Balloon rides (7/7/2009)

Hello,

I represent a company called SPN Solutions, a company that does what's
known as advanced search engine placement. We reach a Network of over
35 million people who are predominantly US based. Our Network is entirely
opt-in, and the users on our Network allow us to present them with a
preferred choice whenever they are looking for anything on the top sixteen
search engines. (GOOGLE, YAHOO, MSN and thirteen others.)

I seek one source to send the users on our Network, from the major search
engines, for balloon rides in various markets.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience. I am in the office
daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time.

Best regards,



Liz Monteroso
Business Segment Analyst, SPN Solutions
Phone: 800.481.2979, ext 2002

Educational Narrative

Developing an educational brief for a new learning community was an exciting challenge for the Education and Building Group. For each member, the notion of creating a new place for learning was a nerve-wracking exercise. How do you determine spaces for learning that provide opportunities into the future and cater simultaneously for learning and wellbeing?
Common principles helped guide consideration of the possibilities and the development of the brief. The overall vision was clear: to create an integrated community of faith, learning, family and friendships. The dream was for this community to be a place of service and life long learning to all families. It was also clear that the learning component would need to fit as a part of the total vision.
Defining the learner gave the group a foundation for its initial deliberations. The group moved forward with two overarching understandings; that learners are competent, active, social and critical beings constantly producing change through dynamic movement with the environment, systems and with each other and that a learners competencies and motivation can be enhanced or inhibited by the setting.
The strong relationship between space and pedagogy became the focus of debates amongst the members of the Education and Building Group. And although some argued that a good teacher can use any space for good teaching and learning, all members of the group felt cautious in underestimating the power of space as a teacher itself.
Members were influenced by understandings from Reggio Emilia where the environment is unequivocally seen as a third teacher and physical space is a language of its own with a strong conditioning factor communicating culture and values.
Trying to determine an existing theory or pedagogy to base this new learning community became problematic. Rather, a grounded approach was taken based on an understanding that there is a reciprocal relationship between the physical and psychological environments. Flexibility in the design of the physical space would help teachers and learners explore more fully pedagogy that gives greater life to the notion of holistic education and would encourage the evolution of theories.
Breaking open the notion of holistic learning led to an exploration of the challenges inherent in the use of one defined space as the learning classroom. The built environments would need to support a vision for learning that encourages connectedness, making meaning and truly exploring different ways of learning. Underpinning the vision were beliefs about building social and emotional well being and capacity, learning how to learn, sustainability and the provision of spiritually rich environments within an integrated Arts and Science focus.
Providing for learning inside and outside, in gardens and orchards, at the beach and in the scrub, and in small and large spaces would require an innovative approach as well as ubiquitous technology. Every aspect of this building would need to be a metaphor for the broader vision of community within community to meet the needs of young people today and into the future.

Source

Fun Places for Catholic Children Online

	at AnnBall.com - lots of great project ideas, games to play and other fun	Liguori Publications Family Fun - activities for the family, joke of the week and more My Friend Fun and Games - Play online or print them out!  Great pictures to color too! Open Wednesdays - a resource to help families prepare for Sunday Mass by exploring the readings in advance.  Includes commentary, pictures and arts & crafts. CatholicKidsNet - Kids for Jesus!  A fun and exciting National Club for kids 5-12.  It helps kids fulfill their baptismal commitment to Know Jesus, Love Jesus, and Share Jesus! St. Jude's Coloring Book - a great guide to the Mass from a parish in Blackwood, New Jersey.  Print and color pages to learn all about the parts of the Mass Children of Hope web site, which is dedicated to promoting Eucharistic Adoration for Children.  Visit their web site for more information Totally Catholic - Totally cool t-shirts for the Catholic family Christian Songs for Children - including First Communion and Mothers Day songs, free sheet music and downloads Home-Word - great free bible coloring sheets for use in the home, at school, or at church Church Crafts and Activities - Free online links and info for religious references and education.  Topics with suggestions for activities and crafts, craft books, activity books, story books, crafts that people have come up with, worksheets, puzzles, quizzes, award certificate makers, bulletin boards, forms and letters, music, lesson plans, puppetry, skits, tips, Vacation Bible School, and teacher information, curriculums, craft and activities that are online to buy, links for crafts and activities, etc. Apple Sauce Kids - Free Christian youth ministry resources: Crafts, Coloring Pages, Games, Puzzles, Activities, Sunday School lessons, Object Lessons, Educational Links, Clowning, Puppetry, Amateur Movie Making, and more. Children's Prayers - Audio: 3 podcasts for teaching children familiar Christian prayers. Narrated by Sr.Maureen Skelly, SCH Bible Word Games - Francis Xavier Bible Game is an ideal source for bible word games based on the principles and history of the Catholic faith. Color and Learn the Sign of the Cross Coming to Faith - Online Resources from Sadlier Catholic Family Kids Podcast - For Catholic kids, by Catholic kids! St. Edward Parish Online Coloring Book - color bible pictures online with the kids of St. Edwards parish!
				parish!

