Hey Everyone

We’ve recently updated some software on the server that hosts Getting Down Under and this has caused some significant issues with out forums.

Let me take this opportunity to apologise for the downtime. We are trouble shooting the issue with our host and VBulletin (the guys who make the software we use for the forums) and hope to have everything back on line as soon as possible.

Please feel free to keep in touch by either posting a comment at the bottom of this post or via the discussion option within the Getting Down Under Facebook Group which you can view by clicking here. Read the full story

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Since launching Getting Down Under in January 2006, our site has evolved from my own personal Blog, tracking the move of my own family down under to more of an online Australian Immigration Magazine providing the latest Australian immigration news, reviews and of course, the odd joke!

Since these early days the internet has continued to develop so today I thought I’d officially launch a couple more channels to keep in touch with our site and with other folk around the world looking to make the move Down under.

Facebook

If you haven’t heard of Facebook then where have you been! Facebook is a free-access social networking website. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and hobby to connect and interact with other people. We’ve created our own user group on facebook for folks looking to make the move down under. We have 51 members in our little Facebook club so far so lease consider joing us by Clicking Here.

Twitter

The second group we’ve launched is with Twitter. Like Facebook, Twitter is a free social networking and ‘micro-blogging’ service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).

As well as my own random dribbles, any news updates posted via Getting Down Under will also be tweeted to Twitter. If your already a user of the twitter service and would like to receive details of any related Aussie news then become one of our followers on Twitter. You can access our Twitter account by Clicking Here.

Email Newsletter

As well as our new services available on Facebook and Twitter, I’d also like to use this as an opportunity to remind folks that all of the latest posts and news appearing on Getting Down Under can also be sent to you on email via the Getting Down Under newsletter.   To join the other (at time of typing) 1158 people who already subscribe to our newsletter then please Click Here.

Privavcy stuff : For info, we use the services of a company called Feedburner to provide our newsletters. Feedburner is a company owned by the search engine dudes at Google so be rest assured your details will be held in a secure environment. We also promise to keep your email safe and will use it for only this purpose.

Getting Down Under Forum

Last but not least, our Australian Immigration advice forums have already been providing help and support to a great community of like minded people for some time.   We currently have over 5000 members in our community (who have asked over 28,000 questions) so if Facebook or Twitter accounts are not something that takes your fancy consider joing our community forum. The key word here is community and you’ll be joining a great bunch of people online within our forums.

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Can you hear that……? Yup that’s the silence associated with the Australian Immigration Authority doing…..stuff!

It seems very quiet at the moment. My checks of all the usual sources of immigration news seems to be bringing with it very little in the way of updates.

Personally, there’s nothing fascinating to update you guys with either other than the fact that we are now into late Autumn and we had to put the heating on for the first time this morning.

Actually.. that is kind of interesting in a sad kind of way

Living in Australia there is no need for good old ‘central heating’. In the UK our central heating system had a handy ‘boost’ feature you could use when you needed to take the chill off!

You’d get home from work to a cold house, press the boost button and then wait 30 minutes for the water to heat up and circulate around the radiators scattered around your house, most of which only heated at 50% capacity because of the air which needed to be bled from the system in order for them to work properly. Read the full story

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Way back in March 2006 I mulled over whether or not a forum would be a useful addition to our site.

Back in the day, Getting Down Under was a relitively new site. We only had a handful of visitors a day (less than 20) but I still wanted to create a place on the site where members could interact with each other a little more.

On the 20th of April of the same year, I launched our Community Forums and we had 6 folks register to join our forums in the first week

Fast forward a couple of years and I’m delighted to say that we’ve now got over 5000 members, with 20 – 30 new wannabe Aussies joining our community every single day

Getting down under now attracts over 1500 unique visitors daily and it’s great to see some of the interactions and friendships starting to be formed within our community. Read the full story

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Bugger, I’ve just been checking through our Archive and I’ve just realised that last Wednesday the 17th January, Gettingdownunder turned one!

Since making the first post way back then, quite a lot of stuff has happened in my life.

I guess the biggest and most obvious change is the fact that I’m now writing new Blog entries whilst residing in sunny Perth. A little different then Bradford in the UK I must say.

