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Area 6 : News & Views

LATEST SITE NEWS

5th May 2008: A LEG TO STAND ON: Just a note to flag up a wonderful charity that helps provide corrective surgery and prosthetic limbs for disabled children in several countries.

Their annual rock benefit in London is being held on 15th May at the Café de Paris, 4 Coventry Street, London W1D 6BL. Individual tickets are a bit pricey (Ł125) but donations can be sent if wished via their USA site here (that site also has details of USA events).

See ALTSO UK's site for more details of the rock benefit, here - main introduction page here.

1st April 2008: KEYWORDS FOR LEARNING: Our thanks go to the many site visitors here who have sent in wordsearches over a long period, for our "Keywords for Learning" area.

Updating this area has taken a long while! but only because so much has been going on elsewhere within the site. Our thanks to Mario in New Zealand who has just completed the new programming to enable the rest of the wordsearches received so far, to be created and uploaded - additions to new and existing categories include Plants, Ice Skating, Racing Cars, Ice Hockey, Chemistry, Composers, Rocks, Roads, Transport, Music, Concert Halls, Country Music and Solo Singers.

New sets-of-20-words are always welcomed for this area! See the main index page here for sample categories, and the intro page here for details of the types of lists we're looking for :)

23rd February 2008: SPELLINGS, SOUNDS + MEANINGS: We're very pleased to say that over 2000 new worksheets have now gone on line, linked from the Sounds Database, alongside the related 400+ sound files already available. This area has now been completed!

Our thanks to Mario Becroft in New Zealand for all the programming work that has been required to generate the worksheets. These range across all the main sound sub-groups within the English language, and include wordsearches, crossword clues, spelling practice, writing practice and dictionary/meanings. Further template worksheets are also on line for lateral thinking, making crossword puzzles, and writing poems and MC Lyrics. All worksheets can be accessed via the main Sounds Database page.

13th January 2008: A belated Happy New Year to all our visitors! and sorry that contact over recent months has been so intermittent. We haven't been idle here of course! but what has been going on behind the scenes has been fairly demanding and there hasn't been space or time available to keep you all posted on what's taking place.

EVENTS CALENDAR 2008 / 2009: The new calendar has just gone on line - everything from celebrity golf days and gala events to coffee mornings and extreme adventure challenges. Something for everyone! and we hope that our regular visitors will find some way to raise funds for one of the featured Directory Charities or any that appear on the worldwide "projects helping kids" pages.

ANDY'S GUIDE TO POKÉMON: We're delighted to say that the upgrade and expansion of this area is almost complete now. Pokémon remains the area that brings most of our younger visitors into the site, but the games are demanding beyond belief (especially for younger kids) and the work now done to index and interlink the help sent in over the last seven years will provide a valuable and unique resource for the games. A somewhat daunting task, this one has been! but worth it, in the end. Take a look at the red/blue/yellow Pokédex for some idea of what has now been achieved.

ANY LANGUAGE TO ENGLISH: Progress on our free dual-language worksheets area has been solid over recent months (and our thanks go to the many translators and people checking, worldwide, who are giving their help free of charge). German-English vocabulary is almost ready-to-go; likewise German-English verbs, and Romanian-English vocabulary, with Spanish-English vocabulary not far behind. This is a *huge* undertaking and the new worksheets will be processed as soon as the final checks are completed.

Details of other languages in progress can be found on the Translators' page.

21st November 2007: CHILDREN WITH SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES: UK visitors with a SKY account can support I CAN's bid to become Sky's next charity partner.

A new report by I CAN - see The X-cluded factor - points out that "on average 60% of young offenders have SLCN" (speech, language and communication needs).

To register your support for I CAN being supported by SKY, just register your vote at the sky website here - voting closes on 23rd November 2007.

12th November 2007: FREE DUAL-LANGUAGE WORKSHEETS: Just a note to advise that (a lot of) work continues here on the "Any Language to English" area.

So far, French-English worksheets (verbs and vocabulary), Romanian-English (verbs), Russian-English (vocabulary) and Polish-English (vocabulary) worksheets are on line. Other worksheet sets in preparation can be seen on the Translators' page (all translation and checking is being done free of charge by site visitors across the world).

New worksheet sets due on line by around Christmas include Spanish-English vocabulary, German-English verbs, German-English vocabulary and Romanian vocabulary, so there's a great deal of work going on behind the scenes here :)

We'd also much appreciate some further offers of help with translating and checking Italian, if any language professionals amongst our site visitors have some time to spare.

The work on Andy's Guide to Pokémon is also continuing - *long* task - but all going well, that too should be completed and up to date by around Christmas 2007.

3rd September 2007: ANDY'S GUIDE TO POKÉMON Having spent the last seven years intermittently building Andy's Guide to Pokémon, we've become aware in recent months that there is *so* much kids are expected to remember or know, to successfully play the different Pokémon versions, that it was becoming - very - difficult to keep track of everything (difficult for us, let alone our visitors).

