Reaching for Excellence

On Friday night I headed down to Hobart with Jayne and Sacha for our church multi-stake youth convention which was running over 4 days. The theme was 'Reaching for Excellence'. I was disappointed that it was planned over Father's Day weekend as I would've loved to have stayed the whole time, but I also wanted to spend Father's Day with Aaron and didn't think it would be very fair to leave him at home for 4 days on his own with the 4 boys.

The youth were of course very excited to be able to get back together again. The Friday night was a 'red carpet' dance which had the theme of the 'Globies' - of course being a mix of the Golden Globes and Logie Awards. Throughout the night different 'Globies' were presented for different things by the MCs for the night - Collette and Elle.

There were the three guys and three girls nominated for the 'best dressed' awards.

Tayla won out of the girls (in her Mum's dress - Jayne is obviously very trendy!) and Abraham won out of the boys. He looks very excited about his 'Globie' award!

Of course there was a red carpet when you arrived. I just love Lucy - she is so much fun!

During the night I was asked to take photos of different youth in the photo booth.



Some people's outfits were very glamorous...

other's were not so glamorous!

Of course at any red carpet event the paparazzi are always out in force!

It was an great night with everyone pretty much up and dancing all night long.


Of course us northerners had to show the southerners how the 'Hoedown Throwdown' is done - well some of us did anyway! I was about two beats behind everyone else! :)

The Rosny Ward boys have a band which performed for us and were awesome!


On Saturday morning we all met early at the cenotaph.

We waited (and waited and waited!) for a couple of skydivers to land while we were divided into groups for an 'Amazing Race'.

Of course I had the best group of all - Sam, Fraser, Campbell, Makayla and Jordan. Jordan LOVED to stuff up all my photos on purpose, by never actually looking at the camera!

We were all given sheets of instructions of what we were searching for during the Amazing Race around the wharf and Salamanca Market. Each team was assigned a leader to be with them. This team obviously lucked out! ;)

My team was great fun - although we did find ourselves on a wildgoose chase half the time. We were cracking ourselves up saying we were going to be like those dodgy teams you see on the actual TV show - either the ones who starts fighting as one person thinks they know where they are going, but actually have no clue, or the ones who think they are winning, but really they are coming last!

During the race we were required to answer questions about different things around the wharf and market and also to take photos of particular things. You could also gain bonus points for finding different spots that were on the sheet, but had very little clue about where it was. The rules were that you had to have at least one member of your team photographed with each thing.






Our team arrived back third, but couldn't find a couple of things that we needed to. We all met back up for lunch and a play at the park.

I think we scared all the little kids away!


We decided it was probably a bit overwhelming for the little ones at the park to have 80 or so teenagers around, so they decided to make their own fun by playing the good old 'Big Bhudda' game which they played at last convention.

After lunch some youth walked to the museum and others walked to the pool.

Some brave people who weren't fussed about wearing swimming caps (most of them weren't keen) had lots of fun in the pool.



Others were just happy to sit around and chat. Bek decided it was a good time for a quick nanna nap! :)

After swimming we all jumped on the bus to go back to the chapel.

Everyone was glad to just sit and chill out after a big morning of lots of walking. For the next couple of hours most of the youth played board games.



A smaller group helped out with a service project putting together 'Foster Packs'. Before convention each of the youth were asked to donate an item that could be used in an emergency care pack for youth that have to be placed in foster care at short notice. Each of the youth donated something and the group then put these items together in bags.

All together they put together about 50 or so packs.

After tea we had a special 'fireside' where the church presented an award to a very special couple from the community who have been foster carers to over 500 kids, over a 40 year period. They are now in their 70s and are still serving the community by being on foster care committees etc. To hear what they have done is amazing and they were presented with a beautiful statue and a story was also done for the local newspaper and the ABC and WIN TV came and also did a story on it. A guy from the office of the minister for disability, family and community services spoke to us about the desperate need for more foster carers in Tasmania. The youth then presented the foster packs to the Tasmanian minister for disabilities, family and community services.

It was a really nice meeting and nice to be able to recognise such amazing people in our community and for the youth to hear about how disadvantaged others are and how they can help. The minister spoke about talking to other youth that they know who may be in care and being a friend to them.

It was a great way to finish off a excellent day. I was sad to leave the youth last night as I know how good the Sunday usually is. Today they are going to be taking part in musical workshops and then presenting their songs they learn to the whole group. I really wish I could be there for it as Sarah is going to be teaching them a beautiful song that she wrote especially for convention! She sang it to me yesterday and it is amazing. I knew she was talented, but she keeps on surprising me more and more with the amazing things she can do. I hope it goes well Sarah!

Despite wanting to be there still it's nice to be back with my boys and Aaron for Father's Day.