Dear Festival friends,

First, I want to thank you for your continuous support and the incredible amount of enthusiasm and encouragement we receive daily via emails and phone calls. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

It is because of all the support we have received, that we have been able, all of us working as volunteers, to put this wonderful Festival together, that shall be so very unique and shall leave you with a very happy experience and wanting to know more about our Australia. 

The last few months have been very hard work for our team and as I myself am a true perfectionist, I wanted everything to be done perfect and without any flaw, securing that we deliver what we said we would. And we are!

The Australian Consulate in Atlanta, their Austrade staff and the Australian Embassy in Washington DC, have been of the most wonderful support and we want to thank them for all they mean to us. Every Broward County official organization is behind the festival as well and we know that without them, we would never have come this far in such a short time. Thank you thank you thank you!

The festival has now gone into its last 5 weeks and we are putting everywhere the dots on the i's..the Press Releases have gone out, the Business forum finalized, the last things are being secured for the festivals three days (if you knew what an organization this all is to get all in the right sequence of things), we are working with the City of Pembroke Pines to launch the *walk the streets* from Australia, and we have launched a Literary Club.......and of course we are doing everything with a Green heart: we try to print as little as possible (not to waste paper and if we do: all recycled paper and/or bamboo paper (very nice!), so we email most of our information.......At the festival we shall have recycle bins and we shall encourage everyone to take care of the Park and deposit the bottles and other things, in the bins provided.

People have asked me if I have still time to potter around in my garden or meditate. Yes, both those things I still do. I now combine them: I potter AND meditate. all at the same time. Did you know that being in your garden and taking care of what grows there, and be very careful not to hurt anything, including the leafs of plants and every little gritter in the yard, from worm to ant, in fact helps you relax very much? The world and nature is so beautiful and we can find everything IN this world, if we look for it..and respect it.

People also have asked if I still have time to play my grand piano: also on that I can say yes. Not so many hours, but still every day 15 minutes, I play whatever comes in my mind and hands, and have made this way untold new melodies, all of which shall go on new CD's, after the Festival.. making music also relaxes and it connects you with much greater things outside of you.

And I do go for walks at night with my husband (when he is home: he is traveling very much overseas) and try to get to the gym as often as possible, sneaking an hour in here and there.

And then people have asked how I came up with the idea to start the Festival: well, this answer is simple: last year I was a volunteer at the Australian Festival in Nashville and I loved it very much. When I heard that Peter Beare, the Festival Director, was going to call it quits after running the Festival for 10 years, I asked if I could take the festivals brilliant format to Florida, closer to where I was living......and so it happened: a new Australian Festival USA, Inc, was born with many new additions, events and with Broward County as its new home!. 

I would like to finish my coffee chat (great coffee in front of me at my desk:) with a little poem I wrote last week and I hope you like it..it is more for the children but still, it adds a bit of Aussie flavor to our upcoming Australian invasion of music, art, Indigenous culture and all the many, many other events we have ready for you to enjoy..we even have sheep herding!!:)

Till next chat and please keep on emailing me! I very much appreciate your support and love for us Aussies!

Yours Truly.

Brigitte