NEWSLETTER: Footscray campus (May 2005)

Yes folks, the next one is upon us! After a magnificent turn out for the first one we put out another general invitation to all SAILors to attend the next Week 5 Tutor Talks. The line up is sublime. Harvard University would be proud of this in an annual schedule. But for us, this is just a standard Week 5. Ah…. if only they knew!

For the Community Talk we have Brimbank Community Legal Centre discussing family law and child protection. The Junior tutors will be treated to a session by a specialist from the Free Kindergarten Association and for the Primary and Secondary tutors we have the topic Learning Problems and Reading Issues. While the Senior tutors will have a session regarding challenges facing new arrivals presented by SAIL’s very own Matthew Albert and Anna Grace Hopkins.

Tutor talks will start immediately after lunch and run for about 45 minutes.

SAIL Footscray is hosting the first SAIL Social for 2005. Everyone is most warmly welcome. It'll be a great opportunity to catch up, match faces to names or meet for the first time. Please join us at The Retreat Hotel (280 Sydney Rd, Brunswick - just near Glenlyon Rd) on Friday the 6th of May. If you want to come for dinner, get there around 7.30pm. Otherwise, we'll be there for the long haul. So feel free to pop in for a bevvie at any stage.

The reports coming from the far side of the basketball courts is that the VCE centre is rockin’ and that all the tutors and students are spectacular. Also the news in VCE land is that a “VCE Chicks” room has been established in the room beside the hall. We hope to have the hinges repaired to contain the excitement.

As part of the VCE Centre SAIL is now hoping to provide support in finding Year 10 work experience placements for SAILors.

If you or someone you know could offer work experience to a SAILor for one week in the following areas, please email us at sailfootscray@africanoz.com.
** car mechanics
** nursing
** civil engineering

That’s right, we have added another SAIL coordinator to our crew! His name is Cameron Nolan. Cameron is one of our long term volunteers and has joined the SAIL team as a Saturday coordinator. Feel free to ask him anything at any time. Cameron has the fortunate disposition of knowing almost everything so he is well placed to assist with any needs or concerns.

Please be nice to Cameron and smile as he comes around with a digital camera in coming weeks. We are compiling a photographic record of all our tutors and their students. This will help us remember everyone’s friendly face and your tutoring combination. Also if people are interested we can burn or email you with a copy of any photos.

Thank you to all of those tutors who have lent their time and energy to support the Xtend program thus far in 2005. The first two cycles have been a great success with up to 40 SAILors each week taking the opportunity to enjoy and learn from such activities as painting, drama, circus, jewellery making and cooking. Next cycle will include the continuation of circus workshops and a brave attempt to teach recorder to the younger participants!

If you are interested in getting involved in Xtend, Caitlin, Xtend co-ordinator love to hear from you! You can try and catch her on a Saturday or email me at caitlinfnunn@hotmail.com. Caitlin is especially keen to hear from anyone who is interested in running cooking sessions!

A number of teenage SAILors have been training hard each week after SAIL classes in preparation for serious competition! As part of the Richmond Soccer Club, under the steady guidance of super-coach Harry C., these boys play every Sunday afternoon around Melbourne. With two wins out of three matches under their belts already, it is shaping up to be a fantastic season! It would be great to have some more spectators supporting their efforts, so if you are interested, willing and able, send us an email to find out when and where the team will be playing next! Please note that cheerleading skirts and pom-poms are optional!

We would like to say a HUGE thankyou to all the tutors who help out every Saturday by making sure the areas in which they work are tidy at the end of classes! In particular, we would also like to thank Rose O., Jenni S., and Yvonne V., for generously offering to spend 15 minutes extra after classes doing general SAIL tidying! It would be great to have more helping hands so we can get a roster going, so please let us know if you can spare 10-15minutes after classes.

We are once again putting out a call for volunteers who would be willing and able to drive a SAIL mini-bus in the afternoons. It does not need to be every week, but we would love to have a few more potential drivers. Please let us know by sending us an email or chatting with us on Saturday. All you need is a current drivers’ license!

“I tutor a young student who is smart, but has trouble concentrating as she is easily distracted. I am finding it difficult to keep her focussed on activities I have prepared as she has a poor attention span and gets quite restless very easily. How can I structure the session so as to keep her focussed and engaged?

Answer:
“There are many ways to structure sessions so as to work with students who are easily distracted and have trouble concentrating and staying focussed. Firstly, it will be helpful to work out whether the student is being distracted by friends who work nearby, or just by the noise level in the room in which you are tutoring. Perhaps moving away from the distractions will help with this issue. A well-structured session will be very helpful – try to start with the same activity each week, and follow the same kind of pattern throughout each session. Plan lots of different activities and change as you feel your student begins to grow restless and tire. Setting some rules and consequences will help the student to feel safe and secure in knowing what the boundaries are. Be creative in this approach – involve your student in thinking of some rules and consequences if possible, and perhaps sign the agreement by tracing your hands around them. Make sure to keep to the rules and limits set consistently.

If you find you are still having trouble, using a Good Work Sheet might be helpful. This tool is used to encourage students to work towards a goal/reward for working well. It is very important to explain to your student how a Good Work Sheet works. Write a comment after each session, and ask your student how they think the session went and how they think it could go better next time. Get one of the Coordinators to sign it each week, and after three weeks of good work in a row, let the student chose a reward – be it a favourite game, activity or book! Remember to always praise every little achievement or improvement no matter how small!”

