I am presently Chairman of the Malta Hospice Movement  for which I do fulltime volunteering developing Palliative Care in Malta.  It is a challenging job but ever so rewarding being able to give support to so many families.  You would be proud tosee all the alumnae I have managed to attract to act as volunteers and give some time delivering our various services.  We have a taskforce of 300 active volunteers and I would say 60% are alumnae including a Sacred Heart Nun!!!  I have also just been appointed a member on the National Advisory Committee for Breast Screening which should be interesting for me as it is so related to my work with cancer patients.  So you see my life is rather full with the family as well who are so supportive of my work. I shall try and put a few alumnae together to work on your theme Reconciliation - As regards Malta I am not quite sure if study groups of this type will work out but it is worth a try. I visit the AMASC website regularly and also signed the guestbook - it is a really good site and I have passed on the URL to many.  I have also shown it to a couple of nuns who happened to be at hospice in my office.

I have aroused a lot of interest for our May meeting where I hope we will discuss possibilities of reestablishing the links with the Society here in Malta which is growing older and dwindling down to nothing.  You asked if we had a school - Yes we still do and a very important one on the island mainly run by lay people.  The headmistress in the Secondary School is a nun who is certainly striving to keep certain traditions going.  My daughter who is doing a Postgraduate course in Education recently had a six week placement in the Junior School and was thrilled she was back at her old school - from this I realised that something had to be done to reestablish the lost links so many yearn to have.

Love to you and all your team and alumnae in Australia

Claudia Taylor-East