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Notes of Tutor Seminars:
 Tutor Seminar - 17.10.01:
These are the Notes from the WAACIS Freelance Tutor Meeting held on Wednesday 17th October at 16, Porchester Terrace, W2.
Those attending:
- Anthony Wigram, Tracy Pernice, Avril Hanning, Christine Ritchie, Martin Ball, Terence Soper, Tracey Fawthrop,Ademola Olayinka, Mohammed Khan, Boyko Grigorov, Sina Adekoya, John Howlett, Xenia Coventry, Patricia Webb, Cliff Docherty, Keith Penrose
1. Reading of Previous Minutes
We perused through the previous minutes.
2. Apologies for absence
Apologies were received from Sally Fonseca, Letwin Adekoya, David Hart, Gabriella Gatward, David Somerset, Selva Ramesh, Deborah Brixey, Mary Sullivan, Daniel Gilson, Chris Baker.
3. Student Recruitment
Martin reported on his efforts to raise the profile of WAACIS and said that the situation is much better than six months ago. WAACIS has very good contacts with the Physical Disability and Sensory Impairment teams at most of the London councils. Direct mailings to local residents have been made possible by the co-operation of several councils. Nearly all the voluntary disability organizations in each of the Boroughs had either mentioned the service in their newsletter or included a leaflet in the mailing. A number of Graduates had participated in sending press releases to their local newspaper and this had resulted in coverage.
The tutors have suggested that they should concentrate on their own boroughs. John Howlett suggested that we concentrate on our libraries and put up posters in the doctors surgeries. He suggested that tutors put at least 2 hours a week into promoting WAACIS. He has suggested the laminated business cards. He also suggested that various leaflets be put in Health shops. Another suggestion is that we should have a WAACIS Awareness Week. Anthony stated that all tutors should not be afraid to do some public relations in their Boroughs. Terence said that he would pass on any information he has about WAACIS to all organisations in his Borough. The tutors generally agreed that this was a good thing and that they would do there utmost to help promote WAACIS. John also suggested that tutors should check the websites to find contacts and then email these contacts. Terence also suggested MS Day Centres in which leaflets could be distributed in order to help spread the word. He also stated that it is all about networking. Tracey Fawthrop said that in her experience business cards do work and that all tutors should have something to leave behind so that they could be contacted.
Keith Penrose also discussed his address to Nash College and hopes that we will receive some students in this way. He also stated that he would be more than willing to follow up on this.
Patricia Webb suggested that we should contact local occupational therapists and Boyko Grigorov agreed in saying that we should target specialists in the medical field.
Xenia Coventry suggested that she would contact Action for Disabled and leave some leaflets. She also suggested that we should try to make links with Asda or Tesco so that we could be placed on their websites.
Anthony said the WAACIS graduates should become advocates for
WAACIS. David Hart will be the Chair for the WAACIS Volunteer Representatives. Tutors should encourage their students to become volunteers when they have completed the course. We should try and persuade them to help WAACIS.
The tutors stated that would be willing to have a lesson in which they dedicated the lesson to promoting WAACIS, and show the student different ways of promoting WAACIS. It was suggested that the sponsors be contacted as well as doctors or the local MP's.
Sina Adekoya suggested that we put WAACIS on his website in order to advertise it free of charge. We could also have various links to various websites.
4. E-Group
Cliff said that it was going very well and tutors are interacting very well together. He said that it had been fairly quite but that it is being used the way it should be. The issues being discussed were HAL, JAWS, different key strokes, bookmarks, quick reference, etc.
5. Tutor Training
(a) Patricia has said that any tutors who would like to be trained in Jaws should contact her.
(b) John Howlett has started his training in Dragon Dictate and has signed on 4 tutors already. He is very excited to begin the training and is looking forward to teaching the course.
(c) Anthony also stated that Nuala Davis of AbilityNet suggested that tutors could come along to her assessment to learn more about the hardware and the various options students may have.
6. Student Assessments
Anthony spoke about the Individual Learning Account and how it works. Each student will obtain £130,00 from the ILA to do the course. We asked tutors whether they would be willing to complete the form after the student has passed the assessment and they all said that this would be fine. The students would make an initial contribution of £30 but this will be given back to them once they have started the course.
Sina said that we should find out whether there were any guidelines in completing the application and this we would agree to look into.
(i) Literacy
Cliff Docherty spoke about his student and said that she was very enthusiastic to learn the course in any way possible. He said that he is doing some research as to the different software available and learning different techniques. He also spoke about an adult literacy website.
7. Lesson Reporting
Avril Hanning addressed the issue of lesson reporting and pleaded with the tutors to report correctly and the tutors suggested that a different lesson report template without boxes should be constructed.
She also explained that the invoicing should be sent in every end of month and that the tutors should take care and do it properly.
The tutors did agree to co-operate with the office.
8. Final Report
Everyone agreed that the final report is very useful and that it is a good way to monitor what the student has covered in the lessons. Tutors have agreed to use the form for the final lesson.
9. Website
Bobby Approval - the site has now been tested under the 'Bobby' system and the 'Bobby Approved' icon added to the index page.
'W3C HTML 4' - the site conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium guidelines on HTML4. The W3C HTML Validation Service checks documents for conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards.
10. Any other business
(i) Tutors said that they would love to have Christmas drinks and that this should be arranged. Patricia also stated that all the volunteers should also attend.
(ii) Anthony stated that in the Tutors Terms and Conditions a new clause stating that tutors will not be allowed to sell any equipment to students unless they have prior consent from the office.
(iii) Tutors agreed that they would let Avril know by Monday if they will be attending the Epilepsy Training held on the 27th of October at the National Society for Epilepsy.
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