So we've created new Pokédexes to give kids just one aspect of what they need to know - how/where to get/find the individual Pokémon (now numbering nearly 500). When you consider that there are probably at least 100 different little bits of information associated with each of the Pokémon - the different attacks it can use, the various different TMs and HMs it can use, its stats, all the related breeding and egg information, and much else, which varies from one Pokémon version to the next (let alone all the peripheral info about routes and towns and trainers and gyms and badges and so on), our reckoning is that kids are potentially dealing with anything from 100,000-upwards separate bits of information across the 15 Pokémon versions for which we've provided dexes.

Any parent thinking of going out and buying the Diamond or Pearl games as an introduction to Pokémon for their seven-year-old might want to take a look at the Diamond + Pearl pokédex before they do so. It's wonderful that Nintendo have been so inventive/resourceful, but there's the dual factor that younger kids are inevitably going to be swamped by needing to take this amount of information on board (and the info we've included across all nine new dexes we've now made [around 10,000 'bits of data'] is maybe one per cent of all the inter-related game factors, which would indicate rather more than 100,000 potential factors in total). What we've done by creating the dexes is to try to provide some landmarks so kids will at least have *some* prospect of being able to successfully play the game/s.

There is, for us, a lot of work ahead, to link the relevant "original pokémon" from their relative dexes to the vast reams of "cheats, tips and shortcuts" that have come in from children and teenagers in recent years, explaining further factors of the various games - let alone interlinking all the new info from the existing pages at Andy's Guide - but we're just taking things in stages for the time being. The primary thing, from our viewpoint, was to get at least a *framework* on line, around all 493 individual pokémon characters, and take things from there.

Visitors can access all the other dexes (fire red / leaf green, national dex, emerald dex, ruby sapphire dex, etc.) from the Diamond + Pearl pokédex page. Any changes required to info provided will, as always, be forthcoming in due course from our visitors :)

28th August 2007: DIGITAL PUPPIES - VIRUS - WORM: Just a brief note to advise visitors that the STORM WORM is in circulation via a harmless-looking e-mail about "digital puppies", which asks for help in testing out some software.

Text of the e-mail includes:

Would you consider helping us with your opinion of our new program Digital Puppies

This beta testing will enable us to fine tune the software for public release. To say thanks, Beta testers will receive a free copy and 5 years of free updates.

... along with a link to directly download the "software" (the link probably ending in setup.exe). It's recommended to delete the e-mail (and also remove it from your deleted items folder).

14th August 2007: HARRY POTTER FILM FIVE: Our Review of film five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is now finally on line .... worth going to see on the big screen, if you haven't already :)

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Andy's Guide to Pokémon: A fair amount of work has been going on in recent weeks, to deal with the still-huge backlog of mail and create new areas for Diamond + Pearl, Pokémon Emerald and Pokémon Crystal, amongst others. The new message-forms are working very well and masses of kids and teenagers are sending in info to help younger children, with the result that the help pages are increasing on a regular basis. More details on the "Cheats, Tips + Shortcuts" page here.

21st July 2007: HARRY POTTER BOOK SEVEN: Just a brief note to say that the first Review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is now on line here - no spoilers, needless to say :)

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7th July 2007: FREE POLISH-ENGLISH WORKSHEETS: Long haul, but we're delighted to say they are all now up on line ..... 400+ Polish-English vocabulary worksheets. Many many thanks go to Joanna Poplawska and Ewa Antonina Stelmach for the months spent translating and checking - we know from e-mails received that these worksheets are keenly awaited, particularly by schools.

The new "Wall-to-Wall Polish" area is also available for vocabulary - verbs will be added in due course, but not for some while yet.

... and finally ... we wanted to do something to mark today's date, 070707, two years on from the tragedy of the London bombings. We had no idea when creating the new resource detailed below, that more terrorist attacks on the UK were even then being planned, and obviously it has only been incredible luck and the alertness and bravery of a few individuals, that have in recent days averted major disasters.

What we've now created is "the Internet paintbox". Just somewhere for kids to learn a little more about how colours are made on the Internet, with a huge range of exact shades of colour to choose from, when building webpages. Life for many people is difficult enough without terrorist bombs, and we just wanted to mark today's date with a small contribution to the sharing of resources worldwide.

7th July 2007: SHIPPING HELP REQUEST - USA to GUATEMALA: The following request has come in from one of our visitors. Does anyone know of a shipping organization that would give special rates for consignments like this one? Please write to us here (see the "contact" page) and we'll pass on any replies to Jennifer.

I am writing from the United States with a desperate question. After visiting Guatemala during Spring break and volunteering at an elementary school with extremely minimal conditions, I held a school supply drive in my school district where I teach. The response was overwhelming. I'm sure you can imagine the question I am facing now: how to ship.

I have no idea where to turn for help or guidance. Large corporations seem to only be able to offer reduced-price shipping when there is an emergency crisis or disaster in a country.

If you have any suggestions as to how to get about fifty boxes of school supplies to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, I would truly appreciate it ... these children are in a two-room classroom with two teachers: one of whom is paid by the government and one who relies totally on donations from benefactors to pay her salary. The school is made of corrugated metal, with no windows and a dirt floor. During rainy season the floor becomes a mud bog.

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Jennifer, Prairie High School, Cedar Rapids, IA 52404

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5th July 2007: DUAL LANGUAGE WORKSHEETS: Work continues on the preparation of worksheets for various languages - see the Translators' page here - we would still welcome help from language professionals, for checking Italian vocabulary (and volunteers for any other available languages that people can offer).

