HURRICANE STARS CLUB’S AGM
Last weekend the Hurricane Stars Club had it’s first annual general meeting since incorporating as a not-for-profit organisation in 2018. The committee met and discussed their programs over the past 18 months with a great sense of achievement. There is a common myth that the Hurricane Stars Club is a government funded organisation but it is not. It receives no funding from the government except of a few small grants to run specific programs like a workshop for mental health week or on cyberbullying. The Hurricane Stars Club is run completely by hard working volunteers who receive no payment for their positions or roles coordinating our activities. Our volunteers give up their own time to plan, organise and run the activities with no reimbursement for their time or petrol. We only charge participants cost price for the activities to help to cover costs. In the beginning of 2019, we opened our own centre so that we can run consistent activities to benefit the community. We share the space with mental health counsellor Kholoud Abdulla. Our volunteers hold a Bunnings BBQ once a month to raise money to pay our share of the rent and expenses. All of our fundraising goes completely towards covering our activity costs, so that our activities remain low cost for the community.
We are proud of the programs we have been able to create and run successfully over the past 18 months. One of our major focuses has been to develop a wide variety of programs to engage women in physical activity. We started and continue to run ladies only fitness, Pilates, aqua aerobics and soccer skills classes and a ladies walking group in Karawatha Forest. We ran fitness classes after school at the Islamic College of Brisbane(ICB) for mothers, students and staff. We organised adventurous activities for ladies to challenge themselves like indoor and outdoor rock climbing, abseiling, surfing and kayaking. We were chosen by Logan City Council to train female sports coaches in soccer, volleyball and netball.
The cornerstone of our program is our unique ladies only (and now men only also) swimming program. It is the only ladies only program in Brisbane that gives women a safe female only space to swim. Our proudest achievement is that for the past 3 years that we have been running this program, we have changed the lives of 100’s of women by teaching them how to swim. Our program has been successful because of the dedication of our volunteer staff, we receive no commission from the pool but we keep the price at a low at cost price for the participants. The success of our swimming program was even mentioned in the Queensland Parliament by Minster Cameron Dick and we have been chosen by Metro South Queensland Health to train community members as swimming instructors and we have successfully trained 7 qualified female instructors over the past year.
The other successful programs that we have started over the past year is an Islamic Playgroup, monthly social gatherings for sisters, Quran, Arabic and fiqh classes. We run regular activities for kids in the school holidays, including partnering with Brisbane City Council to run activities for the community for Youth Week 2019. We have run a variety of workshops for parents, including a highly successful workshop on the dangers of computer gaming. We run the Be Connected program to teach digital computer literacy skills to people over 50 years old. We partnered with the Muslim Charitable Foundation to host iftars for ladies during Ramadan and we partnered with Muslim Aid to run Ramadan activities for children in Underwood Marketplace. We have enjoyed successfully partnering with a wide variety of community members and organisations over the past 18 months to do a variety of programs for the community.
We have organised 5 major community events in the past 18 months. We had two highly successful mother and daughter events – a high tea at Stanford Plaza and a dinner at IWAA. We had a movie night at ICB for the only showing in Brisbane of the Bilal: A New Breed of Hero film. We arranged for the Zaky and Friends Show to come to Brisbane, doing shows at the Islamic schools, visiting the local madressas and doing a weekend show for the community. Our biggest event was a family fun day at ICB for child protection week that was attended by 1000 people who enjoyed a variety of stalls and rides. Our other biggest achievement for the year was to successfully created Brisbane’s only Muslim scout group called the Muslim Crescent Scouts. It took 10 months of meetings, paperwork and training to finally start in October 2019. We have 3 scout sections – cubs(7-10 years old), scouts(11-14 years old) and venturers (15-18 years old), who meet every Sunday afternoon and do a variety of fun activities.
SCOUTS REGISTRATION DAY
On Sunday 21st of October, the Muslim Crescent Scout group had it’s first registration day. The District Commissioner of Scouts for Brisbane, John Parr, came along to support us on our open day, giving a wonderful Parents Information session with Gillian Hall, the Regional Development Officer. He also enjoyed talking to parents and sharing his passion for scouting. We had help from members of the Gold Coast District‘s scouting team, who provided a variety of exciting activities for kids to do when they came to see what scouts was all about. The children enjoyed games like catapult launching, chain balls, giant jengas and ring toss among others. There were more than 20 parents who came to the information session and listened to the presentation by John and Gillian. It was a successful day with 14 children signing on to join as well as a new leader joining. Since then we have had more enquiries daily from parents to sign up their children as well as more parents interested to be leaders or parent helpers. We are looking forward for the group to grow as the community learns more about what is scouts and see the amazing activities and opportunities it provides in personal development for young people.
