The Artful Dodger — June 2025

From the Chair

We held our very well-attended AGM last month. A highlight was the opening performance of two very apt songs by members of the Chocolate Lilies, led by Nerida Kirov: MaMuse’s song, We Shall Be Known, and Follow The Sun by Xavier Rudd.

“We shall be known by the company we keep; by the ones who circle round to tend these fires… it is time now, it is time now that we thrive” - a good omen for all of us at Warrandyte Arts!

And the sentiments in Follow The Sun about ‘setting intentions’ and ‘dreaming with care’ chimed with us forming a new Committee and aiming to build on our successes and overcome new challengers in the coming year.

All last year’s Committee members have rejoined this year and, now that our bi-monthly meetings no longer clash with choir rehearsals, we’re delighted to welcome Chocolate Lilies representative, Maryan Devos, to the Committee.

Another highlight and delight was the well-deserved and unanimous awarding of Life Membership to our tireless membership coordinator, actor, director, costumer, amongst other involvements over 20 years, Noelene Cooper.

Here’s to another great year of creativity and resourcefulness drawing on our diverse in-house talents!

Bruce Turner, Chair
[email protected]

Free First Aid Training for WMIAA members

Thanks to a Manningham grant we are offering a half-day first aid course to members on the morning of Saturday, July 26.

The course is open to any member of the Association but is limited to 10 participants. It will be delivered in the hall by Australia Wide First Aid, a nationally recognised training organisation.

After the course, participants should be able to perform a wide range of first aid activities, including uninterrupted single rescuer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on both adult and infant resuscitation manikins and use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). They should also be able to apply first aid procedures for such things as: allergic reaction, anaphylaxis, bleeding, choking, venomous bites, fractures, sprains and strains, respiratory distress and shock.

If you are interested in one of the 10 places in the course, please apply to:
Grant Purdy
[email protected]

Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

Warrandyte Theatre Company

The Importance of Being Earnest is our Season 2 production which is bringing in the crowds to appreciate the wit and humour of Oscar Wilde. The cast is made up of mostly new actors to our stage, which is wonderful to see as this will bring in new audiences and a fresh outlook to WTC.

Season 3, Grey Nomad, is well underway (see separate promotion below). Season 4, The Fabulous Follies is starting to come together, with sketches and musical numbers being written. If you have an item that has been knocking around in your head that you would like to see on the stage, feel free to contact the director
Adrian Rice
[email protected]

Fundraising Opportunity

An additional show of the Grey Nomad will be offered on Thursday, September 4, as a fundraiser. This is an opportunity for a local group or organisation to raise funds in a fun and entertaining way, at the same time as supporting local, live theatre.

Location: Warrandyte Mechanics Institute Hall
Capacity: Up to 50 guests seated at tables (groups of four to five) or expandable to 70 guests with traditional row seating
Fixed booking fee: $1000 and your group keeps 100% of any ticket revenue above this cost

Additional fundraising through snack sales or raffles is encouraged and can be organised by your group. Wine, beer and soft drinks will be available at the bar, operated by the theatre.

Please contact me for further information:
Lou Phelan
[email protected]

Grey Nomad

In keeping with Warrandyte Theatre Company’s policy of showcasing local playwrights, this year we are staging Dan Lee’s hilarious comedy, Grey Nomad from August 22 to September 2. This show has already been staged in the USA to excellent reviews, and this is its first Australian production co-directed by
Dan Lee and Grant Purdy.

It is a 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.

The play has already been cast with many of Warrandyte’s favourite performers and the production team are busily working on staging this in a spectacular fashion, taking audiences to Darwin and Cable Beach in Broome.

Tickets are already selling fast as this is sure to be a sell-out.

Get your tickets at: trybooking.com/dbqyz

Pottery News

The past month has included three meetings/brainstorms for future use and ideas for the pottery studio with pottery and relevant WMIAA team member
Jock Macneish has kindly and brilliantly drafted and designed an excellent profile for the studio with workspace and flow in mind. We are extremely grateful and thankful to Jock for his time and expertise.
A kiln expert visited the studio to confirm that the kiln can be moved upstairs to house it in a new location/alcove, which will adjoin the upstairs studio workspace.
Grant Purdy is to mobilise the pledged Bendigo Bank $20,000 grant for the pottery studio, commencing with removal and replacement of the termite damaged joists/beams of the upstairs studio. This repair will be done by a local builder.
See next article for some more details on the above pottery restoration project.
Annie gained $300 in fundraising from Grill’d Eastland who also gifted her with a certificate (see photo).
Fundraising via weekly cans collection continues with a total of $692 so far for 2025.
We have welcomed three new pottery members - Maggie, Laura and Tom.
We have purchased two heaters for the downstairs studio for the chilly winter season.
Potters have produced marvellous items - creative tiles, sculptures of faces, animals and exotic people, pots, birds, totem poles, bees and mushrooms.

— Alli Beanland and Annie Kennedy

Warrandyte Community Pottery building restorations

Since the splendid renovation work in January by the pottery team and others, led by David Tynan, the pottery studio has moved downstairs into the old fire station. While this is rather congested and chilly now winter is here, it has allowed work to commence on the refurbishment of the whole building and especially the repair of all the termite damage upstairs.

When the wall coverings were removed upstairs, very considerable damage was revealed (painted red in the photo examples below).

Using his cave diving techniques, Greg Beanland was able to crawl under the floors and into the ceiling to also detect and photograph damage there.

