Cairns Youth Mentoring Scheme
Monthly Newsletter

April 2009 : Volume 9, Issue 2

Brought to you by Centacare Cairns

Brought to you by
Centacare Cairns

Coming Events

Thursday 2nd
Action Group Meeting

Friday 3rd
Trivia Night

Tuesday 5th
Mentor Training Information Session

Saturday 9th
Mentor training Workshop

Wednesday 13th
Celebration

Important Notice

As a requirement of the programme, we would like to remind all current mentors of the necessity of notifying the office of any activities or communication between yourselves and your young person.

This is not only required for accountability with our funding but also for insurance purposes. Contact can be made by phone, e-mail or text message. Your co-operation is greatly appreciated.

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 my all time favourite cake. My family begs me to make it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Melt & Mix Triple Choc Cake

Ingredients:

• 250g butter, chopped
• 200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 100g milk chocolate, finely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 160°C/140°C fan-forced. Grease a 6cm-deep, 22cm (base) round cake pan. Line with baking paper.
2. Place butter, dark chocolate and milk in a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 10 to 12 minutes or until melted and smooth. Transfer to a large bowl. Cool for 5 minutes.
3. Whisk sugar and eggs into chocolate mixture. Sift flour and cocoa over mixture. Whisk to combine. Stir through half the milk chocolate. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle with remaining milk chocolate. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre has moist crumbs clinging. Cool completely in pan. Serve with cream. YUM!

Print this recipe >>

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Recipe from www.taste.com.au

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;
• Birch Carroll and Coyle Cairns Cinemas
• Cairns Tropical Zoo
• Sugarworld
• Cairns Civic Centre
• Troy Hudson from Goodman Fielder Cairns
• Simon George & Sons - Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Suppliers
• Cairns Colonial Club Resort
• Emmy Kerrigan from Atlas Projects for assisting with the CYMS eNewsletter; and
• Nicky Jurd from cityofcairns.com for maintaining the CYMS Website;

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 ,

The Scheme is very excited to announce that Federal funding for CYMS has been extended until December 2009. Funding for the Scheme after that date is uncertain. Other funding sources are still being investigated in order to assist the continuation of the Scheme.

Thank you to all those who offered to support the Scheme in these uncertain times. It is truly appreciated and a reflection on how valued this Scheme is by the community. We will keep you updated on any news regarding this matter.

With funding secured for the rest of the year, Mentor Training has been booked for May. Please let any potential volunteer mentors know. Referrals of young people to the Scheme are still strong. New mentors, especially male mentors are needed. Often I find that the most successful way to recruit new mentors is through mentors. Word of mouth by CYMS volunteers has been extremely successful in recruiting appropriate volunteers as they know first hand the qualities needed in a mentor.

I hope those who attended the last Trivia Fundraising night in October have recovered because another is set for the 3rd April. There will be fantastic prizes, a silent auction and novelty games. The Reef Hotel Casino have kindly donated the function room again to support the event. Trivia nights can be addictive so make sure you register your table soon.

The second celebration of the year will be on the 13th May. May 11th to 17th is National Volunteer week so the celebration will also be a great opportunity to celebrate the contribution volunteer mentors make to CYMS and the community. I hope to see you there.

Kind Regards, Anita Andacic CYMS Co-ordinator

Coming Events

National Volunteer Week Celebration

National Volunteer Week (NVW) is the largest celebration of volunteers and volunteerism in Australia, and provides an opportunity to highlight the role of volunteers in our communities and to say thank you to the more than 5 million Australians who volunteer.

Australian volunteers are essential to society, and CYMS would not exist without the support of volunteer mentors. Australian volunteers contribute more than 700 million hours of community service to so many areas of society, including community health care, heritage and arts, environment conservation, emergency services, education, social justice and sports. NVW provides a platform to pay tribute to these volunteers who donate their time and energy to help others.

To celebrate volunteers within CYMS, the Scheme has combined the May Celebration in National Volunteers Week.

Come along to celebrate National Volunteer Week and be entertained by celebrating mentor/mentee couples with presentations of their projects and interesting accounts of their 6-month relationships.

All welcome!

Recent Events

On Friday March 6th a Mentor Social was held at the Cairns Colonial Club Resort. Around 15 mentors attended and enjoyed an relaxing evening of networking, meeting new mentors and a fun novelty game to break the ice. The Cairns Colonial Club Resort generously donated nibbles for the evening which was more like a three course meal with the amount of food they continued to bring out during the evening. Also drinks were sponsored by a generous mentor.

Another mentor social will be organised during the year. I hope to see more mentors take advantage of this social event. Many Thanks to Peter Goulding (pictured) who organised the event and ensured fun was had by all.

Breathing and Voice for
Verbal Communication

Your most powerful communication tool is your voice.

Gail Rogers, a Speech Language Pathologist and CYMS Mentor recognizes that your daily life revolves around the powerful function of your voice eg. talking to your colleagues, close confidants or unfamiliar acquaintances. In many instances we are called upon to extend our vocal use within various business, professional development and social situations in the form of conversation, oral presentation, performance and maybe even vocal pursuits outside the office.

Gail Rogers (Speech & Language Pathologist) and Katerini Manolatos (singing teacher and music therapist) have joined forces to create their innovative Vocal Boot Camp. This program debuted in September 2008 with groups of aspiring professional voice users - both adults and children - eagerly learning about how the voice works, the do's and don'ts of voice care & protection, as well as coming together to enjoy learning fun new ways to achieve better breathing with diaphragmatic breathing techniques and identifying other ways to ensure that they keep their skills of voice production robust in order to have a healthy vocal future. Theory is intertwined with visual & auditory vocal demonstrations, as well as practical opportunities for vocal exploration. Participants also have the opportunity to present a small speech or perform songs to practice using the techniques learnt in the workshop. This will definitely give you new essential skills and the winning edge over your personal challenges and competitors!

If you would like to know more about Vocal Boot Camp, please contact: Gail Rogers, Speech Language Pathologist, Ph: 0412 906 241