The Muslim Crescent Scout group will meet every Sunday afternoon during school term beginning 3rd November 2019 from 3pm to 5pm. We have two scouts sections started at the moment – Cubs for children aged 7 to 10 years old and Scouts for children aged 11 to 15 years old. We hope to start Venturers section soon for children aged 15 to 18 years old. Children can join anytime during the year and parents need to pay a fee to join that covers their registration with Scouts QLD and various weekly activities. For more information or to register, please contact the Muslims Crescent Scouts group leader, Farah Scott at 0432026375 or like and follow us on Muslim Crescent Scouts on facebook.
CHILD PROTECTION WEEK WORKSHOP
For Child Protection week the Hurricane Stars Club hosted a workshop for the Imams of the Islamic College of Brisbane and the Australian International Islamic College, as well as other local Imams about child safety. The workshop was hosted by the highly experienced Salam Elmerebi. The workshop was very beneficial for the Imam’s, particularly from the schools, who need to know how to dealt with incidents of child safety in there roles. We look forward to working more with Salam Elmerebi and the Imam’s in 2020 to do more beneficial workshops and programs.
MENTAL HEALTH WEEK WORKSHOPS
This past week has been Mental Health Week and we were excited to organise two amazing workshops for ladies at our centre in Logan Central. At our monthly sisterhood gathering, we were thrilled to have Saalihah Seedat present her inspirational ‘Recharge Your Life’ presentation for the sisters. For an hour, the ladies sat enthralled by her presentation, as she inspired the ladies for ways to relax from the many pressures of life and to make changes to their lives to really start enjoying life. All the sisters felt recharged with enthusiasm to change their mentality to a more positive and adventurous outlook. After the presentation, the ladies were able to relax and enjoy meeting news sisters and catching up with old friends, while enjoying a delicious lunch prepared by Chef Adem.
On the following day, we were excited to have Dr Nada Hassan come to our Little Stars Playgroup to present a relaxed discussion on women’s health, with a particular focus on mothers. Her presentation was based on her many years of experience as a general practitioner and the patterns she sees in the concerns raised and experienced by mothers. Her amazing presentation encouraged the mothers to realise that they are not alone and their feelings and experiences are normal and common. She encouraged mothers not to hessitate to seek professional help if they feel they need more support. The presentation was followed by a fun question and answer session where the ladies discussed their experiences and found support with other mothers who attended. Once again, after the presentation, the ladies were able to relax and enjoy meeting new sisters and catch up with old friends, while enjoying a delicious simple lunch, suitable for the little children who also attended.
Both sessions were such a success that after the sessions finished, the attendees were busy arranging with the presenters for them to come again and do more sessions on other topics.
The Hurricane Stars Club looks forward to organise more such beneficial sessions for the different segments of our community, but especially for ladies of all ages and walks of life. 
THE HURRICANE STARS CLUB FAMILY FUN DAY @ICB
On Saturday the 7th of September the Hurricane Stars Club hosted their first Family Fun Day at the Islamic College of Brisbane (ICB) to promote Child Protection Week. It was an incredibly successful day with more than 1000 people attending over the course of the day. Alhamdulillah, the beautiful sunny day went smoothly without any major incidents except for light winds. Many were surprised that the entire event was organised and run by a team of sisters and they have since received multiple requests to make it a regular event. The Hurricane Stars Club volunteer team overcame the challenge of not being able to enter the hall to start setting up until 10pm on the night before, which resulted in them having to stay awake all night setting up both inside and outside the hall in preparation for the event.
The hall was filled with a variety of more than 50 stallholders selling a variety of goods from fashion, jewellery, essential oils, handmade goods, toys, books and linen, while other stalls promoted charities and community organisations. There were a wide variety of amazing food stalls, delicious desserts and refreshing drink stalls both inside the hall and under marques in the hall carpark. For many attendees the family fun day was a food festival, where they had so much fun trying all the different cuisines available, as a result of which many of the items had sold out by mid afternoon.
