School Fete 2014

St Joachim’s Annual Fete was a wonderful day filled with much laughter, fun and community spirit building activities.  The Fete Committee, and wider parent body, worked tirelessly to prepare for the day. 

The rides, games, international food arena, dancing and live entertainment were all​ extremely successful.  What wonderful day!

The success of this year’s fete is credited to many; however, it was our fete convener, Natalie Arnold who was fundamentally behind its success. Thank you Natalie – the school community is indebted to you.

Natalie's 'fete wrap-up' can be read below the slideshow.

Chris Thomas
Principal
June 2014

​​​​​
​Dear All
 
Thank you for a fantastic day on Sunday. Mother Nature turned on the sunshine with a touch of manufactured snow to help make our Winter Wonderland Fete a truly wonderful event.
 
The accountants are still tallying the figures but it is looking like it was a very successful fundraising event that will contribute funds towards new play areas and enhanced learning facilities for our children. We hope to provide a final figure in tomorrow's newsletter.
 
Many people work very hard to make our Fete such a great event. So here is a very long list of thank yous!
 
Firstly to our fabulous new sponsor Ray White Stones Corner - we were so happy to have you a part of our day on Sunday. Thank you to Iona and John Panagos for arranging the sponsorship and having faith in our event. It was great having the team from Ray White helping out on the day - including Graeme, Dwayne and Ben. The yellow balloons were a real hit and the kids loved the Frozen colouring-in competition. And I'm very sad I didn't win that gorgeous yellow bike.
 
Thank you to Motorama and the Creighton-Moran family for sponsoring our BBQ and other food stalls in the International Food Arena. Thank you for the loan of the bright yellow BBQ.
 
A very big thank you to Simon Clark and Stones Corner Eyewear for arranging the ice carving and sponsoring this exhibit. It was a real highlight and big and little kids all loved it.
 
We most of all need to thank our amazing stall conveners who all ran fantastic stalls on the day.
 
This year we had a few new stalls that were extremely popular. The Greek Stall led by Anthony Manicaros was one of the highlights of the day. Anthony spent many hours in the lead up to the Fete preparing the food and negotiating the best prices. Anthony and his family including his mum and sister worked all day on the stall. Anthony was supported by a number of other families in the school including the Katsanevas, Piantes, Panagos and Mourginos families to run the stall throughout the day.
 
Anthony provided further support for the Fete by arranging our major raffle prize of the 4 Virgin Australia tickets and memberships to Gym Nation.  He made an outstanding contribution and I certainly appreciated his support, enthusiasm and energy throughout the lead up and on the day.
 
This year we also had beautiful healthy juices prepared by the Concannon and Hayes families. I worked in the juice stall for a little while and it was a tough gig so thank you Tammy for arranging this new stall.
 
The boys from the Swiss-German Chalet were pumping out the bratwurst and Becks throughout the afternoon and into the evening so thank you to my husband John for arranging the stall in the midst of the 'fete chaos in our life' and for Jason Gomersall for arranging all of the German beer which was kindly donated. I am still very disappointed there was no lederhosen!
 
We had a fantastic result for our Silent Auction which we started running again this year. Thank to Naomi and Chris for co-ordinating on the day.
 
Mette's Finders Keepers Fossicking was a real hit with the kids spending hours digging in the sand. It was great to have another activity for the kids.
 
Now for the hardest job at the Fete - Marina Barrett and Angela Cuskelly who ran the Secondhand Toys and Children's Clothes. A massive effort of sorting, collecting, folding, moving, cataloguing, pricing - all done with a smile. Thank you ladies. I owe you one.
 
Thank you to Ian Stenhouse and Chris Holden who ran the BBQ stall - always a great favourite. Thanks also to John Nunan, Bryan O'Shea and Wayne Foster for 'manning' the stall all day. The battle lines are firmly drawn with the Greek boys so I say bring it on for next year! Kebab vs Burger!
 
Mr Chips John Hellas was back again pumping out the fries - one of the best fries you will ever have. Thanks John for your hard work again.
 
 Cathy and Damian Ross ran the busy Cafe again which pumped out quite a few hundred coffees and had a constant queue all day going back for more.
 
Thanks to the Doyle family who ran the bar again.
 
Mara Kovacevic and Tina-Marie Sanewski were kept busy all day with the face painting and Carla and Colleen looked like graffiti artists after their 5 hours stint creating crazy hair styles. Nice work girls!. It added such colour and fun to the day.
 
Thank you again to Mara for arranging the slushie machine - once again a big line up all day.
 