The Polish-English vocabulary worksheets are almost completed and are scheduled to be on line within the next few days, all going well. More news as we have it :)

27th May 2007: POKÉMON TEAM MEMBERS: With the continuing high levels of traffic to Andy's Guide to Pokemon, regular visitors are now being invited to join the TEAM, to enable the site to be cross-referenced and interlinked more effectively - details on the page here.

To counter the seemingly-endless mail problems of recent months, we've created on-line forms for all Pokémon input - available via the "cheats + help" area.

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23rd May 2007: SCHOOL DESKS AND CHAIRS: Our thanks to Tony Smith, parent governor at an infant school in Cheltenham, Glos., for letting us know that the school is offering about 60 desks and 200 chairs which are no longer required. These are available for collection in June 2007 - please see the Surplus Resources page for details of how to contact Tony, if you could make use of these. [later: all resources now successfully allocated]

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10th May 2007: PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN: Following today's announcement that Tony Blair has finally set a leaving date, our page for UK Prime Ministers has now been updated :) More news about Blair's promise to leave on 27th June can be found at BBC News here.

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25th April 2007: ENGLISH-ROMANIAN WORKSHEETS: We're very happy to say that 390+ Romanian verbs worksheets are now on line - and our thanks to Vera Costea and Anca Greere, who have made this possible. All the worksheets can be used for English-Romanian, and Romanian-English.

All going well, the Romanian vocabulary worksheets will be able to go up on line later this year. The new "Wall-to-Wall Romanian" area is currently available also, for verbs only at this stage.

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18th April 2007: TOOLS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: News just received here of an organization called "TWAM" - TOOLS WITH A MISSION - a Christian Charity which sends gifts of good quality tools to many countries - website here.

The types of tools TWAM sends is very wide-ranging - see current list of tools needed / accepted here - everything from hammers, chisels, feeler gauges and wire brushes, to sewing machines and wheel nut spanners - and there are specific country coordinators listed here (though we understand TWAM have contacts in many other countries also).

We've added details to the resources required and surplus items pages on the site here - there have been many requests for items of this nature in the last several years and it is good to be able to feature an organization that is dealing with this very real need.

11th April 2007: Project HappyChild News: Just a note to say that a new edition of our Newsletter is finally on line :) - here - it's been some considerable while since the last one. Lots of other scheduled work in the pipeline but we're hoping to make the Newsletters a little more regular this year.

Also now uploaded: Michael Tipper's second article on The Top Ten Study Tips Of All Time.

1st April 2007: RUSSIAN: As many of you know, a huge amount of work is going on, from volunteers across the world, translating the databases to provide free dual-language translation worksheets.

We're delighted to say that 400+ Russian vocabulary worksheets are now on line - and our thanks to Oksana, and to Eyvor Fogarty, who have made this possible. All the worksheets can be used for English-Russian, and Russian-English.

Our thanks also to Vera Costea and Anca Greere who have completed the translation of the Romanian verbs - there have been a few processing difficulties in recent days (ISP/cgi server) but all going well we hope to have these on line very soon also.

Details of other people who have offered (free) help with translation and checking of a number of languages can be found on line here. Further offers would be much appreciated! It's quite a lot of work to translate or check the database content for any language, but the hundreds of free dual-language worksheets that can be generated from the database can make a lot of difference for kids worldwide.

18th March 2007: EVENTS CALENDAR 2007: We're delighted to say that the updated Events Calendar for 2007 is now on line - probably the most awesome range of events ranging funds for disadvantaged kids that we have ever featured :)

Celebrity events, golf days, dog-sledding in Sweden, the Grand Canyon challenge, "The Italian Job 2007", the Mad Hatter's Lunch, the Sense City Ice Skate, Dragonboat racing, Easter Eggstravaganza ..... everything imaginable and they all raise much-needed funds to benefit children in one way or another.

Do take a look at the Events Calendar and let us know what you decide to take part in - we're happy to feature photos and news reports if you send them in to us after your event.

11th March 2007: ACCELERATED LEARNING: With examinations approaching for many, Michael Tipper's new feature article is well timed - "The Top Ten Study Tips Of All Time". Lots of practical advice on how to best organise study time and prepare as completely as possible for exams. We've also added in the new e-mail address for those site visitors who want to write to Michael about any aspects of Accelerated Learning.

Our thanks to everyone who has re-sent "lost mail items" recently (for the site as a whole) or e-mailed for other reasons - there's a lot going on here but we'll be in touch as soon as we can :)

19th February 2007: Just a brief update, so visitors are aware of the current situation :)

We became aware a couple of days ago that due to a mailbox problem (at our ISP, not here), mail to the penny2007 address was being blackholed, and has been since about mid-January. So if you haven't had a reply to your e-mail, our apologies - please do send again. Our ISP has fixed this problem now, hopefully permanently - and also been able to sort out the 150,000+ email-spam-residue, so that the previous backlog is cleared and we are no longer being bombarded with mail avalanches at every download.

Likewise, due to a php conflict (again not here!) the newsletter-subscribe facility hasn't been working for some time - the main page at www.happychild.org.uk now has the newsletter sign-up operational again (please scroll to the bottom of that page) - the sign-up facility on other pages will be amended as soon as feasible.

