Feb Meeting.

Hello everyone!

We've just had our first meeting for the year discussing PD, types of PD and what PD our members think they need most of all.  Between the meeting and those who emailed us their reflections it's given us an excellent view on where to go from here!

We'd like to remind everyone that input at any time is welcome and if you missed the meeting you can still email us your thoughts!  It is going to take us a little time to sit down and piece all your suggestions together but as a quick overview;

Literacy, behaviour management, ICT and Maths were all common topics identified as needs for our members.

Of course March sees Michael Ymer's "hands on maths" and we think this is going to be right up the alley of what people were looking for!  We also have a variety of literacy with a splash of music on the way, Interactive White Board and a few more ICT topics in the pipeline.

We also had some input on the type of PD we should be looking at putting on in Meetings.  It became obvious that people want a "nice mix".  Some meetings are 2 hour PD workshops.  Some are just to swap ideas and resources.  Some more will be on another format still.  We have had a lot of ideas on the back burner for a while, not really sure about how they would be accepted, but now we feel confident in moving forward!

We will get a report together in the next week or so which should let you all see what the results were.

With that out of the way, I'd like to tell you something that I got out of the meeting tonight that wasn't on the agenda.

VIT's original intention for CRT Networks were to be real networks.

"They provide an avenue for teachers to meet regularly to share information and gain knowledge."

Lifted right from the VIT website.  As the Network Coordinator I take this pretty seriously.  It has always been my intention to try to build a comunity where we all come together to help each other be better at what we do.  A community where I'm the coordinator only because someone needs to be there to book rooms and organize dates.  Where as soon as a meeting starts I'm not the "coordinator" anymore unless one is needed, otherwise I'm just another CRT there to help and be helped.

It's been a bit of a long road but the last month or two, and tonight's meeting in particular, makes me proud to see that all the work we have put into the Network bearing fruit and I'm just as proud of it's members.  Thank you all for being such a wonderful group of people.

On another note, thanks to Tammy for a new link for our "Websites of interest".  Learningplace.com.au - Behaviour Support Strategies.

Mel.