The floods in western and south western Queensland have had an incredibly devastating impact on families, on the land and on livestock. Homes have been inundated with water, the sanctuary of the house yard and outbuildings completely ravaged by torrents of water.
We cannot imagine what this would be like to live through. I don’t want this to be a token paragraph on a page and yet, that’s all it is really. We are farmers, we know the destruction that can be wreaked by nature on our businesses, floods, droughts, cyclonic storms… all we can do is send our love and thoughts to our affected Queensland families and our hope for them that recovery is swift.
Can you believe we are 21 this year? 21 years of bringing boarding schools together under one roof. In 2005 Meg Bennett began with one event in Dubbo, NSW and hosted 15 schools from right across the state.
Our mission remains, to ensure that rural, remote and regional families have access to information, choice and opportunities when it comes to educating their children. And that they can access that information face to face closer to where they call home.
These are the things we’re proud of:
- 15,000 children have walked through our doors to meet their future boarding school
- 65 live face to face events for families in NSW, Victoria, ACT and Queensland over the past 20 years (excluding Covid years + extreme drought seasons)
- 3 virtual events
- 3 Australian Boarding Schools Summits – an event for families to stream on demand from wherever they call home
- 70 + episodes of Destination Boarding the podcast – a behind the scenes look at our boarding school communities including boarders themselves, past boarders, families, schools and experts in the field
- our partnership with the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association (ICPA) – we sponsor their conferences and we bring them along to all of our events to meet families alongside us, and ‘we are ICPA’ ourselves (I have been a member of Central West Plains Branch in NSW for decades)
We are proud that we bring Australian boarding schools together, under one roof and for one purpose – to talk to you about your child’s boarding school opportunities. No distractions. Just boarding schools there to meet you.
We are proud that we make it easier for rural, regional and remote families to meet schools face to face just a bit closer to where they call home. No tackling traffic, no mammoth drives, no accommodation costs. In your comfort zone, nearer to your home town and up to 45 schools for you to meet.
We are proud that we don’t just drop the families off at the school gate! We continue to share resources with families as they troop through the boarding school years and our conversations on Destination Boarding along with our blogs are testament to that.
We are celebrating our 21st birthday by hosting LIVE Q&A sessions at many of our Expo events this year, kicking off with Emerald on 1-2 May. We’re welcoming back Angie Nisbet, the engaging host of Married to the Land podcast and 5th generation cattle farmer from Hughenden in north west Queensland. She will be chatting with boarder Mums, past and present, Wendy Henning the Queensland President of ICPA and Nikki Boswell from Dolly’s Dream about their new program supporting SODE kids transitioning to boarding school.
It’s going to be a great couple of days in Emerald. Help us spread the word and share this with your friends up in that region.
Until next month …. this one’s very late so you might hear from me a bit sooner (goodness is anyone else tripping over themselves in the muddle to keep up 🤪)
21 SCHOOLS COMING TO EMERALD, QLD
Join us for our first ever Expo in Emerald
It’s our 21st birthday this year and what better way to celebrate than by establishing a brand new event for our Queensland families. 21 boarding schools for 21 years! From all over Queensland and even one from northern NSW.
We’re hosting a Live Q&A discussion on all things boarding with Angie Nisbet, a Queensland wonder woman and 5th generation cattle farmer from Hughenden. Oh and she has a super popular podcast too! Married to the Land.
CATCH UP WITH DESTINATION BOARDING
Our latest episode up now
Our latest episode discusses the benefits of small boarding houses with Noni Ayling from Wenona in Sydney. This was one of the topics of our 2024 Australian Boarding Schools Summit and we decided to dive deeper with some podcast chats on big v small boarding cohorts.
HELP DOLLY’S DREAM TO HELP YOUR BOARDERS – A QUICK SURVEY
Another meaningful initiative from the team at Dolly’s Dream
For many kids the transition to boarding school can be incredibly challenging. We know this, so naturally it didn’t take much for Dolly’s Dream to convince us to share this survey with our readers. This survey is designed to help them inform the development of a Distance Education to Boarding School transition program. Whether your kids transitioned from DE, small schools or bigger schools we’re sure you can support this initiative by offering your responses. 🙏
Here are the things we’re loving right now…
LOVED THIS EPISODE OF MARRIED TO THE LAND
Angie’s Episode with Steph Trethewey is worth a listen
I have done a lot of driving these past couple of weeks as I’ve been travelling to ICPA State conferences in NSW and SA. Great opportunity to catch up on podcast episodes (my daily walks have been killed off by dark daylight savings mornings 🥴). Anyway back to the recco’ – this episode of Married to the Land pod. I loved it. Steph is the founder of Motherland, I’ll leave you to look that up. Anyway a great listen if you have some time and you don’t live in NSW where it’s pitch black at 7am.
THIS IS US… THE FERRARI FAMILY
Our feature in Graziher Magazine this month
We love Graziher magazine. It showcases rural Australia perfectly and we’re really proud to have a relationship in promoting our events with them. This edition we’re on the back cover with a feature story on my family and home here at Trangie on the western plains of NSW.
Trangie punches above it’s weight for a small town – home to Lottie Rae (the artist), Claire Austin (Gin Gin Garden Club) and just down the road is Kirsty Wiggins (Dumble Collective and my recent pod guest). If you subscribe for 2 or 3 years you’ll get an Antola Trading work shirt FOR FREE. Woo hoo!
Have you finished your boarding school journey ? Share our news…. tell your friends and family who might be on their way. Our website provides almost 20 years of resources and experience to families and students considering their options and beginning their days at boarding school.
Share