Our Year

This year we started out slowly with a small number of students. Some potential students' employment continued longer than normal this year so they were unable to come as had been expected and others, due to personal problems, found themselves taking some time off. This meant going back to having morning only classes. We tried to continue our Wednesday night classes but with limited success.

Although our hours have been reduced the students continue to work hard. They pace themselves and often they probably demand more of themselves than I would.

This year we prepared the treat bags for the town's children's Christmas party. We sent articles to THE LEARNING TIMES. Unfortunately there was only one CASPER put out this year.

We were very lucky as we got a brand new computer and printer with all the bells and whistles. Jerry Hicks arranged this through a NALD loan. This and the two 386's that Jerry gave us last spring have us all computer crazy. We've been typing all our written work and this has been a real learning experience! Not only have we been perfecting our editing skills, we've also had to learn to use the mouse. Our word processing skills have really taken a leap forward. We hope to tackle some online research... Time is a problem. We never seem to have enough.

Our oral reading was reduced this year as many of our present students are part time. We have spent quite a while getting through THE CHRYSALIDS although we've enjoyed it.

Our students and committee were out once again in February knocking on doors to ask sponsors to continue to help us. We desperately need their support or the programme will die. Everyone's also been busy spreading the word that we are here and free to all wishing to come for upgrading.

This year we asked the Access Centre to lend us their digital camera so that our photos will be clearer and easier to scan into the computer. (I hope we remember how we did this last year!)

That about wraps up the highlights of the year. We hope you like the results of our hard work.