mandjay

Hi Joan01

Thanks for the welcome and the reply, a meet would be lovely.

Amanda and I arrived about 4 weeks ago and were steadily getting to know the area, it's beautiful.

Apart from the first week and a half we've rarely seen our 19 year old son as he seems to be finding his own social group of friends, which is reassuring but we would love to meet friends ourselves so a meet would be great.

We are pretty flexible as we are still to find jobs so could fit around your schedule.

Any way let us know ,

Regards Jason

Hi guys and girls my family and I are newbie arrivals in cairns and were wondering if anything was going on socially ?

It's a bit daunting and lonely when you first arrive and could really do with a good old pep talk with folks from blighty.

We've newly arrived in Cairns and are looking to find our feet and were wondering if there are any expats in the area we can socialise with, to get to know the area and community. We ave taken a rental in Redlynch and feel a little bit isolated .

The wait is so frustrating, I really feel for all of you still waiting. I know we now have our visa but I was so fed up of waiting, especially as my medical was referred and I don`t have any previous or existing conditions and you`re never told why it has been referred!

Just as I thought they had forgotten us.....got to work today and received email from Agent......

We got our visa grant. :biggrin:

Morning guys, on top of the world today....... we FINALLY got our VISA GRANT - woop, woop. So, so excited we can finally crack open the bottle of champagne that has been sitting there collecting dust

Rich your next if I remember rightly your meds were referred a day after ours, be patient it will come very soon:smile:

Congratulations :ssign19:

So they are still working on the referrals then! We were referred on the 20th November and beginning to think that they've forgot about us

In my opinion I found the reading difficult and failed it twice. Although I am proficient in English as I am English it was still hard. I asked the moderator why in his opinion I kept falling short of the pass mark ( I needed 8 s and above) he proposed that I was approaching it in the wrong fashion and recommended that I read the questions first and then skim read the passages to extract the answers. Did that and passed with a 9.

Edited

In my opinion I found the reading difficult and failed it twice. Although I am proficient in English as I am English it was still hard. I asked the moderator why in his opinion I kept falling short of the pass mark ( I needed 8 s and above) he proposed that I was approaching it in the wrong fashion and recommended that Ireland the questions first and then skim read the passages to extract the answers. Did that and passed with a 9.

Please someone quell our despair its gone dreadfully quiet on here! Lets hear some good news from someone soon PLEASE !

Well, we FINALLY got the email we've been waiting for!

 

WE GOT OUR VISAS WOOOHOOOO

Congratulations and all the best for you and your family. :smile:

Our CO emailed on Tuesday to say she had all the documents she needed, and our application was pending the outcome of our health assessments. I emailed GH regarding the status of our medicals, and they got back to us yesterday. The lady who replied said that there was "a significant backlog of medicals waiting to be processed". She did say that she'd sent ours through again, this time to the Helpdesk Manager in the hope that this would speed up the process! I couldn't get logged onto evisa until this afternoon, but when i finally did, the option "arrange your health assessment" has now disappeared! I'm really hoping that this means they've been processed and will be visible to my CO now!!

Lets hope it's a good celebration weekend and you get that grant tomorrow!

I'm not positive on this but I thought you moved from juvenile to adult when you turn 17 years of age, but as has been mentioned honesty is the best policy!

I'm not suggesting being dishonest at all. As I said he will have to declare it on the form when submitting it for the police check. I am merely summising that it will not show up when he receives the police check back because he was under 18 at the time.

I do not believe that cautions show up on police checks if it occurred under 18 years of age. Although you will have to mention it on the form when applying for the police check.

Great news - not long for mine now I hope!!!!

Things are certainly moving quickly, hope you get your CO this week.

We got a CO today, soooo excited......

IMO I found the test very subjective and some of the questions quite ambiguous. That said they are only looking for one answer and thats the correct one.

I took the damn thing 3 times until i passed and can really understand your frustration as i missed out on half a mark each time i failed. I got so frustrated that i felt like giving up ! Eventually i talked to one of the moderators at the test center (Bath Uni) and they offered me some usefull advice on how best to approach the test and tips on how to maximise your success. They were very helpfull. Armed with this new found confidence i sat for a third time and passed.

Hang in there dont give up. If its writing your struggling with do some reading of some essays if you can find some, pay attention to spelling and grammar and think what you want to say in the piece and structure so that you have an introduction summarising your main points, then elaborate main points and issues in the middle of the piece and i always ended with a paragraph to give a conclusion.

Good luck i hope this helps.

BTW my writing i think was 8.5.

We applied for a 475 FS visa in February 2009, which is stuck in cat5. We were so fed up of waiting with no end in sight so we decided to start again, but this time did IELTS, got WA SS and now have applied for 190 and yes paid for it all again including additional agent fees. And no regrets, should have CO in the next few weeks and hopefully a permanent move after Christmas.

Hi Kev

We applied for WA SS on the 14th September, received a grant on 11th October and an EOI invite on the 12th October. We also submitted our 190 visa yesterday. Our agent said that things were moving quicker than stated. We have already done our PCCs, but advised to wait until we have a CO before booking medicals.

We flew business from London to Sydney last year and I have to say it was a very good flight. I think it is a five star airline, so you shouldnt be disappointed. We were very impressed with the service from check-in to arrival.

Equivalent would be a BTEC HNC - that's what got us a positive assessment and was compariable to an AFQ Diploma.

Last time we went on holiday to Oz and travelled around, we bought a new sat nav from Dick Smiths for $80 which was cheaper than paying for the maps on our UK one.

Official face book page of DIAC...

Why would they announce it on facebook and not on the official Immigration website??

It would be good to know what the breakdown of actual numbers are for visa's processed in 2011-2012.

Hi MacGyver

We have arrived at different times in past, midnight, midday, late afternoon, but last time we arrived at 8am in the morning. We tried to stay awake and wandered around Sydney for most of the day, but felt so tired by late afternoon, we ended up going back to the hotel and falling a sleep at 4pm with the intention of only having a couple of hours sleep....we ended up waking up at 3am wide awake. Upshot it took us a couple of days to get over the jetlag and this was the only time we felt it and we flew business! Much better to arrive and go straight to bed and least you will wake up feeling refreshed and reading to go.

Hope this helps.

Hi Ironchef

2006 BMW 330ci Sport Automatic Convertible(M Pack) top spec. 58k miles.

Oz valuation $34-38k

UK valuation 12k

Thanks