We’ve launched our forums which appear to be getting well used and I hope that some of these Blog entries provide a useful introduction and insight to life down under.

Feel free to post a comment in relation to any of our posts. I love reading your feedback and welcome any suggestions on ways in which I can make this Blog even better. Read the full story

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Hi Guys

Just to let you know that we added the .com and .net domains to gettingdownunder today and although the .co.uk domain and all pages will continue to work, we have decided to adopt the .com as our main URL.

Therefore, please use http://www.gettingdownunder.com as our primary address

Hopefully everything should still continue to work ok (and any old .co.uk bookmarks will still work) without any issues but in the mean time please let me know if you have any problems. Read the full story

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Well, its been nearly a month now since the house first went on the Market

I’ve been reading some horror stories posted in our forums about folks who have spent months and months before they managed to sell their house.

The thing that concerns me the most I guess is that every month we remain in the UK, the Aussie house prices are starting to rise. Fair enough you still get a lot of house for your Money in Perth but even so, I’d much rather be out there now. Looking at the market whilst starting to plan our future.

Patience is a virtue I guess. In the back of my mind I always knew that it might take a while to find a buyer for our house.

It was in the local paper again last night so I hope this may bring with it some additional interest over the weekend. Heres hoping anyway

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We had a link posted in our forums outlining the likely changes. the new changes appear to have a particular focus on overseas students desiring to go the PR route.

Snippet of the text:

AUSTRALIAN university graduates may face greater competition for jobs from overseas students under a proposed government plan.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has released an independent study of the skilled migration system, the basis for changes to kick in later this year.

The study – by leading immigration experts Dr Bob Birrell, Associate Professor Lesleyanne Hawthorne and Professor Sue Richardson – found skilled migrants were achieving strong success in finding jobs, but a number of reforms were needed.

Employers are concerned that graduating overseas students who studied in Australia lacked work experience in their occupations and had poor English language skills.

Only one third of overseas students are employed in professional jobs six months after completing their courses and there was not enough emphasis, when it came to granting permanent visas, on good English skills.

The report recommended overseas students be given a temporary entry visa allowing a stay of two years in Australia with full work rights after they finish their studies

Full story can be viewed by clicking here

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Top tip posted by Clippies on our forums which I think is worthy of a spot within our main pages:

Hello, just thought I’d post this as I’ve just been and had my copied documents certified. It was super easy, I phoned the local Magistrates Court in Sutton and they booked me an appointment with the Justice of the Peace at 9.30am today – I arrived on the dot, handed over my documents and they returned them to me all certified in less than half an hour.

And how much did it cost? £8!!! Yes that’s it £8, for all 60 copies certified!

I had phoned a solicitor and they quoted me £200 so I’m really pleased I didn’t go that route – so a huge thank you to whoever it was on here that suggested the Magistrates Court

Anyone else looking to do this go to this website and look up your local Magistrates, then ring them and ask for an appointment with the Justice of the Peace.

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/

It costs £8 as an administration fee, JP are not allowed to charge for their time

Personally, I wish I knew this before we got our docs certified but thankfully we didn’t have that many to send over. if you do then Clippies tip may be a top one.

Way to go Clippies – Click here for the original thread on our forums.

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Just an update for the FAQ

An agent is very useful if you have the money (costs are usually in the thousands of A$) but not the time, or if you have an unusual case (unclear work experience, bad criminal or visa history, medical problems etc).

If you are willing to do some research, for example on our forums and your case is pretty straightforward, it is very well manageable without an agent.

However, it might be a good idea to have an agent go through your skills assessment application and/or your visa application just before you send them off, just to check that you haven’t forgotten something or did something stupid. Many agents are willing to do this for only a few hundred dollars.
Read the full story

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Hi Guys

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of our Australian immigration advice forums.

I have had quite a few enquiries from folks using our contact form with questions relating to their move down under.

I’ve answered these questions as best as I can but thought it would be useful to have a forum so that everyone can see the responses given.

In addition to this, a number of our new forums act as gateways to the Usenet communities. You can therefore use these forums to access the Australia and New Zealand immigration news groups from anywhere in the world without having to worry about installing some fandangled newsreader software on your PC. Read the full story

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