Well the showbags sold out early (much to Finn's great disappointment) so thank you Nicky Micheletti for organising this year. Lob a Choc kept up the tradition of training our gamblers for the future so thanks Nic - love your work! Always very popular.
 
Thank you to the 6/7s and Mrs Houlihan for running the Hook a Duck.
 
Well didn't the Let's Dance ride just go off? Our new ride was certainly very popular. Thank you to Peta Gomersall and Sue Holden for co-ordinating the rides, carnies and dispensing hundreds of ride passes. I think you better book Let's Dance again.
 
Thank you to Colleen Rowan for being our fabulous Entertainment Director and organising all of our outside entertainment, sorting out last minute cancellations and always being so fun and positive. Thanks to Meggsy and Sienna for stepping in to do the MCing on the day. The class dances were amazing this year. Thank you Miss Wilson for choreographing and for all the children who danced so beautifully.
 
A massive thank you to April Aitken who came back to our school and who sang so beautifully. You have many fans in our school April. It was just amazing.
 
Thank you to the Clark family for arranging the Lucky Last Number - always a hit. Thanks to everyone who donated alcohol for our Publican's Purse and for Tanya Didlick who co-ordinated it on the day.
 
Thank you to Mark and Toni Johnston for the plants stall again - loved the potted colour and beautifully decorated in our woolly winter wonderland theme. Thank you again. Kate and Leah out did themselves with the secondhand book store - great work.
 
Thank you to Jane and Susie for running the Cakes Stall - sold out by lunchtime great effort and for all of our amazing bakers. And for the wonderful Pauline and Trish who ran the Sweets Stall. Smashed it again ladies.  Thanks to Mandie, Shirley and Orlaith for running the Pickles and Relish stall - there has been lots of cooking for months going into this. Always love the Spicy Apple Chutney.
 
Our Cake Competition was hotly contested again - thanks to Val and Sally for arranging and for all of the children who decorated a cake. Great work.
 
Thank you to all of our craft makers and for Jennifer who stepped in to run the stall on the day.
 
A big thank you to Matthew Campbell who MCed on the main stage all day and ran the Chocolate Wheel - always the voice of the Fete and does it so well.
 
A very big thank you to the Vedelago, Saina and Sondergeld families for arranging and donating all of the fruit, vegies, milk and eggs for our food stalls - thank you so much. We couldn’t have done it without you guys.
 
Thank you to all of the mums and dads who baked cakes, made lolly necklaces, put up bunting on Friday, set up on Saturday and Sunday and helped us clean up. We really appreciate your support.
 
A special thank you to Steve Harris for picking up and dropping off all of the borrowed tents from catholic schools across the Southside, and always with a smile! I definitely couldn’t have done it without your help and care you took to make sure the tents were looked after and the right tent in the right bag returned to the right school.
 
A massive round of applause needed for Shelley Taylor who this year co-ordinated our sponsorship and raffle. Shelly did a tremendous job securing our sponsorships and more than 100 prizes used for the raffle and silent auction. A really big job always done with a lovely bright smile. Once again, I have really appreciated your support and enthusiasm.
 
Many thanks to the lovely Larissa Tyas for helping Shelley with the raffle, opening the Fete Office in the afternoon, arranging the band and always being my go to person for help and support.
 
Thank you to Peta for manning the Fete Office each morning and co-ordinating the administration side of things so well – and juggling rides passes, sales of raffle tickets, lucky last numbers  along with the uniform sales.
 
Nearly there… keep reading….
 
Thank you to Steve, Mel and Fay in the office for being supportive and understanding of deliveries, phone calls, emails and my constant request for keys! You guys are the best.
 
Thank you to all of the teachers who arranged for their classes to decorate the windows – they all looked amazing so thank you.
 
Thanks to the money man Rob – who manages all of the cash, invoicing and payments and led the counting on Sunday supported by Kylie, Toni, Sue, and David Peacock. All of the counting was done the old fashioned way – by hand and took more than three hours.  Thank you to Sue for doing the daily banking and counting in the lead up the Fete.
 
A very big thanks to Kylie Hansen for being my right hand woman who was always there with words of wisdom and to lend an ear when I was teetering on the edge.
 
And thank you to Chris Thomas for being available day and night for my crazy, random emails and for always making himself available to chat about what needed to happen.
 
Most of all – thanks to all of our beautiful students and their families who donated, sewed, baked, danced, sang, volunteered, shifted barrels of water and huge marquees, cooked, and every little thing that everyone did to contribute to a fantastic day.
 
Thank you,
 
Nat