where exactly do I start........

Monday, the Wigellina funeral, Mr. Dawson, Mr. Woods and Mr. Roberts ...... a huge and dreadfully sad event, family, friends and dignetaries. Mr. Dawson in particular attracted whitefellas who wanted to show respect for this wonderful and important old man. This was a very somber and respectful funeral with the odd mix of christian and traditional aboriginal sentiment.

I did speak to the art manager at Irrunytju while I was in Wingellina, he indicated he was not interested in the artists governance sessions or the Desart Review meeting. Not surprising I guess.

Tuesday, at last we held out AGM or should I say our two AGMs, one after the other. Nothing like a sorry camp to get the mob together. We elected our new office bearers and I live (perhaps falsely) in the hope that with Jimmy Donegan on the Desart Executive and now on the Papulankutja Artists executive, we may have some better engagement in management from the artists group.

All morning the groups of artists and managers arrived at Blackstone for the governance and professional development meetings. Maruku from Muti had arrived earlier and Peter took the opportunity of spending some alone time with that mob. No doubt the sorry camp for Mr. Jackson assisted with the numbers of artists who came, still it was wonderful to have such a diverse and interested group. Even without the managers from Warburton and Patjarr we have good representation from them as well as Mutitjulu, Amata, Kulka, Nyapari, Warakurna and of course Blackstone. Amanda from Nyapari went with Edwina from Warakurna and collected artists from Wingellina (Irrunytju) to participate as well. We were all thinking of the Desart meeting which would be held on Thursday. Amata and warakurna took the opportunity of meetings with Peter without the big group and Kathy from Maruku gave tremendous assistance with the interpreting.

Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday and Thursday mornings were filled with art business discussions, many of the artists had never been to such meetings before and it was good to see the the regulars talking up and helping the newcomers as needed. We had over 70 artists participating in the sessions.

Tim Acker from Aboriginal Economic Development came on the monday and he, Edwina and myslef finalized some of the arrangements for the Western Desert Mob launch and timing for the filming with the PR mob for TV.

Peter our Governance man brought his sidekick Iain for the experience of our training sessions and Iain with Brian from Nyapari was a great help with the BBQ lunches for the mob. Thank god for that as it was exreemly hot and I was not looking forward to the task myself.

bugger!!!!!! have just lost all the reporting on the Desart meeting. Will refocus, the energy is gone for now ... will continue this a bit later.