SAIL Program Newsletter

The 'let us know' list
1. If any of your contact details have changed, please let us know.
2. If you have a spare seat in your car, please let us know.
3. If you are planning to have contact with your student outside of SAIL hours you must let us know first and complete the contact request form.
4. If you intend to bring a friend to SAIL please direct them to the website first and direct them to apply online or just let us know beforehand.
5. Let us know if you are going to miss a Saturday by email, phone or the "Can't Come Sheet"- now also online!
6. Please check and read your emails each week- if possible, Friday is best!
7. Please let us know before you speak publicly or publish an article about SAIL.

Important Diary Dates
(Please note that SAIL does not take school holidays or long weekends off!)
1. Tutor Talk (in service) sessions for the next few months are at 12:30pm on 10th April, 15th May, 19th June.
2. Please bring any second hand clothes for recent arrivals in the Sudanese community on the Saturday before Tutor Talk weeks. Second hand toys are always very welcome in SAIL Junior.
3. There is no SAIL Xtend on the listed dates ie no Arabic or short courses.

Cars and lifts
1. Flinders Street- there are two cars that collect tutors from Flinders Street station every week. Cars leave at 10:05am from (and return to) the post box on Flinders Street. Feel free to catch the lift!
2. Car drivers please note that, unless you are bringing non-human cargo to SAIL, we ask that you park your car in
the Mephan Street car park located on the far side of the school (at the top of May Street) or, if you are early, at the front of the church on Ballarat Road.

Ongoing offers
1. Photocopying- for any SAIL related photocopying, simply mark the pages from the books you want copied and give the book to Matthew or Anna Grace on Saturday- it will be ready for you the following week!
2. If you would like to post an ad or some other information relating to SAIL or another not-for-profit venture in which you are involved, please email it to SAIL@Melbourneemail.com to be included in the next newsletter.
3. The Tutor Resources section of the website is available at all times to provide tutors with ideas, games, work-sheets and support. We strongly suggest that if you are experiencing difficulties of any kind when working with your student, you post a request for advice on the SAIL Panel of Experts Bulletin Board (accessible from the Tutor Resources section). Tutor Resources can be accessed from the main page of the website www.SAILProgram.cjb.net or directly at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/tutor.htm.


Please read this newsletter in the following week, it gives updates on SAIL past, present and future!

Greening SAIL
Have you ever taken a good look around at just how must waste SAIL produces or thought about how ‘green’ SAIL is? We certainly have and SAIL sure ‘aint scoring too well on the green front. Some SAILors have raised this with us recently and we really want to do something about it. So we are putting out a call for a SAIL Greenie! We would love this person to investigate and organise ongoing recycling for SAIL, further investigate the feasibility of composting (we have done some work on this already with the help of SAIL’s Garden Gurus), and generally look into making SAIL greener! This will probably involve some liaising with the council and other community groups for which we can assist with contacts. An even more adventurous SAIL Greenie could help develop worksheets to teach the students at all ages the importance of being as environmentally friendly as possible. If anyone is interested in taking this one please come and talk to us!

Motor Matters

Be aware or be fined….
Just a reminder to all SAILors driving to SAIL to please park behind the nursing home in Mephan Street rather than May Street. For those unfamiliar with the backstreets of Footscray, Mephan St runs off Rosamond Road. The Council are still threatening to put permit zones everywhere which will mean fines for those parking in May St and also make it very hard for the few SAILors who bring non-human cargo and really need to park in May street. They haven’t put the signs up yet, lets hope we can prevent this and be fair on May street residents by not clogging up their parking spaces with our cars.

Farewell Tanya, Welcome Jo
Most of you will never have met the woman who revolutionised the car collection process for SAIL. Tanya, from whom you may have received e.mails in the last 12 months, was responsible for organising the 80 or so cars that come to SAIL every Saturday full of SAILors. SAIL’s car pooling system is fundamental to the successful functioning of SAIL because as you will all know, if they are not picked up by you and out wonderful bus drivers (Akon now joined by Mabior) our students simply could not come to SAIL. It is with HUGE thanks and best wishes that we farewell Tanya who has taken off to London to work. We thank Tanya not only for her tireless, creative, organised and dedication work for SAIL ….but also for finding us Jo!! Jo, a colleague of Tanya’s, has taken over the role and is already doing a great job. So welcome aboard Jo!

Spare Seats?
Thanks to everyone who already does a SAIL pick up each Saturday. Your generous donation of time and car seats is invaluable. We are just reminding anyone with spare car seats that there are plenty of families on the waiting list for SAIL and the only thing stopping them from coming along is that they just cannot get there!! So if you have seats in your car and would like to pick up a family please let us know. There is also the option of putting yourself down as a floating driver. In this case you will receive an e.mail every week with a request to pick up at a specified address as a fill in for regular drivers who cannot come to SAIL that week. Feel free to chat to other tutors who drive families to see what it is like and be sure to chat to us if you have any questions.

