The Marvellous Multicultural Extravaganza!

I'm currently heading up the 'activities committee' at church and we try our best to come up with a fun activity for the whole ward (congregation) to attend every three months. This time round we did a 'multicultural' night. Since most of our Ward wasn't born in Oz it was easy to find some families who'd share something on the night. Then we started thinking about decorations ...

One bright spark on the committee came up with the fantastic idea of having a massive world map so that people can stick a star on their birthplace as they arrive. We were all really enthused about it until we discovered that 'massive maps' aren't too easy to come by. In the end we made our own ... which since it had to be created, painted and somewhat geographically correct took a very, very long time (even with the youth pitching in for a night of painting!) Lyns and I spent a couple of days 'finishing it off' while our little monsters ran riot in the hall getting into all sorts of mischief!

Isobel instructs Jirhet on the more dangerous aspects of a power point!

Jirhet sampling Russia's paint!
Trying to stealthily slip away from the scene of the crime.
The night itself! With our completed map on stage (an attendee is helpfully sticking a star on to give some idea of scale!)
The Le'otas (one of our Tongan families) in their colourful matching costumes.
The Primary kids enthusiastically bellowed out some tunes to kick the night off!
It must be almost time to eat ...
Sure is!!

Chris Howard (without whom we could never have got our flags to stay up - thanks Chris!) helpfully serving people 'snags' from his Aussie corner!
Paul gets a snap of another little bit of Oz tucked away discreetly 'up the back' (Redback and all!).

The Origami table ... I thought I must have folded 1000 paper cranes for that backdrop - turned out only to be 120 though, so still one or two to go if I want to make a wish right?!
Shylee (our 3rd committee member)'s new little 'un. Connor's just three months old!
The French and Scottish information boards.
Biz Biz and I created the English board - we thought we should give the Brits some representation, couldn't find a pair of wellies anywhere though!
A very brave young lady dancing the Hula solo! Wow, could she shake those hips!!
A whole heap of other brave folk trying out some Bollywood dance moves!

This one's called 'removing the light globe'!
Shake those hips now!
Ra ra ra ... getting into the swing now - that is almost everyone getting into the 'swing'!
Isobel doing her Bollywood 'moves'!
Some enthusiastic Piñata bashing!
Shylee dives in to catch the pole as the kids scrum for the sweets!! There were no serious injuries!
I have to admit all the presentations were really fantastic (even tho we don't have pics of them all) and it was a great night! With loads of 'cultural' food and jiving fun (Isobel especially loved the 'jiving' and was still dancing at 10pm when she finally fell asleep!) ... just before pack up time the Samoan's finished off the night with their own special kind of jigging while the kids polished off their sweets!