The Artful Dodger — April 2025

From the Chair

There’s been much happening at Warrandyte Arts since our last edition. The groups are firing on all cylinders — I won’t attempt to sum it all up — read on for the updates!

Just a quick reminder — anyone who is actively involved in one of the member groups who hasn’t yet renewed or signed up — please do so at:

https://www.trybooking.com/CXBDU

(and see Noelene’s reminder at the very end of this edition about what details to record when you do).

Bruce Turner, Chair
[email protected]    

Warrandyte Festival

A small but dedicated group from Warrandyte Arts turned out for the Festival Parade on Saturday, March 29…and won the coveted ‘Most Creative’ award!! Thanks to all who frocked up and made it fun and such a success.

Lou Phelan,
WTC Convenor

For our Association the Festival is a day of community interaction and spreading the word. After a cool, damp, dark start setting up, the day ‘whooshed’ by! Our stall showcased what’s on and who and where we are primarily. Our Community Potters wonderfully displayed and sold their wares again.

Overall, it was a successful day that went off without a hitch. Thanks to all those who volunteered on the stand. Your positive engaging with people about who we are is “what we are”. The T-shirts were a hit and it was great to have the artist (Jock) on hand. There are more still available at the hall!

Two big thank yous: one to last year’s organisers for the printouts and displays we were able to reuse, and the other to Annie for the use of stall gear again, and her partner Dave who was a ‘one man band’ setting it up.

Cheers to all,
Marion,
Vice Chair, Hall

Pottery News

Term 1 in the Pottery Studio kept us busy and productive.

We needed to move all the furniture, the glazes, and all our pottery equipment downstairs so that the upstairs studio could have the termite damage assessed. This was a big job requiring a working bee day to get it all done. Thanks to all the potters as well as Marion and Greg for their assistance.

We also had new shelving installed downstairs, donated from the Warrandyte Community Garden, so that we can store all our products and pottery items. Thank you to Marion, Grant and David (Tynan) for installing the shelves.

The Warrandyte Festival was a great day, and we had a lot of beautiful pottery for sale. Annie and Dave did a great job setting up our stall and we managed to sell about half of our pottery and made $1,053.00.

Lyn, on behalf of the Potters.

Warrandyte Theatre Company

Season 1 — When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs was a great success with many nights sold out. Audiences laughed, cried and were somewhat afraid. Last year we took a bit of a risk in planning to put this play on — a very English, two-hander, with a confronting topic. Little did we realise the relevance to the current political climate! All credit goes to the director David Tynan and the two brilliant actors, Adrian Rice and Simone Keifer. The technical crew were on point and the backstage pulled off the creepiest, slo-mo scene change. Please see the terrific review in the April edition of the Warrandyte Diary:  WTC Review Apr25

Below, the cast and crew of When the Wind Blows

Season 2 — the much loved The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is well on the way to the stage. The roles have been cast, with many new faces gracing our stage. Watch out for ‘meet the cast’ on social media platforms. Wilde’s iconic comedy of mistaken identities, witty misunderstandings, and romantic entanglements, remains as hilarious today as ever. With its sparkling dialogue and unforgettable characters, this production guarantees plenty of laughs.

Fundraising Opportunity

An additional show will be offered on Thursday, June 19, for a local group to raise funds. Please see the flyer below and contact me for further information.

Lou Phelan

[email protected]

Season 3 — Grey Nomad by Dan Lee. Local playwright Dan Lee directs his laugh-out-loud comedy about two couples who meet while traveling around Australia. Full of familiar quirks, unexpected friendships, and the joys (and challenges) of life on the road. This production will strike a chord with anyone who has ever packed up a caravan and set off for adventure.

We had a great response to auditions with a big turnout. Watch this space for the announcement of our awesome foursome in the cast.

Shout out for the Follies

The famous Follies returns for Season 4 and we are holding a writers ideas/suggestions/whatever evening on Friday, May 2, at the hall. Everyone is invited to come along and contribute to sketches, songs and anything that goes. If you missed out on being involved in previous productions, this is your chance to show off your acting and singing talents.

For further information contact Adrian Rice
[email protected]

Ticket News

In line with the increase in global prices we have had to put up our ticket prices to $28 and $22 (concession). This change will take effect from Season 2. In addition, you are now able to book a specific table on Trybooking. Hopefully this will make seating easier to organise.

First in, best dressed!

Repair Café

It was a busy start to the year — lots to be fixed, and lots of enthusiastic helpers. Here are a couple of photos of the gang hard at work.

David the Bear

David is a beloved bear — once owned by my Uncle David — who is no longer with us. It was given to him as a child, making it nearly a century old. He had a somewhat tragic life, and so this bear is quite special to me for personal reasons.