On a personal level, my mother passed away late January, and I'm unable to be here a great deal at present. Meanwhile there is a significant amount to be resolved, due to the mailbox issues of the last few weeks, so it may be a while before site updates return to anything like the normal level.

We'll be back in touch when we can :) in the meantime our thanks to all visitors for their patience at this difficult time for us.

7th January 2007: We'd like to wish all our visitors a very Happy New Year :)

As usual things are flat out here - and no, there won't be a Newsletter just yet! - but we're delighted to say that the Sounds Database [ English - Spellings, Sounds + Meanings ] is now finally completed and we're hoping to receive the new worksheets for this area from New Zealand shortly :) All the sub-group index pages, all the words, and all the sound files are now fully on line, and you should be able to make use of all aspects of this resource by means of the template worksheets.

We are hopefully very close to uploading the Romanian verbs worksheets (English/Romanian) and work is progressing on several other language sets in the Any Language to English area. More details will be added to the Translators' page as soon as we can. We urgently need a professional linguist to check half the Italian vocabulary - any offers? the work's unpaid as you all know :) but would mean we could get the first block of Italian/English worksheets on line shortly. Any help - with any language - would be much appreciated.

There's a "contact" link at the bottom of all site pages with details of how to get in touch - please only use these addresses for essential mail! and please do re-send if you don't get an autoresponder. Our default mailbox has over 100,000 e-mails in it we can't access at present [spam avalanche]; if you haven't received an autoresponder it probably means your e-mail hasn't got through. If all visitors could re-send anything sent to us since 1st December 2006 that might make life rather easier here :)

10th November 2006: We're aware that this page hasn't been updated much this year! for which our apologies, but we've had our hands full with matters ensuing from the move, and the huge demands of setting up the new areas for the free dual-language worksheets, a number of which are expected to be able to go on line very soon.

10th November 2006: Projects helping children in Africa: A link has today been added from the Projects in Africa page to the Africa Foundation working to help children in Uganda since 1971 - website here. For as little as Ł20 you can buy a pig which helps cover the cost of a child going to school, and the site also has a page for setting up school links with Uganda, if this is of interest. The Africa Foundation is currently very low on funds and any help [please contact them direct via their website] would be appreciated :)

18th August 2006: FREE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY?: An extraordinary announcement by Steorn today seems to say that free energy technology will be available royalty-free for water and rural electrification projects in third world countries.

Extracts from their press release follow:

"Steorn develops free energy technology and issues challenge to the global scientific community"

"London, 18th August 2006: Steorn, an Irish technology development company, has today issued a challenge to the global scientific community to test Steorn’s free energy technology and publish the findings."

"Steorn’s technology is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy. The technology can be applied to virtually all devices requiring energy, from cellular phones to cars."

"... Following the validation process, Steorn intends to license its technology to organisations within the energy sector. It will allow use of its technology royalty-free for certain purposes including water and rural electrification projects in third world countries, details to be announced later."

Read the full press release here

29th June 2006: CHILDREN IN MOLDOVA: Delightful update yesterday, on the EveryChild news page here. A couple of brief excerpts follow:

MOLDOVA ANNOUNCES WIDE-REACHING CHANGES TO CHILDCARE

[quote]   Moldova is set to completely reform their national childcare policy, practice and legislation, eventually replacing large institutions with child-focused, family-based alternatives  [/unquote]

[quote]   ... I salute the President's decision to put childcare so high on the agenda and take such a great step forward. Children are our future and this new policy is all about putting children first and providing the best environment to give them every opportunity to develop and eventually take their rightful place in adult life.” Stela Grigoras EveryChild   [/unquote]

To read the rest of the article (which includes contact details for the Press Office at EveryChild), please click here

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26th June 2006: PLAY POLICY AND STRATEGY: Just received here, from PlayLink:

PLAY POLICY AND STRATEGY ONLINE FORUM
Now extended to Friday 30 June 2006
http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/playlink/playstrategydiscussion

The PLAYLINK/Free Play Network discussion forum on Play Policy and Strategy development has been extended for one week for participants to post questions and comments. A final endnote will be posted by PLAYLINK on Monday 3 July at which point this site will be closed for further comments. All questions and comments will remain available to view. Our team of facilitators (who are local authority officers with responsibility for play policy and strategy development) aims to respond throughout the week, ending Friday 30 June 2006.

WE WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR HELP IN ENSURING WIDEST POSSIBLE DISSEMINATION OF THIS MESSAGE. PLEASE :
1. SEND this notice to individuals and organisations who might be interested to give them the opportunity to join the emailing list and contribute to the project and to be informed of events and developments.
2. To join our mailing list and receive notification of future events, go to: http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/playlink/contacts.htm.
3. To participate or view the Play Strategy discussion forum, go to: http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/playlink/playstrategydiscussion.
If you have any queries about the discussion forum, please contact Nicola Butler - nbutler [at] freeplaynetwork.org.uk - or Bernard Spiegal - info [at] playlink.org.uk.

