| The rich tapestry of my week was further coloured by discussion with Parramatta City Council about their new tertiary educational alliance concept, the dialogue about our options for embedding the SRI into the Armidale CBD with other business partners and progress with our discussions around the future of the UNE Heritage and Archives Centre. A visit to NERAM to explore the ‘Summer School’ exhibition which we are co-sponsoring was another very pleasant and rewarding experience.
Coffee in the courtyard with staff has proved to be a successful event; UNE staff coming together under a collegial banner to share ‘survival’ stories, reflect on a year well done, and celebrate warmly and sincerely the contributions of those staff who are moving on.
My days in Sydney this week were enlivened by the manic effort being expended to build the 2021 Christmas installations, synthetic floral trees decorated with seasonally appropriate animal motifs frolicking in a snowy wonderland; if nothing else, an interesting homage to recycled plastic. The surrounding garden planters of summer herbs was both fragrant and calming (I hope that was the intention – a homeopathic salve for shopping anxiety perhaps). My take home reflection was to note a small measure of seasonal schizophrenia as I adsorbed the clash of the winter fest and summer blooms. |