It is a very simple teddy made of mohair, stuffed with straw, and at some stage my grandmother knitted it a woollen top and pants. It was much loved, but in poor condition — stuffing lost, the ‘growler’ (the mechanism that allowed it to make a sound when inverted) did not work, one limb was barely hanging on, and its nose was falling apart. Our dear Bernadette took on this project, gave it rhinoplasty, washed his clothes, performed some orthopaedic work and, we found a new growler so that it sounds like a very genteel bear. Thank you so much Bernadette.

Now I have another special thing to cuddle if Simone is not home!

Workshops are back!

Due to popular demand, during May and June Repair Cafés we will be running two workshops. One on knitting skills and the other on mastering your own sewing machine. We will promote these on our repair Café Facebook page.

Stay tuned for more details.

WRC Facebook group now has 1000 members!

Our Facebook group, managed by Bernadette, now has reached a membership of 1000. This means that there are many who follow us and have actively chosen to be made aware of our news. Many thanks to Bernadette and other helpers who have kept this alive and thriving, and respond to enquiries about our brilliant work.

International Repair Café News

This news is mainly for Repair Café fixers. On Friday, April 25, another international Repair Café webinar has been organised. During this event, volunteers from our network will get information on issues important for all Repair Cafés. They can also exchange experiences. The webinar is from 4 to 6pm CEST (midnight to 2am AEST!!!!). The first hour will focus on clothing repair and in the second hour we will talk about research into and around Repair Cafés. More information can be found on the International Repair Café website. There, you can also register for the event.

David Tynan
Repair Café Convener

Writers Group

The Writers Group is in full swing! After a couple of false starts this year, we had six new people show up for our March meet-up. We started the group in the middle of last year and it has been building successfully ever since.

We meet on the first Wednesday of the month in the hall between 7.30 and 9pm, if you would like to join us. We usually grab a cup of tea, do a short warm up exercise and then hunker down for some solid writing. Anyone can bring a warm up exercise along to share.

Emma Wood and I have also been giving personalised feedback to writers on their work, as well as the group occasionally giving feedback when someone wishes to share.

It’s a lovely, friendly and caring environment, designed to support writers of all abilities and stages, to mingle with other writers while getting some work done.

We are also having some great cross pollination as writers from our group are getting involved in writing the sketches for this year’s Follies production (Season 4), as well as Dan Lee’s production of Grey Nomad (Season 3).

If you would like to join our newsletter to be reminded of when the next meet-up is, you can do so here:

Write-Warrandyte-Newsletter-Sign-up

(As already stated, we only send it out monthly reminders. So no Spam!)

We also have a private Facebook group for people who are actively showing up to the group to create a community for asking questions and sharing work.

We have ideas going forward for showcasing peoples work, such as an evening of sharing works, either for entertainment or to get feedback from others.

So, it has been a wonderful journey meeting lots of new and wonderful people!

Michelle Reeves
Writers Group Co-convenor

Fighting the Mite — the battle continues!

The team, including David Tynan, Marion Cooper, Greg Beanland, Bruce Turner and Grant Purdy, has been working over the last two weeks, to reveal the extent of the termite damage in the Pottery Studio. Unfortunately, the damage is more extensive than we might have hoped.

Special mention must be made of Greg, who made good use of his spelunking or potholing (caving) experience to bravely crawl under the floorboards and track down areas of damage to the sub-floor, as well as venturing into the ceiling space!

All wall coverings have now been removed and the damage clearly identified so that we can seek accurate quotes from builders.

The photos below show some of the damage revealed in the kitchen and workroom (spray-painted to highlight the affected parts).

In other news, Liberal candidate for Menzies, Keith Wolahan, has committed to providing significant funding towards the repairs if the Coalition win the upcoming election. We have also had a useful meeting with Gabriel Ng, the Labor candidate, and he is now seeking support from Labor to match that pledge.

The photo below, courtesy of the Warrandyte Diary, shows Keith making his announcement in the Pottery Studio along with Nicole Werner, State Member of Parliament, Mayor Deirdre Diamente and Yarra Ward Councillor Carli Lange, together with members of Warrandyte Arts.

 

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And in between WMIAA productions there is always something good on at the Lilydale Athenaeum!

Bottles and Cans!!

Container Deposit Scheme

During the month of March the WMIAA received another $221.70 for returned bottles and cans!

Keep them coming!

The bar code below can be used at any drop off site for those who would like the proceeds to go to WMIAA.

So again, keep up the drinking in 2025!

Membership Registration Information

Registrations are paid via Trybooking.

Visit: https://www.trybooking.com/CXBDU then click on ‘Book Now’.

With many thanks to our generous sponsors this year.