Tuckshop Mural

This is in no way my creation, but I spent a lot of hours over the holidays working on it, so it feels like I should get to share it with the masses. 

I've signed up to be the Secretary of the school P&C this year. Actually, I didn't sign up until July, when they really didn't have any other takers for the job. It was a learning curve and pretty full on at the start, but I feel like I'm hitting my stride a bit more now and am actually starting to enjoy the role. 

One of the things I love to see and be a part of, is stuff getting done. This is one of those things. Sometimes with a volunteer organisation, things take a long time to happen. Lots of back and forth in the discussion phase, time waiting for people to put their hand up and take ownership of projects, the seemingly desperate search for volunteers to pull it all together in the end. Painful. 

This project was quite the opposite. At our August meeting, when we were all rejoicing that our school tuckshop, which had been closed for over six months was at last up and running again with a new convenor, someone remarked offhandedly; "Wouldn't it be nice to paint the outside of the tuckshop a bit? It's a bit dreary. Maybe we could put a mural up?" 

That night, one of our parents said she'd love to do it. The next day, she'd spoken to our local real estate agent and the local Bunnings for funding, had organised another mum who was a graphic designer to do the designs, and had the go ahead from the school admin. Winning. 

There was a little bit of a wait, while we organised the final colours and paint selection, but in the last week of school, the area was cleaned, the gear and paint picked up and we were good to go. Painting happened over the two weeks of the school holidays, most days with at least three or four volunteers painting for anywhere between three to seven hours. It was a huge effort. 

And so worth it. It looks amazing. I wish I had more before shots because it's really transformed the area completely. It's the centre of the school, but you can see different sections of the murals from the road and other areas around the school. Amazing. 

I'm so stoaked that I was a part of it. Sure, it did mean that I didn't get quite as much time as I would usually with the girls over the holidays, but it's not something I'll be doing every holidays, and now they can come to school and be so excited about something their mum helped to create. That's pretty special.