Belmont Music Centre

I haven't posted anything here for ages; I've been super-busy.

What's kept me busy over summer is Belmont Music Centre, and I'm only now just starting to feel that the crazy treadmill is slowing down slightly.

So, the initial problem was that the previous manager at BMC left suddenly midway though last year.  I wrote about it here back in September.

We survived 'til the end of the year, and finished off with an awesome 50th anniversary concert celebration.

But then in mid-December we had a decision to make.

No one else had stepped forward to take charge of running the Music Centre.  No one else wanted to be over-worked and under-paid, doing the boring, behind-the-scenes un-sexy work that is needed to keep things going.

In the end it was either me take over as manager for the 2020 year (with Gugu also doing heaps as the volunteer committee chairperson) or close the Centre down.

Reluctantly, I agreed to do the manager duties.  (Coz, yeah, homeschoolers don't do much all day, do they!)

And then the runaway treadmill started.

I didn't get much of a summer holiday; Music Centre took over the life of all of us in the family.  Most days I spent several hours on the computer on various Music Centre duties.  Amongst other things, over the past two months I sent over 750 Music Centre emails.

Mulan and Miya got involved, too, helping organise student enrolments and class timetables.

The end result is that we have increased student numbers by about 50%, and enrolments have doubled.  Music instrument hires have tripled.  We are now turning students away because most classes are full and we have no more funding to open any more classes.

We also discovered years of management neglect in pretty much every area.  In the past few years almost every volunteer helper had resigned without replacement, meaning we had no other experienced voices around.  There was a record-keeping nightmare, with scattered boxes of dated papers as well as gaping holes in more recent activities.  When people resigned they left no notes of their duties to guide their replacements.  Basically, we had to reinvent the wheel every step of the way.

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For those interested, here's how the funding works:

Belmont Music Centre is a non-profit that is partly funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Education.  The MoE has currently allocated to BMC 1190 paid teaching hours per year -- the BMC manager (me) allocates those hours to teachers, and the MoE pays those teachers directly.  (The teacher pay rates are set by the MoE, not the Music Centre.)

In addition to this, BMC uses the Belmont Intermediate School classrooms on a Saturday morning, and BIS signs up the BMC manager; I understand BIS is paid directly by the MoE for this.

The BMC manager (me) is also paid by the MoE.  MoE has decided that I get 398 paid hours per year, at approximately $30 per hour.

In reality, I have already put in over 400 hours during summer, and I expect there'll be at least another 400 hours throughout the rest of the year.

Anyone want a job that pays less than $15 an hour??!

(Mama used to do this sort of job back in China, when she was HOD of a language teaching university department with several hundred students.  According to Mama, what I did on my own was a three-person job.  Thanks NZ MoE!!)

For the various other BMC expenses -- accountant, insurance, instrument upkeep, music resources, etc, etc -- we charge the students a small amount.  This year we are asking $150 per class per year.  Students may also hire instruments at $50 per year.

Everything else is done by volunteers.

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In other words, BMC exists as part of the New Zealand taxpayer-funded education system to give an opportunity to local children to learn music at a level of quality that schools are unable to provide.

It's a really awesome service, and I fully support it.

But also quite clearly, the Music Centre is hugely underfunded.  MoE needs to re-think this.

At present, the Music Centre can only continue to run if many volunteers step in and offer their time and knowledge.  (And the Music Centre definitely doesn't work if people treat it as a right, with no other obligation to help out.)

Most people at BMC have been great.  And some people have been truly awesome!  But sadly there is still the small percentage of selfish people, who waste so much time with their back-and-forth thoughtless niggles.  Chasing up freeloaders and dealing with those who have an over-inflated sense of their own importance is not fun.

I'm exhausted.  I can't keep putting in the time and energy to BMC that I've been doing.  My health is suffering and my family needs me (Mulan would be starting secondary school this year, and I need to focus on organising her learning.)

Since most of the work for the teaching year is now done (hopefully!), I plan to continue as BMC manager until December.

But after that I plan to step back and merely be an unpaid volunteer assistant.

We've put the word out that BMC needs a new manager in 2021.  Anyone interested should come and volunteer this year, to get to know the system before taking over.

Sunday outing

Yesterday was Sunday, so we went to church.

I mean, we went to the zoo.

I mentioned earlier that we got a one year zoo pass, so we used that again -- it's our third visit so far.

Laolao came with us, too.  She's visiting us from China for the summer.