There were a wide variety of activities to keep the kids busy throughout the event. On the hall stage there was a native Australian animal display that allowed the parents and kids to see, touch and hold a wide variety of animal throughout the day, as well as doing a number of shows throughout the day. The Calamvale Station police came and allowed the kids to climb around and investigate their police car. We had amazing face painting, henna, fairy floss, show bags, animal farm, jumping castles and fun rides to keep the children happy for hours. The only downside for the day was that the day fireworks had to be cancelled because of the total fire ban issued by the Queensland Fire Service. Although the event was not, alhamdillah, affected by the extreme weather conditions predicted but the occasional wind gust meant that the ranger ride could not operate, one of the five jumping castles hired for the event and the inflatable obstacle course could not be inflated.
We were honoured to be visited by a number of local dignitaries throughout the day. The ICB principal Mr Shariff came twice to visit the festival and the Hurricane Stars team are grateful for his support, without which the event would not have been as successful. Brisbane City Council Councillors Angela Owen and Kim Marx attended the family fun day, as well as state MP Duncan Pegg.
The Hurricane Stars Club volunteers team would like to thank the stallholders and attendees for making the event a very successful day for everyone.
WORKSHOP FOR MUMS AND MUMS TO BE
We had an amazing program with Mental Health Professional Kholoud Abdullah. It was a great chance for mums and soon to be mums to meet other mums and talk about the challenges of motherhood and find support under the guidance of Kholoud Abdullah, a experienced and professional facilitator. The session was a safe place for mums to come and talk and find support not judgement.
GIRLS SOCCER PROGRAM
This week we started our Girls Soccer program at Gould Adams Park as part of Live Well Logan. The girls had fun learning soccer skills, practicing drills and playing games against each other. A big thank you to the Multicultural Sports Club for partnering with us to deliver a successful program with the help of their awesome coaches Naomi and Anar.
It has been a great opportunity for our trainee coaches to enjoy learning how to be good soccer coach.
SEW YOUR OWN PENCIL CASE
We had a sewing class for teen / tween girls where they made their own beautiful pencil cases, guided by a sister who is passionate about sewing . This activity not only introduced the art of sewing but also helped the girls to learn perseverance and patience. We are thankful for the beautiful fabrics used that were donated by a lovely sister in the community.
TEEN BOYS DAY OUT
For the teen boys, we organised the program Boys Day Out ! with Male adult volunteers sacrificing their time to mentor and guide the boys in a fun day at the Daisy Hills Conservation Park. More than 18 boys participated in a walk, visited the Koala Conservation Centre, played games, listened to motivational talk as well as had a BBQ picnic.
MAKE YOUR OWN HERB GARDEN
The Hurricane Stars Club also hosted a number of other school holiday activities. We had a make your own herb garden activity, in which the children planted three different herbs in specially -made pots which they could bring home to grow their own herbs. We are grateful to Muslim Aid for donating the seedlings and pots for this activity.
RESPONSIBLE SCREEN TIME WORKSHOP
For the past six months, the Hurricane Stars Club has been developing a workshop series with a local computer gaming expert, Dr Tania McMahon. The workshops were developed as a result of constant feedback from parents about their concerns over the amount of time their children spent on electronic devices, either playing games, watching videos or on social media. Parents did not know how to break the bad habits their children were developing, while at the same time, it was apparent that their children did not listen to them about the dangers of too much screen time.
The Hurricane Stars Club team felt the best way to tackle this growing problem in society was to develop two-prong approach, one aimed at parents and the other at the children themselves. This was developed into a workshop firstly for parents to advise them how to change both their own and their children’s behaviours regarding usage of screen time. The second workshop especially for children was presented in a fun and interactive manner, so as it does not become just a boring lecture and so that they can understand better the important concepts being presented. The workshops were a great success with around 100 parents and children attending both workshops. The workshops were held at the Hurricane Stars Club Centre in Logan Central and the venue was stretched beyond its capacity to fit in all the attendees. Every kind of chair in the office was used; while some parents had to stand along the back wall and some children had to sit on the floor to be able to all fit in and listen to the workshop. The presenter, Dr Tania McMahon was very happy with the amazing turn out and all the positive feedback she received for her presentation from all those who attended. After the workshops, the Hurricane Stars Club provided afternoon tea for the attendees to allow them to socialise and discuss the workshop amongst themselves and talk to the presenter. Hurricane Stars Club is very grateful to the Islamic Council of Queensland for their support of the workshops and Zapparas Lawyers for their sponsorship of the workshops.
