June 20th  was the day for the annual St George's School Festival. This year the theme was of course 'DRAGON'. Much merriment was had by all and the day finished up with a fantastic live perfomance from The Wild Oats. 

Above - The Wild Oats sing The Making Sense Song at the School Festival.

Please come to the Dragon

Awareness gig on Thurday 5th June

and find out more about our amazing

plans for the future.

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DRAGON ALL IN A FLUTTER

AT RARE VISITOR. 

The large tortoiseshell butterfly.

THIS time last year an extremely rare butterfly perched on a pallet of building blocks at the Dragon centre and caused quite a flap.
The large tortoiseshell butterfly is extinct in this country but this one was thought to have been carried over from France on a warm front of air.
It was spotted twice in two weeks by entomologist and public artist Nigel George as his team worked with school children to create a sensory garden at St George’s School, home to the Dragon project.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes, I was like an excited child,” said Mr George.
“The children must have thought I had lost my mind because I was shouting at people to get a camera. I recognised it immediately as a Large Tortoiseshell butterfly but I’d never seen one for real in my life before. What really got me going was that it was flying in and out of the Elm trees we have in our little woodland area at Dragon....Elm is a choosen foodplant for Large Tortoiseshells to lay their eggs on!"
“In most of the books it’s registered as having died out in the UK so it was one of those strange moments where I knew what I was looking at but couldn’t quite believe it.”
Luckily, Spike Oatley had his camera to hand and got this snap of the butterfly with its beautiful orange wings fully open.
Another one was spotted by Andy Butler, butterfly recorder for the IW Natural History and Archaeological Society, in his garden at Wheeler’s Bay, Ventnor. He said there had been five sightings at Ningwood, Seaview, Ventnor and Newport over June 19 to 20 and July 6 to 7.
“What’s happened, and it’s quite unprecedented, is there was an influx of them with sightings on the Island, Hampshire and in Dorset,” he said.
“They have been getting scarce on the Continent so for these sorts of numbers to turn up here is even more unusual.
“They could possibly re-establish here, but probably only for a short time, but nobody knows.”
The recent sightings follow two at the start of the year on February 17 at Whitwell and the second on March 21 at Atherfield.

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 TV PRESENTER & NATURALIST

 BECOMES DRAGONS PATRON.

Yes it's true TV presenter Chris Packham has that said he would love to be a patron of Dragon.

Chris said today "I'm delighted to be asked to support Dragon by being a patron, St George's is a terrific school full of superb kids. You have to understand the importance of this project, it has all sorts of possibilities for the way we teach our kids in the future, it's not just important for the Isle of Wight but also nationally. I visit a lot of schools each year, too many to mention in fact, but I've not come across another school project like this....it really is very exciting!

http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/

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Island 2000 & St George's School

present

Dolly Mixtures

Sat 17 May - Sat 7 Jun

An eclectic mish-mash of art dolls created from an equally eclectic range of materials will be exhibited by a team of mainly Island-based artists in support of the St George’s School Dragon Project. Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to own these pieces of art as they will be raffled off to raise funds for the project.

                    

Raffle and Drinks Evening:

Thu 29 May 6 - 8pm   

Buy a £5 raffle ticket  and you could bag yourself a genuine Art Doll collecters item by any one of a number of well known artists which include Teresa Grimaldi and Kate Sutton. 

There are over thirty Art dolls on display and they're all potentially take home-able if you win!

All funds raised go to St George's Dragon project.....hurrah!

                       

                          

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DRAGON GETS A FACE LIFT! 

Take a look at these little beauties!

This is the set of brand new Dragon Logos courtesy of Island artist & graphic design genius, John Patty.

John is a keen supporter of St George's School and we think his design is fantastic. Expect to see it on an array of Dragon merchandise in the future. We think the design will look great on tee shirts and badges.

From us all at Dragon.... thanks John!

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Remember this date - 5th June 2008

THE WILD OATS PERFORMING LIVE@

MEDINA THEATRE ISLE OF WIGHT

 For a St George's School Fund raiser and DRAGON awareness gig.

Plus a live set featuring the amazing four part harmonies of the Islands own band...                             

£3.00 entry 8.00pm til 11.00pm

Don't miss out!

Buy your tickets here.  

Click here for the Wild Oats website.

A huge thank you from us all at

Dragon to Southern Water.

Thanks so much to Colin Fyffe at Southern Water for organising the 'Race Night' fund raising event at Newport Football Club recently. We're not sure exactley how much the event raised yet but we know that it's over a thousand pounds. We'll update you with the exact details as soon as we know more.

Thanks too to all the businesses that helped by donating to the event.....again we'll make sure they all appear on here with the update.

First school visit to Dragon a roaring

success!

Yarmouth Primary School visited Dragon recently and became the first outside school to dig up our dinosaur. The children were amazing, not only did they find every fossilised bone but they also managed to work out what kind of dinosaur it was and how it died!

Well done Yarmouth Primary you are all budding Paleontologists!

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NEW SPONSORS JOIN THE DRAGON PROJECT.

We welcome our latest friends on-board, Ventnor Blog. 

Southern Water join Dragon as a sponsor.....

As have Clancy Docwra........

and The Isle of Wight Zoo .