The SAIL Star will be coming out next week chock full of the work of budding SAIL journalists! This year each edition will have a theme and the theme for edition one is Pop Stars! Watch out for the ‘did you know’ section, the ‘From the Library’ section and the ‘Adventures of Detective Deng and Amazing Achol’ which are all geared toward the theme of Pop Stars!

We are always on the lookout for work to be published in the SAIL star. Contributions can be stories, reports on excursions, reviews of TV shows or cds or movies, recipes, anything really! To facilitate submissions there are a set of worksheets that can be found in the black display folder with the other worksheets and are also available on the tutor resources page on line. Submissions should be placed in the submission box covered with newspapers and stars that is housed in the library. If it is needed, the SAIL Star team headed by editor in chief Catherine Collier, will type out students work in order to include it in the publication.

SAILing out of hours.
Thankyou to all SAILors who have or intend to go on extra excursions with their students. We really encourage these outings and just want to remind you all that all contact with your students outside of SAIL time must occur only if a consent form has been filled out and signed. This is super easy! You can get the forms from the web site, or collect them from us on a Saturday. All you need to do is fill it out, get a few signatures, hand it back to us and you are away.

2003 Photo Board
Wondering where the 2003 photo board is? The answer is scattered across the photo albums, bedroom floors and study walls of all our photographer extraordinaire SAILors. So we are putting out a call for anyone with SAIL photos from last year to bring in a photo or two that we can use to put together a SAIL photo board for 2003. We would love as many SAILors as possible to be represented!! Watching the photo boards get bigger and bigger over the years is amazing and we really want to keep creating them. If you have any photos you would like to donate, please just bring them to us on a Saturday. While we are in the asking mode, if anyone wants to help create the photo board let us know!!

Student folders
Everyone will be glad to know that we have sorted out the folder boxes. They were starting to look a little scary! We hope that it will now be much easier to find things. The boxes are now clearly alphabetised,
with the hanging files being used as DIVIDERS only, so the folders don't go inside then anymore, but behind them.

The sort-out uncovered a few interesting things, including the fact that some students have multiple folders under their name (!?), and some are filled to bursting with old worksheets and need a bit of a reorganise, and others are near empty or don't look like they've been used in a while. If your student’s name/s are listed below, we've put their folders into the 'Sorting Box'. This box will remain at SAIL for the next three weeks, so that you can retrieve and rationalise anything that is still relevant, and after the three weeks we'll take it all to paper recycling:

Abiol, Achol (multiple folders - please retrieve, sort and specify surnames!), Ahmed (three folders), Ajak, Aluel, Angelina, Amina, Ayor, Chol (multiple folders - please retrieve, sort and specify surnames!) Kot, Konker, Ejur (three folders), Kouyouk/Koyok, Jackson (2 folders), Patric and Rafail, Fifi/Victoria (folders for both names!), Margaret, Santino, and also an unnamed folder very well-decorated with pictures of Eminem and other rappers.

Xtend Jumping and Rolling Forward
Our SAIL Extend program is in full swing and complete with new group names. Our first cycle of activities has seen the Extend group the “Mambas” building human pyramids in our Circus Activity, the “Sharks” dribbling and leaping around the court in Extend Basketball, the Cheetahs kicking footballs and doing lots of push ups in Extend Football, our “Crocodiles” cooking so many Chicken Kebabs even they couldn’t consume them, our Gazelles” have been making some beautiful pottery, while our “Hyenas” have been digging and planting some beautiful creations in our garden. Thank you to Basketball Victoria, the International Australian Football Association, the Westside Circus, and our home grown talent for running all these short courses.

If you are not sure whether your students are involved in the activities program, we ask that you check with Bridgid, Anna Grace, Will or Andrew before taking your SAILor(s) home.

SAIL About

New Coordinator
The SAIL About excursion program is now fortunate enough to have its own coordinator, Nicole Kirkwood. Nicole is an avid skydiver and fire juggler and is keen to see the SAIL About excursions program continue to grow. So, if anyone has ideas or contacts for obtaining tickets to various shows, theatrical productions, excursions, sporting events, concerts, activities, please feel free to contact Nicole on SAILAbout@MelbourneEmail.com.

Movie Tickets
Our fantastic SAIL About team have come up with some free movie tickets as well as some buy one get one free. If you are interested in taking your students or the family you pick up on a SAIL about excursion please come and see us!! Also, be sure to check your e.mail for updates on other wonderful SAIL about offers!!!!!

Playback Theatre
The last SAIL about excursion to Playback theatre was a total hit! Two SAIL families and three volunteer SAILors went along to watch the extremely talented actors perform interactive theatre. A wonderful evening was had by all. Thanks to the SAIL About team for organising it!

