(Mrs Anne Madsen is an Aboriginal teacher aide at Bloomfield River. Originally she came from the Cairns area, and so writes from personal experience, of the importance of getting to know your community. She presented this paper in December 1977, at the Aboriginal Teacher Aide Conference, Gatton.)

The first two years at Bloomfield River were very busy ones for our family as we were building our house and improving our property so we didn’t have much time for much else at this stage, but as time went on the Mission manager paid us a visit, and over a cup of tea he and his wife invited us over to the Mission to do our shopping and to church services, also just for a visit to have a talk and a cup of tea. My family and I accepted this invitation and we became very good friends. This helped quite a lot with the people also.