JUNIOR CARNIVAL 2008-2009 : COMMUNITY FEEDBACK

While the Junior Carnival, held in Sydney over the new year 2008-2009 is being prepared, here are some of the comments made by athletes and their families about their experience over the 9 days of the carnival.

Firstly congratulations to you and the team on a very well run carnival...all the hard work paid off. The kids had a ball.....and it was made very easy for the parents.
regards
FW

Thank you so much for running Junior Carnival!
I had the time of my life! And it was an experience that I will never forget.
Thanks
D (a participant)

Too often Maccabi only receive communications from parents criticising performance and ignoring praise where it is due.

I would like to place on record my sincere gratitude for the way Carnival has been handled by the Board, Executive of Maccabi NSW as well as all the workers.

Clearly the children had a fantastic time and are all utterly exhausted. The weather was unkind to you in that special arrangements were required to deal with the excessive heat.  There were so many parents who gave so much to the organisation and they too need to be thanked!

Thank you and congratulations!
Kind regards
DPL

I just wanted to thank you and all the people who helped make carnival so successful. Emily had a great time.
 
I wonder if you could pass this message on to Jackie, Peter and the rest of the management team and all the volunteers.
RK

A huge thank you and well done to all the organising committee, team management and volunteers.  So many hours and hours and hours of work have gone into this – it is a real credit to you all and a great strength of our community.  I’m sure the kids will remember 2009 carnival for years to come (and the parents will too but for different reasons.....)!!!!!
S & G R

I am busy organizing flights for our holiday Jan 2010, and have been advised by both my kids who have just done carnival in Sydney ( they had an absolutely wonderful time!!! Thank you) that they have to go to Perth for Carnival in Jan 2010. So I wondered if you had any idea what date it would start so that I can make sure we are back from holidays by then.
LM

What a wonderful opportunity for our children to be involved in an organization like this they seem to be have a great time. Thank you to you and your team for all your time and effort. I wish I was still a kid and could join the children.
Regards
LK

Thank you for giving Jeremy the opportunity to participate and be involved in the Maccabi Junior Carnival.  He is enjoying very much the sporting activities he has chosen, the variety of social activities at night and meeting the different people from Sydney and other states.  The experience of having a billet has been good also.
 
Thank you so much to all the officials for all their hard work and dedication to make the Sydney Carnival 2009 such a success.
Kind regards
S S & J C

Carnival is turning out to be simply wonderful, by the way. Hearty congratulations to you and your team.
Kind regards
GW

I just wanted to tell you that our family appreciated so much all the work and organization that obviously had gone into the Maccabi Carnival. It must have been a mammoth task to do including putting all the teams together, making the draws, finding venues, arranging billets and transport etc. All the social events were fabulous too and very appropriate for the age group.

The people who were working on it during the week did a great job and worked very long hours.

I only have one small suggestion: the kids were so exhausted that maybe it would be worth considering having a shorter carnival or a bit less “full on” with the timetable of sports and social events, and a bit more free time. Perhaps it would be good to have sports only half the day?

Thank you for putting on such a great week.
VS

I just wanted to congratulate you and Jackie and the team for organising what I thought was a fabulous carnival!
Everything was organised so smoothly and information was channelled very effectively and on the occassion that I helped it was obvious that so much thought had been put into every detail to ensure a successful, trouble free time for all involved. The social activities were excellent and my son had a fabulous time together with his billet. My only suggestion would be that 9 days is a little too long - 7 would have been sufficient.
Well done to all!
B

Just wanted to acknowledge the remarkable achievement of Junior Carnival was last week.

I thought the diversity, the activities, the logistics, sports and the constant parade of social events for 600 children all over Sydney was fantastic.

Every detail was admirably considered and addressed ………even in an atmosphere of heightened security.

It is a tribute to the Committee and a tribute to the Community.

Thank you for donating your life for the last year or so to make Junior Carnival the significant event that it was.
MG

We just wanted to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all of the Organisers and Volunteers of the Maccabi Sydney Carnival.  
Our son, 12, had the most amazing week and we could not have been more impressed or overwhelmed by the detail of your organisational skills and commitment.  The success of the Carnival is truly a credit to you all.
We also had a wonderful experience with our billet who really became a part of our family for 9 days and was an absolute pleasure.
Thank you for an amazing Carnival experience for our entire family.  I was at the very first carnival 27 years ago and remember having a ball – now my son has had the same incredible, fun and exhausting experience.
L G & J B

I just wanted to let you and all committee members know how much my children & our billets enjoyed carnival. I can imagine what an enormous task it must have been. I must also thankyou for organising the North Shore buses. It really helped us.
One thing you may like to consider for future Carnivals, is perhaps they should start from year 7 not year 6. I noticed that not many NSW year 9 & 10s participated. I wonder if they would if there weren’t the younger kids. My year 6 daughter participated (she absolutely loved it) but it was very demanding & overwhelming & she felt out of her league at some of the social events. Anyway, just a thought.
Once again, thanks for all the hard work.
Could you please forward this to other committee members.
Many thanks
DT

I just wanted to say, as a parent, and on behalf of my husband Mike and myself, a very BIG thank you to you and to all the people who gave so much of their personal time to contribute to the organizational success of the Sports Carnival.

We were blessed with wonderful billets and they and our son, Mark, had a brilliant time through the carnival.  They enjoyed the sport and the socializing in equal measure and although we were all exhausted at the end of it, we had all had a great time.

Constructive comments for the future might be that the Sunday sports day be shortened so that they could sleep in a little, but honestly, on the whole it was wonderfully arranged and worked very well.

Sincere thanks from those of us who reaped all the benefits for our children and didn’t put in the hard yards that all of you on the organizing committee did.
R

I too would like to thank you, my daughter had not had much involvement with Maccabi before and really enjoyed carnival and loved meeting kids from other states. The carnival was well organised and fun.
E K M

Thank you for organising a superb carnival week. This was the first carnival my 12 year old daughter has attended and it exceeded all her expectations. She had a ball, learnt so much and grew as a person. It was obvious the immense planning, time and thought that went into every aspect of the carnival. Thank you also for organising buses from the North Shore...what a huge help. Maybe next time we could also have a bus at the end of the evening activity to bring the kids home (just a little constructive suggestion).
And by the way, thanks for sending us the BEST billet ever. She came from Brisbane and was utterly charming, well behaved, fun and a complete mensch!
All the best for future carnivals.
TK

As our family's first carnival experience, I commend everyone who had anything to do with putting this event together. The kids had the time of their life, have made such wonderful friendships and the efforts of those involved were incredible. On top of that our daughter is now a converted soccer fan and plans to play this season.

Thankyou. We'll definitely be in Perth!
M