Celebrating 25 years by sheer hard work

AOL, celebrated their 25-year anniversary around the world by donating a day's work to charity. Last Thursday, the 20th of May, 40 AOL personnel invaded Camphill Dunshane armed with wheelbarrows, shovels, cleaning equipment, shears, buckets of gardening gloves and bags of enthusiasm.

It was a beautiful day to get away from the computer screens and to shift from software engineering to shovelling, scraping, cleaning and painting. It soon became apparent that this was not seen as just a bit of fun.
Serious work was undertaken and in only hours houses were spring-cleaned, the secret garden was brought back to a civilised state, a poly-tunnel was filled with compost and rotivated, garden walls were de-ivied (figure that one out) and the garden was weeded. All that deserved a good lunch...and a good lunch was had.

Both parties genuinely enjoyed the day and we wouldn't be surprised if some of the Aol workers would become regular visitors. Not only is Dunshane very grateful for all the work done, but also for the spirit in which it was undertaken. It's a terrific example that we hope will be followed by other companies.

A New Beginning

The new term at Dunshane has begun, with a great many changes taking place at the start of August. Most of the students moved houses and therefore got new house parents. Jeannemarie and Geoffrey, with the help of Hugues and Zasu, are back as houseparents in Dunshane House, while Felicia has moved to Teach na Greine together with a new group of co-workers having 8 different nationalities. Garden Cottage has acquired a family: Avishai and Ayala with their three children. Apple Orchard's new house coordinator is Kris, who has arrived recently from America. She is being supported by Claudia and Folkje. Altogether we have an interesting mixture of people making up our community this year.

We also have more activities lined up for our things-to-do list in Dunshane. We are having Drama and Eurythmy next to Adult Education, Swimming, and Sports. We are also offering art and massage therapy for those who can benefit from them.

On 28th August, we are having our parents' barbecue in the houses to give everybody a chance to meet and get to know one another -- and we bid you welcome!