CODER DOJO AT ICB
We were honoured to be invited by the Crescents of Brisbane to support them at their Coder Dojo program at the Islamic College of Brisbane. The Crescents of Brisbane team ran the amazing Coder Dojo sessions where the participants of all ages (7+) learned about the various types of computer programming. The Crescents of Brisbane’s Coding Bootcamp drew a capacity enrolment of over 50 young boys and girls, parents and individuals to the library of the Islamic College of Brisbane eager to learn how to program in languages like SCRATCH, HTML, JavaScript and Python, as well as control robots via code. Two separate groups of 50+ will spent two weekends immersed in the capabilities and complexities of computer code. Participants worked in pairs and at their own pace, helped along by volunteer mentors who come from all walks of life. There were also prizes for creativity and innovation, helpfulness and improvement as an added incentive.
The Hurricane Stars Club team provided the BBQ lunch for the participants.
EID DOWN UNDER STALL
We were excited to have a stall at the Eid Down Under festival at the Islamic College of Brisbane on June 8. We spent the whole day selling popcorn, fairy floss, Zaky merchandise, drinks, chocolates and hot chips. We were very grateful to the wonderful sisters who make the amazing waffle sticks who shared our stall with us.
HURRICANE STARS RAMADAN ACTIVITIES.
This Ramadan the Hurricane Stars Club had two ongoing weekly programs, Ramadan activities for kids in Underwood Marketplace and iftars for sisters at our centre. Inspired by the amazing achievements of Laaiqah Ally and the Islamic Council of QLD in Westfield Garden City, the Hurricane Stars Club was approached by Muslim Aid Queensland to run kids colouring and craft activities at their stall in Underwood Marketplace on weekends. The activities run every weekend and were a great success, with the tables constantly full of children. Our first week’s activity was a Ramadan lantern with a LED tea candle inside and every week kids had fun enjoying a different Ramadan themed craft activities.
The Hurricane Stars Club hosted their first iftars in their Centre in Logan Central, every weekend. The Hurricane Stars Club is very grateful to the Muslim Charitable Foundation for sponsoring the iftars. The iftars were a success with 20 women and children attending the first iftar. Every week the number of attendees increased so that by the final week we had 40 attendees. The iftars were organized to support those sisters in the community who are do not have family to share iftar with and would like to enjoy the support of other sisters in Ramadan. Due to feedback we heard from sisters who are tired to eat curry everywhere, we arranged a local Muslim Uighur family to cater for the iftars with delicious traditional Uighur food, as well as Turkish and Indonesian cuisine. At our final iftar the ladies requested that we have a henna artist so that the ladies can enjoy eid henna. We had a lovely sister who spend 3 hours doing henna for all the ladies.
My Health For Life
On Tuesday the 30th of April, the Hurricane Stars Club were excited to
host Saalihah Seedat (Consultant Pharmacist and MH4L Accredited Facilitator) at their centre, as she presented an overview of the
Queensland Government initiative called My Health For Life. The My Health For Life is a free lifestyle program available to eligible
participants who want to improve their health and reduce their risk of developing chronic disease.
Fifty women registered to attend the information session all interested to see how the program can help them to make small changes to their lifestyles that will have major health benefits and prevent serious illness long term. There are two programs scheduled to start in July for those who are eligible and expressed interest in the program. To support the success of the information session, the Hurricane Stars Club’s volunteers provided lunch for the ladies who attended. This
allowed the attendees to enjoy a gathering of sisterhood at the end of the information session whilst they enjoyed delicious Turkish food and it also gave them opportunity to make make new friends and catch up
with old friends.
KAYAKING IN LOTA
On Thursday 11th of April 2019, Hurricane Stars Club booked kayaking at
Lota Camping Reserve to celebrate Youth week!
There were 14 of us and we were guided by Pam and Jerry; two senior kayaking instructors with more than 15 years of experience.
Participants learned some basic techniques like forward strokes, back strokes, pivot turns, stops, and turning. There are also housekeeping rules:
One whistle stop look and listen
Two whistles raft
Three whistles rush to shore immediately (just in case there is an emergency like storm, strong currents, someone injured, danger in the creek, etc)
After around half an hour preparation, it was time for the children to go and explore the creek.
They saw interesting wildlife like beautiful eagles, white herons, snails, kites, crabs, spiders and tadpoles. Some did not really like it when their kayaks went into the mangrove trees because the insects would get into the kayaks!
They loved it when the wind blew cold air and how the water splashed onto them and the beautiful scenery to enjoy.
Around 2.30 the group went back to the shore after 5-6 kilometers of kayaking. Some of them were soaked wet but all of them had a wonderful time.
