Costa Georgiadis – Our wonderful connector of dots

 

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“COWmunication is the voice that creates your future”

For the second year in a row we were blessed to have the wonderful Costa Georgiadis speak at our Archibull Awards ceremony, and once more we were reminded why he has become such a favourite member of the Archibull Family.

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Costa and Young Farming Champions 

Costa is in high demand for speaking appearances but he is so selfless and generous with his time and wisdom. Prior to his speech he took the time to look over every Archie and connect with the students and teachers involved.

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Costa studying the form

He knew all our Young Farming Champions by name, and when it came time for him to speak he made everyone in the room feel he knew them personally.

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Take a look at what he said here:

Costa knows the impact he has on people’s lives and particularly his ability to bring joy.

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His wisdom and humour from the stage made everyone smile 

No request for photographs is too big and he goes the extra mile giving every child the opportunity for a selfie and a video.

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This is typical of the comments we get from anyone who has met Costa:

My little boy, Patrick Perkins is 8 years old wanted me to ask Costa if he could have

a photo with him. Costa went one better and made a little video for him.

Patrick was over the moon and so happy.

Patrick goes to a very small country school called Tamrookum and there they have a garden. When they do gardening each child gets to take something home even if it is only a beetroot or a couple of snow peas, but the children are so proud of their garden.

I am going to put Costa’s video did onto a USB so that Patrick

can take it to school and show the other kids.

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Laura Perkins (proud Mum) on far left 

From the team at Art4Agriculture we would sincerely like to thank Costa for making our awards day exceptional and so memorable for all involved.

More than 80% of careers in agriculture are people who support farmers  

This year the 2017 Grand Champion Archibull Prize announcement partnered with National Agriculture Day. We celebrated #AgDay by celebrating the innovative teachers and students who, each year to showcase all the people who come together to put food on our plates, clothes on our backs and in some cases power our lives.

The agriculture sector is so much more than farmers and The Archibull Prize is the perfect opportunity to share with young people looking for a career that makes a difference that more than 80% of careers in agriculture are people who support farmers.

Just what would Australian agriculture look like in 20 years-time if all the bright young minds who have been introduced to agriculture through The Archibull Prize, choose to make agriculture part of their future. Here at Picture You in Agriculture we are pretty pumped by that thought

And the winners

Visit the 2017 Archibull Prize Hall of Fame here

GRAND CHAMPION ARCHIBULL – CALVARY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE CARBROOK CAMPUS

Calvary Christian College

and with Costa

Grand Champion Archibull Prize Calvary Christian College Carbrook Snr Campus

RESERVE GRAND CHAMPION ARCHIBULL – ST RAPHAELS CATHOLIC SCHOOL COWRA

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and with Costa

St Raphaels with Costa

CHAMPION PRIMARY SCHOOL – LITTLE BAY COMMUNITY OF SCHOOLS

Little Bay Community of Schools

and with Costa and Jane Thomas from Aussie Farmers Foundation

Champion Primary School Little Bay Community of Schools with Jane Thomas Aussie Farmers Foundation and Costa

RESERVE CHAMPION PRIMARY SCHOOL – MILLER PUBLIC SCHOOL

Miller Public School

and with Costa and Jane Thomas from Aussie Farmers Foundation

Miller Public School

Everyone in the room walked away reinvigorated by the energy of our special guest Costa Georgiadis. Costa reached out and spoke to every child in the room. He touched each and everyone of us with his love for the planet, his respect for all the people who come together to ensure we are clothed and fed and his support for youth – the voices of the future

The future belongs to the curious

Gobsmacked #Archie17 goes viral

Blacktown Girls High Cotton Belle

Blacktown Girls High School  took to twitter to engage the twitterverse to vote for their #Archie17 entry with posts like this “Cotton Belle” in deep cottonsation with the principal, Mr Lumb. He congratulates her on becoming a finalist.

Gobsmacked. Truly gobsmacked by the response to The Archibull Prize People’s Pick

Why a People’s Pick when we have an official judge of the #colourfulcows aka #beautbovines aka world renowned #Archie17.

