Annual General Meeting

Our annual general meeting was held on June 8th at the Coast Bastion Inn. A presentation was made by designer Lou Gagne (right) on her concept for enhancing the surroundings and improving safety in our premises. David Moddle brought greetings from Literacy BC and explained the role that it plays in our province. We had presentations from volunteer tutors Donna Lee Kuntz and Doug Reeves, along with a presentation from adult learner Constance Hansey. Brian O'Rooney talked about our CAP site, computer recycling and the WRAP program. Presentations of appreciation were made to volunteers Florence Pierce (bookstore volunteer 7.5 years), Bea Holmes (Internet book sales), Sue Castonguay (book sorting system), Barry Fulford (outgoing president), and Val Little (outgoing board member).

Board of Directors 2004-2005

President: Wendy Smitka
Vice President: Valerie Fulford
Secretary: Christine McAuley
Treasurer: Brian Anderson
Directors at Large: Gary Edwards, Barry Fulford, Keith Hodgson, Carol Moffatt, and Jane Muise

The board, elected at our AGM on June 8, 2004, held a planning session in late June and is looking forward to the challenge of upgrading of our premises.

Adult Literacy Course

The University of Victoria division of continuing studies through their distance-learning program is offering Facilitating Adult Literacy and Basic Education in the Information Age beginning September 27, 2004. If you are interested, check it out through their website: www.uvcs.uvic.ca/csie/cace/

Weyerhaeuser Jobs for Youth

Thanks to a grant from Weyerhaeuser, we were able to employ Rachael Swatez this summer. This was Rachael's first job as she is just 15 years old and a student at John Barsby Secondary School. She helped us out with our public access internet site, answered phones and did a wonderful job of merging our data files into an Access system.

CAP Youth

Andrew Kadang is a student at and, thanks to a grant from Human Resources through Industry Canada, he has been working through the summer for the Central-Island.net. This is a network of public access internet sites that Literacy Central VI co-ordinates. Andrew has visited all of the sites in Nanaimo and conducted a Cyber Camp, instructing youth in computer animation. Andrew will continue to work through the fall when he has time available away from his studies.

We are including with your newsletter a brochure outlining the CAP sites in Nanaimo that are available to the general public. Some of these sites have computer labs, where we could conduct workshops on specific topics by request. If you have a group that would benefit from a specific computer workshop, give us a call and we will see what we can arrange.

Nanaimo Lawn Bowling Club

Thank you to Meg McGovern of the Nanaimo Lawn Bowling Club for again hosting a barbecue and lawn bowling evening for our bookstore volunteers, staff, and board. The green at Bowen Park is a beautiful location and it is always fun to learn something new.