SAIL Program Newsletter

The 'let us know' list
1. If any of your contact details have changed, please let us know.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Let us know if you are going to miss a Saturday by email, phone or the "Can't Come Sheet"- now also online!
5. Please check and read your emails each week- if possible, Friday is best!
6. 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 on Saturdays 2nd October, 6th November, 11th December.
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 three 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. Clifton Hill, Brunswick, Collingwood, St Kilda, Richmond and Ringwood also have tutor collection points. Contact the co-ordinators for more information on 9819 5223.
3. 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. Arabic classes- free to all SAIL volunteers from 12:30 – 1:15pm.
2. 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!
3. 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.
4. 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!

NEWSLETTER: BIRTHDAY EDITION

SAIL's 3rd Birthday
Last weekend saw the wildest 3rd birthday celebrations ever seen in the Southern Hemisphere. Friday night the tutor party was held at Will's house. It was a lovely occasion and Akon, Archangelo and Mador were kind enough to put on a beautiful music performance for us.

Saturday was a day was full of performances, laughing, dancing and eating. We were also joined for the first time by our fellow SAILors from Dandenong. The day's festivities began with a fun and informative performance by Claudia and the Raindrops who performed an interactive environmental play for the younger SAILors.

Some of our teenage SAILors put on a moving and energetic play which our kids devised themselves. They also did some great dancing for us all. We thank the crew from Footscray performing arts centre for their assistance in this program. Next on the bill was the international hip hop super-group, Sista She, who put on a wicked show. This was followed by Akon and the Dambai dancers.

Judging by the noise and dancing in the aisles, everyone seemed to have an excellent time and we would like to thank everyone for making this celebration possible, especially our food preparers and Irene our librarian who cooked a superb birthday cake. Happy birthday SAIL.

e.mailarama

Contacting SAIL

We would like to remind people that if you would like to contact Bridgid or Will for anything our email address is SAIL@MelbourneEmail.com. You will also receive e.mails from the SAILAdmin account. This account is used for administrative purposes and is not regularly checked by us. Several emails have been directed to the Admin account which is fine but they take a while to be re-directed to us. So we apologise for any delays caused by this, please use the SAIL@melbourneemail.com account to ensure we receive your e.mail and for speedy replies. Alternatively we can be contacted by telephone on 0412 390 851 or Anna Grace can be contacted regarding student welfare issues or home help issues at Sailhomehelp@melbourneemail.com

Being Contacted

If you have not been receiving regular e.mails from us it seems we don’t have your e.mail address! E.mail is the main way in which we communicate important announcements as well as fun and exciting upcoming events to you all. So if you’re not getting e.mails please shoot us an e.mail and we’ll make sure you are added to the list. Also please check that SAIL is not being blocked from your e.mail.

Upcoming Events

Wholefoods SAIL benefit

After the Melbourne Uni Med Review approached us wanting to give us some money Wholefoods café thought that sounded like a winner so they decided to organise a movie night and benefit and send some of the proceeds SAIL’s way!

This Sunday night September 5th there will therefore be TWO SAIL fundraisers for which we have played no part in organising - bonus!

DETAILS
Screening:
“Life and Death of Peter Sellers” starring Geoffrey Rush
Where: the Classic Cinema, 9 Gordon St Elsternwick on Sunday 5th Sept at 6.30pm.
Costs: $10 concession, $15 full price.
Tickets can be pre-purchased at the Wholefoods Cafe or call
Tess on 0423 449 973 or Debbie on 9887 9028
They must be booked or bought before the event but can be paid for at the door.

Benefit:
Where: Antique Bar
Featuring: DJs, Acro-performers, a lovely raffle, and a food sale.
Starting at 8pm at 218 Glenhuntly Rd Elsternwick. Head there after the movie.

Competing benefit ....

To be fair we thought we'd better let you know about an Amnesty benefit also on the same night....please come to the SAIL one, but if Elsternwick is too far the same film is showing in Yaraville!!

Yarraville Amnesty International Group have tickets for
"The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" (starring Geoffrey Rush)
at the Sun Cinema, Yarraville, 7.00 p.m. Sunday 5 Sept.
Cost is $12.50.
If you are interested please email margdonald52@aol.com to reserve a ticket.

SAIL Music benefit

We are pleased to announce a star studded line-up for a SAIL benefit gig at the Empress Hotel in Brunswick on Thursday 7th of October. The night will kick off from 8pm at the Empress Hotel in Brunswick. The performers who have kindly donated their time include Platypus, our very own Akon and the Dambai Dancers, Sime Nugent and the Forefathers. The cost of entry is $12 or speak to our Saturday coordinator Andrew McCutchen on 0402 474 075 if you require more details.

