Karamea Graduation

Congratulations to our Karamea families who have graduated during 2012. We had a lovely afternoon yesterday meeting some of the families and their children and hearing about the amazing achievements they have made since getting their computers. Thanks to Daniel Chitty and Bradley Roberts for supporting the participants through their learning. We have enjoyed being involved with the Karamea community.

Computer Pod Update

Westport, Ngakawau and Hokitika learning suites have recently had complete upgrades of computer hard drives, giving us double the grunt to enable us to run programmes such as Microsoft Movie Maker and to cope with the higher level graphics used today.  This brings our training computers up to speed to match computer capacity of  machines distributed to learners.  It also means these computers will have space for future upgrades.  Technology is moving so fast!

Ngakawau Computers in Homes and Stepping Up

The team at the Buller Bay Information and Resource centre have enjoyed their course this year .  We've been impressed with the way these learners have worked together, helped each other.  Thanks to Pam and the committee at the Buller Bay Information and Resource Centre, this is a beautiful space to work in and always very warm and welcoming. 

Save the big news for last Cheryl...............keeps them guessing!
We are proud to welcome Denise Henley to our team.  Denise is well known in the Westport and Buller Education community most recently through her work at the Buller Community Development Company.  Denise began working with us in early May and has been busy setting up the Westport office, supporting the classes in Karamea and organising to run a group in Ngakawau - to help get that waiting list down a tad. 
Denise started her first two groups together in Ngakawau, the 9 (we have space for one more at Ngakawau, if you want to get there - get in on or before the 19 June) participants are meeting in two groups twice per week to get through their Computers in Homes course before the end of June.  That will then complete our target number of 50 for the year.
By the time the new term gets underway in mid-July, we hope to have courses running, one of Computers in Homes and one of Stepping Up running happily in Westport like it had never been away!
Keep an eye on the Westport News over the next few weeks, we haven't told them yet but we're intending to launch the new training venue with an open day for people to call in, have a cup of tea and a cake and generally have a look around.
Denise will be contacting our waiting listed families and inviting them to come along and we really need to make some noise about thanking the Westport community for all their help and support and encouragement in getting us settled into our new space and ready to go. 

The new Westport venue phone number is 03 789 5280
Or, you can phone Cheryl at WestREAP 0800 927 327
Or, email Denise at cih@westreap.org.nz
Or, email Cheryl at ace@westreap.org.nz

Check out these Websites: http://www.computersinhomes.org.nz/
and http://www.westreap.org.nz/

There now, that's everyone up to date!
Cheers,
Cheryl Jackson

Just to keep the timelines right - nek minit..............................
Around the time that Jeannie left us, we found the perfect venue for our classes. 
We hunted for months to come up with a space that we could use, one that we could afford and one that gave us all we needed in terms of security, access to the internet and a  good central location that people could get to. 
The first hurdle came when we found the space and the price was nearly there for us, but it was still just that little bit high - we'd come from a community partnership with the Salvation Army rooms where the costs were minimal and here we were trying to fit into the current rental market in Westport - not easy, to say the least.  The first rescue came in the form of Holcim, who kindly granted us enough to get us in and up and running and keep us there until the end of the year, we're okay for 2014!
Massive thanks to Holcim for their support.

The awesome Kerry from WestREAP's Hokitika Administration team and Cheryl the ACE Co-ordinator spent a day unpacking the learning suite that Jeannie had packed away in December and setting up our new room.

Then the drama's unfolded!  We had no phones or internet lines connected.............we couldn't set up the office because no-one wanted to delve into the job of connecting everything for us.....people didn't have the time or there was a demarkation line they couldn't cross from Telecom lines into those put together by private contractors.  In the end, Buller Electricity came to the rescue............Bruce and his team worked through the night to get us up and running again and the very kind management of Buller Electricity donated their time to the community who are going to be using the centre.  We have a waiting list for Westport programmes and we're very grateful to Buller Electricity for giving us this support for our families!

You can find us at Unit 3, 187 Palmerston Street, Westport. 

Right opposite the New World Supermarket and behind Moore Flowers.  We have one of our community partners, Te Ara Mahi nearby in the front unit and we are soon to be joined by another organisation on the other side of us.  It's going to be all go in that little space, soon to be the space to go for learning opportunities!

Phew!  It's been a while since we had an update.  Buller Computers in Homes is back online! 
Before we go further into the changes and the news here in June, let me catch you up on what's been happening since our graduation in April, The one where Elsie contributed the lovely story of her experience with learning about computers......................

That graduation day was tinged with sadness for our Buller communities as we said farewell to Jeannie and saw her off on her return to her home in Canada.  Thank goodness for technology because we won't miss out on seeing her wedding pics in September and we'll hear news from time to time from Jeannie and Johan - the world is a much smaller place thesedays. 

Farewell Jeannie, we'll all miss you but we're looking forward to seeing you again when you visit on holiday!

Story Award

The Outstanding Story Award went to Elsie Conolly, from the Westport course. This is what she had to say.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend computer in homes course. At the age of 79 I was a bit apprehensive about joining having no computer skills at all. Because of the excellent Tutor I soon felt able to use my computer which I bought once I felt confident.

What a difference it has made for me. Having retired recently it has opened up a whole new interest for me. It is wonderful to be able to Skype my family who don’t live near Westport. It is like having them home in my lounge
Also with Google if I need to find some information it takes only a few minutes. And emailing family and friends is so easy.

Thank you “Computer in Homes” for opening up a new life for me. I used to be quite sad at not receiving mail from family as no one seems to write letters any more, now I can hear from and talk to them every day.

Thank you Jeannie, a task well done.

January update

Happy New Year everyone! We have yet to find a new home for our Computers in Home pod in Westport, so no classes will be held in term 1.

Courses in Ngakawau will be starting in mid February.

Jeannie has been contracted by our national body 20/20 to update the Stepping UP modules to bring them upto date. So stay tuned to some great new material in Term 2.

Winning Story

The following story was the winner of our Outstanding Story competition at the graduations in December. It was submitted by one of our Westport students, who has asked to remain annonymous. The student won a Brother printer to complement their new desktop computer.