NEWSLETTER: Altona campus (July 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 here!
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, Wayn or Catherine or the library crew 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 here!


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

In August, we are going to have one big birthday party in Footscray. This is going to be a terrific event with a carnival atmosphere and everyone is invited! The day party will be at Footscray (August 27th, 10:30am to 12pm), as most of our families are located in Altona we will be trying to organise transportation for the students and tutors to Footscray closer to the date.

The biggest SAIL tutor celebration of the year is fast approaching. SAIL will soon officially turn four! We want to note the dates to ensure that everyone keep the date free! On Saturday 27 August, we also have the SAIL party of the year for the volunteers. It will be from 7:30pm at 82 Perry St, Collingwood. We hope you will keep this night free as we hope to have all SAILors from all campuses together in celebration for the first time. This will be a great opportunity to get to know your fellow tutors outside of SAIL hours and also have a chat to tutors from the other campuses.

Arriving early at the Church is great; this gives you the opportunity to visit the library when it is a little quieter and flip through the blue work sheet folders looking for ideas in preparation for your lesson. Also if you are a little early we usually spend some time setting up the hall. This involves placing the tables in a “U” configuration with chairs around each table, setting up a few tables in the Adult room, moving student folders, pencils, pens, textas and the blue folders, kindy toys from the library to the hall. Please don’t be shy to help out in the morning, any extra hands in the morning makes the task that much easier!

Lunch is scheduled to begin at 12:30 pm, cleaning up the hall before beginning lunch has been perfect. The clean up involves pens, pencils and textas going back into the blue tray, chairs moved back to the Adult room, tables pushed to the side of the hall and hall & kitchen floors swept (broom located in the cupboard between the bathrooms). Tutors have been helping out and many hands make light work, so thank you all.

Libraries are the heart of each of our campuses and Altona is no exception. Our library is growing every week with additions of books and now computers. George has kindly donated three computers to SAIL and we now have a little computer-learning centre available for everyone to use. Also we have two laptops available tor tutors to use during their teaching. Please ask either Catherine or Wayn if you would like to use these with your student.

During lunch some of the children become a little excited. There are a few general rules that we would like all tutors to put into effect. These include no running in the church, no eating in the church and no littering. These are pretty common sense rules and if you see anyone not following these rules please remind them.

The next scheduled induction for new tutors is Saturday, July 30th, if you know of anyone that would like to join SAIL, please direct them to our online application. It is best that all new tutors attend an induction session before beginning at SAIL, there is a lot of vital information in these inductions and we would like to bring any new SAILors up to speed before starting.

A gentle reminder to all and sundry that the best place for super SAILor SAILing advice is the SAIL Panel of Experts Bulletin Board. It has been left bereft of input for some time now. Any issues you may have re behaviour concerns, learning issues, cultural question, linguistic conundrums, or general worries you want to offload should be channelled in this direction. The panel awaits…

Finally, our sincere thanks to the Prefects at Westbourne Grammar School who recently arranged a Soup for SAIL day to raise money to buy pens and books for the SAIL team! Now, doesn’t that just give you a warm, fuzzy feeling!

The story of the humble SAIL sandwich.
Now you may munch nonchalantly into your roll at SAIL each week and not ponder its long journey from the dirtied fields of rural Victoria to your hand. Well, it is time to rethink the humble SAIL roll and acknowledge its long and arduous journey!

SAIL rolls are the result of a long trip from numerous locations across Melbourne.

The bread is reliably collected by Maureen and Rob in St Kilda, Jackie in Dandenong and also at Victoria Gardens. On Saturday, before SAIL time, it heads off in three directions to one of the SAIL campuses. The fillings meanwhile take a somewhat more convoluted trip. First they are bought by SAIL’s oldest volunteer who may or may not be 80, Lesley at her local supermarket. It then travels to Mount Waverly where Louise prepares it on Friday night. On Saturday, Yvonne collects the food for Footscray and Altona and Jackie collects it for Dandenong. Once at Footscray, Wayn then collects the Altona share and trundles it over to Altona.

The hot food meanwhile, is collected reliably by Lieu who takes it to Footscray from Southgate.

The humble SAIL lunches belie their journey. We strongly recommend you talk to your roll next Saturday. Everything has a story to tell and our rolls are no different.