The Sale

The first harvest from the vegie garden took place last week and, first of all, a big "thank you" to Anna, Branka and Veronica for making the project such a success and so worthwhile for their students. The garden has been a talking point among staff, students and visitors alike and has become something of a focal point for the centre. The quality of the produce was much better than we had expected and Patrick the gardener' recommendation to use sheep manure was probably the key.

The four classes involved all enjoyed a stir-fry using Anna's electric wok and the balance of the crop was sold to the students- a variety of vegetables, each bag sold for 50 cents.

Some vegies are not quite ready for harvest (for e.g. broccoli) and once the harvest is complete we will have to make a decision as to whether to sow anything in the hot weather.

King's Park Outing

We had glorious weather for our end of term outing on September 28th. The wildflower festival was excellent and we were entertained by indigenous dancers to mark the end of Mary Crogan's Early Years project. More photos will be posted on the Student Blog soon.

Vegetable Garden

Latest photo. Harvest is next week, followed by sale of vegetables.

Week one has been the usual blurrr of activity, with many jobs having to be done NOW. Some classes are quite small but hopefully there will be top-ups from interviews in the next couple of weeks. The evening classes are enjoying having Chris on-site on both nights- having assistance in the ILC and for asessments will be a real boon. Last Monday I stayed on to show him the ropes and warned him to watch out for students who had no invitation letter and just parked themselves in a class. One lady was very keen to start, saying that her letter was at home. On being told that she would have to go home and try again on Wednesday she managed to explain (mainly using sign language) that her baby had eaten it!

Carmen and Brian had a fantastic holiday in NZ (South Island) and Branka returns from Europe today (Friday) We have delayed the vegetable harvest until her class starts next week. Dubravka spent a blissful week shopping with girlfriends in Melbourne so in the past week we have been treated to a daily fashion parade. Laygon Street shopkeepers are very happy too! Mary Aitken leaves for the UK next Friday so teachers are asked to be particularly careful when checking books and resources out/in. Mary does a great job looking after them but even so we have lost 7 Side by Side books recently, at a cost of $ 32 each. Some resources from literacy kits are also missing.

Susan will be spending part of her time in the Victoria this term helping Maureen with counselling. We have an ex Balga TAFE counsellor, Moya Durack, coming next week to start training with Mary. Moya will be here 3 days per week.

AAAAArrrrrr....

It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So the following is compiled by Iron Roger Rackham (my name in Pirate speak!)

Garden Progress

Look how it's growing! Click on August to the right to see what the garden looked like only three weeks ago.

We will be going to King’s Park on the last day of term, Friday 28 September. To mark the culmination of Mary Crogan’s project there will be a half hour display by Aboriginal dancers. Children under school age are welcome to come but school aged children should be at school. See flyer for all other details.

Please make sure you put in your PD program by Friday, either to the office or electronically.

AMES has awarded three 12 month contracts in the pool process- congratulations to Janice and Veronica for being among them.

Samantha will be back next week, having completed her three week teaching prac (in a Year 1 class- bit of a contrast to Balga!). The office staff will certainly welcome her return.

Two new readers compiled by Sonia and Mary- “Cars” and “Computer Talk”.

All class photos will be on the student blog by the end of the week. Thanks to Mary A for doing all the legwork and Alison for posting them on the blog.

"The Australian Citizenship Amendment (CitizenshipTesting) Act 2007 was passed by Parliament on 12 September with Citizenship testing to commence on 1 October 2007. The Prime Minister has agreed to series of initiatives (totalling $16.9 million over four years) to support the implementation of the citizenship test. The following initiatives will provide assistance to citizenship applicants with low English proficiency and little experience with computers to prepare to sit the Citizenship Test: 1. The Let's Participate course will be updated (within the next 12 months) to reflect the new material in the citizenship test resource book Becoming an Australian Citizen and will be available on-line. A range of learningactivities and teaching resources will also be developed as part of the initiative.2. Additional citizenship test preparation assistance will be provided to citizenship applicants, particularly those with little or no formal education and limited experience with computers. The test preparation will include computer assistance / familiarisation training, presentation of the citizenship test tutorial and practice test and discussion sessions based on the resource book. A citizenship test preparation web page will be developed to help applicants understand the full range of advice available, including information on the Let's Participate course, a practice citizenship test and test tutorial..Below is the link to the resource book available on the minister's website: http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/resource-book/index.htm "

We obtained some clarification from DIAC about the future status of the certificates awarded in the citizenship courses. In brief it seems that they will no longer have any validity – all applicants will have to sit the computer test.

