Blueskies_08-30

Jeff Green | Jul 31, 2008

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As the Blue Skies Music Festival is getting ready to go, the Arts Day Camp with the same name is just wrapping up. During the week of July 21-25th the festival site in Clarendon played host to the 7th annual Blue Skies Arts Day Camp. It was another rousing success.

A bus, leaving from the Sharbot Lake brought campers to the site everyday to enjoy singing, games, fun and a variety of arts workshops run by local professional artists. This year’s camp offered 5 different workshops. The

campers chose 3 of the workshops which they attended all week. Some of the workshops offered this year included Instrument Making with local artist Pete Bunnett. Each camper who took his workshop walked away from camp with their own, hand crafted wooden marimba. Camp was also pleased to welcome Svetlana Timtsenko, owner and instructor of the Perth School of Dance. Among the instructors were also some favorites from last year, Sheesham and Lotus from Kingston, who gave a workshop in body percussion and also a concert at the Oso township hall on Wednesday evening.

Blue Skies Arts Day Camp is run by Blue Skies in the Community, a charitable organization whose mandate is spread the spirit of the Blue Skies Music Festival into the community throughout the year by fostering and supporting music, musicians and the arts in our local area. This year camp was made more accessible through several partial bursaries offered to local children. This year, twenty percent of our campers were supported by anonymouss donations facilitated by Blue Skies in the Community.

Camp was also thrilled to offer a change for even greater integration in our community by inviting some children with special needs this year. This chance for integration was not only rich in learning for our special invites but also for the rest of the children who attended camp. One camper, specifically, commented on how fun they were and how nice it was tohave them sharing our week.

And as a final mark of success, at the end of the week when the campers were asked if they wanted to return next year, one hundred percent said yes. If you would like to get on the mailing list for next year ’s camp or support a local child in your area with a partial bursary please contact Julia Hale at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..