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Youth Leader's Reports From Around the States
contributed by State and Territory Youth Development Officers and Youth Leaders
[ from APF News, July 2010 ]
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Australian Capital Territory
At the Canberra StampShow, the junior auction again proved to be the highlight of the day with the kids sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for their anticipated treasure to come up for bids. John Vassalo once again did the honours as Auctioneer, ensuring that items did not become too expensive. Our "spuds" system ensured a fairly even distribution of lots, and all the kids left happily with their new treasures. The "spud" system is run for the kids who are prepared to pay what John considers to be the maximum price (to stop the kid with the most money getting everything). The kids come to the front and put one "Spud" fist into the circle, then I go through a counting rhyme and the last one left gets it. It usually results in a dance as the kids shuffle for what they expect to be the right spot so I have to change direction and rhyme to try to keep it fair.
New South Wales
The SYSG will meet on 15 July when the theme will be "Birds". Cyril McColough and Liz Nakhla will again run a Youth Corner at the "Winter's Day with Stamps" to be run at the Dougherty Centre, 7 Victor St, Chatswood on Saturday 31 July. Queensland
When talking to Victor recently I mentioned that both St Paul's School's Stamp Club and All Saints have an incentive system whereby children completing home work, entering the competitions and being punctual to meetings all gain points which accrue to a certain figure (different in both) and they are then awarded prizes such as a stock book or some hagner sheets and even small catalogues. Victor thought this was a great idea and is going to put it into place at MacGregor State School Stamp Club. Several groups have waiting lists for children to join as classroom size limits the number who can attend. St Paul's is the lucky one here as they meet after school and there is plenty of room in the area they are allotted. David is finding that time constraints for his meetings are a bit of a problem as the children are not keen to leave the meeting to go to classes and he also would like more time with them. This year there were not as many children at Rockhampton and Gladstone Stamp Days as usual, but they still managed to give away quite a number of goodie bags. Usually Gladstone has up to 20 children from the local schools visiting. Karen was disappointed at the number of children who turned up to their Open Day, although I thought there were more than usual. Logan City have asked for three Young Collectors copies as they have several children coming to their stamp club meetings with their parents. It is a fact that if the parents are interested the children soon follow. Nanango Stamp Club and Lockyer Valley have several children each attending their meetings with their parents. QPC attended the ANDA show at the RNA Showgrounds and as usual we had a Kidz Korner with colouring, design a stamp and small quiz for the children attending. We had some excellent results in all areas and yours truly spent time dispatching prizes after the show to the selected winners in the different age groups. I have not had a report from the Yumborra Scout Group in Dalby, but I guess they are still functioning. They requested 35 copies of The Young Collector for their Cub and Scout Groups. Our Senior Exhibitor has entered her article on Tennis Gear into Adelaide's Stamp Show in the Literature section for Youth in August and will take part in the Interstate Challenge later in the year. This will be her 'swansong' as she is now 21 years old and our very Junior exhibitor is not ready to follow in her foot steps just yet. That wraps it up for Queensland for now. Tasmania
In his work with Tasmanian primary school children Ken Stocks has also set out to provide an introduction to the geography of their state. Tasmania currently has about 170 Post Offices, a far cry from the halcyon days of the early federal period, (less than half), but a goodly sum nonetheless for a child who may ordinarily have a vocabulary of just half a dozen town names. A few years ago, Ken set out to acquire not only a complete, but also heavily duplicated holding of contemporary Post Office strikes on piece. Many were sourced from local business correspondence but a considerable amount of leg work was required before sufficient numbers could be assembled from smaller offices in the North and West of the state. Once assembled however the holding was presented as a lucky dip! A stamp with cancel was drawn at random with the challenge to identify the office using the town name and postcode as guide. Using this information the child then had to locate the office on a map. If successful a large scroll listing all the Post Offices from A - Z was produced. Upon signing their name against the relevant office the reward was to keep the stamp! Ken has produced an innovative educational tool, combining the use of a map with an introduction to our postcode system. Tasmania has always had its fair share of postmark collectors. Perhaps this will help to produce a new generation!. South Australia
The East Marden School checked out postal markings especially postmarks and Mail Exchange codes. I prepared Give-away bags and other instructional material from Saphil House on May 22 for a 'Gifted and Talented Children SA" 5-10 year olds workshop held at the St Ignatius College. This was a full afternoon workshop with games and hands on material to explain what stamps are - different kinds, and different countries, of stamps and how they illustrate the geography and history of the country The 'Young Collector' was used at all venues for the puzzle to win prizes and to learn how to use a catalogue in answering the Quiz questions. I take a stack of small catalogues and only lend them during the lesson, but when I have spare catalogues they can be won in competitions. Victoria
Western Australia
She was also able to get an article on the Kalgoorlie Junior Stamp Club featured in the Kalgoorlie Miner on 23rd March. Kalgoorlie Juniors have started working on their displays for Mandurah 2010 and one member has been chosen as the Junior exhibiter for the WA team in the Australasian Challenge. She has also benefited from several donations of stamps and other philatelic material from a range of people including the APF and Robin Linke. ACTIVITIES
SUPPLIED BY THE NEWLAKE JUNIOR STAMP GROUP
(with thanks to Peter, David and Stephen, Leaders will need a quantity of Australian and world stamps for these activities. Some can be done at
meetings, and others at home and brought along to the next meeting. Children can either earn points or prizes for their efforts.) Identifying the picture: Children are given world catalogues and magnifying glasses to find out what was on stamps from a particular country. The catalogues are needed as some stamps have no information on them, just pictures. Finding a set of stamps: Each child is to find a set of stamps from a country (maybe Australia might be easiest) soak them off paper, then mount them onto a sheet that gives some information about that set. Finding denominations: Find out all the denominations ever used on Australian stamps. The challenge is to find one of each denomination and present it in some form of display at the meeting. |
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