mad hatter's tea party by kathryn

Once upon a time, not your time nor my time, but one time, there was a room, a mystical, fantastical room, overflowing with streamers and cupcakes and heart-shaped balloons. All you had to do was follow the white bunny...

For in this room, this amazing room in the land of M, a tea party was held, also starting with M. Twas the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and what an event it was! There were bunnies, ribbons and marshmallows too and of course there were guests, who had hearts of gold. 

For you see, it was a joyous, wondrous, celebratory event, new people were met, stories were told, friends were made and games played at the spectacular Mad Hatter’s Tea Party event. 

The guests came in, donated a toy, and were treated to a banquet of cupcakes and cookies and tea if you please. And at the end of the day, when time was up, it was with heavy hearts and equally heavy stomachs that the guests all left.  One by one they filtered out, laughing and chatting about the time they’d just had. Decorating classes had been won, and packet mixes too, they’d all left with new challenges, and were determined to see them through! The event was a success, with members new and old along for the ride. 

And the toys, oh the toys that were given, in ones and twos and threes and fours, they filled up the whole table, and most of James’ car! And the children when they receive them will be oh so glad, for a gift so simple, can mean so much, for those with such little. 

It’s not every day you get to dress up and visit Wonderland, but that’s exactly what happened at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Members old and new from Sweets by Sweets came along, met one another, and enjoyed a scrumptious feast of tea-cup cupcakes and Cheshire cat cake that would make the Mad Hatter himself proud. 

The event was a MAD success, with over 100 toys being donated to Tea for Toys. They will be sent to an orphanage in the Philippines, a much deserved home. 

decorate for hope

On the 29th of May the Sweets set out to raise both funds and awareness for Orange Hope for AIDS. Macquarie staff and students were able to witness the life of a boy from Africa who lived with HIV/AIDS by walking through a HIV clinic that was set up by the Orange Hope team. It was truly an eye opener. 

They were then greeted by friendly Sweets who took them through our decorating station, where they were able to complete the following 3 steps: 

STEP 1: CHOOSE your baked good (we had cupcakes, cookies, dessert pizzas, you name it!)

STEP 2: FROST your cupcake

STEP 3: DECORATE your cupcake with whatever embellishments you desire. Have a look at some of the amazing cupcake designs the staff and students of Macquarie University came up with...

A big thank you to Chryssi for picking such a worthy cause, the Orange Hope team, the Salvos and of course, our Sweet bakers who donated all their time and effort into making this event possible. We were able to raise $387 which was such a great effort considering how rainy a day it was! 


Sincerely, 

Stephy

wild @ heart bake off

In April, the Sweets decided to something a tad different. We decided that we would help to preserve natural ecosystems within the Kimberley River (WA) and the Murray Darling (NSW) by supporting a fellow student student group at Macquarie uni called the Wilderness Society.

The Kimberley is a culturally significant area for the local indigenous population. The $400 we raised went to preventing industry including gas development from wrecking the beautiful natural wonder that is the Kimberley. The funds also went towards protecting the ecosystems of the Murray-Darling from dying because of the amount of water being taken out of the river system.

We held a BAKE OFF with the Sweets baking for two separate teams: The Wild Things Vs the Green Machine. Have a look at some of our creative treats...

Green has never looked and tasted so good!

Also, a big thank you to Samantha from Bliss: Food for donating the vanilla bean macarons that made the Sweets look very professional.

Sincerely,

Stephy.

DIY cupcake decorating station for Lymphoma Australia

Hey sweeties!

It's Lisa! Our fundraising for Lymphoma Australia was such a success!! It was great watching all our sweet customers making their own decorated cupcake and showcasing their inner talent! It felt like I was in a candy shop with all the lovely colourful decorations and never ending cupcakes!! We had such a great team working behind the scenes making sure everything was organised and ready. Can't wait for more of our wonderful sweet events!

Get ready to be blown away by the decorating skills of staff and students at Macquarie University...

For more pictures click riiiiight here. We ended up raising $499 which will go straight to Lymphoma Australia who are working hard to find a cure for sufferers of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Big thank you to all the Sweets who set up and packed away. I know that it took a lot of work but seriously you guys should be extremely proud. You couldn't walk past our event without doing a double-take. And most importantly, thank you to Jared Cook, our inspiration for this event.

our healthy classroom bake sale gets an A++

Hey schweets.

Listen up to what Jehane (our event coordinator) and Chryssi (our assistant event coordinator) had to say about our bake sale last week...

"Is it an advertisement for the cupcake factory? Is it the cover of a recipe book? Is it a shot from a scene of Desperate Housewives?

