DEAR FRIENDS

The end of the year is a good time to take stock of the year's accomplishments and, for a change, look back rather than forward. Below we share with you some of our 2011 highlights.

Our offices close at 5pm Friday 23 December and we reopen on Monday 23 January 2012. We hope that your Christmas and New Year is peaceful and restful. We thank you for your support during 2011 and look forward to working with you again in 2012.

Kind regards
Mark MacLean and Christine Bruderlin

BOOKS

Helping clients publish books is always rewarding. Christine has been working closely with author and linguist Suellyn Tighe to design and illustrate a set of three Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay readers due out early in 2012.

IAD Press's Walrpiri Picture Dictionary (to be published in 2012) and the Kaytetye to English Dictionary (available now) were huge important projects that were opportunities for us to work with friends from our time in Alice Springs. It's satisfying to be part of a community of people supporting our nation's languages.


Mark's twelve months of writing were completed with the December publication of A Year Down the Drain: Walking in Styx Creek, January to December, designed and illustrated by Christine. It looks at Styx Creek, one of suburban Newcastle's "drains", and tries to reimagine it as the meandering creek it once was.

Citations for Mark's web
summary on editing Aboriginal
texts continued to grow
throughout the year, with links to professional and academic courses from Sydney to Perth.

INTERPRETIVE
MATERIALS

We worked with new and old
clients on a range of information publications. The Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council's directory of services for alcohol and
other drugs, a series of sports access reports for the Australian Sports Commission, and dolphin
brochures for the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service. We designed and supervised installation of a set of large signs about flooding at various locations
around Maitland for the Hunter-Central Rivers CMA.
We were privileged to work
with the Butters family and the Nicholas Trust to produce a publication that explains the Trust's work in the Hunter New England Health region. The Trust provides accommodation in the paediatric palliative care unit of the region's hospitals and is named in memory of Nicholas Butters, son of Jenny and Craig who established the Trust.

REPORTS

Report work is a big part of our working year; from May to September our diaries are filled with schedules and deadlines. This year we worked with (among others) the Hunter-Central Rivers CMA, the Lower Murray Darling CMA, the Central Desert Shire, the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation and Ninti One Limited to assist them to meet their reporting requirements.