Branka leaves tomorrow for a European trip and Carmen will be away for the last few days of term on a holiday to New Zealand. Bon voyage!

An interesting web site from Mary C: http://www.gurtong.org/people.asp Gives very detailed information about the many ethnic groups in Sudan.

Adult Learners' Week

Thanks to Sonia for nominating Carole and Ann and representing Balga at the Award presentations. The function, held at the Duxton, was very enjoyable and Carole was thrilled to be nominated.

Details of PD sessions in October will be available soon. Alan Williams from the AMEP Research Centre will be giving a workshop on Thursday 11th and there will be a FLAN session at Joondalup on Friday 12th. Our centre meeting will be on Wednesday 10th. Casual staff are reminded that they must attend the moderation session on the Tuesday 9th morning if they want to continue working for AMES and they did not attend earlier in the year.

Scott informs us that replacement computers are on the way for both students and staff- we look forward to receiving them!

We’ve been having technical problems with the blog over the past few days but all seems OK now. Photos of Anna’s classroom display, class photos etc should be on the student blog soon.

Vegie Garden Latest

The effectiveness of our fine-looking scarecrow is in serious doubt as birds have been seen vandalising the scarecrow by plucking straw from his head and body in (order to build their nests, presumably). The poor fellow looks as if he’s just finished a Jenny Craig course!

Alison has has just completed her blog training and will be responsible for the student blog. Staff are encouraged to take photos of class outings/ functions so that they can be posted on the blog. Ask at the office if you want to borrow the centre camera. And speaking of blogs, it’s never too late to learn, as proved by 107 year-old Olive Riley. The tales of her youth make for fascinating reading. http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/

Further to the email about free T shirts, Sophie writes: “For admin staff and anyone who will not be attending FLAN in October, we need to get a list together with suitable size (generous S, M, L, XL) and they will be sent out to your centre. Staff members need to sign for their T Shirts.”

Footy Tipping

The footy tipping comp went right down to the wire, with Andrew catching Mary Aitken in the last round.of 22 (both on 113 points) Branka was a close third on 112. Many thanks to her for taking on all the work involved in running the comp, which brought an added common interest for staff. An end-of-season morning tea and presentation took place on Tuesday.

NCELTR Survey

Would you all lecturing staff please go to

http://www.nceltr.mq.edu.au/amep/survey.asp

and complete the survey there, which should take about 5 mins.

Thank you. Philip

Hoola Hoop Demo by Dubravka

It's not easy technically to load videos onto the blog (this is the shortest video clip I have) so for more scintillating staff/ student hula hoop action, go to http://www.youtube.com/ and enter "AMES Balga" in the "search" box.

The Garden Flourishes

The seedlings in the vegie garden are coming on apace- if they continue to grow at their current speed we’ll be testing them for growth hormones! Maybe that’s why a magpie was observed by Mary-Anne chomping away at the leaves. Reports of this evil deed brought a flurry of activity in Branka’s class who, with Stan’s assistance, constructed a magnificent scarecrow.. Lots of language “Shooo bad bird!” and suchlike. Thanks to Sonia for the photos, which will soon be on the student blog, as Alison has undertaken the task of keeping it up to date as a professional duty.

Large Provider of the Year

Many staff attended the MD’s lunch on Wednesday to celebrate the College’s success in winning the Large Training Provider of the Year Award. It is a significant achievement and marks the culmination of three years’ continuous effort to improve West Coast’s performance. Six months ago the College employed a professional marketing company for the first time to mount an advertising campaign and the impressive results will soon be seen in the press. (see accompanying photo).

Class photos will start next week.

I spoke to Anna this week and she hopes to be well enough to visit us in the next few weeks. However she is still experiencing a lot of pain and the medication makes her very sleepy. She hopes to see the pain specialist soon..

The Good Old Days

The 30th anniversary of Elvis’s death was marked by Mary-Anne’s CD of Blue Hawaii playing on the verandah as teachers (followed by students) displayed their skills with the hula-hoop. Video clips will appear on youtube soon.

A Slight Problem!!

Last Friday we had some very bad luck when a plumber who had come to unblock the staffroom sink traced the problem to a soakwell outside. Guess where the soakwell was?! Many thanks to Simon for removing the seedlings from the affected area (4 square metres) and replanting them the same day. They seem to be recovering well!