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The People’s Pick isnt just about finding out if the community agrees with the official judge its key objective is to provide an opportunity for the world to see the visionary agricultural theme Archie artworks

The students receive one of these

Yes they get a big white life-size cow and they get a farming industry, not just the cattle ( beef or dairy) industry, they may get the pork, or cotton, or wool or the grains  industry or maybe even the poultry/egg industry.

Often the students and teachers go shock horror how do we share the pork, egg, wool or cotton industry on a cow

Well that’s the challenge we ask the students to see Archie not as a cow but as a blank canvas

How they do this is mind-blowing and back to gobsmacked almost 185,000 people viewed the blog post poll asking them to vote for their favourite #Archie17. Yes you read it right one hundred and eighty five THOUSAND people have viewed the students artworks. More than 60,000 of those people voted and the word spread via 3000 plus Facebook share

From Day One it was clear two schools were the front runners. These two schools used multiple vehicle to crowd source. Beaudesert State High School tapped into their local paper the Beaudesert Times who did a brilliant job of getting the word out in print and online via videos and Facebook. In the end it is obvious the whole of Beaudersert supported their local school. Giving Beaudesert a run for their money was Blacktown Girls High School who had their local MP crowd source for them. Then the domino effect kicked in our supporting partners reached out to all their contacts.

Hunter Local Land Services tapped into ABC radio and they came onboard as only ABC Rural can getting the stories out to their listeners. The interviews started. They interviewed school young farming champions, the interviewed school, they showcased the Archies on Facebook. An Archie even became the header for their Facebook page.

The end result who one, well the answer is currently locked in a safe and you will have to wait until it is officially at The Archibull Prize Awards and Exhibition Day on November 21.

In reality the world has already told you who won and that’s every school won because the world has seen how creative and innovative Australian school students are

Imagine how much exposure the Australian agriculture sector would get if we had Imagine, if 20 schools and government agencies and forward-thinking businesses in each state partnered with our farming industries each year

That’s 10,000-young people in each state, that’s 70,000-young people across Australia who could be inspired to be stewards for the landscape and the agricultural sector.

That’s our big opportunity how does the agriculture sector work together to engage with the bright, creative, innovative young people and expose them to the agriculture sector and inspire them to seek out a career in our sector

@archibull @art4agriculture @Ozfarmers #Archie17 #AgDay #beautbovines #colourfulcows #youthinag #youthinedu #farming #farmers #agriculture

National Ag Day       Not joining the 160 people celebrating National Ag Day by attending The Archibull Prize Awards and Exhibition Day you too can celebrate National Ag Day. Visit the website here to find out how

and you thought The Archibull Prize was just an art competition

Its official. The  Pick Your Favourite Archie to Win the 2017 Archibull Prize is now our most read blog post ever. With 50,000 plus views and over 2.7K Facebook shares the students artworks are being admired and appreciated by readers all over the world

ABC Country Hour.PNGShout out to ABC Country Hour for your support and Kudos to Hunter LLS for your very impressive media contacts

ABC Country Hour now have an Archie as their Facebook Header 

 

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and you thought The Archibull Prize was an art competition, right?

Well yes and no. One of the strengths of the program is that it involves multiple Key Learning Areas so if a student is not necessarily interested in art they can join the fun through other subjects.

History, geography, maths, technical and applied studies, engineering and food technology are some of the other subject areas involved perfecting the Archies you see before you today.

Journalism students have created blogs; technology and computer students have produced animations.

At Beaudesert State High School maths and engineering students contributed with electronics, computer programming and robotics to help their cow moo, swish her tail, change her eye colour and even emit tractor sou

Going above and beyond

One of the things that really amazes us about The Archibull Prize is how schools and students go above and beyond what we expect of them.

Teachers and students from Gwynneville Public School have stumbled into school in pre-dawn hours to be ready for excursions to farms.

Students from St Raphaels Catholic School Cowra have talked to CEOs.

Students teachers and parents have watched artificial insemination in dairy cows.

They have found out how hard it is to count sheep.

They have invited Indigenous groups into their school and learned Indigenous words, which they now use in tribute to the first people.

