Wow … where does one start … ok calm down Mahmoud, * breathes deeply* let’s start at the very beginning *Sound of Music voice* … focus Mahmoud… ok let’s start from the events we are planning.

So... so far our efforts have the resulted in the planning of the following events:

A photo gallery at Fed square: to be honest, I’m still in shock due to the fact that we got to use Melbourne’s Famous Icon Federation Square, but as always when you have crazy enough people behind any idea anything can happen and as Mark Twain once said “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure,”, I really like this idea cause it really places people in the proper mindset for the event, as well as it helps to spread the word for the East Timor cause as well as the main event, this will go on for a week.

The other event is the spinning dreams documentary screening that will happen after the photo gallery, we have a few up and coming bands playing at the event, again some of them I was just astonished (you can tell I wrote that last word with a British accent … can’t you ), and we have a venue locked down.

So that is what is happening so far and the idea of this blog is to get people to follow our progress, maybe comment or not, and basically something to look back on.

As I update this blog, I can only imagine what the rest of the team are doing, preparing posters, and aggressively sending out emails, writing proposals, phone calls... All with a mug of coffee on their side (I know I have that covered).

Writing this short blog actually takes me back to the first meeting I had with the team, it was Me, the simply Amazing Veronica, Talented Editor Jacqui and Magical voice owner Marielle, chilling on a rooftop watching the Spinning Dreams documentary, and it feels somewhat surreal to think that it was less than a month away that all this has been put together, Umm … Important note here is that I cut my finger trying to open my non-alcoholic tiger beer, buts it’s alright now, I knew you were all worried.

I realize there is still a lot to work to do, but the fact that a lot has been accomplished in the past period really brings me -and I believe the rest of the team- comfort.

 More updates to come as we get closer to the events

Mahmoud M.Naser