800th Anniversary Idea

Australian Students Mix in a Little Mystery In Recipe Book


AUSTRALIA - November 13, 2006 --Students of All Saints College in Maitland, New South Wales, are not saying why they chose "The Wooden Spoon" as the title of a recipe book the Year 11 (junior) students have published to mark the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Dominican Order.

All Saints College, St Mary's Campus Year 11 Business Services Administration students have turned the notion of winning the wooden spoon on its head with the publication of what the Maitland-Newcastle Aurora magazine describes as "winner".

The collection of recipes was produced by teacher Mrs Josephine Brewer and the fifteen girls in this year's Business Services class who borrowed the book's title from a story from the life of St Dominic. But people need to purchase the book to find out the story, the girls say.

The girls aimed high, sending out hundreds of letters. Recipients included Pope Benedict XVI, Australian Prime Minister Howard, movie stars, dignitaries and many of the Dominican Sisters, requesting their favourite recipes.

The class formed teams, researched, kept a strict mail registry of outgoing and incoming responses; word-processed, proofread, discussed and developed the print and layout. Mrs Brewer added, "They had to learn to become very good at proof reading!" The girls also took the photographs on the covers and the many inside.

After six months of constant work and huge effort, The Wooden Spoon was appropriately launched on Dominic's Feast Day at St Mary’s, the celebration of 800 years of the Dominican Order, and business was brisk.

Class member Kirryn summed up the feelings of the class, "It was a really good learning experience. We learnt the value of teamwork, in our groups we were able to delegate tasks, so everything ran really smoothly. It is exciting to see that all our hard work has paid off, that we have done it ourselves."