Camp
While some of you were overseas, others at raging parties, some at work, and others at giant music festivals, a small group of SAILors spent New Years Eve in style on camp in Queenscliff! From December 29th to January 2nd Matthew, Anna Grace, Will, Bridgid and Peter took about 40 SAILors to the beautiful Cottages By the Sea in Queenscliff to enjoy the best week of the entire summer on the beach, playing games, going for walks and relaxing. There was the beach, basketball, art, drama, SAIL idol, a video or two, music, singing, dancing, and 6 talented SAIL Mums cooking up a storm each night (except the night when Bridg and Will cooked and added way too much chilli for the kids but not enough for the mums!). Sue and Hayley came along for a visit as well to join in the revelry. All in all the camp was a giant success!! Look out for Alek Adub’s report in the next SAIL star.

Day of caring and the New SAIL Computer Lab
On 17 March 2004, we were fortunate to be offered the services of 20 friendly and hardworking Esso Mobil staff members whose labour and skill had been volunteered by their company as part of the Day of Caring. As a result of the fine work done by the tireless Esso Mobil crew, the Church and Hall were thoroughly cleaned, a new monolithic doll’s house was collected from donor and installed in our Junior room, a wonderful community resource section was set up in our library.

In addition, one of the Esso Mobil volunteers went through our backlog of donated computers and checked, repaired and prepared 6 computers for distribution to SAIL families while 4 computers have been installed in our new SAIL Senior computer lab! This lab has been up and running for 2 weeks now and is a great opportunity for SAIL Senior to learn basis computer skills and could potentially be the source of some computer short courses for our SAILors of all ages. Thanks also to SAILors to Ismael and Lorraine for all your help on the day!

Administrative Support Service
A new initiative of 2004 is the SAIL Administrative Support Service which will run every Week One – that is, the Saturday after the Community Talks - and potentially over the following weeks depending on demand and volunteer power. The clinic will run from 12.20 – 1.30 in the foyer during which time a volunteer will be available to assist adults to fill out any forms they may have, and with the general administrative/bureaucratic issues that become so difficult when there are language barriers. This will be linked in with the week five community talks with the clinics following on from, and dealing with, administrative needs raised such as filling in Centrelink forms. At the moment Kate Jackson (SAIL senior tutor and week 5 coordinator) and Lorraine Lipson (librarian extraordinaire) have volunteered to be the administrative supporters. If you are interested in assisting with this new initiative please let us know. Also please let your students know about this service, particularly the senior students.

AMES and SAIL
SAIL is thrilled to have two AMES staff joining our team. Carmel and Sue from AMES have started joining the SAIL senior team of a Saturday to assist with new senior students, help to develop SAIL senior specific resources, and answer any queries or concerns that our SAIL senior tutors have. Please feel free to approach them with any queries. Sue and Carmel are available for consultation for SAIL senior students specifically each Saturday from 12pm.

Video Killed the FOXTEL stars
SAIL Home Help families (and others!) spend a lot of money each month on Foxtel. Financially, this is becoming a real burden for some, and the good folks at Foxtel are surprisingly persistent in their efforts to convince people with limited English comprehension that they can't live without it. We are currently compiling video libraries for some Home Help families so that their kids can have access to decent programs at any time of day without having to pay a fortune. If anyone has any old video tapes which have been superseded by DVDs, or has the time to set the VCR to tape some fun, funny or (gasp) educational tv shows and bring them in to SAIL for the kids, these would be incredibly valuable and much appreciated by everyone (except Foxtel).

Donations

CD Player for Junior Room Wiggle Fans –
Our Junior room is looking for a donation of an old CD player to ensure that the Wiggles can be played and our Junior SAILors can dance and sing the morning away on a regular basis. If anyone has an old portable CD player that is gathering dust, please bring it in.

Cooking Utensils
Our Extend cooking program is looking for donations of the following second hand cooking utensils, so if you have any of these items lying around unused, please bring them in to us on any Saturday:

Measuring cup
Kitchen scale
Large stainless steal mixing bowls
Sieve
Baking trays (times 2)
Rubber gloves
Large non-stick fry pan

Plastic bags
Once again we are in need of plastic bags! So it’s time to rustle through your overfull ‘bag bags’ and your overflowing drawers and bring all extra unloved plastic bags to us at SAIL. Your bags will be well utilised to distribute the generous bread donations that SAIL receives each week and passes on to SAIL families. Donated bags should be deposited in the kitchen on any given Saturday.

Thanks!
Thanks to all of you for returning for another incredible year of SAILing!!!! Thanks to all the SAIL admin people who kept on working so hard over Summer behind the scenes to ensure that we were ship shape for 2004. Thanks to all those SAILors who have returned to SAIL after long absences, it is fantastic to have you all back!!!!! Thanks to Mandy, our new photocopy whiz. And finally we want to send out a huge thanks to the entire SAIL crew for making the transition for us from Saturday coordinators, Librarian and Xtend leader to SAIL coordinators so easy and so much fun! We are having a blast working with so many incredible people and are extremely grateful for the constant support and help we are receiving from a multitude of sources.