In the run up to the recent election, then Federal MP Keith Wolahan pledged a considerable sum which, together with the grant given to us by the Warrandyte Community Bank along with the proceeds of our own fundraising, would probably allow us to complete the repair and refurbishment. Gabriel Ng, then candidate and now our new MP, matched that pledge on behalf of the Labor Party and has now confirmed that in due course we will receive the funding.

In the meantime, as the above pottery group article outlines, pottery representatives and other Association members have worked together to come up with clear criteria for the future design and use of the pottery studio and building as a whole. Jock Macneish has taken these conc

The plan incorporates the idea of using the downstairs space for multi-purpose activities including meetings and a display space for pottery and works from other groups in the Association.

Grant Purdy and Bruce Turner

STOP PRESS: We’ve just received a ‘Postcard from Chang Mai, Thailand’ from Adrian and Hazel Rice providing inspiration for money-making ventures involving termites, if we encounter any more in the future…

Postcard from Chiang Mai, Thailand

Fighting the Mite - It’s a no-brainer!

Following two weeks of extensive research in Northern Thailand, we happened upon a two-fold solution to our termite problem in the pottery studio. (See photos below)

We’ll let you join the dots, but it should not be difficult for someone to create two lines of revenue from a business, selling both tasty proteinaceaous snacks, and creative undergound-themed art by selected workers.

If necessary, we could even sponsor a cook on a special relocation visa, but we are sure that with the talent to be found in WMIAA, there will be someone with a wok and a lump or two of wood.

And, we am certain Manningham, or the ALP, will have funds we can access for
such an innovative scheme!

All the best,
Adrian and Hazel Rice

Chocolate Lilies Choir

This term, we have started our session with a beautiful Russian song, prior to mainly focusing on one song, Solid Rock, made famous by Goanna Band in the 80’s
and written by Shane Howard.

Each year, Reconciliation Australia arranges a well-known song that celebrates Reconciliation with our First Nations people. Choirs and workplaces are encouraged to learn and then video themselves performing the song and to send a video of it back to them. These are then arranged into a compilation which is always very moving.

The arrangements range from very simple for any workplace to use, to complex four parts for more experienced choirs.

We didn’t send our version through, but instead performed it at the Nillumbik Flag Raising ceremony in recognition of Reconciliation week.

Term 2 and 3 are always a bit quiet as the weather turns and many members decide to travel, or seasonal bugs take hold.

I hope you enjoy both clips:

Voices for Reconciliation 2025: Solid Rock | Choir Compilation

Chocolate Lilies performance at Nillumbik Flag Raising

Nerida Kirov
Choir Director

Repair Café

May was over-the-top busy with 39 items handled, of which 35 were successes. One test & tag, two partial successes and two unfixable. June was less busy with 31 items handled (sort of), of which 20 were successes, three partials, four unfixable, two test & tags, and two people had to leave before their items could be fixed.

There is no telling which section will be inundated for any particular month - it really does vary! Also, we are accumulating quite a few items for later collection and need to improve systems for when individual repairers take items home.

In other news, Bernadette was in Europe in May and dropped into a Paris Repair Café for fun. We look forward to hearing more about this upon her return to the
Warrandyte July Repair Café.

Writers Group

The Writers Group is humming along. We start with a chat and a cup of tea, sometimes with a small warm-up, and then we get into our own projects.

We have changed our start time to 7pm, finishing around 9pm, so we can get
some more writing in!

Next meet-up is Wednesday, July 2.

If you are interested in coming along please contact Michelle and Emma
[email protected]

Michelle Reeves
Writers Group Co-convenor

Improved Projection in the Hall

It has long been a dream that the theatre company could use the wall at the back of the stage, called the cyclorama, for its true purpose. That is, to project images and videos for shows. Because our ceiling is so low, this is technically very difficult. The existing ‘front of house’ projector in front of the stage is too weak and anyone on the stage creates a shadow.

A year ago, long-time member Caroline Shaw, made a very substantial donation to enable us to realise this dream. Because the powerful projectors and extra wide lenses needed are so expensive, this very generous donation became the basis of a request for a grant from the Community Bank that was successful and enabled us to start to search for a secondhand unit we could afford.

Adam Goudge, our Technical Director, started the global search and found a suitable secondhand unit in December. But, before we could buy it, it was snapped
up by someone else.

In the meantime, facing a long delay until another ‘unicorn’ unit appeared on the market, we decided to renovate our existing ‘front of house’ projector so that anyone using the hall could both lower the existing screen and switch on and play videos
etc. - through the projector - without any technical support.

We achieved that goal in May and hall users can now project from laptops etc. through a new cupboard installed into the front of the stage (see photo). Hall users can also play sound or music through our amplifiers and speakers using an
improved Bluetooth system.

Then, out of the blue, another second hand projector appeared for sale in Prahran! We moved quickly to buy this - at a substantially reduced price - and it is now ready to be installed over the stage. The new projector only has a simple lens, so the search for a suitable, very wide-angled lens - at a reasonable price - continues.

Hopefully it won’t be too long until the theatre company’s dream becomes reality, all due to the generosity of Caroline Shaw.

Grant Purdy
Secretary

Container Deposit Scheme

Since its inception in January 2024 through to the end of May 2025, $2,315.80 has been raised from the donations of bottles and cans.

Keep them coming!

Membership Registration Information

Registrations are paid via Trybooking.

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

Please note, it would be very helpful if when registering or renewing, members only indicate the group(s) they are actively involved in (from the pull-down menu). Having an accurate picture of the total number of members and numbers in groups helps us to promote our organisation and enhance our grant applications.

If you are not an active member of a group (e,g, regular attendee at theatre shows, but not involved in their production) you can register as a ‘Friend of the WMIAA’.

Noelene Cooper
Membership Coordinator