QPA Queenwood Parents’ Association

This section of the QNews is for our Parents’ Association who work tirelessly to facilitate and strengthen the parents’ partnership with the School. Your energy and goodwill is vital in building a school in which your daughters can flourish.

In the following pages we recognise the contribution parents make in organising social events, welcoming new families into our community, providing practical services like second-hand uniform sales; raising funds for equipment and programs, offering assistance for school events, and providing us with a useful sounding board.

In this issue, we wish to express our gratitude to the patience and support of our parents during an extended period of remote learning prompted by the spread of COVID-19.

If you would like to be involved in the QPA, please get in touch via email presidentqpa@gmail.com.

Mrs Sylvia MacCormick approached Miss Medway in 1970 with the idea of providing satisfying, healthy lunches for girls on campus. The canteen opened in 1971 with Canteen Mums volunteering their time. In 1972 the success of the canteen allowed the Canteen Mums to donate $1,000 to the purchase of colour video-tape, walkie-talkies, and an overhead projector.

It was also Queenwood parents who paved the way for the uniform shop. Following the success of the Clothing Pool in 1988, Catriona MorganHunn, Michelle Mitchell, Neryl O’Neill, Pam Campbell, and Judy Jonathon began to work towards the goal of a ‘one-stop’ Uniform Shop in 1993. That same year the Uniform Shop was able to contribute $25,000 to the Queenwood Association Funds to purchase Junior School computers. The willingness of Queenwood parents to involve themselves in their children’s school led to the formation of The Queenwood Association Incorporated, The Parents’ Association of Queenwood. Formed in 1989 the QPA has thrived through the support of Queenwood families. The QPA works to facilitate parent socialisation, gift equipment and materials to the School, alongside continuous support and donations – fund-raising and friend-raising. •

Are you a numbers, words or pictures person? Which of these puzzles do you find easiest to solve?

Jokes

Chess

We celebrated Father’s Day with these Dad Jokes:

1: What did one wall say to the other?

2: Why do fathers take an extra pair of socks when they go golfing?

3: Why did the scarecrow win an award?

4: What did Baby Corn say to Mama Corn?

5: How do you get a squirrel to like you?

Thank you to Year 11 student, Kate Snashall, for providing these jokes. Kate was the 2021 U16 State Finalist in the Melbourne Comedy Festival Class Clowns competition.

See if you can beat our student chess champ, Chelsea Huey, with a check mate in one move. White to move.

Crossword

We’ve learnt all sort of new words overhearing what languages our students speak at home with their families.

Across

3 How do you say baby in Swedish?

5. How do you say your place of birth in Yolngu (the language of the mob in northeast Arnhem Land)?

6. How do you say parents in Hungarian?

8. How do you say family in French?

9. How do you say grandmother in German?

11. How do you say family in Gaelic?

12. How do you say father in Spanish?

14. How do you say brother in Slovak?

1. How do you say child in Samoan?

2. How do you say dog in Portuguese (feminine)?

4. How do you say sibling in Latvian?

5. How do you say Grandfather in Polish?

6. How do you say sister in Croatian?

7. How do you say cat in Finnish?

10. How do you say mother in Italian?

13. How do you say home in Slovenian?

What we’re reading

We asked our staff what was on their nightstand during lockdown...

Animal

by Lisa Taddeo

Animal is a depiction of female rage at its rawest, and a visceral exploration of the fallout from a maledominated society. With writing that scorches and mesmerizes, Taddeo illustrates one woman’s exhilarating transformation from prey into predator.

World Without End

by Ken Follett

World Without End takes place in Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. This time the extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroads of new ideas – about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race – the Black Death.

The Ruby in the Smoke

by Philip Pullman

When Sally’s dear father is drowned in suspicious circumstances in the South China Sea, she is left to fend for herself, an orphan and alone in the smoky fog of Victorian London. Though she doesn’t know it, Sally is already in terrible danger. Soon the mystery and the danger will deepen - and at the rotten heart of it all lies the deadly secret of the ruby in the smoke...

Tidelands

by Phillipa Gregory

Philippa Gregory begins a sweeping new series with the story of a poor, uneducated midwife named Alinor who is tempted by a forbidden love affair –but all too aware of the dangers awaiting a woman who dares to step out of the place society carved for her.

Conversations With Friends – A Novel

by Sally Rooney

A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple. Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth.

See What You Made Me Do

by Jess Hill

In this confronting and deeply researched account, journalist Jess Hill uncovers the ways in which abusers exert control in the darkest –and most intimate – ways imaginable. She asks: What do we know about perpetrators? Why is it so hard to leave? What does successful intervention look like? Combining exhaustive research with riveting storytelling, See What You Made Me Do dismantles the flawed logic of victimblaming and challenges everything you thought you knew about domestic and family violence.

All Our Shimmering Skies

by Trent Dalton

All Our Shimmering Skies is a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves. It is an odyssey of true love and grave danger, of darkness and light, of bones and blue skies; a buoyant, beautiful and magical novel abrim with warmth, wit and wonder; and a love letter to Australia and the art of looking up.

The Namesake

by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves.