Last Shabbes in the flat at Kinross Ave!

B'H

I had the best night’s sleep last that I have had for months. We spent our first night at Longwarry looking after two King Charles Cocker Spaniels and five hens and two roosters.  We went to be at 8pm. I read for a little bit. My son was sound asleep at 7.30pm. The country air did him some good. He was yawing after dinner at 6pm. We had a wood fire going in the fireplace and the house was warm although I am going to get some slippers because the floor is cold. My dream is to have a house with heated floors which makes sense because hot air rises and that is the way they do it in Europe.

My house is set up for shabbes in Melbourne and the urn is already on. I do not want to think about that if we are late because of traffic and the candles are ready to be lit. Our last night in this wretched miserable flat. HOORAY, HOORAY! One more night of trams thundering through the bedroom shaking the walls and car tyres going swish, swish, bump in the wet weather. I feel so much better in the country air and also was rested and able to rise at 4am to do some davening and I should have done some tehillim, but I went back to bed to sleep a bit more which was rather naughty. However as it is the nine days I will be careful to be more diligent in the next few nights. On all things we should be careful and pray to Hashem to heal the world.

We are looking at a little two bedroom place with a study for $220 around the corner in Longwarry. It has a big back yard and it on the outskirts of town. I have decided that the smaller little towns are the place to live. They are usually cheaper to rent in and that means eventually more money to save for a house deposit later. I will get lots of writing done. No internet or if I do it costs 50 cents to down load and to be honest I can do without it for a while. I will prepare my posts for the blog on word and do a cut and paste.
The couple where we are staying and looking after their house are so evironmentally sound in their principles, it is a learning experience for me. He is an ex woodworks teacher and she was a nurse. Lovely people. They have a worm farm and put all paper towels and tissues in it and the worms eat it all up. They also keep the worm wee (that's right worm pish) in a bucket below and I have forgotten  what I am supposed to do with it.
My son is going to earn 20 cents for each dog poop he gathers up with the pooper scooper and we are opening a Commonweath bank account for him.
Gotta go and get some things before shabbat and my yoga class at 12 so, GOOD SHABBES all. See you in shule or around.
This is the month of Av. The month that my son was born in. A month of great sadness and great joy. Let us thank G-D that we are Jews, we have Shabbat, we have Torah, we have hope and let's us merit to thank G-D for the arrival of Moishiach.

Counting our blessings.

B'H

In the time leading up to the fast of Tisha Be'av we do need to count our blessings and to not discount our 'curses' but don't give them too much attention. We need to say thank you to Hashem for the beauty and the good things in our lives.
There is the story of Rabbi Akiva viewing the desolation and destruction of the Beit hamikdash and he sees foxes frolicking around the ruins of the Holy of Holies and he bursts out in joyous laughter.
Here is a very interesting lesson on why Rabbi Akiva laughs in several situations that others might cry.  It is from the Ohr Somech yeshiva website.
http://ohr.edu/1100

Rabbi Akiva teaches us joy through completeness with understanding the depth of Hashem's love for us. We have so far to go, but if we can only reflect a little of the love that Hashem has for us and extend that love to our fellow beings, this world will be a better place.
Rabbi Akiva laughed because he perceived the reality of the worlds and the illusionary nature of what we humans see as this world. He perceived truth which is far deeper than many of us want to go. For some to perceive such truths is akin to madness, but once you understand who is in control of the world and you allow that you are but a servant of a greater power with freedom of choice, which is paradoxical in some sense but not, you are able to develop a greater awareness  of your mission or purpose for living.
The Torah is our guide and our truth. For in Torah is contained the living essence of G-D and a guide to living in a G-dly way. It is very simply the way to G-D and the way to do G-D's will in this world. Is it not so that both the Islamic and Christian religions take the basis of their religions from Judaism. This is no secret and yet being Jewish is not the easiest thing in the world. To be a light is to feel the heat. The wick that burns in the oil gives off heat but then in the act of giving light and even warmth to the world, it is not an action that is comfortable for the wick which is often consumed by the action of creating light and warmth. Such is the lot of a Jew in this existance. We have a holy purpose and in all things we need to strive to be and to fulfil our mission.
Thus let us each day count our blessings, especially in the days of mourning for the Temple, the holy house of Hashem in Jerusalem and let us strive to be holy and closer to Hashem no matter what the pain or heat. Let us count five blessings a day to thank Hashem for the goodness in our lives and really reflect on the goodness that has come from things that we may have perceived in a less positive light.
Today I thank Hashem for existing in these times just before Moishiach
. I thank Hashem for my wealth of different experiences, for my wisdom in seeing things in a positive light and my ability to see the hidden jokes of the universe and to laugh in the darkest time and to see the joys in the saddest times and to be able to see the positive in the tests that Hashem has given me which have made me a better person.
Someone once said to me that I should pray that G-D should stop testing me, but I had to disagree because if G-D were to stop testing us, would we not feel unloved? Can you imagine a life where everything happened just as we wanted it? I can't. It is like having a class that consistently wrote perfect essays with no errors and consistently got 100% - the whole class. Boring!!!!!
We each have our individual tests and we thank G-D for them. Everything in our lives is for a purpose and it is for us to find that purpose and live it to its fullest and to achieve our potential. We can do it. We just must have faith in ourselves and to thank G-D we are who we are and not someone else.
Thank you G-D. I love you and I do know you love me.
Blessings to everyone and love too.

The 'Peaceful agenda' of the Palestinians yet again...

B'H

It is sights like this which make me feel an overwhelming sense of despair.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148149#.UAOlA46ZYnU


I look at this mother and she is calmer than I think would ever be capable of being. The bloody gash on that baby's cheek makes her an unnecessary victim of this conflict, just as much as any Palestinian child or any child in Africa or any war arena. Why does it happen? I ask myself that question again and again and have done so since I was only a child reading about the racial conflict in America and Emmett Till comes to mind. I would have been only about 15 months old when he died at 14 years of age. Who knows what this bright smarty alec boy would have become if he had been allowed to grow to maturity and achieve what G-D intended him to do?  He was by all accounts a sharp kid with a sense of fun. To the people that killed him, he was nothing more than a a 'nigga kid who was too sassy' and had to be taught a lesson.

Bob Dylan wrote a song about it.
The song written by Bob Dylan

The Death of Emmett Till


"Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing
sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your
blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

Here is the audio link when it is not the three weeks although it is hardly a cheerful song by any means.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVKTx9YlKls

When I think of the racism of the deep south and the dehumanisation of people of African heritage it is little removed from the racism of the Arab nations towards Israel and the Jewish nation; when I think of the slaughter of little Hadas Fogel a babe of three months and her parents and two brothers, it is little different to the dehumanisation of black children in the deep south of American, when I think of the doctrines of hatred that Palestinian and arab children are exposed to, it is little different to the brain washing that the Nazis did to a generation or two of German and Austrian children, the brain washing of white supremacists to their groups about their supposed superiority over the Indian, Aboriginal, Chinese or Asians or Africans or Jews.
The little girl with the gash in her cheek from a stone, is little different to the boy Emmett Till throught the cause. Just hatred of one group of human beings for another group. That is the sad part. Do not sow hatred in your children for others. The rewards reaped will be disasterous.
Let us teach our children compassion for others, themselves and all living creatures. That is why I am glad I believe in G-D. I believe in a G-D who is the creator and power behind what moves the universe in a continual cycle of creation.
Let us love ourselves and others and don't do to them what we would despise if it were done to us. let G-D guide us in finding the right paths in all ways.
Have a week of blessings and hope.

Mundane Matters Not...?

B'h

It has been an interesting end to the week and a great Shabbat. I will miss being close to our two shules and I am hoping to have a kiddush for my son's birthday and to farewell my two kehillot but not really as we will probably spend a lot of shabbosim in Melbourne.  I actually want to combine my shule which I am a member of and the shule that I go to regularly for a shabbes kiddish. It has been a while since I have had the pleasure of the company of many Hamayanites and that does not by any means imply a lack in the kehilla where I am presently davening. They are also an amazing community of really good neshamot.
Nir's footy season is nearly at an end. The cricket will also start soon and that is another reason to travel to Melbourne apart from being with friends for shabbosim.
Someone asked me 'How many Jews are in Drouin?' Truthfully I do not know, but I guess I will find out eventually. I am sure there are some and I will try and host some study evenings or just a weekday parsha shiur if I can get someone out to hold it if I get more than five RSVP's to a bagels brunch or even something on Rosh Hashanna. It will be interesting to find out just who is Jewish in Drouin, Longwarry and Bunyip. You just never know.
I have had more success with an ad in the paper re house hunting than through the agents. The fact that I have not yet gotten a job in the area is a big MINUS in my search for a house. Trouble is I will not get work until I am actually in the area. At least we are house sitting for six weeks and I am seeking someone about the private rental of a farm house about ten minutes outside of Drouin.
Renting in the city for a single parent who is presently jobless is impossible. Rents even for one bedroom starts at $300 and to be honest my chances of work are far better in the country than in the city. It is far easier to get from one school to another in the country and my son will be at a small country school where the atmosphere is far more intimate than a school of of 450 plus students. They often say that students who are home schooled have a far stronger sense of self identity than those who go to bigger schools. That may be so, but I am sure there are people who do survive the bigger school environment due to a supportive and loving family environment. Home and community are very important in building a child's self image. I had my first six years of schooling through primary correspondence and really did not take school work seriously until I was sent away to boarding school in Brisbane. I considered the booklet we did every week over a few hours a morning for four or five days to be some fun. We did not learn past around 11 or 12 noon most days. We started at 8am and finished in three to four hours and then had the afternoons off to do our own exploration of the property and muck around with the horses, dogs, pet lambs or calves or roos, build cubby houses and then burn them down when we tried to light a fire either for warmth or to cook damper or steal some roo meat, annoy our mother and send her into anxious rage as she struggled to control us. She would rip a few switches off the Appel trees and belabour our behinds with them to have us gleefully chortle 'Doesn't hurt Mum. Doesn't hurt.' It did a little but we were not going to let her know that. We used to enjoy her getting angry and lapse into a thicker Austrian accent and bemoan the fact that she never swore until she had children. She was civilised and a lady. We were the animals that has annihilated her sense of culture and decency.
Then fed up to the back teeth, she would say, 'Wait until your father gets home. He will get out the strap on the pair of you.' That was enough to send us under the house with fright because Dad was scary. He did not even have to hit us. He just looked at us and we knew not to test him and if we did get a probably well deserved lick or two of the strap or a whack with the cleaning rod for the rifles, we did have a red mark on our legs and buttocks that lasted in our memories for some months.  My father did not scream or shout. He was business like and fair. He did not hit us every time mother wanted us hit, but when he did it was simply, 'Come here now.' he would beckon us into the shed and take down the cleaning rod from his rifle cabinet. We would walk out to the shed tense and weepy. We would get into the shed. He would test the strap or the cleaning rod against a bag of horse feed.
   'Bend over.' We did with out questioning or protests. WHACK. WHACK. The strap would come down quickly and efficiently on our buttocks or the backs of our legs. Never more than two or three. We would flinch and when it was all over and our father had stated rather matter of fact, 'That's enough nonsense now. You do as your mother asks.' We would run from the shed glad it was over and we were good for maybe a week or so. Once we had our punishment from our father it was over. No mention was made of it. My mother was however different. She gloated over our hidings. for her, our hidings from our father were what she had over us. They were used to goad us into compliance for days after and this is what made us often resentful of her. Sometimes I felt she never gave us a chance to be good. She always expected the worst of us and when she tended to focus on the negative it became a self fulfilling prophecy. We played up on her. Our youngest brother became the angel who could do no wrong and I particularly was the 'bad' child. the eldest who should know better. Also my father had an older brother who my mother hated with a passion.
He actually was not so bad a person, but Mum demonised him. To her, he was smelly, he ate lots of ice cream, he was lazy, he was fat and had a big bottom, (the worst insult she could give my brother and I was 'you have a fat bottom just like uncle D___'), he hated her (whether he really did not not, I doubt) but she would come back from Sunday afternoons at Grans full full of seething anger at perceived insults that she the poor little Austrian had endured from my father's family and she made fun of them to us and tried to instill in us a dislike of them too. Dad tried to tease her, which only made matters worst. My mother lacked a sense of humour at times and took herself very seriously. She did not forgive or forget percieved insults but then she was also very prone to be conned by those who would impose on my father and her. I found her often very difficult to understand.
Anyway I have diverged into memoir which brings me to the work I have seriously started on my bullying text which I am trying to do a bit each day, whether it is 500 or 1,000 words a day depends on the time I have available but I am steadily going to plow through it to around 25 - 30 pages   before I send off to a publisher and if I can't get the interest of a publishing house I will have to slowly plug away by myself. Maybe self publish if I can, who knows?  It is a very harsh subject and the story starts with a funeral. It ends with a broken man trying to reconnect his family and to bring his children hope and understanding despite the loss of their mother. It is about rising from the ashes of one's life into new growth and new chapters.
The world is forever changing growing and recreating itself as it will.....

Bully Impact Statements at Parliament House Victoria

B'H
Today was a high STRESS day but I did handle it reasonably well given the events of the day. Thanks to Yoga breathing and a few sneaky little stress stretches. I am looking forward to Michelle's 12 noon class on Friday. It will put me in a Shabbes mood. Easy.
I had to go into the Session on Bullying plus get my car serviced. I took a tram in plenty of time, so I thought. Tram was late. I got to the train station and thought I will run a bit late but I would be on the 2.51 to the city and I would get to Parliament station around five or six past 3pm. I reckoned without some incident at Prahran station. There was a medical emergency. I trotted up to the train driver who was keeping us up dated on what was happening. He had a few teeth missing. Poor bugger.
  'Well, could be thar thum druggie ftheakin', or thumeone thlipped, ya nar between thar platform and thar train. Carn't go ta Windsor mathe, cos thar boom gates go down at Pran and thar motorists geths uspset. Ooorr, thumbody hath a hart tack. Gotta give thar ambos time to get them away.'

Eventually I caught a taxi after several more minutes and got in to the parliament legislative council room at around 3.50pm. Just in time to hear a woman called P speak very coherently about her experiences as a CEO being bullied by superiors and she was followed respectively by a teacher of thirty years standing, a kindergarten teacher and another gentleman who related his experiences and it sounded like a public service workplace. There was also another woman BC who was also a teacher and she spoke extremely well about her experiences of being devalued and denigrated because she threatened the less competent superiors. I was very sorry to have missed some of the speakers. I did give my statement self edited a bit more and I am sending in a few bits and pieces of my story.
I have decided to make it a fiction story and hopefully when I get to the country I will write it as a fictionalised account.
Why fictionalised you may well ask? Well, the aim is to educate about bullying and not to demonise and demoralise those who could be affected by writing a true account and of course I could be sued by those who would feel that I am presenting them in a less than flattering light. Yes, I could ruin reputations and then it would achieve little. I want to eventually change the system to make it more compassionate and nurturing of people and not to destroy people.
My story is about an older teacher married to a younger man (five or six years younger give or take). He is self employed. They go the IVF trip and have twins. She is 43 and he is mid thirties. He makes the decision to be a stay at home father and work on fixing computers at home and look after the twins while she is at work. They are criticised in the small country town and also she is harassed at work for 'castrating her husband' and being a 'career bitch'. They are Jewish. Their only friends are an Indian Hindu couple - the wife is a science teacher and the father does labouring work and a single mother who is a wood works teacher. She has a teenage daughter at a boarding school nearby.
The story opens with the funeral of the teacher who has committed suicide because of the stress and workplace harassment. It is told through her husband and her diary entries. He also has conversations with an Art teacher who she was friendly with and who department officials bullied into changing her statement about the workplace harassment to make it appear that the woman had mental issues and that it was not workplace bullying at all.
I just have to find the time and money to write it. I want to show how bullying happens in the education workplace. How children or students take cues from teachers about their peers and also about other teaching colleagues, the subtle messages that are passed around the small school communities and hopefully we can have some people take note and make for more caring communities and correct the flaws where they occur. It is very easy to do. You just need to care for others, believe in some sort of social justice and value each individual for who they are whether they have a disability either acquired or from birth, whether they are super bright or slower to learn. whether they are the same culture or gender identity as you or not. They are still human beings who deserve some level of RESPECT and to have their dignity intact.
Leaving you with this image of beauty to rest the soul...PEACE and TRANQUILITY

YOGA - SSSSTTTREEEETTTCHHESSSSSSS the body and mind in the most relaxing way.

Yoga – Is it the union of body, mind and soul or the way to a more balanced way lifestyle perspective?

This morning I decided to start the week with a Yoga morning and I did. Off to the cosy little studio at 101 Hawthorn Road in Caulfield.  About to pound up the stairs, I met an older lady coming down. Apparently she was the only one to turn up this morning because of school holidays and I thought,(rather selfishly I must admit) ‘oh no, there goes my yoga hit for the beginning of the week.’

Luckily Michelle our teacher who was also deciding to go home, thought ok two students let’s have the lesson and she did. Thank you Michelle, my week has gotten off to a good start. She is very good value because she is sensitive when she has to be, silent when it is called for and at times chatty and active in a very nice friendly, but put you at your ease manner.

I used to do Yoga. Many years ago with an Iyengar Yoga teacher who was tough. Very tough, but she got results and it was what I needed more than twenty years ago to move me out of my inertia. My body had done a few years of Tai Chi previously at some stage in the eighties, but it needed Iyengar Yoga to kick start it into action.

Why is YOGA GOOD for you? Well. Let’s find out.

At first, I wanted to write some lengthy discourse which appears learned, about the origins of Yoga and be  a regular blah blah blah but finally decided  ‘Nah. I am just going to write about what Yoga does for me personally.’

Yoga does the following for me:

1.       It de-stresses me. It allows me to think freely and to focus. After a Yoga class if you are in my face, I can just go, ‘CHIILLLLLLL, darlin’!’ I really do not care that everyone around me is frothing and frantic. I am just busy being.... It is fantastic for teachers and those in high stress jobs.

2.       It eases out those tired tight muscles and streeeeettttccccchhhesss them. It is amazing what stretches can do for your state of mind.  If you are on a computer more than three hours a day, then Yoga can do a lot for you because you can stretch those shoulders and upper back as well as the neck.  You also strengthen your stomach muscles and by default your lower back is strengthened.

3.       It makes you stronger mentally and physically. It centres you.

4.       It improves the digestion because it does work on massaging muscles which affect organs of your body. Your heart, lungs and digestive system. You work your diaphragm through utilising your breath.  Breathing is very important and in life in general.

5.       Ladies who have had babies or who are having babies, it is the best thing you can do for yourself and your baby in utero. The pelvic floor muscles will thank you. I had my child at 49 and I had a C section.  I am finally getting it together and feel better. No incontinence and helps with prolapsed uterus, which are some of the problems that can arise from multiple births or births at an older age. J  Michelle has run post natal and prenatal classes. At present she is doing ah hour stretch and relax class on Thursdays as well as the Yoga + Pilates classes on Mondays,  9.30 – 11am, Wednesdays 9.00 – 10.30am, Fridays 9.30 - 11am and 12 – 1.30pm.

6.       It increases your flexibility and makes you feel younger and fitter.

7.       Relaxation at the end of each class is the high point of a yoga workout. You actually go to sleep at times and wake deeply refreshed.

