Literacy Committee Minutes

1. Welcome to Committee Members
Approval of the minutes of the meeting of 25 November was deferred until the next meeting.

2. Inter-School Debates
Woody was absent but the next round of debates is scheduled for early February. It was noted that last year we endeavoured to have the final debate televised.  Maree is to ask Woody if he can look into this again.  If possible a recording should be given to the schools for training purposes and to the Optimus Club.

3. Reading Programs (Pauline and Raquel)
Raquel – Raquel reported that there was excellent participation at the last reading session at John Gray high school with 26 readers.  Of the 26, only 5 are Rotarians.  Whilst this program seems to be going well now, one concern is that there has been a request for participants to park in the main parking lot.  Whilst a reasonable request, this may dissuade readers as it will be difficult to find the place where the reading program is conducted and take additional time to find/ get back from. 

If people are willing, we also have the opportunity to read at Clifton Hunter on Tuesdays at lunchtime.

Pauline’s George Town reading program continues to go well.  There are 15 readers, the majority of whom are also non-rotarians.

It was thought to be a good idea to provide books to the students at Easter.  However it was noted that there may be some difficulty in finding books that are appropriate from both a “skills level” and age-based “interest level”.  Raquel will do some research as to what may be available/ appropriate.  Maree to seek Board approval for this expenditure.

Pauline has organized for photos to be taken during the reading program and will try to coordinate the publication of the photos in the next newsletter.  It was noted that care must be taken, in particular with the high school students, that individuals not be identified in the photos and that the PR relate to the positive aspects of the program, rather than focus on the remedial aspect.

4. Character Development Books
Michael and Marilyn met to discuss the draft text and illustrations for the book.  Marilyn provided a synopsis of the book and displayed the draft illustrations while outlining certain concerns about the author’s professed lack of experience in drawing; the author being an “artist” rather than an “illustrator”.  Despite this, on the whole, everyone liked the drawings but provided some constructive feedback to Marilyn to pass on to the author.
Given the amount of text and poetry provided by the author, the committee felt it would be better to proceed with a story book with activities at the end rather than a colouring book on the basis that a colouring book has very little text per page and large, simple illustrations.  This is not what we have been provided with and to convert what we have to a colouring book format would require major amendments to both the text and the illustrations.  Committee members were opposed to going beyond constructive criticism into major revisions as this is not our area of expertise and the timing for finalizing the product is quite tight.
Maree to report the conclusions of the committee to the Board and to ask Michael to find out how much the books would cost if printed in colour rather than as black and white colouring books.

Marilyn will send a copy of the text and illustrations to the committee.
Rather that contract with a professional illustrator at this late stage, the committee felt that we may be able to reach out to members of the club who have skills as graphic artists.  Martha was one person suggested as was Tessa {Sukoo}, who is a relative of the author.  Marilyn agreed to contact Martha in this regard.

5.  Literacy Articles - ideas
It was noted that we need a volunteer to write an article for the newsletter during literacy month.  Raquel volunteered to seek feedback from some of her volunteer readers and provide 4 - 5 paragraphs on that basis.

6.  Literacy Month - March
Maree mentioned that in previous years, various Rotarians had appeared on Daybreak and on radio to promote Sunrise’s literacy initiatives during literacy month.  Members are again to be encouraged to participate in this awareness-raising initiative.  It was thought that the co-ordinator at John Gray may be willing to assist so long as not venturing into topics that might be considered to be “political”. Raquel is to raise this.

Maree will also coordinate with Annie Briggs to have a reading day during March where Rotarians go to the schools and read to the children.  The objective is to organize this sufficiently early and provide adequate reminders and follow-ups to the schools so that everything runs smoothly.

7. Agriculture Show
The agriculture show is on 9 March.  Raquel has 6 boxes of books; Debbie has 4.  We discussed at length the pros and cons of selling books at the show.  It was thought that on the positive side, it provides exposure to the club, on the negative side, it is time consuming, labour intensive, raises only a nominal amount of money and we always have a large number of books left over afterward.  On the whole, it was considered not to be an effective use of our time but should we decide to proceed, Raquel volunteered to man the stall.

Rather than sell books at the show, we could just donate our 10 boxes of books to Jamaica.  Maree to discuss with the Board the preference not to have a stall at the agriculture show this year and instead donate the books we have to Jamaica as a joint Literacy/ international project. 

8. Jamaica Book Donation – leftover books
We discussed simply donating the 10 boxes of books we have to Jamaica rather than trying to sell them at the Agriculture show.  Maree to discuss at Board level.

9. Other matters
When Debbie organized the donation of books to the boys’ and girls’ homes at Christmas time, Angela Sealy mentioned that a number of the kids could use assistance with their studies/ comprehension skills close to exam time.  There are currently 8 boys and 7 girls at the home(s).  Maree to mention this during the next Director report to the membership to see if any of the members would be interested in taking some time on their weekends near school exam time to help with such a project.

Debbie also mentioned that some of the literacy projects have been unduly difficult and/or time consuming due to the lack of information/documentation of costs, procedures and contacts from previous years.  Debbie prepared a pro-forma sheet for the BrightStart project detailing all relevant information for future reference.  It was noted that something similar had been prepared last year for Literacy committee projects generally; Maree and Raquel to check their records to see if they can find the same.

11. Next meeting: Thursday 24 February.

12. Adjournment at 7:00pm.