Sailing on Through the Holidays

SAIL Program Newsletter 13 September 2002

SAILing on through the holidays SAIL will not be breaking for the holidays. We hope that you will keep coming throughout the break, as the children are going to be fresher and even more ready to learn. Also note that 40 of us will be heading of for camp number 3 for 2002 at Phillip Island for four days next week!

Time for setting SAIL We are increasingly concerned that a few tutors are arriving late and starting even later each week. We request that everyone aim to be at SAIL at 10:20am for a 10:30am start. If the late starts are not rectified in the next fortnight, we will be moving the official ending time (and lunch) back to 12:15pm.

Sudanese Community Elections This Saturday the Sudanese Community are holding elections for new community leaders. As such we can expect a few adults to be away. There are always plenty of students to be tutored so SAIL Senior tutors will definitely have something to do if their student is away.

School liaison We are thrilled to welcome Heather Guilfoyle as our full-funded school liaison contact. With the generosity of Anglicare, financial support has been provided for Heather to act as a go-between for all of us and the children’s schools. She will be seeking help and support from every tutor as she does her thorough assessment of how SAIL can compliment the school’s assistance. We are planning two Tutor Talk sessions with her. We look forward to acting on Heather’s suggestions to make SAIL even better and more effective!

The Sudanese Italians While the Museum currently has their exhibition of fine art, we are just preparing for ours! Lynn, Peter and Katie, art / craft organiser / tutors, are planning an art exhibition in the middle of October. They are calling for all tutors to contribute their own art and / or art that their students do in SAIL time. The exhibition will be in the Hall and will be open to the public on Saturdays for viewing. We do not encourage students to attempt any decorating of ceilings a la Michelangelo- the insurance does not cover this activity.

Parking With 35 cars and two buses, poor little May Street is becoming overrun. We have made arrangements with the mechanic in Ballarat Rd. that we use their space of a Saturday for SAIL cars. We ask that drivers park at the mechanics and on the lawn in front of the church as a priority before we direct cars into May St.

Photos and videos Following the success of the Birthday celebrations we are calling, begging and pleading with anyone who took photos, video or tape to record the day to provide us with a copy. As mentioned in previous newsletters, in most cases ours are the only records of the SAILors growing up.

Rob, Sophie R and Metani have kindly offered to collate and catalogue all SAIL photos with a view to offering them to parents to order at the end of the year. Therefore, if you have any records that we don’t have already please pass them on to Anna Grace or Matthew who will immediately reimburse you for the associated costs. Would all photographers who have any negatives for photos taken at SAIL at any time please pass them to Rob - he will label them and return them to you once copies have been made.

SAILing while you surf In response to a request from tutors, newsletters will now be available via email directly to tutors email accounts. We hope that this will reduce our paper consumption and give tutors more opportunity to read the newsletters at their leisure. Paper versions will continue to be handed out. For the record, we will soon be releasing a Constitution that will outline SAILors rights and duties- it will be available online too.

The SAILs stretching at the seams The last three months have seen unprecedented growth for the SAIL Program. We have about 20 new tutors and 40 new students (20 of which arrived last week) which have meant that we now have over 200 SAILors! We sincerely hope that everyone will be flexible and patient with us as we try to accommodate these new SAILors into the Program and that everyone will help make them feel very welcome!

SAIL in the media For the first time, SAIL has developed a bit of a media presence. We have had feature articles published about us in the local papers for Williamstown, Footscray, Newport and Braybrook as well as a piece in Imagine- the Anglicare newsletter. Ben Hopper, a SAIL tutor is currently compiling a piece for SBS radio about SAIL and there will also be a feature piece about us on 3RRR Radio. We have also been approached by The Age and have an article in the editing stages for Eureka Street (an human rights magazine). Both have been put on hold until the end of the year.

Thank you Where to begin? Firstly, endless thanks to everyone for helping us make our first birthday such a success. We were so glad to be able to mark the event with so much celebration and good will. Thanks to all those who made cakes for the day- somehow we managed to muster up enough for all of the hungry mouths after the performance. Thanks also to our wonderful performers- Simon the Sleight of Hand Expert, Clown 9 and our very own Akon, drummer extraordinaire. Their selfless giving of time and energy provided us all with a varied and highly entertaining show.

Thanks also to all those who came to the drinks on the Friday night. We were thrilled that so many people found the time to come and stay on for so long. We hope to repeat this event for the end of the year. Thanks again to David for organising the venue and the drinks for us.

Finally, thanks to all those who attended and spoke at the Tutor Talk. The event was a unique opportunity for us to learn a bit about Sudan from first hand accounts. We encourage everyone to continue to ask questions of the adults of the community about their lives in Sudan- they are always very obliging and eager to talk about their homeland.

Total Trivia SAIL has five sets of twins- it is no coincidence that all the Nyibols are the next oldest sisters in every case. Nyibol is the name given to the first daughter after a set of twins and Kot is the name for the next son.

We want to sincerely thank everyone for helping us celebrate the success of SAIL and thank everyone again for ensuring its continued success. Our only regret is that many SAIL students are unable to express for themselves the gratitude they have for the generous donation of time, energy and spirit offered to them every week. Thank you and thank you again for your altruism and enthusiasm. Matthew and Anna Grace