Cairns Youth Mentoring Scheme
Monthly Newsletter

August 2009 : Volume 9, Issue 4

Brought to you by Centacare Cairns

Brought to you by
Centacare Cairns

Coming Events

Saturday 15th
Celebration

More events to be advised...

Quote Wall:
Momentum

"If you're coasting, you're either losing momentum or else you're headed downhill."
~ Joan Welsh

"The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Momentum is the most unstoppable force in sports. The only way to stop it is if you get in your own way, start making stupid mistakes or stop believing in yourself."
~ Rocco Mediate

"Commitment is the igniter of momentum."
~ Attributed to Peg Wood

Resources available for use

As the Cairns Youth Mentoring Scheme is housed at the Flexible Learning Centre (Clarke Street) there are fantastic resources available for matched mentee and mentor pairs. These resources can be utilized during school days from 3.00pm to 6.00pm. They include:

• Half court basketball court and basketballs
• Manual arts room with work benches and some hand tools
• Sports equipment is also available to be utilized at any time and anywhere. This includes: Basketballs, Soccer balls, Footballs and Cricket set

Please book these items in advance with the CYMS Co-ordinator. Mentees and mentors are welcome to utilise these resources in pairs or groups with other mentees and mentors.

Recipe of the Month

This is a very tasty tea to drink... ENJOY!

Masala Chai

Ingredients:

• 6 x Cardamom Pods
• Pinch of Cinnamon (powder)
• Pinch of Nutmeg (powder)
• Ginger (fresh)
• 4 x Tea bags
• 1/2 a cup of Brown Sugar
• 1L of water
• 1 cup powdered Milk

1. Place the water in a pot and place it on a hot top to begin heating. Add the tea bags (minus the string, or alternatively use tea leaves), nutmeg and cinnamon. Slice the Ginger (you can adjust the amount to suit your taste, 5 slices is good to start with) and place in the mix. Open the cardamom pods and drop the seeds in as well as the shells. Allow the mix to heat up while stirring occasionally. Don’t allow the mix to boil. Once it is hot but not boiling, remove from heat and add the milk powder and stir till mixed. Now add the brown sugar and stir till mixed.
2. To serve, strain the mix through a sieve or even a coffee plunger is good, and serve immediately. The longer the mix is left to sit with the ginger in it, it will continue to get more ginger flavoured.
3. Alternatively you can add real milk instead of powdered milk, which means you can experiment with the milk water ratio, traditionally the more milk there is the better the Masala chai. You would add the milk before you remove it from the heat, and it is even more important here to not let the mix boil.

Print this recipe >>

Forward this to a friend >>

Thank You

CYMS would like to thank the following for their support over the past few months:

• Flexible Learning Centre for use of their resources and support to the CYMS team;
• Far North Queensland Volunteers for assisting the Scheme with volunteer interviews and mentor recruitment;
• Emmy Kerrigan from Atlas Projects for assisting with the CYMS eNewsletter; and
• Nicky Jurd from cityofcairns.com for maintaining the CYMS Website;
• Big Cat Green Island Cruises for donating prizes
• CYMS Action Group for their dedicated Support of the Scheme
• Susan Johnstone-Lord for the Skill Builder presentation
• The CYMS community for the support of the Scheme during this uncertain period.

Pass it on

If you know someone who may be interested in receiving this newsletter, you can easily forward.

Please send info, photos and stories for the next newsletter. Any/all items of happenings, what you are doing, what you hope to do, what you missed out on doing.

All items are of interest to other mentors and mentees. Email the office or call us on 4041 5844.

If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter please, simply unsubscribe from this newsletter. In order to protect your privacy, the distribution list that has been compiled for this newsletter will not be used for any other purpose and your name and contact details will not be disclosed to any third party.

Brought to you by
Centacare Cairns

Co-ordinator's News

Hi ,

I have settled into my new role at Centacare with the Youth Support Coordination Program and am enjoying the new learning opportunity. I also have the pleasure in supporting John with CYMS. I look forward to seeing you all at the Wildlife Dome celebration next week and personally introducing you to John.

As of 31st December 2009 funding by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for the Cairns Youth Mentoring Scheme will be completed. As a result the CYMS is no longer creating any more new mentoring relationships or facilitating mentor training for the remainder of the year. Existing matched mentors and mentees will be supported by the CYMS worker until 24th December 2009.

As no new funding has been assured it is felt that the most appropriate, and responsible, course of action is to wind up operations towards the closure of CYMS in December.

