June, 2005 Leadership E-Newsletter

Leadership can be a daunting task but with the support of others it can also be such a reward. As you begin to evaluate what activities will be on the agenda for next school year don’t forget to take some time to evaluate your priorities as well. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help with planning and supervising the activities. If your group is large, you might ask a member to field the phone calls for the year so you will have time to focus on other things.

There has been much discussion on the Leadership Yahoo! Group regarding membership forms, by-laws, guidelines and many other documents that we use in our group functions. If you’d like to see some other groups’ forms and what their legal documents contain you may do so by going to the Yahoo! Group website and peek into the files section for all of the great forms! We have shared some useful information in the loop this month so be sure to sign up if you are not already. You may do so by sending a blank email to:

TOSHSN_Leadership_Group-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. We’d love to have your input and ideas, not to mention your encouraging words!

Many readers sent tips for ‘Summer Happenings’ and it seems that many groups either take the summer months off or they have a relaxed meeting schedule. Many of you have park days and/or bowling days and others have exclusive “Mom’s Meetings” to connect with other homeschooling Mother’s. A group in Alabama coordinates weekly Spanish classes for various ages and a tennis clinic, how fun! It is important to keep those children’s minds engaged during those ‘off’ months and this is a great way to keep them moving!

Congratulations to our winners who submitted their “Summer Happenings”: Tami Fox in North Carolina, Karen White in Alabama, Jennifer Nichols with Raymore Home Educators and Debi Large of Cornerstone Christian Home Educators in Okeechobee, Florida

We will randomly select TWO support group leaders who send in and entry with meeting ideas. What were the most successful and attended meetings in recent years? Which one did the group membership beg to have again? What about children, how do you involve the children and/or teens in your meetings? Do you have meetings for fathers? If so, do tell us more about those! To enter the drawing for next month, send your input to anissa@thehomeschoolmagazine.com and entitle it “Meeting Ideas.” We will chose 2 winners randomly from the entries and announce them here in next month’s newsletter. The winners will receive a $25 gift card of their choice, from Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon.com, Bath & Body Works or Starbucks. We will notify the winners by email before the next issue of the newsletter.

Summer Planning

We also keep the momentum of our meetings going through the summer by changing from every 3rd Tuesday EVENING during the school year to every 3rd Tuesday at noon during the summer. These summer meetings are Park Days and everyone who can brings either a sack lunch or fast food; these summer meetings are not mandatory. Once we eat, the kiddos will go and play at the playground right next to the shelter we meet in and the teens huddle or go to the swings to talk. At this time the moms will gab, plan, give me ideas for speakers and workshops for next year, and we always make time to comfort nervous moms who are considering homeschooling in the fall and want to pick our brains and ask all those familiar questions.

The highlight of our summer goings-on is our Family Picnic every August! Every year some precious, daring family (mom?) takes on the task of heading up the picnic for their yearly service project. We have so much fun…food, games, food, lots of good conversation, food, and the dads finally get to meet each other, food, scavenger hunts, and, did I mention food?

Summer Activities

We do encourage everyone, especially those who like to take a break during the summer, to make opportunities to visit educational sites in the area and also to include educational opportunities in any travel plans if possible. I personally know that this is what we as a family plan to do. Having lived in the St. Louis, MO, area for some three years, we have visited most of the interesting sites in and around St. Louis, but this summer we plan at least one day trip each week when we are home to travel a little further into Missouri to learn more about the state's history and resources.

Also, our family has two vacation trips scheduled for the summer. One is in Indianapolis, IN, for a special lectureship, after which on the way home we plan to stop at some of the caves in southern Indiana (our boys love to explore caves!) and also the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home National Historical Park. The other vacation trip is to southeastern Kentucky for a family reunion. On the way there, we plan to visit the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park and while at the reunion visit the nearby Dr. Thomas Walker Cabin State Park, which is the site of the first white man's home built west of the Appalachian Mountains. We like to use the summer as a time of relaxing, but we also like to squeeze in as much educational opportunities which are fun that we can.

Homeschoolers are Blogging!

As many of you already know we have begun an exclusive homeschool blogging community. This is a wonderful forum to address other leaders and homeschoolers from other communities for ideas and tips regarding homeschooling and/or leadership. The website (www.homeschoolblogger) is still in the testing phase but it will be up in full force soon. Many leaders and Homeschool Nation volunteers have already signed up to share information with others in their area and in other communities.

Homeschoolblogger.com is a free full-featured blog hosting service. With Homeschoolblogger.com, you can have total customization over the look and feel of your blog, instantly publish content and images, and create a network of friends. Plus - get your very own short URL - http://www.Homeschoolblogger.com/yourname.

Don't know what a blog is? A blog (short for Web Log), is a frequently updated, shared on-line journal where people can post entries about personal experiences or express thoughts and ideas. Anyone with Internet connection can publish their own blog. There is great variety in the quality, content, and ambition of weblogs, and a weblog may have anywhere from a handful to tens of thousands of daily readers.

Join us by going to http://www.homeschoolblogger.com to get a unique username and join our community! Already, even though we are in beta mode only, several leaders have logged on and created at least the start of their new blog. The exciting thing about getting yours now is that once we release this to the readers and rest of the homeschooling web community, all the good names will be GONE. Have a look at just a few of the excellent blogs already up and running:

To submit your thoughts and share your ideas please send them to anissa@TheHomeschooolMagazine.com. To unsubscribe from: Leadership e-newsletter- TOS, just follow this link:
www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com/devotional_door/subscribe.php
Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.