Growing in Faith At Saint Bart's

Discovery is a combination of teaching and active learning. All 7th - 8th grade youth are invited to come to the church and Discover something new. A team of high school students, college students, and adults will lead us on a Discovery of Fun, Friendship and Faith.
We will also have social activities with either just the 7th-8th grade youth or combined with the 9th-12th grade youth.
The goals of the Discovery Program are many: First, to help you take an honest look at your faith and to assist you in taking the next step closer to Jesus. Second, to develop a sense of community as you begin your time in St. Bart’s Youth Ministry. Finally, to begin your six years of instruction in the areas of faith, morality, worship, service, fun and sharing the Christian life.

9th - 12th Grade: YSN

Sundays from 4:30-6:00 in the Parish Hall

High School Religious Education centers around Youth Sharing Night -YSN (OK, it’s actually in the afternoon). The format is that of a faith sharing group. Each YSN begins with a time of worship, then some time to share about your life and faith. We end with food and fellowship. Pope John Paul II has said that “conversion happens when life and faith intersect”. YSN tries to help students connect the events of their lives with their growing belief in God. Each week has a different topic based on either the bible, a Church teaching, or a current event.
Come see how big the youth group is and get energized in your faith. Jesus is doing some cool stuff with the youth in our parish. Come and see for yourself.
To sign up as an incoming freshman or to join any of the other classes, show up Sept. 21st or call Jeff Hedglen at 817.292.7703 or 817.263.5612.

Youth Bible Study

Wednesday at 5:45 pm in the Youth Room.

This is a study for 7th-12th grade youth who want to understand more about the bible. Each week there will be a different topic covered with real life applications. After the study you can hang out and play pool and foosball in the Youth Room.
Coordinated and taught by: Eric Hernandez and Daniel Smith. Often there is PIZZA!

Sacraments

Confirmation: We offer the Sacrament of Confirmation every year for students in 11th grade and above. The next class begins August 22nd.
Baptism, First Communion and First Reconciliation: We also offer classes for 7th-12th grade students who are not baptized or have missed First Communion and/or Reconciliation.
For more information about sacraments contact Jeff Hedglen

Regular Events we do every year:

Monday Night Football for all 7th-12th graders 8:00– half time: Mondays in the fall we will meet in the Youth Room for Football, Foosball, Food, and Fellowship. If you want food & Drink… bring some to share.
YSN Overnight: This is an overnight retreat for everyone who attends YSN or is interested in getting involved with the youth group. We will spend the night getting to know each other better by playing games, praying, eating, worshiping, watching movies and sleeping very little. Come to 5:30 mass Saturday, bring a change of cloths and $5.00. The event ends at 7:00AM Sunday
National Catholic Youth Conference OR Region X Conference: This is a conference with thousands Catholic youth from all over the USA. These weekends will be filled with music, games, workshops, Mass, nights in a hotel and tons of fun.
Confirmation Ceremony for everyone in the parish: Come and pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon this year’s candidates. The Mass will be at 4:00 pm in the Church. Candidates and their Sponsors should arrive at 2:00 for rehearsal. A reception will follow the ceremony.
Summer Mystery trips for 7th-12th graders: Throughout the summer St. Bart’s youth group will go someplace “strangely fun.” Meaning the place will be strange and fun… duh! All you do is show up at church at the appointed time, the rest is a mystery. All trips will be $20.00 or less. Parents who want to know where we are going ahead of time can call Jeff or Philip. But please keep the secret!
Camp Ft. Worth: This is a week long service camp. Each day we will experience a different work site (examples are Salvation Army, Food Bank and others). We stay the week at a school or parish in the diocese and serve in the agencies that are in that community. Each evening we will have free time, small group time, and prayer time. There will be 100 other youth and adults from around the diocese there. Don’t miss this.
DCYC - The annual Diocesan Catholic Youth Conference: There are separate tracts for Jr. High and Sr. High youth. What to expect: 600 - 700 Catholic youth and workshops that help you grow in your Catholic faith. TWO night’s stay in a hotel, key note speaker, music by Catholic musicians, all meals except dinner Saturday night, dance, coffee house, swimming, and Mass.
Co-Ed Softball: All 7th - 12th graders. We practice at the church at 2:00 Sunday’s starting in June. We practice in preparation for a one day tournament August 2nd with the other Catholic churches in the diocese.
Discovery Retreat For 7th - 8th graders: This will be an over night retreat. Last year was the first one. It’s theme was I call you friends. The discovery team conducts the retreat. What to expect: Fun, Games, Prayer, Worship, Sharing, and Faith Growth.
Broomball For 9-12 graders: It’s just like hockey… without skates, a stick or a puck. Tennis shoes on ice with a broom and a ball… thus the name!! Lots of slip’n and slide’n.
Come & See Retreat For 9th - 12th Graders: This is the annual spring high school retreat. Each year has a theme. Past themes have been The Voice of God, Suffering, Pray All-Ways, The Meaning of Life. On these weekends away we take a look at the theme through games, small group sharing, prayer, song and spending time in nature. We have college students come back to staff small groups.
Paradox Café: This is something we do in the winter. We drink coffee and Hot Chocolate and ponder the paradox’s and the theology of our faith.
Lock-in’s for 7th-8th and 9th-12th Graders with other Catholic churches at parishes, sports clubs, and other fun places.


