River Road Newsletter August 2023

River Road Newsletter!

August 2023

A very fun, full and amazing month was had, with our individual lessons in full swing, our youth groups including our youth bands sounding great, our Dilly Choir singing their hearts out and another Mens Music Cave filling the room with some awesome sounds.

Our Coding and Robotics group (aka Code Club), continues to meet every Saturday exploring the awesome worlds of coding building their own tech projects, our filmmaking group who have their films coming together and have been busily planning our Illuminate activities coming up in September.

This past August, our teachers also met to discuss and share ideas on creative arts education, but it was also amazing to identify and acknowledge the awesomeness that is our teaching team, including the high level of qualifications (incl. Masters, and Phd candidates), plus years and years of not only creative arts experience, but creative arts education with extensive knowledge and understanding of important creative arts pedagogies and learning methodology - which greatly supports our students and makes River Road what it is. I'm so proud and excited to be part of this team.

See you in the studio!

Pat.

Here’s what’s been going on…

Illuminate 2023!!

This Illuminate Festival River Road will be occupying the grassed area in front of the Shire Hall to set up interactive music ands creative art activities!

We will then have our own 20min set on the main stage at 1:30pm where our community groups will take the stage to share our works, including the Dilly Choir, Wollondilly Mens Music Cave, and Tuesday Night Youth Groups.

This is all happening 16th September.

Coding and Robotics is away!

This program is designed for kids to have fun while exploring the exciting world of creative coding and robotics.

Our coders will explore coding languages, circuitry and Arduino boards and robotics including design building and programming! including Python.

This groups has been running each Saturday 10:30am-11:30am, with more info is available here: https://riverroad.edu.au/codingandrobotics

Hilltop Music Creative Youth Drop In Sessions continue to grow!

Every Friday 5pm, we have been offering a welcoming and inclusive space to explore music and creative arts.

Youth have been making music, and urban art towards an exhibition at the last session in October.

Illuminate Drumming Workshop

A drumming workshop for the whole community at the Picton Shire Hall, Menangle Street Picton. Children to be accompanied.
Learn drumming techniques led by Patrick of River Road Creative Academy. Be part of the drumming crew setting the beat at the Illuminate Lantern parade as we wind through the Picton Botanic gardens as part of the 2023 Illuminate Festival of Art & Light on Friday 15 September from 6pm. Includes use of drums for workshop and lantern parade.

The Workshop takes place 9th September 11am-1pm at Picton Shire Hall, with more info here: https://www.illuminatewollondilly.com.au/

The River Road Team

We recently had our regular Term Catch up with all teachers, to discuss, share, and review how we improve River Road, including our lessons and programs.

It was also humbling to see where how far River Road has come with thew team including an eclectic mix of highly qualified, experienced and creative people passionate about teaching music!

Tahmoor Creative Youth Drop In Sessions - Tuesdays 7pm-8pm

We continue to create a safe, welcoming and relaxed space where young people can fearlessly express themselves in different creative ways. Where they can make some noise and create art without pressure on high performance so they enjoy the process of learning and be inspired to explore their own ideas.

See our most recent walkthrough of our Tuesday night sessions here: https://fb.watch/m7kN3pP_-U/

Bus almost done!!

The Creative Dilly Bus, a Mobile Creative Arts Facility continues to take shape with the Bargo Mens Shed back on the tools completing cabinetry required to house music and creative arts gear including recording equipment and mixing desk.

Watch this space as we have another Paint Day, and unboxing and fit our of music and arts gear for our youth to be the first to try it out!

You can continue to follow progress here: https://riverroad.edu.au/creativedillybus

Dilly choir, singing every Wednesdays 7pm!

The Dilly Choir continues to meet every Wednesday 7pm-8pm to sing an eclectic mis of music from a range of styles and genres, but the main focus is to have fun, learn to sing.

Community Grants!

We are excited to announce great news in us receiving grants from Wollondilly Shire Council to help us continue to delivery FREE community programs including the Dilly Choir on Wednesdays 7pm, The Wollondilly Mens Music Cave the last Sunday of each month

Term 4 Lessons

For those registered in individual lessons, we will soon begin to roll over all lessons of Term 3 into Term4, please reach out and let us know if any changes to your availability for Term 4 by emailing pat at services@riverroad.edu.au

We like feedback!

Feedback helps us understand what is happening in River Road, what is working, not working, issues that we may not be aware of, as well as great in hearing what you want or what we should be doing.

Please feel free to use the below link for a feedback form, where you can remain anonymous.

Feedback Form