ETAQ E-pistle 7-12

Annual General Meeting
ETAQ’s AGM will be held in conjunction with the seminar at The Gap State High in Brisbane next Saturday, 17 March. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 8:45 am and members are urged to attend so that the required quorum is achieved. As you will see below, there is no danger of being ‘press ganged’ into an unwanted committee job.

ETAQ’s Rules provide that if no more than the required nominations for Management Committee positions have been received one week prior to the AGM (ie by Saturday 10 March) then there will be no further nominations taken at the AGM itself and no ballot conducted. This was the case on this occasion so the following will be declared to be duly elected: President – Garry Collins, Vice President – Dr Kelli McGraw, Secretary – Jenny Ivett-Hawes, Treasurer – Trish Purcell, Membership Secretary – Fiona Laing, Committee members (12) – Julie Arnold, Diana Briscoe, Bronwyn Darben, Karen Farrow, Sue Grotherr, Ian Hoddinott, Sophie Johnson, Helen Johnston, Shauna O’Connor, Debbie Peden, Michelle Ragen and Stew Riddle. Further information on those elected will be provided in the next issue of English Matters.

The minutes of last year’s AGM plus this year’s Secretary’s Annual Report have been uploaded to the website. Members are asked to peruse these documents prior to the meeting. The agenda was included in the recent mailing.

Townsville Branch AGM & PD
The Townsville Branch’s AGM will be held in conjunction with a PD session at Thuringowa High School on the afternoon of Wednesday 21 March 2012 starting at 4 pm. Lisa Hawke and Liam Cody will give a presentation entitled “The Australian Curriculum – Where are we at?” as a prelude to general discussion on the topic.

Have you renewed your membership?
ETAQ membership fees for 2012 were technically due on 1 January and considerable numbers of 2011 members have not yet renewed. The 3 month grace period expires at the end of this month. Our Rules state that those who have not paid their dues by the end of March are no longer members. If you wish to continue to receive these E-pistles and the other benefits of membership then you need to actually be a member, ie have paid your membership dues for the year.

Membership renewal invoices were mailed at the end of January. If you can’t locate yours, please contact our Admin Officer, Trish Purcell, at trish.purcell@bigpond.com. We don’t want to lose you!

Webinar reminder – 29 March
As advised in E-pistle 5-12, ETAQ is to conduct its first webinar (web seminar) on Thursday 29^th March, 2012 (3.30pm – 4.45pm). The topic is Persuasive Communication – Spoken and Written. This webinar will contain advice and information about the latest and most effective techniques to use in teaching this genre.  There will also be an opportunity to learn about and discuss how these skills of persuasion can be incorporated into the written format.

Participation is free but interested members need to register with Kelli McGraw at kelli.mcgraw@qut.edu.au in order to receive further information about how to participate. CPD certificates will be available.

QTU Newsflashes re C2C
Members in EQ schools should be aware that on 9 March the QTU issued Newsflash 06-12 entitled “Getting it right on C2C”. It can be downloaded from the union website at http://www.qtu.asn.au/news/newsflashes/. A relevant paragraph reads:

• “There still seem to be some mixed messages emerging from EQ about the implementation of the Australian curriculum using C2C materials. As DET and the QTU has said repeatedly, the C2C materials are an aid to delivering the curriculum in the classroom, but are not mandatory and should not be imposed upon any teacher at the expense of his or her professional judgments on teaching any individual class or lesson. C2C supports classroom practice – it is not, never has been and never will be a “teach by numbers” kit.”

A previous Newsflash, 05-12 issued on 24 February, was entitled “C2C – your professional choice”.

PD Opportunities
Members may be interested in the following day-long PD courses conducted by Teacher Training Australia (TTA). Further details can be obtained and registration effected at their website http://www.tta.edu.au/.

• Mon 19 Mar @ Sunnybank Community Sports Club – “Teaching English Grammar and Vocabulary for Writing and Reading (Secondary and Middle School)” – Presenter: Rod Campbell
• Fri 27 Apr @ Southern Cross Sports Club, Upper Mt Gravatt– “Evaluative Language – The Resources of Appraisal” – Presenter: Annette Curnow
• Wed 16 May @ Southern Cross Sports Club, Upper Mt Gravatt– “Building Rich Vocabulary To Improve Students’ Literacy” – Presenter: Patricia Hipwell
• Fri 18 May @ Southern Cross Sports Club, Upper Mt Gravatt– “Effective literacy strategies for time poor teachers” – Presenter: Patricia Hipwell

Write a book in a day
Lindsay Williamshas passed on the following information that may be of interest to members. “The Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre (KSPWC) is encouraging groups of 5-10 people to get together and write a book in a day between 1 April and 31 August 2012.

So how does it all work? You choose a day between 1 April and 31 August and register a team of 5-10 people in one of the three categories (Open, Secondary School or Primary School). At 8.00am on the day, your team will be emailed details of a random setting, two human characters, a non-human character, an issue and five random words. During the day your team writes a story of over 2000 words based around these characters, words and the issue. The final product must be emailed back to KSPWC by 8pm that evening.

Teams should also get friends, relatives and others to sponsor them by donating to their state’s hospital for children. There are awards for the best book in each state, which are produced and then presented to the respective children’s hospital library. For further information, visit the Write-a-Book-in-a-Day website <http://www.writeabookinaday.com/>.

Interested in Australian Literature?
AAATE has been contacted by a team of Australian Literature specialists at the University of New England who have been awarded a grant from the Copyright Agency to commence work on creating  new online teaching resources for ‘the top 200 books’ that fit into the category of Australian Literature. They are looking for someone to join a working group to scope out this project and would like to find someone who can represent teachers at the national level, and who has enthusiasm for and knowledge of Australian Literature.

There is no remuneration for the time spent working in this group although the creators of the new resources themselves will be paid. The group is advisory in nature and the time commitment is estimated at perhaps 50 hours over a two year period.  An initial 2-day meeting for which travel and accommodation will be paid is expected to be held soon. If you would like your name put forward to AATE for consideration, please email me at gazco48@bigpond.net.au.

Garry Collins
President, English Teachers Association of Queensland (ETAQ)
 
Sunday, March 11, 2012