Project HappyChild NEWS

1st April 2002

[for ongoing updates, see Latest Site News]

Hi there! Another hectic month has passed, hope you will all have enjoyed the Easter break by the time you receive this. Deep sadness in the UK at present with the passing of the Queen Mother; our thoughts are with Queen Elizabeth II with the loss of both her sister and her mother in just a few short weeks.

FOCUS: A very significant addition has just been made to the FOCUS page - an amazing project for recycling transport containers. Every year, thousands of steel shipping containers come to the end of their working life, and can be difficult to dispose of. Professor Richard Martin and Soren Ludwig realised that they would provide inexpensive building blocks for construction, and founded Global Peace Containers, a non-profit organization which has perfected a system to convert old containers into schools, emergency housing, clinics and community buildings.

Containers are designed to withstand incredible stresses in shipping and therefore are resistant to such forces as hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. They are also watertight, and can be transported by ship, train or truck, meaning that they can be set up quickly for immediate shelter following natural or manmade disasters. Click here for more details of this visionary project.

ACCELERATED LEARNING: Michael Tipper's feature article for March, Accelerated Learning for Years 5 and 6 (9 and 10 year olds) is now on line, a thought-provoking write-up of his experiences with teaching this age group, piloting a programme for the the Education Action Zone in Greenwich. A fascinating read.

GENERAL EVENTS: Comprehensive details have now been added to the General Events page, for the Valderrama/Santa Clara European Golf Tournament (which includes an exclusive screening of the England Argentina match) in Marbella, Spain; the Epping Family Fun Run; the Bristol Summer Ball; the Pauline Quirke Ryder Cup Experience (at the DeVere Belfry); the Butterfly Ball to be held at the Grand Ballroom of the London Hilton on Park Lane; and the Brentwood Banquet. All these events benefit the Rhys Daniels Trust; details of these and many other events being held during 2002 in aid of a wide number of children's charities are available on the General Events and Sponsored Events pages.

TODDLER EVENT: The largest pre-school activity of the year, the "Big Toddle" in aid of Barnardo's, has now also been added to the General Events Calendar. Registering allows you to receive a free "event pack" - and playgroups, pre-schools and crèches get to keep 25% of whatever they raise, for their own fundraising. See the General Events page for more details.

NEW PAGEBUILDING: Pagebuilding has progressed steadily this month, with just over 2300 pages on line at today's date. We're delighted to say that *all* the remaining French verb tense pages (264 of them!) have finally been set in html and are now available via the main FRENCH WORKSHEETS index page.

Special thanks go to Rita for carrying out the massive task of checking the French verb pages; both mirror sites have now been updated, including the one at Freeway. With GCSE exams now fast approaching, we'll do what we can to complete the free-to-print vocabulary resource (also linked from the main French Index page) over the next eight weeks, in tandem with progressing the Pokémon guide pages.

REFERRAL COMMISSION: Project HappyChild's ISP, Force9/PlusNet, which hosts the site here, has made a scheme available where any paying customers who refer friends and colleagues, receive "referral commission" *every* month for as long as the referred account stays [if enough people are referred, the hosting and on-line costs can effectively become FREE].

We've put a new page on line giving some details - PlusNet are offering some amazing prices on ADSL (eg Ł22.99 inc VAT per month) and all their paying accounts offer a vast range of inclusive benefits. Click here for more info.

If enough people switched to PlusNet quoting the Project HappyChild reference, this would effectively keep this website on line forever [at no cost to anyone who signs up!] - and everyone who joins PlusNet can also follow the same process to cover their own hosting and on-line costs.

We've no idea whether anyone will take up the PlusNet offer, but it would be a nice way to have the future of this website safeguarded for the indefinite future. We're still - just about! - on target to complete the supplementary resource pagebuilding by the end of July, but a lot will depend on other factors like the still-increasing traffic levels [we reached 4 million on 23rd March] and we may have to defer some of the pagebuilding over till the autumn term.

With a following wind though it may all get done by the end of July! - thanks go to all our visitors for their continuing support of the Project HappyChild site over this complex period.

Best regards,

Penny.

******************************************************************
Project HappyChild - linking children all across the world
http://www.happychild.org.uk + + + + Latest News + + + + About Us
******************************************************************