Greetings, all!

I wanted to remind you all of the “flow” of the Sunday — so you can dress accordingly and feel comfortable with the way the day unfolds.

Our numbers will not be large. This is an intimate gathering.

Part 1: Road Safety Workshop: We begin at 9:30 am with morning tea for the Workshop participants in the meeting room.

The workshop will take place in the small meeting room (so our small number of participants are not feeling “swamped” by the big hall).

Also, we can have acoustic privacy for our hard-hitting workshop while others are setting up food, music,  etc. in the hall.

The topic is sombre: road deaths and road safety. Not appropriate for carnival dress.

Part 2: Matilda’s Rainbow Lunch

Then at 12:15, the whole focus shifts, as the road safety workshop participants leave the meeting room to greet and join with other participants who have arrived for the rest of the day.

That corner of the room will be lavishly decorated with rainbow decorations.

Now we are into high energy, bright colours and bright music — as we share Matilda’s rainbow lunch and celebrate the life of Matilda Bevelander.

Matilda Bevelander in 2014, aged 15

We have left our sadness behind and are focussing on the positive aspects of our lives.

I am suggesting that you bring a bright thing to wear for the afternoon — from the lunch onwards —  — a feather boa, a bright shirt, a bright shawl, a bright tie, a bright scarf — or whatever — to signal that we are now celebrating — and particularly doing it in the style of a beautiful and vivacious 16-year-old girl.

(I have a rainbow poncho that I will don then.)

Part 3: Gift Giving and Appreciation

In that mode, we move on to Part 3 — after lunch –to proclaim ‘The Matilda Way”.

The Mayor of Tweed Shire, Cr. Katie Milne, will cut a huge ribbon (a rainbow ribbon I purchased today) to formally proclaim this stretch of Kyogle Road (symbolically only) for evermore as “The Matilda Way”.

The final part of our day is gift giving and appreciation — and speeches of thanks.

So can you see you might need a change of clothes? I will leave that up to you.

But I definitely want us all to be in a bright celebratory mode to honour young Matilda.