SAILor SAILS Through South-East Asia On Cycle

Through the Cancer Council’s ‘Tour for a Cure’ program, one of our long time SAIL tutors, Prue Challis, will be cycling through Vietnam in November of this year, aiming to raise $5000 for Cancer research, education and patient support through the experience. As part of her fundraising she will be running a raffle. The first prize is a brand spanking new mountain bike kindly donated by Giant bicycles, the second prize is a Made to Measure clothing package (donated by another SAIL Volunteer!) and the third prize is a one hour sports, relaxation or therapeutic massage voucher. Tickets are $2 each or 3 for $5 and Prue will have them with her at SAIL this Saturday and next Saturday. The raffle is drawn on September 15th.

In addition to this Prue is sourcing any potential corporate or business sponsors who wish to make a donation, so if any SAIL peoples know of anyone who may be interested, Prue would be very eager to talk to them! This can be arranged by a message sent to either Bridgid or Will.

Thank You to Church and Cleaning up.
We would like to thank the Church which gives provides us with such a wonderful venue every week and much support. We would ask everyone to assist in maintain the cleanliness of the church by cleaning their area when they finish class. Taking all pencil cups, books and worksheets back to the library and ensuring all rubbish is picked up. Please also respect the no eating inside the church rule. Thank you for your cooperation in this regard.

Basketball Bonanza.
One of our tutors Bill is currently organising basketball classes for our teenage boys. This program runs weekly and commences at 12:00 when students being taken by Bill, Michael and Danni to a basketball court in Port Melbourne and being returned at around 2:00pm. The program is designed for Sailors in their mid to late teens. If your students would like to participate in this program, please contact us to confirm if there is any room left. Also, if anyone would like to assist with the driving and mentoring of this team it would be a HUGE help so please let us know.

Call for Mini-Bus driver
We are currently looking for a mini-bus driver to assist Akon (who desperately needs a rest) and Luke who will be taking a break from mid September. This role is vitally important to SAIL as it allows us to collect students who wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise. Please ask your family and friends if anyone would like to join the team. Alternatively if any tutors want to help us out for just a morning or afternoon is this regard please let us know – you don’t have to miss class, it just makes it a big day for you once in a while. All you need is a manual licence.

SAIL Intermediate room!!
Quite a number of our SAIL Senior beginners have come a considerable way in their English skills with a whole lot of hard work and the assistance of the brilliant Jen, Fiona and James in the SAIL beginners room. A group have ‘graduated’ to a SAIL intermediate group, which is one step away from individual tutors. This group is learning at the nursing home behind the playground at the school. If any of our SAIL senior tutors are student-less at present and would like to take up the challenge of teaching/co-teaching this group please send us an e.mail and speak to Poly on Saturday.

Extend Continues
Our next round of extend promises to be a feast of fantastic fun. We have the following activies which your students might be interested in:
Drama for 9-11year old boys and girls
Soccer for 10-12 year old boys
Filmmaking for 12-15 Boys
Traditional Sudanese Dancing 12-16 year girls

If any tutors are able to assist during this time, we would really appreciate a couple of extra hands with each course to help our short course leaders.

Bulletin board Question of the Month
Question:

"Hi John, Just thought we’d post a common query, which is, My 'Student knows the Alphabet now - where to next?' What are some good strategies to get kids moving on from single letter and sound recognition to the next level? We encourage tutors to work on the kids recognition of phonics- what is the most logical order/sequence to teach phonics in? Thanks"

Answer from John Munro"
"A key next step is being able to say the sound that goes with each letter in 2- and 3- letter simple words. Some students may find it hard to 'blend' the sounds or 'run them together' to make the intended word. Show the child individual words like 'on' 'cat' etc., hopefully in the context of simple stories.

With 2 letter words that have a short vowel (in, at, up, on etc) teach the child to say each sound and them blend them.

With 3 sound words such as 'cat' or tin, build on what you did for 2-letter words above. Have the child work on the part of the word that has the vowel and the letter after it first, blend them. Then add the first sound. The vowel + following consonant/s are called the 'rime' of the word and in English this is a natural sound unit. Try to avoid sounding out a 3-letter word letter by letter and then blend - this can cause difficulty. You can gradually build up to more complex sound units, for example, 'ank', 'int' units, etc. Thank you for your query."

A reminder you can read previous submission or submit your own queries to any on of our experts on the Bulletin Board in the tutor resources section of our website.

Lesson plans and ideas?
It is sometimes very hard to know how to structure a SAIL lesson. While we are big advocates of whatever works for you and your student, there are resources and assistance on the web if you are in need of a bit of guidance or stimulation.

