Tutor Mentor Conference\May 18, 2007

After my second year of working in this capacity I have come to learn a great deal about my craft, it's purposes, limitations and costs. I felt energized when I saw that many of the images that I took last year are currently being used on the Tutor\Mentor Connections website. The one regret that I had from when I photographed this even back in 2006 was that I was only able to stay for about an hour. This year, I wanted to get more coverage, so I arrived before the opening speeches at around 9:30am and stayed until almost the very end. There were about 800 pictures total. Most of the mentoring sessions ran concurrent, so I was able to weave in and out between rooms to get the greatest possible variety.

IYP

I am very excited about the freedom of creativity and opportunities for learning presented by IYP. After I talked to Rebecca about participating in the group, the idea that immediately came to mind was to produce a War documentary: something that the students could use to exercise their learning and creativity within a structured environment. People definitely like war documentaries; it would also be a great challenge for the students to produce something mainstream.

Blog Exchange/May Conference

I think I'm getting the hang of this Blog Exchange idea. Dan spoke to me again about it last week as I nodded in curiosity. It's a program of organized and aggressive networking in which Non-Profit bloggers seek out associations with like-minded individuals. I also read an online article which outlined a few ways to use non-profits to support a specific cause. Networkers add their blogs to a list of blogs and then choose blogs from other blogs to comment on.

When Dan Bassil reminded me that this year's Non-Profit Networking conference would be held in May, I was more than prepared to take on my role from last year. It was fun to be working to help a cause such as this and I have a few new ideas 2007: mainly I want to supplement the pictures with a few audio recordings that can be posted on this blog along with the images that I take. I think I'm going to have to look into this idea a bit further. The speakers may not want their words widely distributed outside of the conference. I'll be sure to ask each speaker if it's ok before I record them.

A new camera may be in order as well. The comparatively old Digital camera that was used last year didn't do too well in low light. There were a few good Cameras on sale recently. One was around $199 and it came with optical image stabilization. Some of the images suffered from excessive blurriness and pixelation; maybe a 5 or 6 megapixel camera with up to 1600 ISO will do.

Holiday Party

Working with Cabrini Connections has been a great stress reliever for me. No matter how hectic my work week is, I am always relaxed when I'm there. That's why I want to make it a habit to be their more often this year. On December 21st of last year I was happy to attend the holiday party that was being held at Cabrini Connections. My job was to promote IYP-the Cabrini Connections video club-and maybe convince a few of the children attending the party to join the club.

Before the party got started, Dan Bassil thanked us all for being there. He delivered a message of urgency to the children. He said that if the students work hard, they can have a future of employment, college and fullfilment ahead of them. They will be able to escape from the trap that has claimed so many others; poverty, economic isolation, and failure.

Most of the young children weren't paying attention though. They just wanted to decorate Christmas cookies and have fun. I think it's better that they don't understand just yet how critical these resources are for them. Kids should have the time to be kids. They shouldn't have to start worrying about adult stuff so early. I wish I had known about Cabrini Connections when I was younger.