We saw the baby zebra,

listened to several zoo talks, and generally had a pleasant, relaxing day.

'Tis the season

My new favourite Christmas song is here.

Athletics

I still haven't got around to writing about the ballet show, as promised.  But anyway ...

On Saturday we were at Mt Smart Stadium for the Auckland Athletics Relay Champs.  Mulan was in the Takapuna Club Grade 12 girls team.

This was the first time ever that Mulan had competed in an athletics interclub competition.  (Miya competed last year in the North-West-Central Auckland zone day.)

The girls came third in both the 4x100m and 4x200m, and were awarded bronze medals.  They also competed in the field events relay, where Mulan did the long jump (one girl did shot put and another did discus).

The organisers really don't make it easy for the competitors.  The long jumpers are only allowed one run-through practice before attempting only two competition jumps. (In a normal competition jumpers would have a few practice jumps, and at least three competition jumps.)  Understandably no one is at their best and it means that luck plays a huge part in who is able to hit the board well in one or other of their jumps.  Too many field eventers got two no-throws/jumps.

I really hope that Auckland Athletics organisers consider changing this.  It seems that their motivation is to hurry everything through and finish at lunchtime.  In my opinion it would make for a more genuine competition if they stayed there a bit longer and allowed the children a fair attempt at their best.

Mulan's first jump was well behind the board, and while her second jump was on the board it was off her wrong foot.  At 3.94m, the second jump was her best on the day, though still far from what she can do (in practice she has done around 4.50m).  Nonetheless the other competitors were all in the same boat and Mulan came 4th out of 8.

Combined with the other two Takapuna girls this was good enough to get them another bronze medal.

Congratulations Mulan and the other Takapuna Grade 12 girls!  Awesome effort from all of you!!

The funny thing was that due to a quirk in the points system, had Mulan jumped a bit further in the long jump they would not have got a medal -- they would have been given 4th place.

This was the points table:

So, if Mulan had have got 2nd in the long jump (jumping between 4.00m and 4.21m) then she would have got 8 points (giving Takapuna 18 points) and Waitakere would have got 7 points (giving them 19 points).  So, Papatoetoe would have got 2nd (20 points), Waitakere 3rd (19 points) and Takapuna 4th (18 points).

When I showed this to Mulan she was delighted by her strategically perfect jump!

End-of-year music concert

We had a busy weekend.

First up on Saturday morning Belmont Music Centre (BMC) had its end-of-year concert.

We were up bright and early for that, arriving soon after 8am to unlock and help set up before the concert started at 10am.

(I wrote previously about how we've recently got more involved at BMC.  With still no manager as yet, my Big Sis has been helping out by doing the essential manager-duties to keep the Centre from closing.  I've been there when needed as her assistant.)

A few dozen BMC students (and most of the teachers) performed in various ensembles and bands during the concert, which lasted an hour and three quarters.  They all did an amazing job, and we were thoroughly entertained throughout.

The concert also doubled as a 50th anniversary birthday party for BMC, which first opened its doors in 1969.  Apparently, BMC started when the headmasters of three local schools -- Belmont Intermediate, Belmont Primary and Bayswater Primary -- got together and set things in motion for a Saturday morning Ministry of Education-(partly-)funded music centre.

The schools' opinion was that the local children's music education would best be developed by the schools joining forces and recruiting specialist expert music teachers to teach their children out of school hours.  Lesson fees were to be kept as low as possible to reach as many families as possible, with volunteers donating their time to help the kids.  A committee was formed, and teachers and a supervisor (now manager) hired.  The rest, as they say, is history.

It was all a bit like a Dr Who special, with previous supervisors and managers attending as VIP guests.  It was inspiring to meet BMC's first supervisor Oonah Caldwell.  Betty Dance, the supervisor when I was a student there in the mid-80s, also attended.

Mulan and Miya were also kept busy.  Before the concert, in between band warm-ups, they joined in with several other children to set up the decorations.

They were also active participants in the concert:

• Mulan and Miya played recorder together as a duet (and trio with their teacher).
• Mulan played flute in the wind ensemble (with one other student and their teacher).
• Mulan played cello while Miya played violin in the string ensemble.

Immediately after the string ensemble finished playing the final piece of the concert we had to pack and go, driving straight to the girls' end-of-year ballet show (we arrived at the ballet theatre less that 30 minutes before the dress rehearsal started -- we'd warned their ballet teacher in advance that they'd be a bit late!).

