This year our focus is indigenous history, education & policy, thus the title, Koorie Konnexions. To this end we have invited Anouk Ride , author of a non-fiction work, titled, The Grand Experiment about the first indigenous children to be taken and educated overseas in the 1840s. Anouk is a trained journalist, has written feature articles for newspapers and magazines in Australia , Britain , Europe and the USA where she has lived and worked. Her bio & book review from The Australian are attached. Diane De Vere was principal of Papunya School in Alice Springs for 9 years and achieved the award-winning book The Papunya School Book of Country and History. It reflects the multiliterary, culturally inclusive mapping strategy that Diane espouses and which has become a mode l for Koorie education. Diane will be accompanied by Michael Mifsud assisting her with the presentation, as attached. Bruce Pascoe , is familiar to you now, having MC'ed and read at our events over the years. He will MC this event and discuss his newly published work Convincing Ground. As a descendant of the Bunurong people, Bruce is a most relevant MC for the event. Having secured these 3 writers the appearance of Heather Le Griffon seemed so important. Heather's Campfires at the Cross is an account of the Bunting Dale Aboriginal Mission at Birregurra, near Colac in 1838 – 1851. Heather's account gives Anouk's work local significance as both events happened in the same time.

The format of the afternoon will be, as in the past, each writer, in 30 minutes, will present their work informally with discussion of background, aims and feelings about their writing. Questions are also asked and discussion traditionally ensues. So the afternoon readings always doubles as a workshop.

Anouk Ride
Anouk Ride is the author of non-fiction work, titled, The Grand Experiment about the first indigenous children to be taken and educated overseas in the 1840s. The plan was to convert them, train them as monks and have them preach Catholicism to their own people. In 1996, Anouk first saw a simple sketch of 2 unsmiling Aboriginal boys dressed in sombre monks' robes. It unsettled her for years. Who were they? And why was their picture, sketched in the mid-1800s, still on display 150 years later at the New Norcia monastery in Western Australia? For the next decade these questions pursued her halfway across the world as bit by bit she excavated the remarkable story behind the sketch. As Ride writes, the drawing "changed my life ... I knew that this image had an untold significance for Australian history, and somehow for myself” Anouk is a trained journalist, has written feature articles for newspapers and magazines in Australia, Britain, Europe and the USA where she has lived and worked.

Diane De Vere
Diane de Vere was principal of Papunya School in Alice Springs for 9 years and achieved the award-winning book The Papunya School Book of Country and History. It reflects the multiliterary, culturally inclusive mapping strategy that Diane espouses and which has become a mode l for Koorie education. Michael Mifsud will accompany Diane, assisting her with the presentation - Hear with your ears and see with your eyes- there's a story to tell. Diane has worked at the cutting edge of education reform & Indigenous education for over 30 years . In the last 16 years, she's worked in a diverse range of settings, at the interface of government & community politics, confronting the complex issues surrounding Indigenous education across Australia . Michael Mifsud, currently teaches English as a Second Language & Indigenous Studies to migrant & refugee children, youth & adults. He has been inspired by the mapping strategy's power to bridge cultural gaps, its potential as an inclusive mode of communication & as an organizational tool in both education & community-based cultural partnership projects. Diane & Michael have worked together for the past 2 years designing, refining & developing these mapping tools & strategies with the primary purpose of re-engaging disadvantaged youth, through a process of multidisciplinary story telling. They will present & model a collage of examples of personal & community stories, which use this way of mapping to create tapestries of learning, sharing, enlightenment & liberation.

Bruce Pascoe
Bruce Pascoe 's Convincing Ground is a seminal new book from the perspective of an Aboriginal Australian. It challenges all Australians to embrace a new kind of Australian identity & nationalism. Pascoe particularly focuses on the history of Victoria 's Kulin Nation. Far from the settler glory contained in our history books, the reality of first contact was bleak, violent and turbulent. Pascoe draws parallels to the techniques and language used on the national political stage today. He also takes a look at the Australian character and legacy through football, literature and immigration. He knows we can't reverse the past, but believes we can avoid deluding ourselves. He proposes a way forward, beyond shady intellectual argument and immature nationalism, with our strengths enhanced and our weaknesses acknowledged and addressed. Convincing Ground is a powerful book about memory, dispossession and community which challenges all Australians to question our identity as a nation, to question those who speak in our name, and to question history. Bruce Pascoe is a widely published and award-winning writer, editor and anthologist of Bunurong and Cornish heritage whose books include the award-winning Shark and Earth . With Lyn Harwood, he edited and published Australian Short Stories for sixteen years. Bruce lives at Gipsy Point on the Victorian coast where he has just compiled a dictionary of the Wathaurong language .

Heather Le Griffon
Heather Le Griffon's Campfires at the Cross is an account of the Bunting Dale Aboriginal Mission at Birregurra, near Colac 1838 – 1851. Victoria was not yet a state in its own right, but remained part of N.S.W. The English missionaries Hurst, Tuckfield and Orton recorded valuable eye-witness historical drama as Europeans entered the estates of Aboriginal Australians who had held them for 40,000 years. The Colonial Government in Sydney operated as an equal partner with the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in England to select, finance and maintain the Mission . Important decisions made in London or Sydney regarding the problems of racial conflict, frontier expansion and regulation were confounded by cumbersome communication and sparse personnel. Months of delay ensured that crises were never properly addressed. The missionaries fought their battles for justice and equality before the law, together with a passionate plea for Aboriginal land rights. They were interpreters for the Aborigines in Court cases where the missionaries witnessed first hand the racism, injustice and ineptitude of the British legal system to fulfil the noble promises of British citizenship. The Colonial world was a small one. Many of the well-known figures of the era such as Superintendent Charles La Trobe, John Batman, William Buckley, Dr Alexander Thompson, Captain Foster Fyans, Aboriginal Protectors Robinson and Sievewright & Dr. J.D. Lang all feature in the story.  Most of them visited Bunting Dale to view the Great Experiment. Heather Le Griffon has lived and worked as a secondary school teacher near Bunting Dale.  The lack of an accessible, reliable account of the Mission prompted her to write one.  She set out to write a local tale but soon discovered its national and international breadth and importance.  Initially launched in Colac in 2006 by Dr. Jan Critchett with a November Release at Narana in Geelong with Dr. Richard Broome as the key-note speaker, the book has entered it fourth printing.