Source

Catholic Telemedia Network Commits to Improving Scientific Literacy and Student Achievement with Digital Science Resources

Silver Spring, MD (April 3, 2008) – The San Francisco Bay Area’s Catholic Telemedia Network (CTN) recently selected Discovery Education as the provider of digital science resources to member schools. Consisting of two grade appropriate services, Discovery Education Science for Elementary and Discovery Education Science for Middle School, Discovery Education’s science resources provide comprehensive multimedia assets that supplement existing school curriculum with high-quality digital content in a flexible online format.
CTN’s mission is to enhance student learning by facilitating the integration of technology into existing curriculum. CTN provides multimedia services, including a full schedule of broadcast channels daily, on a variety of subjects, to teachers and students in its approximately 150 San Francisco Bay-area Cath olic schools.
“CTN is committed to providing teachers with digital science resources that enrich student’s learning and support the integration of technology into curriculum,” said Catholic Telemedia Network Executive Director Ron Loiacono. “The digital science services from Discovery Education engage students and enhance learning outcomes in our Catholic schools. We are confident that by partnering with Discovery Education, we are providing the tools students need to build the skills demanded in the digital age of the 21st century.”
Today’s students need to grow their critical thinking and problem solving skills as society becomes more technologically and information-driven. Basic scientific literacy prepares students to comprehend and manage new information, emerging technologies, and increasingly complex problems. The Catholic Telemedia Network recognizes this and supports both scientific literacy and student achievement by offering students and educators seam less access to online science content correlated to California’s educational standards.
“Four years ago, CTN pioneered the use of streaming media in the classroom by partnering with Discovery Education to provide member schools Discovery Education streaming, the only video-on-demand solution proven scientifically to improve student achievement,” said Joel Jacobson, Discovery Education Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. “By selecting Discovery Education Science, the Catholic Telemedia Network is empowering teachers to improve student achievement with award-winning interactive content intertwined with formative assessment. We look forward to partnering with CTN in our joint mission to improve student performance.”
Supporting CTN’s integration of Discovery Education Science into classrooms is the Discovery Educator Network, a global community of educators passionate about integrating media into classroom curriculum. Through the Discovery Educator Network, educators have free access to a wide range of technology training, as well as a resource library of teacher generated projects and tools.
In the coming weeks, administrators will begin implementing Discovery Education Science in classrooms around the San Francisco Bay region. Area teachers and staff will also undergo professional development designed to orient them to Discovery Education Science and help them integrate this resource into their existing lessons.

Source

Journey of learning and of discovery

As a lay Catholic organisation founded in 1833 by a 19-year-old university student, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, the traditions of learning and discovery are at the very heart of the St Vincent de Paul Society.

Vincentians strive to remain faithful to Ozanam’s inquisitive, progressive and, most importantly, compassionate spirit when engaging with the most disadvantaged members of the community. As such, it is no accident that so much of the work we do has been forged through learning.

More than 127 years of experience in assisting marginalised Australians, combined with more than 70 years of dedicated service to the homeless (epitomised by the Matthew Talbot Hostel in Woolloomooloo), has taught the Society a great deal.

However, by far the best teachers are the people we serve.