Please do pass on details to anyone you know that might be interested in this - thanks :)

13th April 2006: FREE TRANSLATION WORKSHEETS: Well, we're back! if only, as yet, in a small way. We've found a new property - and moved - and the computer is up and running, if only on dial-up as yet :)

We're delighted to say that the huge "Any Language to English" project (to provide free worksheets for learning English from an increasing number of other languages) has been progressing amazingly well in our absence. As you know, the French/English block of vocabulary and verb worksheets is already fully on line, and German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish and Romanian are all now moving forwards. Work has also started on the databases for Bulgarian, Dutch and Polish ..... and we've recently had provisional offers, from site visitors, for Hindi, Urdu and Japanese.

We urgently need a language professional to check the already-completed English/Italian vocabulary database! and more help would be welcomed with various aspects of Spanish, German and Dutch (you can see the progress on the various languages on the Translators' page here). If you can help in any way, please drop us a line via the 'contact' link below. Thank you :)

11th February 2006: Most of you will have seen the update here explaining why our News page is not being added to, at present. We appreciate everyone's support, at this somewhat difficult time :)

Meanwhile we'd like to say a big thank-you to Patsy at the Google Mini team for allowing us to put up a Google "site search" free of charge at Project HappyChild, so you can find specific resources right across the thousands of pages here.

*SINGLE* words seem to "work best" in generating a range of different options - eg "words" or "numbers" or "coffee" or "cook" or "schools" or "projects" or "plant" or "deaf" - most will lead you into a number of different areas of the site, each of which is pretty well signposted for locating further resources.

[single word only]

If you don't get a "result" to begin with, try another "linked word" ..... or see the welcome page here for a broader overview of the main themes of the site. The search facility is a wonderful way of tracking lateral connections - or finding something you saw here before somewhere! eg key in "ship" or "train" or "square" or "remember" - but it's dependent on the actual words *used* on the site pages, rather than what they describe. Also, keying in "picture" or "pictures" may call up two very different sets of results :) and it's probably worth trying both plural and singular forms of any given word, or other variables, eg "sun", "sunny", etc.

1st January 2006: 2006 EVENTS CALENDAR: The massive Calendar of Events scheduled for 2006 has just gone on line here .... everything imaginable from shark dives to the Hairy Haggis Team Relay, the Gleneagles Golf day, Slimathon 2006, the Forth Rail Bridge Abseil, the Flora London Marathon and much, much more ....

24th December 2005: CHRISTMAS EVE 2005: Wishing all of you a happy and peaceful Christmas and a wonderful New Year :)

There is a message for visitors, on line here. Christmas 2005 is developing into an unexpectedly-difficult time for us! and this News page is unlikely to be updated for a while. We thought perhaps we should tell you about what has just happened here .....

There are also intermittent problems with our webhosting - Force 9 is currently investigating why site graphics and pages are sometimes failing to load. If you refresh pages they *may* re-load properly - we're hoping this will be fixed fairly soon :)

Ongoing support for Project HappyChild from our visitors will be greatly valued during this very complex time. Please do maintain your links to the site! and we'll be back to finish pagebuilding the rest of it when all the other matters are finally resolved. Thank you :)

15th December 2005: PREVIEW OF THE LARGEST EVER FUNFAIR IN LONDON: News just in that for a donation to STARLIGHT (minimum suggested donation Ł5/person or Ł20/family - 2 adults and up to 4 children) you can get a wristband for unlimited FREE rides on all children's and adult's fairground rides between 4pm and 8pm on Friday, 23 December 2005 ONLY. The offer does not include fairground stalls or refreshment units, but there are over 40 rides (normal cost Ł2 per ride).

See the STARLIGHT website for more info [click on "LONDON FUN FAIR FOR STARLIGHT 23rd DEC 4-8pm"]. Please check with Starlight (telephone number on their site) as soon as possible on how to get your wristband - demand for this event is likely to be massive :)

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4th December 2005: HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE: Our review of the latest - awesome - Harry Potter film is now on line in Sol's Guide to Harry Potter, here.

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30th November 2005: GOLDEN JUBILEE BALLOON LAUNCH

Update just received from SENSE on the progress of their Great Jubilee Balloon Race:

Last week residents of towns across the UK and beyond were astounded when they noticed the descent of a number of bright orange balloons, which had been launched in Bristol and London by the national deafblind charity Sense, to mark its 50th Anniversary.
The balloons must have survived some dramatic wintry weather to reach their eventual landing places, as far afield as Ashford in Kent, Stonegate in East Sussex and Carmarthen in Wales. Five had even managed to travel as far as France - one has also been found in Portugal.
The balloons had not only travelled great distances but have also been found in a variety of unusual locations including the Ministry of Defence in Bristol. One lucky ticket holder has had two balloons found in France, the first at a Muscadet Vineyard and the second 240 miles away on the other side of France!
Diana Mackie, Press and PR Assistant

So keep an eye out for orange balloons! SENSE's update page here says the deadline for returning balloons is 4th January 2006. You can find details of other events in which SENSE is involved (including the Walt Disney World ® Marathon) on line here.

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24th November 2005: KEYWORDS FOR LEARNING

Our thanks to everyone who has sent in list for wordsearches in recent months .... new areas include country music, composers, music, roads (Australian Highways), parables, ice skating, ice hockey, racing cars, transport, rocks, concert halls, plants (photosynthesis), chemistry (particle theory of matter) .....

