30th July 2002: As many of you will have seen from the headline graphic in recent days, we have finally been able to create an on-line "games" area for children. Inter-active java script was not an area we had touched on previously, and our thanks go to the Javascript Source for making available scripts which could be integrated to some degree with our existing page format.
The new "games area" includes two for memory development ("Pairs" and "Copy Cat"), a simple game called "Breakthrough" which helps with hand-eye coordination, and one called "Squares", an online version of a traditional pen-and-paper game with which most children will be familiar.
30th July 2002: At the other end of the scale, returning to the question of "spam" which has increased radically in recent months, we have contacted the Internet Watch Foundation with respect to e-mails which offer links to images of children. Whilst our ISP PlusNet aims to have a "spam filter" in place shortly, to filter the mail being received here, some of you reading this may well have received e-mails of this nature.
The Internet Watch Foundation advises people to visit its website and: "report using our online form by entering the website address in the relevant field; or by inserting the entire email in the description field. Using the form enables our system to automatically check if we have had other reports of the same site, we often have hundreds of reports of the same site which is being distributed in this type of email and it enables us to target our limited resources at finding material which has not yet been actioned ... Just to clarify we don't have the authority, resources or remit to deal with the distribution of the spam but will look at any potentially illegal website content which it advertises." Non-UK-source notifications received by the IWF are sent to the National Criminal Intelligence Services for forwarding to overseas authorities.
26th July 2002: Many of you will have seen our page about September 11th 2001, which remains on line as a permanent record of this tragedy. We have today added details of the John J Harvey, a retired fire boat built by New York City in 1931, decommissioned in 1994 and sold to new owners in 1999, which pumped millions of gallons of water to the World Trade Center in the days after the disaster. The hydrants west of Ground Zero had no water, but the John J Harvey took its water straight from the river.
It's now based at Pier 63, just north of Chelsea Piers and twice a week if the weather allows, is piloted into the harbour, playing "God Bless America" as it passes the Statue of Liberty. The boat's eight cannons shoot water out of the river at the rate of 18,000 gallons a minute, making rainbows on sunny days, and some days there are trips where children and adults can travel on this boat free of charge (the boat's ongoing costs are funded by sales of T-shirts, sweatshirts etc.).
See the Peace page for more details and a link to the John J Harvey site which has its own record of the help given on September 11th and subsequently, as well as a calendar of scheduled events for this summer.
23rd July 2002: Cannabis is in the news lately, with the recent proposed changes to UK law on drugs. "CANNABIS ..... the gateway" explores this subject from both teenage and adult viewpoints, and is written by a Trustee of Project HappyChild.
19th July 2002: Project HappyChild News for July/August 2002 is now on
line.
18th July 2002: Regular visitors to this page will have been surprised by the lack of regular updates in recent weeks! For this our apologies - so much has been going on here behind the scenes that updating this page has been left until things settled down a little, and an unscheduled emergency hospital op meant that the Newsletter has also been delayed, but a combined July/August issue should be going out very shortly.
The major news items of the last few weeks are given below, along with details of the Manchester United charity match of which we learned this evening; other items will be added to this page over the next few days but the immediate priority is the issue of the Newsletter which will be sent out to all subscribers as soon as completed.
![French - 800+ free-to-print self-test French-English worksheets, verbs + vocabulary, eg food + drink [38 pages], trees, numbers, shops, colours, telling the time, animals, birds, insects, sports, driving, car parts, tools, home, family, etc.](https://www.happychild.org.uk/Webimage/paris01.gif)
18th July 2002: THE "DOLPHIN MAN": We have a new - and very unusual - advertiser on the site this month - Tony Crabtree, who has devoted his life to exploring the ocean - and who regularly gives presentations to schools on a number of linked themes.
18th July 2002: FOOTBALL MATCH: UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, has just announced that Manchester United will play Boca Juniors of Argentina at Old Trafford on August 10th (kick-off 3pm) in a benefit match that will raise money to help support some of the world's most disadvantaged children.
