Project HappyChild NEWS

October 2002

[for ongoing updates, see Latest Site News]

Hi there! *Such* a busy time at the website here these last weeks, with the preparation of database resources for the new areas. Mario in New Zealand is working on the final touches for the "Central Frame of Reference" area for which we already have *many* wordsearch lists - prototypes are now ready but it may be a week or two yet before the majority of the new pages can go up on line for access from the main site.

Meanwhile we're also hard at work on the new English language resource, the basics for which should (hopefully!) be in place by the end of October, allowing us to put some or all of this resource on line during November. Pagebuilding from November 2002 to July 2003 is scheduled to allow us to complete the resources for Pokémon, Harry Potter, free-to-print French worksheets, and updating and expansion of Schools Interchange (along with - maybe! - lessons and free worksheets for the interaction between fractions, decimals and percentages - our thanks to everyone who's written in about the free fractions lessons already on line).

SPONSORED EVENTS: Two highly unusual events have now been added to the Sponsored Events page - a "Zip Slide" 375 feet from HMS Belfast to the banks of the River Thames, on Sunday 27th October 2002, and Abseiling from the Tyne Bridge, Newcastle, on Sunday 3rd November 2002, both events in aid of SENSE, helping deafblind children and young adults. See the Sponsored Events calendar for a link to their site with more details and a registration form - early booking of places is recommended!

Late addition! (just received here) - SENSE are running the 15th SENSE City Speed Skate on Thursday 24th October 2002. Not much time left so if you work for a City company and want to get a team of four together for this power-packed event, click here for more details.

Project HappyChild Directory: We're delighted to say there is now a link to the website of TAMBA, the Twins and Multiple Births Association, from their Directory entry which has now been updated. The TAMBA website has a range of links to twins clubs in the UK and overseas, as well as multiple births associations in a number of countries, a very comprehensive related booklist for parents and professionals alike - see our booklist page - and a very broad range of twins- and multiples-related resources on their site. If you have a cached or printed-out version of the Directory, you may wish to update this.

This year's Sponsored Events calendar has been hugely successful with an unbelievable range of events available for people wanting to do something out-of-the-ordinary and help disadvantaged kids at the same time. We'd like to ask Charities in the Directory to let us have details of scheduled events for 2003 - ideally with a page URL we can link to from here, for each event - for both the Sponsored Events and General Events calendars.

Christmas cards and catalogues entries and any further additions for the booklists page will be slotted into the pagebuilding schedule as soon as possible. Meanwhile if any Directory Charities find themselves with large numbers of tickets unsold for a forthcoming major event (like a première or charity ball), please let us know so we can put details on the headline graphic at the top of 1000 or so main pages across the whole Project HappyChild site, for a couple of days, for increased publicity (there's no charge for this, or for any other charity listing).

ACCELERATED LEARNING: Our thanks to Lynn, Brian and Mimi who sent in different versions of the poem "The Parts of Speech" - the full text of the poem has now been added to the "Language and Grammar" page in the Mnemonics section of the Accelerated Learning area.

Michael Tipper's exceptionally busy just now, with presentations on Accelerated Learning to schools and businesses every day in different areas of the country, but October's feature article is scheduled to arrive here over the weekend, and we hope this will be on line early next week, all going well - check out the Feature Articles page for previous articles in this series.

Michael's booklet "The 77 Habits of Highly Effective Students" can still be purchased via the Project HappyChild Shop [Michael supports the site by advertising as *well* as writing all these articles free for us!]. We have also now created an entry for our newest advertiser, "The Dolphin Man", on the Shop pages. Please do have a browse around the Shop area - it's small but select and the advertisers who currently help fund the ongoing costs of this website have some very interesting products that you're not likely to find anywhere else.

SCHOOLS INTERCHANGE: Our thanks to Alan Scott, parent and editor of Holmston Primary School web pages, for sending in an updated URL for South Ayrshire schools' websites. It's always much appreciated when visitors or LEAs write in with new or updated information, as the resources of Schools Interchange benefit greatly from active input by visitors. You'll find the new South Ayrshire schools listing on our Schools Scotland page.

VIRUSES - Many of you will have received the alert sent out on 2nd October about the BUGBEAR virus worm, still widely evident - more details on the Latest News page for anyone still experiencing problems with this.

POSTAGE STAMPS: Our thanks to Wendy Ferguson in Canada who wrote in Project HappyChild - she collects stamps and would like to buy from any charity who sells packs of recent used GB or overseas stamps. and is able to pay in pounds sterling so no problem with bank charges - contact Wendy by e-mail: wferguson (at) cogeco.ca. Any of our visitors wishing to donate used stamps (from any country source) to charities helping children will find addresses to send these to, on the Resources Required page.

LANDMINES Appeals - one of our visitors who sent a package of art materials to the Bosnia appeal (also mentioned on the Resources Required page) has informed us that this was returned "gone away". We've learned now from the British Army site that there have been changes of regiments in the area recently and are awaiting their advice as to an updated address for the requested materials to be sent to. Any visitors wishing to help other Landmines Appeals will find links to relevant organizations on our Landmines page.

BOOKS: We've been contacted by Sheila Angel of the Barnet branch of the charity "Volunteer Reading Help" - asking for donations of books for their work with local primary school children - see the Resources Required page for more details.

Thanks go to all those of you who have sent in info and updates over the last few weeks; traffic levels have been unbelievable and we really appreciate the active help (and publicity) that comes from so many of our visitors. New items will be included within the pagebuilding schedule as soon as physically possible!

Best regards,

Penny.

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