All the new lists have now been added to the KEYWORDS FOR LEARNING area - no wordsearches as yet but the lists are on view to avoid duplication along the way.

We're planning to send the database to Mario in NZ for generating the wordsearches in a few weeks from now, so if there are any more lists out there, please send them soon :)

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20th November 2005: BIKES FOR AFRICA

Do you have a spare bike? Jole Rider (based in the UK) is shipping bikes to Africa, so that kids can get to school. Over 50,000 children in The Gambia alone, can't get to their nearest school because it's too far to walk. Some children walk 10k EACH WAY, every day, and many have further than that to travel.

Jole Rider sets up permanent, fully equipped bike repair workshops in schools in Africa and provides training for school students in maintaining their own bikes.

Their aim is to establish bike maintenance workshops in African and UK schools, and to provide opportunities for UK students to travel to Africa for a 7 or 10 day programme, to combine with fellow students of different cultures and to gain practical, engineering-based skills development around a favourite teenage topic - bikes.

To find out more, see their website here, Bikes 4 Africa here, African School Linking here and Schools Baton Relay (John O'Groats to Lands End) here.

14th November 2005: USA STATE COUNTIES: Our huge index to USA State Counties is now completed - all counties are listed both alphabetically and by state, and there are now links from all 3138 entries! Not an entirely-easy area to build, but fascinating, now it's completed, to see how different areas of the United States have developed in vastly different ways.

Having finally tracked down all the Parishes in Louisiana - challenging in the extreme! - it was delightful to discover that New Orleans is back on track, with many shops and restaurants already open, and many more due to re-open in January 2006 - see the Louisiana page, Orleans Parish.

Another major discovery was the "gaps" in available websites, in North Dakota and particularly South Dakota, the final state we searched through. Eventually we discovered that stretching across this and other states are two million square kilometers within which are the Great Sioux Nation Reservations.

We've created a special area for this on the South Dakota page, with links to websites about 11 tribes and 9 other links to related areas including The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)'s plan to establish their own "Embassy of Tribal Nations" (funding help urgently needed) and the wonderful Native Wind project to "harness the inexhaustible wind resources of the Dakotas to generate renewable power".

The United Sioux Tribes wish to offer clean electricity to towns and cities, to mitigate air pollution and climate change - whilst dually generating funds to revitalise Native economies. There's a Native Renewables Energy Conference taking place in Denver, Colorado on Tuesday to Thursday this week, November 15-17 2005 (see here to download the brochure). The core message of the conference is: "Tribes and Cities can help each other".

At a time when the USA is facing many natural crises it is wonderful that the United Sioux Tribes are taking such positive steps to safeguard the country's future and restore a better overall climate balance.

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4th November 2005: FREE FRENCH WORKSHEETS: We're delighted to say that "WALL-TO-WALL FRENCH" is now - finally! - linked in and open for visitors. Five years from when we first started building the French area, and our deepest thanks to Rita for her dedicated work in checking all the content of the free worksheets and overview pages. The 800 linked worksheets are all "dual language" (English-French and French-English) and because all the vocabulary is structured and interlinked by "themes", you can explore the French language in a way that simply hasn't been possible before. The "Wall-to-Wall French" pages can be printed off or viewed on line for revision, as can the worksheets themselves.

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28th October 2005: ANDY'S GUIDE TO POKÉMON: As promised, all the new Cheats, Tips & Shortcuts went up on line at Andy's Guide to Pokémon in time for half term :) and thanks to everyone for the e-mails now flooding in. Glad you found the new stuff useful :)

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28th October 2005: USA STATE COUNTIES: Work is still progressing on this area (next few weeks, probably) but there are over 1000 USA State Counties linked in now, and we're starting to link the listings in from our Schools USA page. The links give a fascinating insight into what life is *really* like in different areas of the USA, and you should be able to locate school boards and local schools via most of the county links.

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10th October 2005: FREE MATHS RESOURCES: Our thanks to Kaiya Williams (who first wrote to us in May 2005 about this resource) for details of updated internet addresses for the free maths practice books and lesson plans available on line from the "Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching". Links to all workbook sets (years 1-6, 7, 8, 9, GCSE and advanced level) have been added from the Maths index page here [select relevant age group]. You may also want to refresh the selected Maths Key Stage page (on the site here) before you try the link to CIMT, as many of our index pages are cached (and not always immediately updated) by major servers due to the very high traffic levels.

9th October 2005: EARTHQUAKE DISASTER: Our thoughts are with all those affected by the major earthquake in Pakistan and surrounding areas - BBC News updates here. Please help if you can.

5th October 2005: PLACES for PLAY: Details of a new book from PLAYLINK, about designing play areas for children, are now on line on our Charity Booklists page. The new "Places for Play" online photo exhibition is due on line here, mid-October 2005.

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5th October 2005: FREE FRENCH WORKSHEETS: We're extremely pleased to say the final batch of French vocabulary worksheets is now on line - IR verbs and RE verbs - see the Index to all worksheets here. We still have a few of the special links to put in, for the ER verbs, but other than that the French verbs and vocabulary worksheets are now, largely, completed. It's been a very long haul! just over five years since this area was first mapped out. All going well, the linked "Wall-to-wall French" area should be on line fairly soon :)

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5th October 2005: NEWSLETTER: We'd just like to express our thanks to Kevin Revill for the time he gave up to fix our Newsletter-send script :) all Newsletters were sent out on Monday 3rd October.