As part of Matthew Talbot Homeless Services, the St Vincent de Paul Society’s newest Special Work, the Ozanam Learning Centre (to be launched by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on November 6) is in the final stages of development. It is being shaped by the Society’s person-to-person engagement with the homeless men, women, children and families who everyday continue to teach us humility, love and respect through sharing in Christ’s love.

The Ozanam Learning Centre is, of course, being realised through an intensive process of evidence-based planning and policy development, yet is overwhelmingly an innovation driven by the homeless themselves; a direct response to the needs and aspirations they have shared with us.

Steadfast in our commitment to serve Christ through the poor, the St Vincent de Paul Society constantly strives for renewal. We seek to be ever aware of the changes that occur in human society and to anticipate emerging forms (and causes) of poverty and deprivation both at a global and community level, enabling us to direct our resources where they are most needed.

Our journey alongside the homeless has shown us the complexities of the experience of homelessness.

Empowering disadvantaged people to make positive choices and reconnect with the community can be an incredibly challenging task for both the individual in question and the Society. It is, however, an undertaking that wherever possible we remain committed to realising.

Rarely does one single factor alone trigger homelessness; thus it follows that our response must not be one-dimensional. The Society recognises that the cycle of homelessness can only be broken through a range of integrated programs, targeted resources and tailored support processes.

The success of a range of learning and recreation programs in place across the 37 homeless facilities that comprise Matthew Talbot Homeless Services convinced us of the multi-faceted merits of these initiatives.

The Ozanam Learning Centre will consolidate the learning and recreation services we have in place, enabling us to expand and build upon best practice in the provision of progressive, flexible and engaging avenues of empowerment, independence and resilience for the people we serve.

The launch of the centre will mark a milestone in the development of homeless services in Australia. We have certainly come a long way in the delivery of care, support and encouragement to the homeless.

Church-based forms of refuge have a long history in Australia. The experience of urban ‘workhouses’ and rural itinerancy are also well documented. Consolidated responses to homelessness, however, in the form of hostels did not arise en masse until the Depression of the early 1930s.

Little change occurred in the structure and delivery of services during the postwar era, with most agencies offering homeless persons no more than a basic meal and a cramped dormitory bed.

Privacy was non-existent and clinical secondary care reserved for all but the most dire cases. Access was also very limited, with few appropriate services available for homeless women and children. For indigenous Australians, access to mainstream homeless services was non-existent.

The rise of progressive social agendas throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s provoked a major re-think in the way Australian governments and the community addressed homelessness.

Studies of the social, economic and health related facets of homelessness gradually led to a shift in the delivery of homeless services. No longer was the focus solely directed towards the provision of basic food and shelter. Again, however, homelessness among indigenous Australians continued relatively unchecked.

Recognition of a selection of highly-visible symptomatic behaviours prevalent across the homeless population saw treatment for conditions such as alcoholism and mental illness receive greater emphasis. However, many of these programs were crude, poorly resourced and fragmented in nature. As such, their long-term success was extremely questionable.

The increasing impact of global conditions on the Australian economy in the mid1980s saw issues like housing and unemployment enter the homelessness research spectrum. In time, a recognition of the influence of socio-economic issues led to the implementation of

a multi-strand response to homelessness across government departments and the social service sector.

The new millennium saw factors like social inclusion, environment, culture and technology enter the discourse of homeless service delivery. Central to this approach is the notion of “agency”. As both a theoretical doctrine and a practical device, agency seeks to empower homeless persons to make positive life choices. For agency to be achieved, however, a range of integrated services are required, as is unfettered access and flexible forms of support.

In the context of homelessness, learning and recreation are viewed as key elements in achieving sustained agency and, in the first instance, securing viable pathways out of chronic homelessness.

The Ozanam Learning Centre will greatly enhance the Society’s ability to respond to current and emerging challenges in homelessness. As the launch of this remarkable new facility approaches we will provide you with more updates.

Source

Balloon rides (6/5/2009)

Hello,

I represent a company called Star Position, a company that does what's
known as advanced search engine placement. We reach a Network of over
35 million people who are predominantly US based. Our Network is entirely
opt-in, and the users on our Network allow us to present them with a
preferred choice whenever they are looking for anything on the top sixteen
search engines. (GOOGLE, YAHOO, MSN and thirteen others.)

I seek one source to send the users on our Network, from the major search
engines, for balloon rides in various markets.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience. I am in the office
daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time.

Best regards,



Liz Monteroso
Business Segment Analyst, Star Position
Phone: 800.481.2979, ext 2002