Project HappyChild NEWS

January / February 2003

[for ongoing updates, see Latest Site News]

Hi there! Our thanks this month to visitors who have signed up with PlusNet so as to benefit Project HappyChild (we get "referral credits" every month now!) - see our "about us" page for more details of how simply changing your ISP can benefit this website.

Incidentally Force 9 and PlusNet offer some amazing hosting packages (eg NetStart accounts at Ł140.88 a year, allowing 500Mb of webspace and 500Mb daily bandwidth allocation for your website) which people outside the UK can also make use of - judging by correspondence with visitors from other countries, this compares very favourably with costs charged in many places (click here for more details).

Traffic levels across the whole Project HappyChild site are continuing to escalate (as high as 1000 visits per hour at times now!) - so new sign-ups quoting our referral reference are always appreciated, to allow us to budget ahead for increased bandwidth requirements as the site grows.

KEYWORDS FOR LEARNING: Mario in New Zealand has now completed the programming for this huge area, and we're delighted to say that we've now added the remainder of the free word search pages to bring the main index up to date - Kings and Queens of England (1) - William I to Mary I; Major River Systems (1); Reptiles (5 and 7); Charles Dickens (1 and 3), Prime Ministers (3) - 1916-2002; Football (14) - Africa and Oceania teams; and the Books and Short Stories of Jane Austen.

New items received recently for the KFL area include whales, dolphins, porpoises, deserts, volcanoes, islands, oceans, ocean currents, lakes, Formula 1 circuits, counties of England and states of America - we'll be adding these as soon as the pagebuilding schedule allows, along with any other lists visitors send in, in the meantime. Click here to access the new word searches just on line, along with category lists for new areas we'd welcome lists for :)

Our thanks go to everyone who's sending in lists - there are still lots of categories where lists are needed, and further input from visitors would be much appreciated.

GUESTBOOK APPEAL: We've been contacted by DOCS [Doctors on Call for Service] for help with a funding crisis which at present is preventing them carrying out scheduled operations on over 100 children in Nyamilima, Jomba, and Butembo. Quite a lot of money is needed and any help will be very much appreciated - click here for the letter from Dr. Kasereka M. Lusi, Regional Director in Goma. We've been in touch today with the DOCS Head Office who gave us further info about this organization, which not only carries out desperately-needed surgeries on children but also trains African national doctors to perform the surgeries themselves.

The DOCS website is also worth a visit - http://www.docs.org and gives details of how qualified doctors from other countries (eg UK, USA etc.) can give up a little of their time (even a couple of weeks) to pass on their expertise in areas where it is most needed - see their What is DOCS page.

We've just received a further e-mail, from Dr. Lusi's wife Lyn, enclosing a photo of a little girl with rickets - and another photo, taken a year later, showing the difference that surgery can make, in real terms, to a child's quality of life. We've added these photos to the Guestbook page.

EVENTS CALENDAR: The new Events Calendar for 2003 is quite extraordinary, with a breathtaking range of activities offered by the Charities in the Project HappyChild Directory.

Ranging from dog-sledding in Sweden to a French Alps Motorcycle Challenge, from the Great Women's Run in Manchester (routed through Coronation Street!) to a North Pole Trek & Ski Expedition, the sheer breadth of events is quite mind-blowing.

All scheduled events of which we're aware have now been added to the Calendar, everything imaginable from the 2003 SENSE City Speed Skate to polo, golf, clay shooting, abseiling, zip slides and celebrity football matches. Endless treks and challenges ranging from trekking into The Sahara to the Mongolian Horse Riding Challenge, and a growing number of charity sites will allow you to build a sponsorship page on their site to make fundraising easier for the required sponsorship for various events.

More charities are now offering Corporate Challenges (over a wide range of themes) and there are also many smaller events to attend, or fundraising packs for those who'd like to organise their own events to help raise funds for disadvantaged children - click here for the Events Calendar with links to further info on the huge range of events listed.

We're also updating Directory entries with direct links to Events pages, and if you have a cached or printed out version of the Directory, you may wish to update this.

CONGRESS: The Events Calendar also includes details of the 5th BASPCAN congress being held on 20-23 July 2003 in York, on Child Maltreatment - Strengthening the Links Between Research, Policy & Practice, and is scheduled to include keynote speakers, free papers, symposia, workshops and poster presentations for a range of professionals from different disciplines involved in child welfare; papers are likely to focus on the fields of social work, health, psychology, psychiatry, voluntary agencies, police, probation, the legal profession and international perspectives. See the events page for more info; further details can be requested from: congress (at) baspcan.org.uk.

ACCELERATED LEARNING: Michael Tipper's latest feature article is now on line: Learning for those with a Visual Impairment - written further to an enquiry by a visitor from Australia. Michael's schedule just now is pretty heavy, with speaking engagements and presentations to schools, but he is hoping to let us have the scheduled Feature Articles for January and February as soon as things ease up a little; we'll post details on the Latest News page as soon as they go on line.

RESOURCES REQUIRED: Judith at Child Advocacy International has asked us to request any visitors who received mobile phones for Christmas to pass on their old phones to help sick children - see CRUMP on our Resources Required page. They can also make use of used printer inkjets (not cartridges) which also helps the environment; just call 01782 712599 for info or e-mail - cai_uk (at) compuserve.com - (UK only).

SPELLINGS, SOUNDS & MEANINGS - This area is already receiving heavy traffic to the pages so far on line, for lateral thinking, making crosswords, writing poetry and mc lyrics, as well as the prototypes for the 5000 or so free worksheets which will be generated by the Sounds Database.

There is still a considerable amount of work ahead here to enable us to complete the 16 separate databases which together will form the overall Sounds Database. Realistically this work has to be our priority for the next four weeks or so, which is why this Newsletter is a combined one for January / February, to allow us a little extra time to draw everything together. Mario Becroft in New Zealand still has some of the programming to do for this area also, but we're hoping to get the bulk of the work completed by the end of February so that some or all of the free worksheets will be on line by that stage.

And finally .... HARRY POTTER: Bloomsbury have at last announced the publication date for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" - book 5 in the series of 7 - which is due for release on 21st June 2003.

Click here for details of the new book - a massive 768 pages! - and pre-ordering information. Demand is likely to be heavy .....

We've also added details of the Sotheby auction of JK Rowling's "teaser" card for the book plot, which raised thousands of pounds for Book Aid - along with a link to the Book Aid site in case schools or companies have any books they want to donate for schools in Africa ..... see the JK Rowling page for more information.

We have a heavy few weeks ahead here, so please bear with us if other areas of the site are not progressed until the Sounds Database is more or less completed. We much appreciate the many e-mails sent in about the site's resources - particularly the delightful comments from many recent subscribers to this Newsletter! - but the Sounds Database is the most complex pagebuilding task we have ever undertaken and we need to have the bulk of this in place before the remaining Supplementary Resources can be systematically completed.

Our thanks also to people sending in new or updated links for Schools Interchange and other areas of the site; we'll make amendments and additions as soon as the pagebuilding schedule allows. Everyone's help is very much appreciated.

Best regards,

Penny.

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