2010-11 was a busy, successful year. Highlights included our Levels courses in October, and our Creative Music and Movement conference, which was held over 2 days in June 2010 at All Saints College. Peta Harper (NSW), who specialises in teaching Orff in secondary schools, was our featured presenter and demonstrated how to use movement to teach both mixed meter and composition techniques. The conference also included presentations using both Kodaly and Dalcroze methodology. We received such great feedback that we held a similar one day workshop in March 2011. We were particularly delighted to have so many teachers who attended a WAOSA event for the first time.
As I previously mentioned, WAOSA held both Level 1&2 Courses in the October holidays last year. We were blessed to have four wonderful presenters: Susie Davies Splitter and Sue Lane both came over to Perth for the week to present, along with presenters from Perth: Jackie Ewers and Helen Wilson. There were 23 participants for the two courses, who all completed the 5 day course successfully. Despite the success in terms of participation of the levels course, I feel it is necessary to mention the considerable financial pressure with putting on the levels courses. At this stage, there are not enough qualified levels presenters in WA. Therefore, WAOSA is required to seek presenters from Over East, and there is a significant cost involved in flights and accommodation. In combination with our focus of the National Conference, the WAOSA committee has decided against holding levels 1&2 in 2011. However, we do intend to hold Levels 1&2 in October 2012.
The Conference committee, led by Anette Kerkovius, are working tirelessly in preparation for the conference in January (8-13). Key presenters for the conference include Kalani, Andrea Sangiorgio, and Australia’s own Robyn Stavely. There has also been a fantastic response in the call for other presenters. If you would like more information regarding the conference, please visit our website:
www.waosa.org.au/
Finally, I would like to formally welcome some new faces to the WAOSA committee: Graham Local (Book sales), Andrea Stewart (Orff West Newsletter), Stephanie and Natalie (student representatives) and Cathleen Otterman and Jenny Gault (General Committee Members). Thank you also to the previous committee, who have stayed on in new roles: Anette Kerkovius (Vice President-replacing Kade Brown, who relocated to Melbourned at the end of 2010), Silvana Ferrara (Treasurer) Jill Taylor (Memberships), and Jason Boron and Sarah Bowran (GCM). It is fantastic to have such a dedicated group of people to work with.
Anita Newhouse
President