Nope! You are not dreaming, it’s actually a photo of our last bake sale! Indeed, it was that amazing. But don’t be fooled, it was not only beautiful but also delicious and helpful since we have collected over 500 hundreds for the Children's Food Education Foundation. I am really impressed by all we can do with just a few eggs, a cup of flour, a spoon of butter, a pinch of sugar and a bunch of motivated people. Therefore, I would like to thank every person that, both with smiles and sweets, has contributed to this beautiful table and to this fantastic day."

- Jehane

"The theme of the Healthy Classroom Bake Sale was to incorporate healthy concepts in the recipes for the baked goods. The money we raised went towards the Children’s Food Education Foundation, an organization that teaches children how to eat healthy at a young age. Representatives from the organization came for support and provided items for us to use in our raffle as you can see in the photo below. They also supplied aprons, cookbooks, silicone cupcake trays and card games.

This bake sale was held outside of Marxine’s Café in the Campus Hub. This was a good location but a better location would have been around the front of the Hub facing the central courtyard. We would have had more exposure and more opportunities to sell the baked items to students seeing as more students pass by there than the location we used.

The bake sale was successful. We raised $511.00 for the Children’s Food Education Foundation. Many members baked for this event and brought their baked goods throughout the day which really benefited us because we had an assortment of things for customers to choose from for the entire duration of the bake sale. Also, all of the members that came were very helpful.

For the next event we should be a little more organised. We need to write down who brought what, the ingredients, and the prices immediately upon the arrival of the item so as not to lose track of who is contributing and to better help the customers decide what to get for example if they have allergies. Also, we need to be more organised when members show up to volunteer, by checking their name off a list or by making a list with the people who show up on it, and we need a list of the volunteers and their time slots on hand so we can check and make sure everyone is doing their part.

This was my first event with Sweets by Sweets as the assistant event coordinator. For me personally the bake sale was a lot of fun, it ran very smoothly and I could not have asked for a better way to start off in this position!"

- Chryssi


Thank you for your thoughts and very constructive suggestions, girls. You have done such a great job so far and I honestly cannot wait to see what you guys come up with for future events.

Sincerely,

Stephy.

Chariot's first high tea experience (MUST READ!!!)

When someone mentions a tea party, you may be inclined to envision a round table, with teddy bears and dolls seated around it; the teapots containing imaginary liquid and the cakes – though delicious – either invisible or made from play dough. Up until last Thursday, this was the image that my mind conjured using memories and pop culture.

It was just past eleven in the morning, the day rather raining, when I slunk into the Boyd Room, a little apprehensive and hoping not to attract attention. Forcing my eyes up from my feet, (lovely, though they are) I gazed upon the members of the Sweets by Sweets Society, both old and new, setting up the tables for the legendary tea party that was soon to commence. I was struck with confusion at the sheer enthusiasm and yet easygoing atmosphere that bustled around me. This Pokémon condition was soon gone as I found myself part of it all.

My ineptitude at setting up tiered cake stands failed to make me feel any less than at home amongst the wonderful people there. Maybe it was because I hadn’t drunk a cup of tea in 3 days, but I just felt completely at ease, meeting new faces, drinking hot tea and eating delicious cakes, shortbread biscuits, and tiny sandwiches with ‘Eat Me’ signs reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. Personally, I consider meeting more people than I have fingers and thumbs to be an achievement, but accompany that with great food and you’ve got something else extraordinary.

For all those guys out there, who think that tea parties are too feminine and pansy: you are missing out. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was far from being the only male present at a tea party. Not that I would’ve minded anyway, because, just between us, it seems that all the pretty girls go to tea parties. Speaking from a less gender-biased perspective, every single person around that table was a quality character. Just because it was high tea didn’t mean that we all held our pinkies out, sipping our tea and hot chocolate; engaging in refined conversation. No, far from it – let’s just say that crumbs flew as laughter erupted.

Now, remember those teddy bears and dolls from before? On this day, I realised that no tea party is truly complete without them. The Sweets by Sweets Society, while a great place to meet friendly creatures of the human persuasion, is also a charitable society. We teach ourselves to bake, we already know how to eat and, at the end of the day, we do it for disadvantaged children. Apart from themselves and maybe a friend or two, people brought toys to the tea party that will be sent to kids who might not have as much as we did at their age. One hopes that our smiles and laughter on Thursday will translate to smiles on those boys’ & girls’ faces. If a teaspoon of sugar makes the medicine go down, hopefully our table full of toys makes some young lives just that bit more cheerful.

I believe that every great experience has something of particular note that helps solidify it in our memories. For me, that was being bestowed with the nickname Chariot. Though not particularly ingenious, (sorry guys and girls) it does have a certain charm to it. It’s not every day that you’re given a nickname from people who were strangers only an hour earlier.

To sum up, the Sweets by Sweets Tea Party gets my seal of approval and I would recommend it to anyone who’s curious! If you were there on Thursday, you’ll definitely see me again. If not, you might see me in the future. Up to you, really.