This website has tutor lesson plan idea which may be of use to you:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/begin.htm

If you are having trouble encouraging your student to settle in to effective work for any length of time on a Saturday you might want to try a good work sheet which can be read about and downloaded here:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/good.htm

Websites for worksheets, ideas, lesson structures, etc… can be found here:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/tutor.htm#work2

And the worksheets can be found here:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/tutor.htm#work1

All of these pages and more can be found by going from the home page, www.SAILPrgorram.cjb.net and following the tutor resources link

SAIL Camping in Queenscliff
The Call goes out again to anyone interested in assisting with the upcoming camp at Cottages by the Sea in Queenscliff. The camp begins at 2:30pm on Saturday 25th of September and we come back on the morning of Tuesday 28th of September. It is possible to only come down on the weekend or for only a day. We will again be taking down 30 people from SAIL family and as alway there should be much fun and hijinx. We need about 6 volunteers to help out and if anyone has any special skills or fun games for the kids then please send us an e.mail. If you are particularly eager for your student to attend and you know they have not attended a camp before please also let us know ASAP. Also if anyone has contacts with bus licences please let us know.

Police Checks
We remind people that police checks form, photo copies of ID and $12.50 are required from all tutors who have not already had provided these. Copies of the form can be obtained from Bridg, Will or from the Central Table where the students folders are kept.

Call for one-sided paper
Using one sided paper to photocopy our worksheets is good for the planet and it is good for SAIL! We have recently had our free paper supply cut, whether temporarily or permanently we are not sure. We are therefore putting out a call for volunteers to bring in their supplies of A4 paper that has been used on only one side and contains no confidential or inappropriate print on the used side. We intend to use this as our worksheet photocopy paper and also investigate paper suppliers. Please bring in whatever you can, hand-full or box-full, and deliver it to the library. Hopefully we can continue this environmentally friendly practice on a large scale even when we secure a free paper supplier.

Cars and Babies
It has been brought to our attention that some SAILors might not be aware of the law regarding driver’s responsibilities when transporting babies. While certainly not professing to be legal advisers (or to know the law in many areas at all!!), on this issue we have sought some information from the RACV who have this to say:

“ Q9. What is the law in relation to child restraints?

A. It is the driver's responsibility to ensure that passengers under 18 years of age are restrained by a seat belt or approved child restraint suitable for their size and weight and properly fitted and adjusted.

The law states that children under one year old must be carried in an approved child restraint suitable for the child's size and weight, properly fitted and adjusted.

Penalties for drivers not ensuring their passengers under the age of 18 are properly restrained are: on the spot fine of $165 and three demerit points or, if convicted in court, a fine of up to $500 and three demerit points. Possible suspension or cancellation of licence may also apply.

Exemptions apply if a child is a passenger in a vehicle registered in another state or territory. They also apply if the vehicle was manufactured before 1976 or is a taxi, and in situations where all the seats are occupied.”

Source: http://www.racv.com.au/redirector.asp?theURL=inthecommunity.htm

This is only from the RACV website encourage you to do your own further investigations in this area as well to ensure you are comfortable with your responsibilities as the driver of the car.

As the driver please exercise your judgment wisely and safely when determining if a car seat is required for anyone you pick up and of course always ensure that seatbelts are worn. While it is a huge strength of our program to bring as many SAILors to SAIL as possible, especially mothers with children, we do not advocate unsafe transport. We are currently approaching businesses for donations of car seats and would be very interested to hear if any one has any leads in this regard. We also stress that overcrowding your car is not necessary. We currently have two buses doing runs and can always put extra cars on at addresses where there are many SAILors to collect.

We are very grateful for all those who chose to assist with car pooling, this is one of the corner stones of the program, enabling us to reach as many members of the Sudanese community as we do. So a HUGE thanks for you car seats and for driving responsibly!! Again if any of you are coming with spare seats, do let us know so we can ensure more potential SAILors can make it to SAIL!

Thank Yous

Big thanks to Caitlin and Sunday for assisting us recently at the stall for Alternative World’s Week at Monash University.

The Melbourne University Medical Students Comedy Revue "Medleys" recently staged their annual comedy revue and donated half of their profits to SAIL. We extend our thanks from SAIL to Medley for this generous donation.

Thanks to Luke who came on board as a bus driver a few months back and has been doing a SUPERB job assisting Akon with the pickups and take homes. It has meant that Akon gets to do fewer runs AND we are able to pick up an ever increasing number of students.

We thank everyone for their outstanding work and look forward to seeing you all in our Fourth year this Saturday.

Will and Bridgid