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30th September 2005: NEWSLETTER: Project HappyChild News for October 2005 is now on line - please click here. Newsletters will go out to subscribers as soon as the send-script can be re-enabled.

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14th September 2005: FREECYCLE: "CHANGING THE WORLD ONE GIFT AT A TIME"

On a lighter note, take a look at the Freecycle network. This covers the UK, right across the USA, Canada and Germany, and their "International" page includes countries across the globe, ranging from Australia and New Zealand to Argentina, Trinidad, the Philippines and Spain [Freecycle operates in over 50 countries so far].

Basically Freecycle allows people to give away items to those living near to them (all items advertised have to be *FREE*). There are endless groups within the UK, USA, Canada and Germany, and the UK alone has well over 100 groups. If there isn't an existing group in your area of the world ... then start one, to make it possible for people in your local area to join. Instructions here.

If you're under 18 we'd request that you ask your parents to join Freecycle (rather than you signing up). Freecycle enables making contact with people in your local area, to give things away or receive them, but obviously we don't recommend *any* situation where you yourself meet up with strangers. See the Freecycle FAQ page here [scroll down] for more about the risk/liability factor.

The Freecycle project is however a *wonderful* concept and will potentially make a whole lot of difference to people across the world, particularly those on low-incomes or otherwise disadvantaged. Our congratulations to Deron Beal, of Tucson Arizona, who founded this amazing organization.

The Freecycle FAQ page also has a list of organizations to which donations may be made for the Hurricane Katrina relief funds.

10th September 2005: HURRICANE KATRINA: News just in of a website with offers of over 100,000 beds available for Hurricane Katrina Survivors - click here. The CNN Safe List is here, and the Hurricane Katrina Survivors site is here [includes advice for doctors and nurses planning to help] - also click on their "Links and Lists" drop-down menu for specific links for affected states. They also have a contact telephone number for prisoner re-locations, and a page for reuniting pets with owners here.

State resources for Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida can be found on another site here [scroll up page for volunteering opportunities etc.]. Links to all counties in Texas (seemingly taking in the largest percentage of survivors) are on line here.

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4th September 2005: With so many major problems arising from the major hurricane devastation, we've put on line in the "countries" area of the site here, links to all the separate USA States websites - click here - where details are given of relief being organized by individual states. If Hurricane Katrina isn't shown on the main intro page on each state site, try the link for the Governor.

Latest news from Biloxi and Gulfport can be found here.

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1st September 2005: HURRICANE KATRINA

Our prayers are with all those affected by Hurricane Katrina,
particularly those in New Orleans and Biloxi
and Gulfport in Harrison County, Mississippi.

More pictures and a link to the Red Cross donation site here.

BBC News reports re President Bush's return to Washington
to coordinate the relief effort here, and FEMA link here.

25th August 2005: Guestbook entries: We've recently been contacted by Latha at SLSCO-FLAME, to update us on their activities in Sri Lanka since the Tsunami. As you'll know from other entries further down this News page (eg see 10th May 2005), all the huge amounts of national donations from countries across the world didn't in fact reach everyone who needed help ..... and SLSCO-FLAME are asking for people to sponsor a single child's education and ongoing basic needs for just Ł5 a month - see her letter here for more details.

We've also heard again from Benedict Xavier of St. Teresa's School in Chennai (original guestbook entry here) - St. Teresa's (now separate from the Lavender School) is struggling for survival and any financial help anyone can send would be very much appreciated. Donation details (and a contact e-mail address for Benedict X.) are shown on the St. Teresa's Guestbook entry. The photo here is of Michael Tipper's visit in 2001 to St. Teresa's, which he described as "a single-storey stone building with two classrooms and a corrugated tin roof. A couple of outbuildings house a storeroom that also doubles up as a classroom, the night watchman's hut, the toilets and the well."

15th August 2005: Andy's Guide to Pokémon This area of the site is receiving a phenomenal level of visits just now! it's always busy but the level of page views over the last week has been extraordinary. Given that it *is* the summer holidays (and that the academic areas of the site can wait just a little bit longer) we'll be focussing on Andy's Guide till the end of August probably - lots of interlinking to do, to bring all the aspects of the various Pokémon games together, plus a great many new e-mails in hand here for the Cheats, Tips & Shortcuts area ....

On the "academic" side, though, things are progressing well on the "Any Language to English" area ..... we have the first half of the Spanish vocabulary (for 200-ish free English-Spanish-English worksheets), which will be going to Vanina and Katherine for checking shortly; the Finnish vocabulary is progressing well and so is the Russian, and Steve has now been able to start the Italian.

However we urgently need someone (a language professional or someone who is completely bi-lingual) to check the Russian/English vocabulary when completed. Can any of you help? We will also need a checker for the Italian/English vocabulary in due course (we now have an offer on the Finnish checking) but it's the Russian vocabulary which will need to be checked first.

