Samuel's Blog

Dickson College’s 30 Year Celebrations

November 21st, 2006 at 01:37pm

As Jey correctly guessed the other day, I attended Dickson College’s 30 year celebrations on Friday afternoon.

I must admit that I was a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing…between the fashion parade, the various musical acts scattered through the buildings, the even more scattered food and drink, and the display of memorabilia in the library, I just thought the whole thing seemed very scattered and disjointed.

In isolation, the individual events were good, some mildly deafening, but good none-the-less, and the highlight of the event was almost certainly the sheer number of people who turned up, and the sheer number of Department of Education officials who were there to witness support the college has.

In fact, I think that was the whole point…have enough people turn up and appear interested in the college to show the Stanhope government that Dickson shouldn’t be closed.

It was also good to catch up with a few people I haven’t seen for a while (including an ex-Dickson student who was one of my high school teachers), and even revisit the Majura Cafe (wonderful coffee and carrot cake…and no noticeable yell-a-thons!).

The speeches were quite clearly politically motivated, and I didn’t expect anything else, but I just got the impression that the whole event was less of a “remember the last 30 years” event, and more of a “Save Dickson College” event…I think a better balance could have been acheived with a larger emphasis on the last 30 years, which would have in turn emphasised the reasons for keeping Dickson open, just without the overtly noticeable grandstanding (selling “Save Dickson” t-shirts for example).

Admittedly I do think the event had an impact on the Department Officials…but I’m not in the least bit surprised that the media seemed completely uninterested in the event. I did notice an ABC News and Current Affairs car parked at the college, and I’m certain they were looking to cover a birthday celebration…and then gave up once they looked around for a little while.

I do think that the rumoured plan of closing Copland College and keeping Dickson open is the likely plan, and I think the event on Friday helped the “Save Dickson” cause…but it really didn’t feel like a birthday…perhaps that was just the general mood of the people intent on saving the college…but I do have to hope that if, as Dickson College Board Chair Sally Rose suggested in her speech, these birthday celebrations become a five-yearly occurence, the furture events are a tad more jubilant and “birthdayish”.

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Canberra Stories,Samuel's Editorials

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