Is Yoga Jewish? Well, no it is not as far as I know and have researched. It is Indian in origin. It is an approach to life and a perspective on life that is thousands of years old.  The word Yoga has been translated from the Sanskrit to mean ‘yoke’ and more commonly ‘union’ in English but these are probably loose translations of the actual meaning. It is more than just exercises and stretches. It is about connecting your body and mind in a very powerful way. You can bring a Jewish essence or pattern of thought or approach into Yoga. I believe Rabbi Laibl Wolf did have Jewish Yoga at Spiritgrow. Maybe he still has. What I do know is that Yoga is good for you and you can do it with a Jewish approach. I was reflecting on some of the Hebrew letters and thinking that some of them could be viewed as Yogic poses or asanas. For example, the tad asana mountain pose or standing pose is like a vav to start with and then stetches into a nun sofit (end Nun Letter). Anyway I will not bore you with too much detail. You do have fingers and a computer if you are reading this and you know where to find google. Here is a chart on some poses and you can have fun matching poses to Hebrew letters if you like and holding the pose and meditating on a letter.

So when you are ready to make a radical change in the way you think and want to boost your health, head on down to a class at 102 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield North or give Michelle a ring on 0403 939 666 to see when she can book you into a class. You will not regret it.

Samach or Mem sofit???

Bet you can't find the nun or the chof or gimmel?

Yoga - Pathway to health. success, peace and inner strength

B'H
I have recently gone back to regular Yoga practice and wish I had done it straight after the birth of my child in 2003. I must admit I did try but a teacher I worked with at Narrandera told me the class was 'too full' for another class member. Later when I learnt that the class was not so full, but that I was that 'older woman who had a child at 49 and I would not want to have too much to do with her,' overheard comment, I really did not feel like joining a class where my presence obviously was so unwelcome. One goes to Yoga for relaxation, health and peace unconditionally not conflict or to cause discomfort to oneself or others.
After making several fleeting attempts to start classes over the years, I started in June of this year. I am now going to the Caulfield School of Yoga and go to Michel Lewin's classes. Michel is a petit woman who trained my first Yoga teacher. She is absolutely professional, vivacious and of course very supple like all Yoga teachers. I have been lucky to find such her and believe sometimes you are led to such people for your own health if you are open to it.
Caulfield School of Yoga is at 101 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield North. here is the web addy with the times of classes of all five teachers.

http://www.findyoga.com.au/Studio/CaulfieldSchoolofYoga/Teachers

Unfortunately I do not have any visuals of the yoga class I go to. However I do have some visuals and information on the benefits of Yoga practice and what it can do for you. There are many paths to spiritual freedom and they all involve some sort of connection with a great power or G-D if you will. Yoga is simply one path which by a combination of breath control, disciplined asanas (positions), meditations and stretches will lead one to a path of bodily and mental tranquillity. I quote from one source 'A serious practitioner of Yoga (someone pursuing the higher spiritual and religious goals of Yoga) takes upon themselves a life of austere self-discipline common to nearly all forms of mystical and religious life. The practices that constitute this self-disciplined life are called in yoga yama and niyama. This self-discipline is the 'yoke' that one puts upon oneself for the purpose of attaining moksha. An alternative definition is that Yoga is the method of yoking, or unifying, the "lower" (egoistic) personality.'

Is this at odds with a seriously observant Jewish lifestyle? No, because I do not take on the other religious aspects of Yogic lifestyle. It is a form of exercise and the goal is good inner health. The practice of Yoga allows one to pursue an active lifestyle well into one's nineties. That is not saying that there are people in their nineties who do not practise yoga and still lead active lives.
There are some people who do offer Jewish meditation and Yoga through a distinctly Jewish lens.My body feels relaxed and supple once again. I am hoping in six months to be able to do head stands and practise hand stands again. Yoga helps sleep patterns, digestion problems that are not related to poor diet and keeps you fitter than you would normally be without heavy exercise. It has helped me lose weight because once you work on balancing the body, the mind and the soul, the rest follows. It builds mental strength.
We want to get a women's only group going at the studio on a Tuesday perhaps and we need some women who want to do gentle and relaxing yoga. Older women who are not so active any more. We have three of us and we would like another three or four people to join the group. Any takers? Let me know.