If any of you can help (or know anyone who can!) please write direct to penny2005 (at) happychild.org.uk. The Translators' page gives an overview of languages in progress so far and what other help is needed. These free worksheets can help not only children in Iraq (see the main Any Language to English page) but also kids anywhere in the world who need to learn English or any of the languages being offered (all ALTE worksheets can be used for testing to and from both the languages on any given page).

6th August 2005: FRENCH WORKSHEETS Our thanks again to Rita for checking three further vocabulary categories - "when", "where" and "how". 15 more free worksheets on line [click here] ..... and only three sets of worksheets now left to check - "office", "IR verbs" and "RE verbs". The verb "overview" pages still need some work, but after that we should be able to upload "Wall-to-Wall French" ..... hopefully some time in September/October.

1st August 2005: FRENCH/ENGLISH WORKSHEETS We're delighted to say that 20 more French worksheets have now gone on line - those for "countries and nationalities", "eyes and ears" and "expressions, greetings, ways to ask". Our thanks to Rita for the very-many hours spent checking the content of all these worksheets .... well over 700 on line now and less than 10% remaining. The French grammar pages will be progressed at some later date ....

21st July 2005: ANY LANGUAGE TO ENGLISH Our thanks to Wendamuni N. Appuhamy, UK, for kindly offering to translate both the verbs and vocabulary worksheet content into Singhalese. This means we have NINE languages offered so far .... see the translators page here for details of other languages still "available" and the main "Any Language to English" page for background info and links to all the immediate-use worksheets.

16th July 2005: HARRY POTTER and the HALF-BLOOD PRINCE On a somewhat lighter note, publication day for the "new Harry Potter book" has finally arrived ..... like many of you we went out at midnight last night to get a copy! and our first review is now on line here (click then scroll down a little).

12th July 2005: We've added a new page here about the London bombings, and included just a few of the wonderful pictures that have been sent from across the world. The new page also includes a link to the London Bombings Relief Fund, for any of you who might wish to make donations.

11th July 2005: Thank You

Our thanks to the many people who have written from across the world. Our prayers are with those who are still awaiting news of missing family and friends.

When you dip into the new Harry Potter Book on 16th July 2005 there will probably be a mention of Platform nine-and-three-quarters - at King's Cross Station in London. Spare a thought for the many people who have lost their lives near King's Cross Station this past week - the station all three of the bombed trains had passed through. News sources are reporting that it is likely the terrorists assembled at Kings Cross before going off in separate directions with their bombs.

At a time when the human race is beginning to work *together* to make life easier for the less fortunate, it is incomprehensible to us that warped individuals should wish to indiscriminately harm the people of all nations and religions who live together in peace and harmony in London. England's capital is living proof that people of all races and belief systems can live and work together in a free, tolerant and vibrant city.

Please pray for London and the ongoing safety and security of all who live, work and visit here - and for the protection of all such free and just societies worldwide.

7th July 2005: TERRORIST ATTACKS

Many of you will know that London has today been attacked by terrorists. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people injured or killed, and their families and friends.

A massive planned "emergency response" is already in operation and Tony Blair is returning to London from the G8 summit in Gleneagles.

Further up-to-the-minute news from BBC News here.

Yesterday London - and the whole of England and the rest of the United Kingdom - were celebrating the success of London hosting the 2012 Olympics.

Today is a sombre day in London's history ..... but the British people stand together to condemn terrorism and to defend the way of life - and the freedom - that we believe in.

Prayers for London and all who live and work in London, will be appreciated :)

3rd July 2005: The LIVE8 concerts yesterday were *wonderful* - for any of you that didn't see them, there's a BBC News report here. For us the most touching moment was seeing Madonna on stage with the now-grown-up beautiful Birhan Woldu, one of the starving children helped because of the original Live Aid concert 20 years ago.

Pink Floyd were together again after 24 years - an unforgettable experience - to add their voices to those calling for help for the poorest countries. All the "big names" were there, along with 200,000 people in Hyde Park in London ..... let alone the other bands and audiences of hundreds of thousands more people, at LIVE8 concerts across the world. Not to mention the estimated half a BILLION people who watched the concerts on television .....

The G8 Summit meets this week to decide the fate of the world's poorest nations. As Paul McCartney commented at the LIVE8 concert: "Everybody who's come along today has come for the right reason. We hope that the people, the heads of G8, are listening hard. They can't avoid this, they cannot have missed it."

The *people* in the world's richest countries have spoken. Now it's up to the G8 leaders - the elected representatives of those people - to take the right action. As Bob Geldof has commented: "We will not applaud half-measures, or politics as usual - this must be a historic breakthrough."

Nelson Mandela's address in Johannesburg put across the message of LIVE8 in a way that left no room for misunderstandings:

"So much of our common future will depend on the actions and plans of these leaders. They have a historic opportunity to open the door to hope and the possibility of a better future for all."

"Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice. It is a protection of a fundamental human right."

"History and the generations to come will judge our leaders by the decisions they make in the coming weeks. I say to all those leaders, do not look the other way. Do not hesitate. We ask our leaders to demonstrate commitment, not engage in hollow promises. It is within your power to avoid a genocide of humanity."

"Sometimes it falls upon on a generation to be great. You be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. Of course the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against humanity against which I ask all humanity now to rise up."