Last Wednesday we held the annual morning where we welcome sponsors, partners, schools and local community organisations to hear about our activities over the past year. It is a short showcase for our funders, sponsors and partners to get an insight into Kootuitui ki Papakura.
This year, the event was hosted at Papakura Central School and included a welcome to the 70-ish attendees, short presentations (above) from representatives who work in each of our three strands and a tour of 1:1 hubs and the school clinic. The Education strand was presented by four PCS students who showed attendees how they learn in an online environment through their teacher's visible website, some of the Google apps they use and the cybersmart learning around making positive, thoughtful and helpful comments on blogs. Having students present is always well received, as is hearing from whaanau who share their stories and others' stories of change through their engagement in the Homes strand initiatives.
This is our third year hosting this event and I have learnt through that time some things that have helped the planning for each successive year. These include the preparations that need to be made at the Trust level, at the school level and at the level of connecting with the various delivery partners. The run sheet invariably gets behind, so I have learnt to factor this into the programme and to break up the 'listening' activities with time for the attendees to talk, walk, network and have refreshments.
The Kootuitui team gets behind this event and pulls together to make it happen. Right now, there are 10 employees, including full and part-timers, with additional volunteers, and we are also supporting the salaries of about 6 FTE - so we are growing as a roopu.
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Connections are continuing to be made with other organisations as we focus on our vision of improving the lifelong outcomes for tamariki in our community.
No comments:
Post a Comment