Czech and Slovak Newsletter - February 2011

Dear friend,

The Czech and Slovak Night

What a night! Kransky and goulash cooked over campfire, beer on tap, camping at Sumava, but most of all, people made the fourth Czech and Slovak Night a huge success. With almost 90 paying attendees we reached well over 100 visitors altogether, some of them from as far as Warrnambool and Malesice. Heaps of pictures from the night have been uploaded to Facebook already, here's a few more on the VodaFest website, taken by the photographer Juraj Polak: http://vodafest.org/gallery/czech-and-slovak-night-sumava

A massive thanks goes out to the Sumava caretakers for maintaining such a great place for Czechs and Slovaks in Victoria, the guys from Koliba for the beer, the cooks for the tasty goulash, the girls for keeping the kids busy and the musicians for the great entertainment. Everybody who showed up and had a good time, thank you and see you again!

None of us had even dreamed that so many people would show up. While we were not expecting any profit whatsoever, not only we managed to break even, but thanks to you, $600 was raised and donated to Sumava. We will keep you updated on how the money is being spent to improve and develop Sumava for the benefit of the communities.

This was a first time we held the Czech and Slovak Night outdoors and we need to know what you think. If you have anything to say regarding the planning, parking, fees, food, the overnight stay or anything else, please, use our Anonymous Feedback form at http://bit.ly/fPi4TZ

Cechomor in Australia

After Petr Janda and Lucnica last year, there's more Czech and Slovak culture heading our way soon. Cechomor, a Czech traditional music band playing Czech and Moravian songs in rock arrangements, are on their Australian tour in March:

• 11/03 Sydney
• 15/03 Adelaide
• 19/03 Melbourne
• 26/03 Brisbane
• 01/04 Launceston

This will be their first time in Australia, so everybody book a ticket now and make sure they feel welcome here and we all have a good time. For more information on the Czechomor Australian Tour, visit http://www.czechomor-australian-tour.com

The 2012 Slovaks in Australia calendar

While marching on Australia Day, the participants in the People's March came up with the idea of putting together a Slovak folklore costumes calendar with our girls and boys posing in the streets of Melbourne. Mrs Vanova, Mrs Jancarova and the Slovak Social Club "Ludovit Stur" who make and collect the costumes are going to provide us with them for a few days and the photographer Juraj Polak offered to shoot the pictures. We'll keep you updated once the pictures are available for preview and the calendar itself ready for you to buy.

Unfortunately, there's only so many months in a year, so we apologize to all of you who also would like to have a picture of yourself or your kids in the calendar. The Czech version is to follow soon, paid from the Slovak version's sale. If everything goes well this year, there are going to be two issues a year from now on and everybody will get a chance to have a cool picture shot in a traditional Czech or Slovak costume.

Sokol Melbourne website down

As you may have noticed, the website of Sokol Melbourne and the national house of Czechs and Slovaks, http://www.sokolmelbourne.com.au was down for a part of February. Not only it is one of the oldest websites of Czechs and Slovaks in Australia, it is also an invaluable source of information on the history and present of both communities in Victoria. Complete archive of Kvart Sokolsky List is available on the website, too.

It would be a shame if it stayed offline and the work is currently underway to migrate the website to the server where the VodaFest website resides. While we do not expect further outages, we apologize for the past ones and hope to hear from you in case you experience any problems with the website again.

Plea for help

Julie, an Australian lady with a Czech friend coming over for a visit in October, contacted us a few weeks back, asking for help. If you think you could dedicate a couple of hours to help out fellow countrymen in Australia, please, let us know and we'll get you in touch with Julie. Thank you!

"My friend's name is Vera and she is 56 years old. Vera will be staying with her cousin in South Yarra for a week and will then fly to Sydney for another week.

Her father and her uncle were separated for 50 years and were reunited only 15 years ago. One brother fled and the other stayed. The Australian brother recently died and Vera wants to come to Australia to meet her extended family. She has cousins in Melbourne and New South Wales. Vera lives in Brno.

We are all very excited and eagerly awaiting her arrival but we are communicating through a computer translator which is not ideal. I worry about her when she arrives and she is worried about her lack of English. She is doing a short course for what it's worth.

I just thought it would be nice if there was a Czech 'association' or someone who could be on the end of the phone if she needed..............I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Anything to make her two weeks with us as relaxed as possible."

Thank you for reading the February issue of the Czech and Slovak Newsletter and, please, do not hesitate to reply to this e-mail with an offer of help, a question, or feedback.