay's lamb not really following order!



One of the things my dad said to me before I left to come here was that whatever I did I had to go see pet day. So last week on the 22nd October Beth and I went to the local Wikaretu school Pet day and i am so glad I went.





To explain each countryside school has a pet or agricultural day, in which they have to bring in a pet and complete various competitions, but your normal city pets are not allowed, you have to bring a pet lamb, calf, duck etc.



Shay's lamb given up!



The competitions the kids have to complete are 'the calling' where the lamb is placed at one side of the pen and child at the other and the child has to call the pet to him or her. In this competition it is very obvious to see which children have put the most time and effort into there lambs. There is also an obstacle course and a mass calling where all the kids and lambs are put into the pen together. It was the most fun i have had in ages and awesome just to see kids having so much fun without the stupid English safety rules. I had the great pleasure of being a calf judge which was awesome fun but quite tricky due to local politics and bossy mums!



There is also indoor judging which Beth helped in and we also had the opportunity to go help the day before with the kids creating there flower creations to be judged. Hilarious seeing the kids that make a big effort in everything and others that just stab the flowers into the oasis.

Wouldn't miss pet day for the world!

OSPA Challenge

Not sure how it happened but for the last seven weeks i have been involved in the OSPA challenge along with several other guys from Wiakeratu. The challenge is put on by the theatre called OSPA in Onewhero 45mins from the Cafe.

The challenge is for a group of five to be given a play brief and to write, learn and preform the brief in six weeks. The team is given several props, sound effects and a line to be included in the 10-15min production. After we have preformed the first brief we are given another one to write, learn and preform in only six days. It has been awesome fun to be involved. My team "they came from a far fields" consisted of Emily Welch, Catherine Tafto, Tom Mandano, Kent Wright and myself. Our first brief was that a syndicate of four buys a lotto ticket but one member does not want to give the ticket up.

 We had to include the line "I'm your mother and i know what happened" and it had to be a comedy. So we came up with "no fool like an old fool" in which three batty old ladies (Tom, Kent and I) win the lotto but the nurse(Catherine) has the ticket and we persist to get it from her till the dinner bell rings and we forget all about it! We were quite gutted not to get the judges vote but won the audience vote which put us through to the following Saturday and the best of the best final, which was quite exciting!

For the next week our brief was "what happened on the 1st April 1999" and we had to do a drama including the line "its only because i love you". So we produced "hand gun wedding" which is set the morning of Emily's wedding with nervous preparations especially because the useless mother has not turned up, to top it all, I Emily's best friend has been in love with her since forever and now that Emily is getting married to some one else, i have to kill her because I'm crazy and if i can't have her no one else can.

So anyway we worked really hard and i felt we pulled of some very good performances but sad to say that we can show no award for our efforts because we didn't win. But it was awesome fun and definitely unforgettable.
Hopefully a video coming soon!!