READY FOR RAMADAN KIDS
Our fun Ready for Ramadan program for kids this week kept the kids busy for hours doing a variety of activities. Kids learned to make delicious snacks, they participated in a Ramadan quiz game and made colourful Ramadan calendars. The Ramadan calendars were made up of 30 boxes that children could put little treats or reminders in everyday of Ramadan to celebrate the passing of each day of fasting. @ Logan Central, Queensland, Australia
TEEN GIRLS GET RAMADAN READY
The Hurricane Stars Club has been busy again this School Holidays organising programme and activities for the community.
One of the programmes were Ready for Ramadan series which aims to help participants to prepare in welcoming Ramadan, which is slated to begin at early May.
The first programme was a #RamadanReady programme for teen girls which were held on Wednesday the 10th of April in the Hurricane Stars Club Centre with more than 15 girls in attendance.
The girls had a fun and beneficial time learning about Ramadan through the different activity stations that they have to go through. At the Ramadan Games station, the girls had an entertaining time playing the unique Ramadan Challenge board game which pits contestants against each other in answering questions about Ramadan, fasting and general Islamic Knowledge. Meanwhile, at the DIY Snacks station, the girls tried their hands on preparing their own roast chicken wraps and honeyjoys, a sweet dessert from cornflakes. The girls then ate what they prepared as their lunches which they truly enjoyed. At the Ramadan Deco station, the girls learned to make personalised Ramadan Times Board and their own Ramadan beautiful lanterns. Finally, at the Quran Journal station, the girls were introduced to how to do reflections of what they read in the Quran and internalising the meanings and making the journals their own interactions with the Words of Allah. This will be a good preparation for Ramadan, when most Muslims would increase their time in reading of the Quran.
The participants all had a phenomenal experience and everyone said they enjoyed themselves learning more about Ramadan in a variety of interesting activities.
COACH DEVELOPMENT
The Hurricane Stars Club is proud to have received a grant from Logan City Council to train multicultural women to be sports coaches. As we have more women wanting to train to be coaches than the funding has allowed, we partnered with the Multicultural Sports Club to run the program as they could fund the extra places needed for the other participants.
We had a very successful training day in which 6 women and 6 men did the professional coach training course. Free lunch was provided and everyone enjoyed the day and are looking forward to continue their training in their chosen sport.
LAN PARTY
The second Brisbane City Council sponsored activity that was designed, planned and organised by the youths themselves was a L.A.N. Party in Cybergames, Sunnybank Hills.
A record 70 teenage boys came at different times to the programme. The boys came together and met old friends and made new ones as they had fun playing computer games in a social environment as opposed to playing games online alone in their rooms at home. Although there was not enough computers for everyone, the boys had fun sharing with their friends, watching them play and taking turns using the computers. Free snacks, lunch and drinks were provided all throughout the day. The boys all went together as a group to pray their prayers in jamaah when the time came. Most boys stayed from beginning to end and didn’t want to leave even when their parents came. A very successful event indeed, Alhamdulillah. @ Cybergames Internet Cafe
THE AMAZING RACE
We were excited to work together with the Brisbane City Council to do two free programs for the young people of the community for Youth Week 2019. The activities were created, planned and organised completely by the youths themselves.
The first activity was the Amazing Race in which the participants raced around the Islamic College of Brisbane (ICB) in teams competing to complete a variety of activities and challenges. There were more than 60 teen boys and girls who turned up including those who were not from ICB and even non-Muslims. The first, second and third places teams won prizes of gift cards sponsored by Brisbane City Council.
After that, the participants (and parents) were also treated to a free eat-as-much-as-you-can sausage sizzle and canned drinks.
All in all it was a fun day for all participants and a great learning experience for the organisers planning such a big programme. It also provided opportunity for the youths to make new friends outside of their usual circle of friends.
@ Islamic College Of Brisbane
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS DAY CAMP
This week we did our popular school holiday day camp at the Southside Academy of Combat. The program started with a fun session playing games and learning about road safety with Cherie from PCYC Logan City. Then the kids had delicious pizza from Sam’s Pizza. Finally they learnt a bit about the Indonesian Silat martial arts. @ Southside Academy of Combat
CRAFTING FOR THE FUTURE
Today we help to host an amazing event for women called A Day for Women – Crafting for the Future. Held at the Islamic Women’s Association of Australia Hall and attended by Queensland Senator Larissa Waters. The ladies started the event by making their very own personalised vision boards in the crafting session. Then they had delicious lunch, followed by a panel discussion with Cornelia Babbage of the Multicultural Families Organisation, Farah Scott from the Hurricane Stars Club, Senator Larissa Waters and Princess Lakshman. The last part of the event was a fitness session organised by the Hurricane Stars Club fitness instructors. It was an amazing and highly successful day enjoyed by all those who attended.