And at Blacktown Girls High, where they were studying cotton, they became involved with Share the Dignity with the help of their local politician. Share the Dignity is a charity that collects sanitary items for homeless women and women fleeing domestic violence. So what does this have to do with cotton? Well most sanitary items are made from cotton and the students quickly came to realise that cotton was so much more than wearing a shirt or a pair of jeans – it is used for our daily needs.

The Archibull Prize combining art, technology,education and #youthinag to empower our young people to work with the community and farmers to create the bright future we all deserve

 

Say Yes, to Clean Beaches

Bulli High School have recently taken part in our new program Kreative Koalas which  we piloted with Intrepid Landcare earlier this year. Yesterday I spent an inspirational afternoon with the Bulli High School Green Team.

Champion teachers Stacy Fraser and Rob Moore talk about the students that inspire them everyday 

On my way home, I felt like a roast dinner, so popped into ALDI to pick up their famous chicken with apricot and cranberry stuffing.  I have only just discovered ALDI as a place to shop after finding they have some great fitness gear on promotion from time to time

I thought I would grab some veggies whilst I was there and had a shock horror moment. My god ALDI is a soft plastics palace and for the fruit and veggies that weren’t wrapped in mountains of plastic there were no paper bags to be seen.

It made me sad.  I had spent two hours with 20 students who spend their Wednesday arvo cleaning up after the rest of us and our retailers aren’t making it easy for us to do the right thing. How do we work together to send clear messages to our retailers to say?

‘Work with us. We want to Make Australia Beautiful Again’

I was confident yesterday that if were all as committed as the Green Team it wouldn’t be hard. Let me share with you what the Green Team is doing in their sport allocated environmental clean up program through talking to the Champion Teachers Stacey Fraser and Rob Moore and some of the students

Bit of Background

Bulli High School is located in a ‘to die for’ location adjacent to Sandon Beach. The Green Team has adopted the beach as their Keep Australian Beautiful project.

They do this by clearing the rubbish out of the creek that is adjacent to their school, this reduces the rubbish in the storm water drains that flow onto the beach and they do regular clean up of the beach front itself

Here they are yesterday in time-lapse motion

The team was excited that despite this weeks heavy rain the beach had very little rubbish beyond a lot of cigarette buts and some soft plastics. This was until they discovered THE COUCH in the Lagoon

 

8,000 pieces of plastic are estimated to float in every square kilometre of ocean.

633 species worldwide including 77 Australian species are impacted by marine debris.

Over 75% of what is removed from our beaches is made of plastic. Source

Geography Teacher and Green Team partner. Stacey Fraser talks about some of the other Green Team projects and her inspiration for starting the program

Bulli High School have now joined the Tangaro Blue project and will be collecting, measuring,  monitoring and sharing their data  with the Australian Marine Debris Initiative database

Tangaroa Blue Foundation is an Australian-wide not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the removal and prevention of marine debris, one of the major environmental issues worldwide. But if all we do is clean-up, that is all we will ever do.

To successfully solve the problem, the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) was created, an on-ground network of volunteers, communities and organisations that contribute data from rubbish collected during beach and river clean-up events to the AMDI Database, and then work on solutions to stop the flow of litter at the source. The AMDI helps communities look after their coastal environment by providing resources and support programs, and collaborates with industry and government to create change on a large scale.

 

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The Archibull Prize Awards Day Countdown begins

As The Archibull Prize Awards and Presentation Day approaches, the People’s Pick poll gains further momentum across the world. 35,000 people from across the globe have viewed the blog and cast their vote

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Currently Neck and Neck in the People’s Pick are Blacktown Girls High School and Beaudesert State High School. Make sure you get your vote in

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Communities are making the most of the schools’ colourful cows as showstoppers at local events

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Bovinity at Murrwillumbah Show this week 

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Cotty at the college art’s showcase 

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St Raphaels Catholic College celebrate with a photo opp

Its looking like ‘Bullinda’ will need a social secretary when she goes home 

And schools are collaborating to bring their artwork finalist Archies to Sydney. Shout out to Lisa Bullas and Calvary Christian College for hosting Bullinda from Beaudesert State High School and Graham Cheney and Kellyville High School for hosting Em-moo-ly  from Miller Public School

#archie17 #colourfulcows #beautbovines

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2017 Archibull Prize Artwork Finalists Announced

Art4Agriculture is proud to announce the artwork finalists in the 2017 Archibull Prize.

