December 2016 Kislev 5777 Vol 8 Issue 2 from the Development Office I hope this newsletter finds you and your families well. Time flies – 2016 really has been a busy year here at School. Since our mid-year edition of the newsletter, the students have been hard at work, not just with their classroom learning, but also with other activities including Project Heritage, which culminated in the presentation held on 16 September. The following week we celebrated Primary Grandparents and Friends Day which as has been an annual tradition now for a few years, included Rosh Hashanah celebrations and Kabbalat Shabbat. Seussical. Photo by Ofer Levy I hope you had the opportunity to attend one of the three performances of Seussical by our very talented Primary students – such fun! The hours that went into preparation of the sets and costumes by staff and volunteers, along with all the rehearsals, truly paid off with such high-quality performances – well done everyone! Many of our graduates leave this campus after finishing School to return at some stage down the track Grandparents & Friends Day Seussical. Photo by Ofer Levy – perhaps to help with various school- based activities and/or for particular events, whilst others return as parents having enrolled their own children as students at the School. We currently have a very special group of five alumni who are now here as members of staff. The latest alum recruit is Daniel Samowitz (Class of 2004) who wrote an entertaining article Grandparents & Friends Day Grandparents & Friends Day in Ma Nishma titled “Jewish Life Inside this Issue... Parents & Friends ............................ 3 Project Heritage ............................... 8 From the Development Office .......... 1 Emanuel School Foundation ............ 4 Schmooze ..................................... 10 From the Principal’s Desk ................ 2 Kornmehl Pre-school ....................... 6 Jewish Life Madrich ....................... 12 Gesher Community Connections ..... 2 Jewish Studies Department ............. 7 Update your details ....................... 12 Emanuel School is a member of 20 Stanley Street Randwick NSW 2031 the JCA family of Organisations www.emanuelschool.nsw.edu.au EMANUEL SCHOOL Where the Individual Excels Madrich”, which you can read now on page 12. Katie (Levenson) Narunsky, a primary teacher now, graduated in1989, the very first Emanuel School Year 12 graduating year. She is also now a School parent with her three children enrolled here, which of course means her parents now return to School from time to time to see their grandchildren on the same campus where they used to come to see Katie when she was a student here! Talia Hynek (Class of 2008) is one of our Year 1 teachers whilst Genna Radnan (Class of 2009) is our School Nurse and Adam Ezekiel (Class of 2007) teaches PDHPE and sport. Daniel Samowitz, Talia Hynek, Katie Narunsky, Genna Radnan and Adam Ezekiel I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter and have the opportunity for a relaxing break. We look forward to welcoming you to events here at School next year. Sonia Newell, Development Officer From the Principal’s Desk Dear Grandparents and Friends of Emanuel School It is a surprise that we are so quickly at the end of the school year. It has been a fast-paced and successful year. Our School has close to full enrolments and we are continuing to improve the facilities by renovating some of the spaces. It was wonderful to welcome so many of you for Grandparents and Friends Day at the end of last term and I hope you enjoyed the morning with the children. They love having you at school and proudly display their learning to you. We were also pleased to be able to thank the large number of you who form part of our immense squad of volunteers at our 1929 Volunteers’ Assembly a few weeks ago. Your contribution to our school is always very much appreciated. This term we opened our new Kindergarten rooms – beautiful new, vibrant spaces designed especially for our small Emanuel students. Formerly the Nuns’ laundry and more recently our Art block, the new Kindergarten precinct provides a cottage-like, welcoming atmosphere in two light and bright classrooms. The children excitedly began this term there, and are very much enjoying their new environment. Over the December/January break, we are hoping to install an engaging new playground for them in front of their classrooms. We are currently in the process of renovating the classrooms in the Adler block, so that Years 5 & 6 can move in there at the beginning of next year. Because of plans to rebuild the High 2016 School Library and Museum building so that we have up-to-date Design & Technology kitchen and Innovation spaces, along with new classrooms and Museum space, we will keep our demountable