On behalf of Centacare Cairns and the Cairns Youth Mentoring Scheme I would like to thank you for your support in these uncertain times. It is truly appreciated and a reflection on how valued this Scheme is by the community.

The Scheme is holding a celebration at the Wildlife Dome on the 15th August. I look forward to meeting the CYMS community and putting faces to names. We will also hold a Christmas celebration which will be an opportunity to celebrate the successes of CYMS over the past 9 years and acknowledge the young people who have participated in CYMS and the commitment of mentors. All the CYMS community will be encouraged to attend.

Coming Events

Program Evaluation

Over the past number of months a program evaluation has been conducted to establish:

1. Outcomes for young people and parents/guardians.
2. Participation of mentors and how to best recruit and maintain male volunteers.

This Evaluation concluded in July and has provided CYMS with some valuable data.

The results from the Evaluation indicate an extremely high degree of success in achievement of program outcomes for mentees and a high degree of satisfaction with the scheme from both mentees and parent/guardians.

A large part of the evaluation focused on the experience of the mentors. This was done in order to establish how the CYMS can improve in its support of them. Below are 4 of the recommendations that came from the responses of the mentors who participated in the evaluation.

1. Look at the possibility of some sort of extended mentoring relationship support, or including these extended relationships into the program outcomes and processes.
2. It appears that as commitment is the resounding issue for most mentors, recruiting mentors and maintaining participation will always remain a challenge of this scheme. It is then the suggestion, that the main focus for mentor recruitment continues to include existing methods of advertising, and places a large emphasis on building the profile and awareness of CYMS in the Cairns community at large.
3. Future changes to the regulations of the scheme should be worked through sensitively with existing engaged mentors. There are some sentiments of being disempowered through the process of implementing changes. This disempowerment is counter productive in the establishment of self-sustainability.
4. Put more emphasis on establishing regular get-togethers targeted specifically for the mentors. Strongly encouraging attendance as part of the mentoring commitment. These regular get-togethers can serve to maintain a mentoring community that meets the needs of the mentors to share ideas, experiences and to socialise.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to those of you who participated in this evaluation. A special thanks goes to those mentors who participated in the steering committee that helped to refine the focus of the evaluation. I particularly enjoyed doing the evaluation, and felt privileged to be able to serve such a great scheme.

If anyone would like more information about the evaluation or would like a copy please contact John Shay at the office.

Regards,
John Shay

Discipline: The Path to Potential

By Dr. John C. Maxwell

He may have been the most naturally gifted baseball player of all time. He was clocked rounding the bases in an incredible 13 seconds. Yet, his speed was nothing compared to the power of his hitting. It's been said there were home run hitters, and then there was this man - in a league of his own. The Guinness Book of World Records credits him with hitting the longest home run ever measured, at 643 feet.

The player I'm describing is the great Mickey Mantle. By the age of 19 he had been called up to play for the New York Yankees. He won a World Series his rookie year, and his teams would capture seven championships over the course of his career. By the time he retired, Mantle had played more games as a Yankee than any other player, and had been named MVP of the American League three times. He still holds the all-time World Series records for home runs, runs scored, and runs batted in.

Yet, in spite of his impressive accomplishments, experts believe Mickey Mantle never reached his potential. Most blame Mantle's chronic knee injuries for preventing him from doing more. But injuries weren't the root of the problem. What most people didn't know was that Mantle was an alcoholic.

At age 62, with his health and family life a mess, Mantle checked into the Betty Ford Clinic and started the long road to sobriety. Looking back from this vantage point, he assessed his career:

I never fulfilled what my dad had wanted [to be the greatest player who ever lived], and I should have. God gave me a great body to play with, and I didn't take care of it. And I blame a lot of it on alcohol.
Everybody tries to make the excuse that injuries shortened my career. Truth is, after I'd had a knee operation the doctors would give me rehab work to do, but I wouldn't do it. I'd be out drinking... I hurt my knees through the years, and I just thought they'd naturally come back. Everything has always come natural to me. I didn't work hard at it.

Despite his great natural talent, Mickey Mantle never disciplined himself off the field. By the time Mantle was ready to change, it was too late. His liver was ruined from a life of alcoholism, and he died at age 64 from inoperable cancer.

Summary

Discipline is a matter of taking total responsibility for your
future. Choose not to blame circumstances for the outcome
of your life. Choose to go beyond your natural talent.
Choose to make wise decisions repeatedly. Choose
discipline as the path to your potential.