2017 Artwork Finalists are

  • Beaudesert State High School
  • Blacktown Girls High School.
  • Calvary Christian College Carbrook Junior School
  • Calvary Christian College Carbrook Senior Campus
  • Calvary Christian College Springwood Campus
  • Glenhaven Public school
  • Irrawang High School
  • Kellyville High School
  • Little Bay Community of Schools
  • Miller Public School
  • MLC Burwood
  • Northlakes High School
  • St Raphaels Catholic High School

This year we have a creative and innovative mix of Archies depicting drones, GPS systems, chicken caravans and baby’s cots just to mention a few. The Archies, as they are affectionately known have emerged from 30 schools across NSW, QLD and the ACT as students researched specific agricultural industries, and interpreted their findings in artwork and multi-media presentations. They explored issues such as biodiversity, climate change, water use and renewable energy.

With the support of the Aussie Farmers Foundation (AFF) and the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal we have been able to expand the program farming industry mix and offer the schools participating Grains, Eggs and Poultry, Pork, Dairy and Cattle and Sheep industries .

Support from Australian Wool Innovation, Cotton Australia and Cotton Research and Development Corporation has seen the students turn a cow canvas into a phenomenal fibre showcase

AFF Executive Officer Kylie Cirak said Art4Agriculture is an incredible way for young people to share their passion about the pivotal role Australian farmers play in feeding the world.

“Aussie Farmers Foundation is thrilled to partner with Art4Agriculture to help achieve our aim to support the sustainability of Australian farms,” she said.  “Agriculture is the lifeblood of Australia, and it’s in our best interest to nurture the nation’s future farmers, growers and agriculture specialists, and encourage them to consider this as an exciting and viable career option while they’re still in school.”

The Archibull Prize is an innovative school-based program designed to give young people the skills to connect farmers and the community, helping build a bright future for Australian agriculture. In 2017 the theme has been ‘feeding, clothing and powering a hungry nation is a shared responsibility’.

The artworks finalist will join finalists in the multimedia sections in Sydney for the 2017 Archibull Prize Awards and Exhibition day to be held at The Stables at Sydney Showground on 21 November, coinciding with Australia’s inaugural AgDay. Multiple cash prizes, up to $1,000, will be presented to the winners as well as the coveted title of Grand Champion Archibull.

Congratulations to all the schools involved you have all excelled

#archie17

@art4ag

@archibull

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Announcing The Archibull Prize animation finalists

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An 2017 Archibull Prize Finalists Update

it gives us great pleasure to announce the following schools that are finalists in the animation section of The Archibull Prize

  •  The Henry Lawson High School from Grenfell, NSW,
  • St Raphaels Catholic School Cowra NSW
  • Little Bay Community of Schools from Chifley NSW
  • Kellyville High School Sydney NSW St Raphaels Catholic School Cowra  NSW
  • Gwynneville Public School Wollongong NSW
  • Blacktown Girls High School in Sydney NSW

You can access them all on Youtube below

 

The Archibull Prize provides students with a life size fibreglass cow on which the students create an artwork using the theme “Feeding, clothing and powering a hungry nation is a shared responsibility. The program design also invites the students to be part of the solution by sharing their ideas on how to tackle these challenges as individuals, as a community and as the mums and dads of the next generation.

The program also matches Young Farming Champions (YFC), enthusiastic young people working within agriculture to each school. The YFC support the students and excite them about career prospects in the sector. – climate change, food and fashion waste, declining natural resources and biosecurity.

As part of the competition students also write a blog and create animations and infographics that show their knowledge of the issues facing agriculture and their call to action

The winners will be announced at The Archibull Prize Awards and Exhibition Day on November 21st 2017 coinciding with National Agriculture Day