Remember that you can view other questions or lodge your own queries on the Bulletin Board by visiting the tutor resources sections of the website.

"The Wheels on the Bus go Round & Round", and they go round and round a lot surer now thanks to the money that was raised for Andrew's marathon fundraiser last year. $600 was raised at the screening of 'To Be and To Have' (many thanks to Palace Cinemas and to our insider, Josh Slocum for making it happen). The money was used to buy new tires and to recondition the brakes on the SAIL buses. The tires and service were gratefully received, and will make a very real difference to the safety of their precious cargo! Father Don made a special request that thanks be passed on to those who gave to the cause. So, from both Andrew and Don and SAIL, thank you!!

A final invitation to all and sundry to join the SAIL Arabic classes. They will kick off at 6:30pm on Thursday, 26 May at the University of Melbourne. The sessions will be run by Poly and will cost $10. If you are keen to join the ten others taking part already, please email Matthew at sail@africanoz.com.

The largest weekly expense for the SAIL Program is food for the 500 odd lunches each week. Foodbank Victoria (to which SAIL holds membership) now has a Dandenong distribution centre which would reduce this expense on an ongoing basis. If you happen to go by or know someone who could or does regularly travel past their centre in Dandenong during the week, we would LOVE to hear from you. The details are: Foodbank Victoria South East at 2 Russell Crt Dandenong (near intersection between Frankston - Dandenong Road and Princes Hwy). It is open daily from 9:30am - 3pm. If you or someone you know would be willing to take on this weekly role, please email Matthew at sail@africanoz.com.

The date is almost upon us. Spot on with the schedule, SAIL’s Altona campus will be launching off on 28 May. With former Footscray SAILors Catherine and Wayn at the helm, we are putting out a final call to those interested in being pioneers at the new campus. There are a very limited number of spots still available which we will make available to existing SAILors as a preference! If you are interested please email sailaltona@africanoz.com. We wish the new SAIL team all the best for the maiden journey.

It is with very deep gratitude that we extend our thanks publicly to Annie and John Paterson, parents of the Marisa, a former Dandy volunteer. They have just made the largest single donation to the Program in SAIL history which ensures that we will be going strong for at least a couple of years. We would like to thank them for their generous support of the Sudanese community through the SAIL Program.

Like romantic nights out in or live near Elsternwick? Don’t we all! As it happens, we are actually not asking for social reasons. If you habitually attend Classic Cinema in Elsternwick, we would love to know for the purposes of SAIL About. The SAIL Program has membership to their community donations program. With simple coupons handed in when SAILors buy tickets, Sudanese SAILors will eventually be able to attend for free as part of SAIL About. If you frequent the Classic, let us know so we can send you the coupons!

With sincere thanks to Wesley College, the Sudanese all-star dance and drum troupe, the Dambai Dance Group featuring Akon Deng Chok spent part of last week in a dark and focussed studio recording their first album. It will soon be available for purchase through Poly, SAIL Senior Co-ordinator and Dambai Dance Group Booking Agent. Our thanks to Ben, sound engineer, and the Music School of Wesley for making these facilities available to the fellas free of charge.

If anyone has contacts in the entertainment, theatrical, artistic, dance, sporting or comic industries and would like to help us access tickets for SAIL About excursions please contact Matthew, Cait, Anna Grace or Will.

Events, Excursion Ideas and African Beats

A invitation to one and all to join a SAIL crew at the Moonee Valley races on Monday 13 June, a public holiday. There will be horse racing, face painting, jumping castle (for those without a heart condition) and a sausage sizzle. If you would like to bring some SAILors to join this free SAIL About extravaganza, please email sail@aftricanoz.com to reserve your place.

Ausdance presents Dance Week in the second week of May each year. Victorians can kick up their heels in a free dance class, explore the beautiful art of dance on film, take the family along to the Children's Dance Festival at ArtPlay, or learn choreography. Most events are free or low cost. For full program details, visit www.ausdance.org.au, or call Ausdance on 9686 0099 for a brochure.

As usual we recently posted an online ad for a new volunteer position. The job is to collect food for SAIL each week to feed the stomachs of SAILors at all campuses. As usual also, we got a very prompt response. A generous man offered to do this job for us whenever we wanted to him to start. The man was Nigerian. He lives in Nigeria. We thanked him. We also said that we could foresee a few problems with his offer. We are in negotiation with Qantas to see if they are willing to fly the food from Nigeria each week. Thus far, we can report that negotiations are not going too well. If anyone can alleviate the need for these negotiations by doing the weekly shopping more locally, please email sail@africanoz.com.

We said it was a world exclusive and we were proven right! The news broken here in the SAIL newsletter in the last edition that Nicole Kidman was being considered for the main role in a film about South Sudan based on the book “Emma’s War” was confirmed in The Age on 17 April 2005. You can rely on the SAIL newsletter to keep you where it’s at as it happens. This is Cait, Will and Matthew reporting for the SAIL newsletter. First on week 4.

Thank you for being the main contributors to the SAIL experience and for providing support to the Sudanese community!

Matthew, Will and Cait