On the morning of July 29th, Vicki Heijn (our wheat belt co-ordinator) along with Mrs. Fiona Dawson and Mrs. Victoria Yuen held a get together to encourage new and older homeschooling families at the Narrogin Regional Library. The Library kindly opened its doors to the group and put on a lovely arts and craft morning for the 20 children in attendance which they thoroughly enjoyed.

Feedback on the morning termed it a huge success with  parents saying we had a brilliant morning talking about different homeschooling methods, the Curriculum and the Law, what moderators like to see, and of course the Home Based Learning Network. Vicki expounded on the benefits of being part of  HBLN   and all it had to offer including things such as our fantastic website, the recent Learning for Life Conference, Learning Matters, the resource library etc, etc.

One of the mums also demonstrated some of her  SOSE activities including the arts, and we have had a number of reports back from those who attended saying how very interesting and inspiring they found the  morning.  HBLN provided getting started packs which were gratefully received by those who attended and as many of the new families had not yet heard of HBLN they were genuinely happy to hear of the benefits and the support offered through the hard work of the volunteer committee at HBLN headquarters to all home based families.

HBLN would like to extend a big thank you to Victoria, Fiona and the Narrogin Regional Library for being wonderful hosts and for the lovely invitation and especially to Vicki our wonderful hardworking coordinator out in the bush, you do a brilliant job and we are very lucky to have you on the committee.

Thank you to all who attended and don’t forget HBLN is only an email away when you need some help.

It's with sadness and much gratitude that we say goodbye to Firth our Librarian, and also a little envy seeing as she is currently doing work experience with Donna Hay, the foodies out there among you will understand.  Frith's bubbly warm personality will be missed on committee and we wish her and her family all the best in her new career. Thank you for your contribution to the community Frith.

This means we  have an opening available for someone who loves reading and sharing books with others, who would enjoy having the opportunity to shape the HBLN Library for the next 12 months, this includes housing the library and the growing list of resources to be found within the library.

If you are looking for a way to become more involved in the community, meet new people while learning more about home education, who has about two hours a week  spare then we would like to hear from you.  Applicants need to enjoy meeting new people and have strong communications skills.

If this sounds like you then please email the committee using the contact us tab on this site.

The July edition of Learning Matters in now available .To read the magazine simply log in using your user name and password and go to the  Members tab and click on Magazine.  Next scroll down to July 2010,  the magazine is in two parts to make downloading quicker and easier, happy reading.

Global Youth Leadership Convention

World Visions Global Youth Leadership convention was aimed at increasing young people’s awareness of the global Food Crisis and its effect on people.  World vision ran an extremely well organized day during which participants took part in various activities and talks.

The talks were generally delivered via video and detailed the personal stories of children and/or families from third world countries, who are suffering from poverty and famine.  Seeing children live in really poor conditions really touched my heart, as we in Australia have so much.

We also played an economics game where students were divided into countries.  Countries such as China had 24 people, reflecting their large population, and Australia had four people.  Each country was given a bag of resources which were oil, food, technology and money.  The aim was to acquire enough oil, food and technology for each person in each country.  So each country "team" had to trade, barter or make their requirements.  The aim of the game was to see if we could change the past.  What if a bunch of teenagers could rewrite economic history and change the outcome for the future?  Interestingly, we didn't.  We made the same decisions our predecessors in real life made.

Why didn't we think outside the square, outside the guidelines of the game and work co-operatively with other countries, to ensure that all people had enough resources?  Perhaps it is human nature to look after ourselves first, perhaps we need to think and consider other people groups/countries, to ensure that no-one goes hungry.

So I have decided to do something to help the children of the world and participate in the 40 hour famine by holding a stall at the HBLN Swap Meet in September to raise money for World Vision.  Please visit my web site at www.40hf.com/hbln to learn more about what I am doing.

By Geraldine Wilson