Forever torn between savoury and sweet,

Charith ‘The Chariot’ Wickremasinghe

our sweet high tea

Hi sweet girls and boys (yes, we actually have more than 1 boy in the club now!),

Watching Alice in Wonderland at the moment, how fitting. I think that ALL attendees experienced a very merry un-birthday at our 'mad tea party' last Thursday.

Our high tea was brilliant and turned out much better than expected. I received comments from members of Campus Experience and MUSRA about how beautifully decorated everything was. And it's all thanks to both old and new Sweets who helped to set up our cake stands, tables, tea and toys.

Rosie (above) spoke on behalf of Tea 4 Toys and couldn't believe the amount of toys we ended up bringing. We each made a huge effort considering that we're all uni students. Some members bought new toys while others let go of their previously loved toys. Tea 4 Toys is such an active charity who guarantee that our toys will go to very deserving families.

On the food side of things we had jam tarts, pavlova pots, fancy brownies, red velvet cupcakes, cucumber sandwiches and plenty more. Wipe that drool off your keyboard! Thank you to all those who baked. All the new Sweets were really impressed with our 'standard' (haha) and some even asked for both recipes and lessons from us. A special shout out to Millie, one of our newest Sweets, for baking blueberry muffins even though we told her she didn't have to bake(: We love keen beans.

We also did a short presentation introducing the founding committee members including the president and treasurer. Michelle also spoke about why she chose the Children's Food Organisation Foundation for our next bake sale! And now we all can't wait to get our BAKE ON for next Thursday.

Lastly, I'd like to say that I'm so proud of how far Sweets by Sweets has come since we first established ourselves last year. From just 4 members running bake sales to 55 likes on Facebook and so many people rostering their time for next week... it makes me feel all gooey inside. Thanks again everyone for sharing in our committment of baking so that other's can have a sweeter life!


Sincerely,

Stephy.

O-happy week

Dear sweets,

I can't really put into words how fantastic O-week has been for us as a group. So i'll let some of the founding committee members break it down for you...

Mikey:

It was very exciting and we got lucky with the weather albeit a little hot. Lots of people came through, loved the stall and commented on the club. In general people had a very positive response to the concept of the club and quite a few people showed a lot of enthusiasm to want to be involved. We had heaps of requests for baking classes and people wanted to know if we taught them how bake which we will definitely work on. So stay tuned for baking classes! We ran into a lovely gentleman named Geoff who works at the uni and from here on out will be referred to as the EGG MAN. He works on a free range egg farm and offered us some lovely free range eggs at very generous prices. That’s all I have to say about that:)

Joanne:

Yesterday was 1st of March, my first time working for O-Week Sweets by Sweets promotion! At first it was a bit awkward ‘cause I’m not a Macquarie girl; I’m from UTS, but then you, Macquarie people, are super friendly and sweet, I actually had great fun meeting new people and socialising. And wow… Macquarie boys… way hotter than UTS boys. I have this good feeling that I’ll become more outgoing as I work and play with you all, ‘cause I spend most of my time talking to no one…

Anyway, so I wrote our list of members last night – 290 people signed up! Not to mention they have awesome names too like, Alexis, Valentine, Orathay, Marielle… God, why is my name Joaaannnne? Oh, we’re not sure how many people we’d be able to contact back because I couldn’t quite read some of the writings (sorry) but hopefully most of them will turn up next Thursday, ready to send toys and dolls to disadvantaged kids. Is it only me who’s replaying the last scene of Toy Story 3 inside my head?

Now the food, I haven’t tried all of them but it was quite funny to watch people staring as they walk pass. I’m pretty sure they were thinking ‘OMG, yum, must get one!’ but then soon believed that’s a risky action because one; they might have to pay for it, two; they have to listen to all the crap about the club, and three; they need to either get the pamphlet or sign up or do both in the worst case. Those who grabbed a cake or two got asked to join, and some said they never bake or aren’t very brilliant at it. Hmmm… I don’t bake. I’m not even friends with my own kitchen and its gang except the coffee machine. So, I think, next time, we should approach those baking newbs like me by informing them that ‘baking’ isn’t the big picture of this group. Why not approach those who are just simply into charity works or social gatherings where they can casually talk about being there for someone or helping others? My photography tutor said, “Whatever you guys do, try to become people.”

Anyway… I don’t know what else to say. I’m actually quite worried about next Thursday ‘cause I have no toys or dolls that I can to give out, except this Barbie that it’s hair got cut by 7 year old me. What are you guys planning to bring?


See you at our Sweet Tea Party this Thursday the 8th of March where we'll all be bringing in toys for one of our most beloved charities, Tea 4 Toys. For more details check out our Facebook page(:


Sincerely,

Stephy.