NEWSLETTER: Footscray campus (April 2005)

This coming Saturday, 9 April 2005 marks the first Week 5 of 2005. We invite you to join the free tutor in-service sessions immediately after lunch. These sessions offer an ideal opportunity for tutors to get answers to tricky questions, seek advice and hear from experts in the field. In addition a community information session will take place for Sudanese SAILors.

Just a note to ask each and every SAILor to please make sure that the area and utensils they use of a Saturday please gets put away at the end of the SAIL session! That’s all!

SAIL teaching time is limited to one and a half hours per week. We therefore ask all drivers attend their pickups early to ensure that everyone is ready and able to be at SAIL at 10:30 so that we can maximize our time together.

Also many students have been playing at the primary school and Park unsupervised before SAIL begins. If you notice your students or other this please encourage them to return to the Church or notify Will, Cait, Caitlin or Matthew if you think that assistance may be required.

The first ever SAIL VCE study centre is up and running! Those Sudanese SAILors in years 10, 11 and 12 can now venture up to the nursing home every Saturday to take advantage of the quiet study environment along with their tutors. Last week the buzz of industry was very impressive as all SAILors got down to their work. We have had some laptops kindly donated by Trinity Grammar School which are available to all students for use at the VCE centre.

Prue Challis, one of the many fabulous long time SAIL tutors, will be managing the centre. We are currently in need of tutors who would be able to help the VCE centre students with subjects such as Maths and Physics. If you are willing and able to help out with these areas, please contact Will, Cait or Prue!

For insurance purposes police checks need to be completed by all volunteers. If you have not already received a form please obtain one from either Cait or Will. We have been asked to complete our current checks by mid April so we would appreciate if people could return the forms, a photocopy of ID and $12.70 to us within 2 weeks.

If people have material donations which they would like to bring to SAIL, please contact Will or Cait to arrange a time for the distribution of these.

Want to have a chat with fellow SAILors away from the rigors and rush of Saturday mornings? The first SAIL Social of 2005 is set for the first Friday in May – that’s May 6th! Drop in to the Retreat Hotel in Brunswick (Corner Sydney Road and Glenlyon Road) for dinner or a bevvie starting at 7:30 pm. Don’t be shy, everyone is very, very, very welcome whether you’ve been teaching for a week or a year! Any questions? Ask Andrew, Caitlin or Jane at SAIL!

If you have noticed that there is a squad of highly athletic, skilled soccer players running around witch’s hats, sprinting down the wing and scoring for 30 yards out you will have no doubt encountered the new SAIL soccer team. The team is managed by our very our Dhal Ater and will be competing soon. The team came about as a collaboration between SAIL, the Reach foundation and the Richmond Soccer Club. We wish them all the best for their first season together.

Thinking of taking your students for an excursion to the comedy festival for some quality belly laughs? There are some great free shows as part of this year’s comedy festival. On Friday the 8th and 15th of April from 5:30pm at Federation Square there are free performances including roving comedy performers, the highly acclaimed singing, 4 Noels followed by a comedy cabaret and a the comedy channel short film festival competition screening on Friday 15 April from 8:00pm. While from 2:00pm on the afternoons of Saturday the 9th and 16th there are there is a comedy showcase on the main stage with various performers.

A reminder that any excursion requires the completion of an excursion form signed by the student’s parent and also requires at lease 2 tutors in attendance.If anyone knows of any other shows, sporting or cultural events for which we could request free tickets please contact Anna Grace Hopkins on SailHomehelp@africanoz.com .

The switch of email systems from melbourneemail.com to africanoz.com has gone by almost without a hitch! There has been only one problem courtesy of My Hotmail. If you have a hotmail account, please ensure that you are receiving SAIL emails into your inbox and not your trash folder. Please put the SAIL email accounts on your “safe list”.

Excursions are a great way to get some “down time” with the Sudanese SAILors and, as a general rule, SAIL is supportive of these ideas. We do have one rule in this regard though; an excursion can only be undertaken by two or more SAIL tutors at a time and only after an excursion form has been completed. It is available from the Tutor Resources section of the website. Please organise these ahead of time on your next trip SAILing out and about!

Edition 1 of the SAIL Star is ready for review! Our thanks to all the contributors and the masterful editor, Lauren. Submissions for the next edition, in five weeks, are being warmly received already! Librarians are ready and willing to accept any input from any SAILor!

SAIL now has free borrowing rights at Melbourne’s largest toy library network. By mentioning your association with the SAIL Program at the Toy Library in either Winter St, Stonnington (call 9500 1673) or the Frankston Toy Library (Victoria’s largest) you will be allowed to borrow toys for SAIL free of charge. In the interests of making this relationship an ongoing feature of SAILing, we ask everyone to be vigilant that the toys returned to the toy library go back in as good or better condition than they were borrowed in. Our thanks go to Laura, Dandenong tutor and SAIL sweet talker, who organised this privilege for the wholeSAIL team.

Sick of the SAIL answering machine? Most people were! The problem is now solved. Thanks to the generosity of the Collin St Law Firm, Blake Dawson Waldron (where Will and Matthew used to work), SAIL now has its own switchboard team. Trish and Rosemary are there during business hours to cheerfully answer SAIL calls to the business hours number, 9679 3272. Please give Trish and Rosemary a call if you can’t come, if you need to get a message to us or if you want to chat about ancient bonsai practice in Inner Mongolia… we hear Trish and Rosemary are really into that.

1. It’s not often that the SAIL newsletter gets a world exclusive but on this occasion we have (almost) managed it! We are thrilled to be able to inform you that your indirect connection with Sudan is about to make you much cooler. Prepare for your street cred to go sky high. Sudan is about to be the subject of a major Hollywood blockbuster starring (and here’s the world exclusive rumour) “our” Nicole. The film is a silver screen version of the best-selling book about the British woman who married Reik Machar, a rebel leader in South Sudan. The book is well worth a read and will put you one step ahead of the pop culture ball game, “Emma’s War” by Deborah Scroggins. We are told (by a reliable source) that filming will begin and we can expect a release in 2006 or 2007.
2. On principal we always try to get the best of whatever is on offer for the SAIL kids. Unbeknownst to us, we managed to outdo ourselves with the performer who enlivened our SAIL birthday in 2003. Farnaz Sabet came to SAIL as part of the clowning troupe, Clown 9. Farnaz was recently named the Victorian Rhodes Scholar for 2005. Like we said, even the best ain’t good enough for us so a genius clown seems quite befitting! Congrats to Farnaz!
3. Finally, in a boost to your ego and as a reason to continue SAILing, we are pleased to report that volunteering has been found, by thorough research paid by foreign tax dollars, to improve volunteer’s sex lives. Research from the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) in the UK found that volunteering had improved the sex lives of 17% of all people polled.. In addition to the findings the poll also discovered that a quarter of people said volunteering has helped them lose weight. Yes, folks, SAIL is, in essence, helping you be slim, trim and happy in bed. You can thank us later for the assistance?!

Thank you all for keep the good ship SAIL on a steady course and offering of your time and good will so consistently!

Matthew, Will and Cait