NEWSLETTER: Dandenong campus (May 2005)

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.

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 Jackie
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@africanoz.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!

Canon Barbara Darling and her puppy have recently settled into the vicarage at St James, and we would like to make her feel welcome and as much a part of SAIL as possible. Although very busy, she is keen to get to know SAILor students and tutors and to get to know more about the program. Barbara is often in and out and around the grounds on a Saturday morning, so if you see her, please introduce yourselves and your students and feel free to chat.

Many of our younger student SAILors are developing a particular interest in Barbara’s dog, poking their hands through the fence and calling out to her. We are also aware that there have been many sightings of the dog heartily chomping down our delicious lunch rolls for a snack. Barbara has made a special request to not feed the dog, and to try to keep students from poking their fingers through the fence for safety reasons. Please try to be vigilant about this when outside.

Week 5 is fast approaching, and we’ll be celebrating our theme ‘Sudan’ with one big Sudanese party! There’ll be dancing, cooking and singing so please come along ready to participate. After lunch we will be inviting all SAILors back again for a Tutor Talk. We encourage you to join us for the inservice session which will run for about 45 minutes. After the incredible attendance at Tim's talk, we are hoping for even bigger numbers!

The last few weeks the hall has been left in an amazingly tidy and clean condition. We would really like to thank all those who’ve been taking the time and muscle to help pack up chairs and tables, and ensure there’s no rubbish left lying around. Thanks!

We’d like to thank Polyglot in a big way for their wonderful puppet making workshop a few weeks ago, and Stacey has put together some fabulous worksheets about this experience, including a proforma letter to the Polyglot puppeteers. It would be greatly appreciated if you could encourage your students to complete a letter, writing about what they did and what they liked, about their puppet and the performances at the end. The worksheets are all in the folders, and we’d really like to collect these letters and pass them on, so please hand them into Jackie this week.

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 Jackie or Matthew.

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 Jackie 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 and Jackie