Unfortunately this meant that we missed the BMC prize-giving and party.  Both Mulan and Miya were awarded prizes in absentia.  Mulan, who will be too old to re-enrol next year, was one of a few students who were awarded medals for senior excellence.

(I'll write about the ballet show when I get time later.)

Book review: The dog who could fly

Usually I'm the one who passes books to Mulan and Miya as reading suggestions.

This time it was the other way around.

Lately, Mulan and Miya have got interested in fighter planes -- especially those of the First and Second World Wars, and they have been getting fighter plane books out of the library.

One book they learnt about was Damien Lewis' The Dog Who Could Fly, a true story about a dog who flew bombing runs during the Second World War.  After they finished it the girls passed the book on to me and said I had to read it.  So I did.

It was an excellent choice.

Lewis wrote a direct, easily readable, child-friendly account of Robert Bozdech, a Czech airman who escaped via France to Britain during the war.  Flying for the French Air Force, Bozdech was shot down in no man's land, where he found a puppy in an abandoned farmhouse.  He tucked the puppy inside his jacket and crawled to safety.  From that time on Bozdech and Antis the German shepherd were inseparable.  When Germany overran France, they escaped to Britain, where Bozdech again flew bombing raids against Germany.

For many of the bombing runs, Antis flew with Bozdech, usually sleeping calmly at his feet.  A dog-sized oxygen mask was made for Antis, for when the unpressurised planes flew at higher altitudes.

Antis was injured on several occasions, but survived the war as beloved camp mascot and hero wardog.

It is a beautiful story of mutual loyalty between man and dog, and I highly recommend it.

My only complaint is that the narrative is a little too one-sided patriotic.  We can surely all agree that Second World War German command was evil and the German population was far too compliant in following and actioning the evil.  Nonetheless, the German people were still real people with real feelings.  They were not mere objects to be blown up and eliminated.  Too often, Bozdech came across as too single-minded in his determination to take revenge and kill as many German people as he could.  In keeping the storytelling simple, Lewis' writing style created a simplistic narrative which dehumanised the many people who Bozdech killed.

Sadly, for a book which was readable for Miya-aged children, I felt the book glorified war a little too much, with heroic goodies and impersonal baddies.  I think a better book would have been one that worked a little harder to emphasise the tragedy of war and acknowledge the shared humanity with those who happened to have been born on the other side of the border and consequently were drafted to fly the opposition aircraft.

Book review: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

I'd had Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie sitting in my bookshelf for a few years, after picking it up cheap at a book fair.  I'd heard of it as a worthy story, and thought it might be similar to the excellent movie Dead Poets Society (which the girls and I watched a few weeks ago).

Sad to say, Jean Brodie was a disappointment.  I wouldn't recommend it.  (Although I read that it is listed on the BBCs 100 most influential novels, for class and society.)

The story is set in a girls school in 1930s Edinburgh.  Just like Dead Poets, it's about an influential teacher (Miss Jean Brodie) whose personality inspires a small group of students to stand out and be different from the rest of the conservative school.

But unlike Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets, Miss Brodie is, at least in my opinion, right from the outset unappealing in pretty much every way.  She's an unprofessional bad teacher with wrong and ignorant ideas who arrogantly thinks she is right.  Her teaching colleagues mostly don't think much of her, and it seems that it's only a small (but strong) group of her students who are inspired by her to the extent that they are known throughout the school as the "Brodie set."  Presumably, her dozens of other students didn't find her inspiring.

Having an unlikable main character makes it hard, but not impossible, to be drawn into a story.  If the characters are psychologically deep and interesting, then a character-based story can still be engrossing.  But in the case of Jean Brodie, all the characters were presented superficially, as stereotypes with one-line descriptions, and throughout the story never rose much above that.

The back cover of the book informs us that "for comic observation and spicy dialogue it is impossible to outclass Muriel Spark."  I disagree.  Unless the comic observation was intended as bone dry and intensely self-depreciating, what social observations I saw were superficial.  As for the spicy dialogue, as far as I could see this mostly amounted to attention-grabbing out-of-place immature sexual references.  It was as if the author was trying to grab the reader's attention with light smuttiness.

The plot of the story jumped around oddly, with tension dissolved too early when it deserved to be built.  What I thought to be the two big mysteries of the story -- who betrayed Miss Jean Brodie and why Rose was famous for sex -- were explained early and cheaply.

At 128 pages it's a short story, and easy to read in a few hours.  So at least time-wise it's not a big investment in reading.  But I won't bother keeping our copy, and I won't bother offering it to Mulan to read.