building, lovingly termed ‘X Block’ until these plans come to fruition. We are looking for some grandparents who might be interested in being part of a Grandparents’ committee. This committee would initially meet twice per term to act as advisors to the Gesher committee in relation to connecting with grandparents within our community. The Gesher committee is the ‘friend-raising’ sub-committee of the Board, chaired by Daniel Knoll. If you are interested in being part of this committee, please email Sonia Newell on [email protected] Best wishes Anne Hastings, Principal our School. We love that our Grandparents and Friends come to School to share in their grandchildren’s activities, to hear beautiful music performed, attend the numerous very special events such as our Pathways ceremonies, as well as our annual Primary Grandparents and Friends Day. We also appreciate the time many of you give to volunteer here as well. We thank you for your contributions to the life of our amazing School and community Gesher is the fun/friend-finding arm of our School community. and look forward to seeing you here again next year. It is under the banner of Gesher that a number of activities are Daniel Knoll, organised for our wonderful community to embrace the life of Board member and Chair, Gesher Committee 2 Message from the Parents & Friends As the year closes, our children and grandchildren grow a little taller and wiser, while we reflect on another wonderful year as heads of the P&F and how the communal efforts of parents, grandparents and friends of the Emanuel community have yet again come together with some great results. The second half of the year kicked off with our annual Fathers’ Day breakfast, carefully prepared by our wonderful team of volunteers, with fresh coffee and beverages supplied by BILLER Property. In addition to our annual breakfast, our Fathers’ Day stall was expertly co-ordinated by Michelle Stockley and her wonderful team of gift organisers, who are always at hand to help at this time of year. The highlight of the P&F calendar this year was the P&F Trivia Night which we hosted in late August and was attended by some 270 We finished the term with another wonderful theatre outing this time guests. This is the third Trivia event we have hosted and probably to Aladdin the Musical at the Capitol Theatre to which we sold 170 one of the best, raising approximately $16,000. It took a huge tickets, with everyone enjoying a stunning performance. We are all amount of planning by our Trivia Committee and was expertly MC’d looking forward to our next theatre outing. We always have large by parent Andrew Klein, who, as always, had the room captivated numbers of grandparents attending the theatre outings so please and entertained throughout the night. Each table was given a letter look out for our next one which will be mentioned in Ma Nishma and of the alphabet as a theme, so we had many weird and wonderful the next newsletter. A huge thank you to Lena Fridgant for organising letter interpretations, ensuring the MPH was filled with colour and the event and Michael Nebenzahl for securing great tickets that we laughter. The committee spent many hours and nights preparing for all got to enjoy. the event, so a huge thank you must go out to members Jo Rose, Andy Bromberger, Jennifer Opit, Ruby Berkovic, Suzanne Itzkowitz, So as the year is almost Michelle Stockley, Daniela Freed and Samantha Butt. We also need at an end, it is time for us to thank the wonderful 2016 Madrichim who also volunteered their to say farewell as we retire services on the night. We could not have raised the money without from our roles as Co- our sponsors and many in the community who donated gifts to presidents and to welcome auction on the night. Although there are too many to mention, we two new wonderful ladies are always very grateful and appreciate every contribution. who will take our place and bring new and fresh ideas Term 4 has been another frantic one with our second Camping Trip to the P&F. But before we for the year at Catttai National Park organised by our wonderful introduce our successors, Camping Co-Ordinator Lindi Bloch. Some 90 friends and family of we have a few thank yous our community spent the weekend enjoying the warm weather and we would like to make. all the wonderful natural amenities this camp site has to offer. Our Over the past five years, camping trips have become a very well attended event with a group we have had a wonderful, of regular die-hard campers together with new recruits wanting to stable P&F Executive who experience this wonderful communal weekend. We have already have worked tremendously locked in dates for 2017 to make sure no one misses out – the hard and often long hours weekends of 24 February and 3 November.