HARMONY DAY AT PARLIAMENT HOUSE
We were very honoured to attend the #harmonyday event at Parliment House. The theme was #everyonebelongs after the recent tragic events in Christchurch. With a special focus on the Muslim and New Zealand communities. With the amazing Nadia Saeed speaking on behalf of the Muslim youth and community.
ZAKY AND FRIENDS LIVE SHOW IN BRISBANE
In October 2018, the Hurricane Stars Club saw the advertisements for the Zaky and Friends Live Show in Sydney and they contacted the One4Kids team in Sydney and volunteered to help them bring the show to Brisbane for the first time. Members of the Hurricane Stars Club have children that have grown up watching Zaky’s songs and dvds so they were all excited and passionate to support the development of Islamic animations for children. More than that, these efforts are to promote Halal entertainment alternatives that are of high quality, engaging as well as educating for Muslim children.
The Hurricane Stars Club team volunteered their time to help One4Kids to organize school shows for the younger grades at Brisbane’s two Islamic schools, the Islamic College of Brisbane and the Australian International Islamic College. Then they also coordinated a Sunday Live Show on stage at Islamic College of Brisbane open to all, especially for those children who do not attend the Islamic schools.
Promoting the show was not an easy task. Other than using social media to announce the coming of Zaky and Friends to Brisbane, our volunteers have spent the past month going around Brisbane’s mosques handing out flyers after Jummah to promote the upcoming show. We also had to stand at the gates of several schools with majority of Muslim students at pickup time to handout flyers to parents. After all the hard work of promoting, it was at last the time for the One4 Kids team to arrive in Brisbane.
They stayed for one week and the Hurricane Stars Club team volunteered to bring them around Brisbane for Meet and Greet sessions beginning with babies and toddlers in our own Little Stars Playgroup and also with kids in the local madrassahs and to the school shows. Children of all ages (and teachers!) enjoyed interacting with Zaky and these sessions have increased awareness of the good work that One4Kids are doing in children entertainment.
On Sunday March 24, the Zaky and Friends Live Show was held at the Islamic college of Brisbane with more than 240 parents and kids attending the show. Zaky and his friends, Kazwa and Nadeen, sang nasheeds, danced and entertained the children, while at the same time educating them all about the Greatness of Allah. Junaid Aly was an amazing MC for the show, where he organised a number of stage games with the excited kids during the intermission break, so that the Zaky team could have a break from their very hot costumes. The games allowed many of children to come up on to the stage and win amazing prizes, like their own plush Zaky and Kazwa toys.
The show was a great success, with parents and kids having so much fun and having nothing but praise for the professional show being put on. We are very happy to say that 100% of all ticket sales during the School shows as well as the Sunday Live Show goes back to One4Kids to help towards making more Zaky animations in the future. The Hurricane Stars Club team was very excited to volunteer their time to support these shows as a sadaqah jariyyah towards future productions and developments of Halal Islamic children entertainment. As part of fundraising efforts, the Hurricane Stars Club had a stall at the show selling hot food, desserts, drinks, popcorn and fairy floss. Parents and children lined up patiently to order and it was a pleasure to see examplary behaviours from all attendees. Indeed this bodes well for the future of the younger generations that usually learn more from actions rather than words of their parents.
We are very grateful to Sunny Meats butcher shop in Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown for sponsoring the delicious sausages for the sausage sizzle and the Cheesecake Shop in Sunnybank Hills for providing amazing desserts that quickly sold out, both Muslim-owned businesses who are always very supportive. We also would like to thank some amazing ladies in the community who made and donated delicious cupcakes and cakes for us to sell. All funds raised from the food sales will go back towards supporting the various Hurricane Stars Club’s volunteer-run community programs. It was an amazing experience for the Hurricane Stars Club team and an honour to meet and help the talented founder and manager of One4Kids Subhi Alshaik and his staff and family. We look forward to their return in Ramadan to premiere their new Ramadan-themed Zaky film as well as further cooperation with them in the future in shaa Allah.
ZAKY VISITS BRISBANE.
This week the Hurricane Stars Club was excited to organise the One4Kids Islamic cartoon character Zaky came to Brisbane to do his live show in Brisbane. He had special school shows at the two Islamic schools, the Islamic College of Brisbane in Karawatha and the Australian International Islamic College in the Durack campus and in the Gold Coast campus.
The children from grades Prep to Year Three in these two schools had so much fun watching the Zaky and Friends live show and didnt want it to end. After the show had finished, Zaky played a game with the kids and many lucky children won Zaky toys as prizes and all children who attended got to take a fidget spinner or hand ball home. The children enjoyed the meet and greet with Zaky and Kazwa after the show even more and it took twice as long as the show, as all the kids wanted to hug Zaky and Kazwa and take a photo with him.
His first visit on arriving in Brisbane was to the our Little Stars Playgroup. Where the kids were so excited to see Zaky that they did not want him to go and the cried when he left. During the week in the afternoons, Zaky went around Brisbane visiting the students in the various madrassahs to say hello and promote their live show on Sunday March the 24th at the Islamic College of Brisbane. First, Zaky went to Slacks Creek Mosque, where all the Imams and madrassah students gathered in the main prayer area of the Masjid and they had lots of fun meeting Zaky. Zaky played a game with the kids to see who could sing a Zaky song and the winners won a ticket to Sunday’s show.
Over the next two days, Zaky went to visit Logan Mosque madrassah, Kuraby Mosque Madrassah and Shajarah Madrassahs and said hello to all the madrassah students. The final madrassah that Zaky visited was Holland Park Mosque in which Zaky was very honoured to be sung a song by the madrassah students and they presented Zaky with a fruit platter.
Sadly due to the rain on Friday, planned visits to Kuraby State School, Logan Roos Football Club, Rochedale and Algester Mosques had to be cancelled. The Zaky team was amazed by how many children of all ages loved Zaky and his films and how excited they all were to see Zaky.
QLD STATE MP’s VISIT
Queensland State Member of Parliament and Queensland Minister for State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning, the Hon Cameron Dick, visited the ladies program in Kingston. He congratulated the Hurricane Stars Club on what has achieved for ladies swimming through this program. The Hurricane Stars Club was extremely honoured and grateful to be mentioned by Cameron Dick MP in the Queensland Parliament, for their efforts in promoting water safety for women. Members of the Hurricane Stars Club were grateful to Cameron Dick MP for acknowledging the tireless efforts of the Hurricane Stars Club to promote ladies swimming.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY MOTHER DAUGHTER HIGH TEA
On Sunday, the 10th of March 2019, the Hurricane Stars Club hosted an elegant afternoon fundraising high tea in the Stamford Plaza in Brisbane City. The event was organised to celebrate International Women’s Day and to honour the most important person in a woman’s life, their mothers, grandmothers or daughters. It was a sold-out event with 130 ladies attending and enjoying a buffet high tea. The Stamford Plaza did not disappoint by serving a variety of delicious desserts, sandwiches and quiches. The event took up the entire Terrace area, allowing the attendees an amazing view overlooking the beautiful Brisbane river with the picturesque Storey Bridge in the background.
The event was hosted and co-organised by the amazing Susan Al-Maani who ensured, as usual, that all the attendees had an amazing time full of laughter, great company and delicious food. One of the attendees decided to use this event as a birthday celebration for her daughter. It was a brilliant gesture as not only it was a gorgeous setting with minimal preparations, the mothers also got to come, and enjoy themselves on different tables, but it served also the higher purpose of contributing to fundraising for a good cause.
The High Tea was also a success with sponsored games and lucky door prizes from Jas – Makeup and Styling, The Cheesecake Shop Sunnybank Hills, Sam and Billy’s Beauty Box and Ella Bache New Farm and giftbags for all attendees. It was a successful event and the Hurricane Stars Club look forward to organising more similar events in future which celebrates being a Muslim woman in a fun and halal way.
HURRICANE STARS CLUB CENTRE OPEN DAY
On Sunday the 24th of February, the Hurricane Stars Club had the Grand Opening Day for its new Activities Centre. Alhamdulillah it was a beautiful sunny day, making the event a great success. We had more than 100 people attending, a combination of mums, dads and kids of all ages. The Hurricane Stars Club greatly appreciated their own personalized marquee, donated to the club by Duncan Pegg MP, which thankfully arrived the day before the opening day. We were able to use the marquee for our delicious sausage sizzle, as the Hurricane Stars Club volunteers are expert sausage sizzlers after 10 months of organising the only Brisbane 100% Halal sausage sizzles at Bunnings Underwood. We are also very grateful to Mabrouk and Sons butchers for sponsoring the delicious sausages. There was also a fun jumping castle for the kids outside on the carpark area, hired from two local Muslim sisters home business.
Inside the centre, we had our most popular stalls, which always had a long queue of kids excitedly waiting for awesome face painting by Jaz and beautiful henna design by Henna Me, all for just a gold coin. We were very grateful to several lovely ladies who graciously donated delicious cupcakes for fundraising, that quickly was sold out. Popcorn and Fairy floss stalls as well as the Fundraising Chocolate stall were also bestsellers.
The Hurricane Stars Club volunteers had a number of different kids activities for the children to enjoy. We had fun playdough play, bracelet making, painting table and Marble Your Own Cup activities. While the children had fun doing the kids activities, the mums enjoyed relaxing massages, manicures or pedicures by the wonderful ladies of Sam and Billy’s Beauty Box, all in a private room in our centre.
Alhamdulillah the Hurricane Stars Club looks forward to running many different classes and activities for ladies and kids in our new Activities Centre over the coming year to benefit the community. We currently have Ladies Fitness and Pilates classes, Reverts Sisters Gatherings and beginning in March, we will be starting our new Little Stars Islamic Playgroup, in shaa Allah.
In the near future, we will also be looking to start ladies social activities and faith-based support groups for people experiencing different trials and challenges in life such as grief and bereavement, serious illnesses and carer of those with disabilities. After Ramadan, we are also planning to start Brisbane’s first Muslim Scouts group, in shaa Allah.
JANUARY SCHOOL HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES
The Hurricane Stars Club continued their school holidays program in January, providing kids with a wide variety of opportunities to have new experiences, make new friends and learn new skills. We started the month with a peaceful kayak through the beautiful mangroves of the Brisbane river, with both parents and kids having fun paddling along the river in their kayaks. A few weeks later we kayaked down the Logan River and the kids had fun and testing their skills playing a variety of games on the river while still in their kayaks.
We partnered with the Southside Academy of Combat in Underwood again, after our successful teen safety workshop in December, for a day camp for kids. We had 28 kids aged from 6 to 14 years old who spent 5 hours learning Indonesian Silat martial arts and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, while play games, having fun, getting fit and making new friends.
We also joined up with the Multicultural Sports Club to take the kids down to the Gold Coast by bus and gave them the opportunity to learn how to surf on a beautiful Gold Coast beach. The following week they returned to the Gold Coast again to learn how to be a surf lifesaver. This activity allowed them to learn the important skills needed to help swimmers in difficulties while on the water. For both activities they did various activities both on the sand and in the water.
For those kids who prefer indoor activities or were too young to join the water sports, we organized a personalised program of different art activities at Logan West Community Artshare Alliance. We had three different activities to appeal to all kids, we did glass fusing, clay hand building and hebel carving. In the glass fusing activity, the kids and some parents got creative with different coloured pieces of glass and they made their own fused glass scenery. Our most popular activity was the clay hand building activity in which we filled up the art studio! The kids had the opportunity to make their own pirate ships, into which they etched their own unique designs on. Our final activity was hebel carving, in which the kids developed new skills and carved their own unique designs into a piece of concrete.
Wanting to let tweens and teens (and their Mothers!) regain the lost art of Sewing, Hurricane Stars Club organised a Beginners Introductory lesson to sewing by hand and to sewing machines. It was a popular and fully-booked program where girls and ladies learned upcycling a pillowcase into their own tote bags. A few days later, we also organised another sewing session, this time for those who are with more experience in sewing. Participants got to learn how to personalise and make their own long skirts. This activity not only helped our girls to learn new skills but also empower them to own their own fashion sense while adhering to Muslimah conditions of attire.
Our final activity for the school holidays was a morning at Cable Ski Logan in Carbrook during which the kids tested their ability to zoom across the water. The kids kneeboarded, wakeboarded and played in the aqua park on standup paddle boards, kayaks, canoes, boats and inflatable paths. Kids took on the challenge of zipping around the lake on kneeboards and wakeboards, with some brave little kids giving it a go even though they were smaller than the boards and needed help to carry their boards.
All in all it was a very busy and fulfilling school holidays, Alhamdulillah. We look forward to developing more exciting activities for kids and youth over the coming year with the dua and support from the community.
HURRICANE STARS COMMUNITY HUB 