News Letters

Gorkha Learning For Life

STAFFING NEWS - CONGRATULATIONS

This time our congratulations go to Bishwakala Adhikari who is our new teacher. We would like to take this opportunity to welcome Bishwa to our school and wish her good luck in the new teaching post. She took on the post in November and is sponsored by our Welsh Syndicate.

Congratulations also go to Ram, Shom and Rajun who have all completed their additional teacher training successfully.

GIFTS – Pencil case and pencils

I know many of you like to give your child a gift, this time we are going to take each child a pencil case with 2 writing pencils, 10 to 12 coloured pencils, a rubber and a sharpener. You may provide this for your child by either sending a set to us with your child’s name or you can send us the money and we will get it and label it from you. You do not have to provide your child with this gift, as always we ensure all children receive a gift. Thank you to all of you who have already sent your pencil cases and the many of you that have provided extra for our other children.

FEES DUE

Sorry, it is that time of year again!

If you have paid already thank you very much. If you would

like to start paying by standing order here are our details:

Lloyds TSB Bank PLC

14-20 Town Square, Basildon, Essex SS14 1DU

Account no. 1041098 Sort code: 301052

Reference: it helps us if you put your child’s name as the reference; this enables us to connect the payment to your child.

BUILDING PROJECT UPDATE

Den Edwards

Our new toilet block

As you can see the ground floor has now been competed and, both staff and children are now using this facility. We believe the first floor toilets are now under construction.

Pam Nolan, our nurse volunteer, will be visiting in August and is going to talk to staff and children about the importance of good hygiene.

Karne Khola Water Project

Last quarter we told you about our successful water project. Pictures are now on the website.

www.gorkhalearning.com/Building.htm

Class 5 finished

Our Blues Night in December nearly raised sufficient funds to complete the building of class 5. A generous donation from Pam and Tony Nolan at the end of the evening gave us the balance required to complete the room.

A big Thank you goes to Pam and Tony Nolan

www.gorkhalearning.com/Building.htm

West Hill Library

Thanks to Annette Pye, Westhill Primary School Dartford; plan to raise the £2077 needed to build the library. They have already raised £1769.93, from this they paid £250 for the water project and a further £284.11 has been used to purchase books this leaves a staggering £1235.82 towards the library. They are now working hard, by collecting pennies; to raise the final £841.12 needed to complete the library.

WELL DONE TO WEST HILL

Building – What next?

We have been looking into our next project; we have considered both an orphanage and a new school. I feel that although I would love to build an orphanage I should stick to what I know best. We will therefore be talking to people in other villages nearby in May with a view to buying land and building another school. Nell Edwards

Reading Scheme Project

As you know we have been raising money for the Oxford Reading Tree Scheme. I would like to thank all of you that have so generously sponsored books; we have nearly half of the current books sponsored already. We still need to purchase at least another £800 worth of books so to help this off to a good start we have decided that the St. Patrick’s Night will be a book fundraising night. For every entrance ticket purchased we will put your name on two of our book templates.

A big thank you goes to Christine Gray who has taken on the task of being our Reading Scheme Coordinator. She has already taken an audit and ordered the additional books we need. She has made individual record cards for the children and will introduce the scheme properly to the staff when she visits, with her family, in August of this year.

Sponsor a Book

Thanks go to my brother, Paul Berry, who has designed and made these lovely book templates.

Maybe you would like to help us with the reading scheme by sponsoring a book? We can purchase a set of 6 from £11.50 for stage 1 up to £23.50 for a set of stage 8+. An individual book sponsorship can be made for as little as £2.00 and we will put a book template in it, see above, recording your donation.

We are planning to take one of each book out with us in May to start the translation process. At this time Den will paint the Oxford Reading Tree characters on the walls of the infant classes.

Clinic Coordinator

We now have a new Clinic Coordinator, Pam Nolan. Pam has volunteered to come out to Nepal with us in August. She will be setting up the new clinic room in one of the old classrooms. Pam has already negotiated the donation of two first aid kits and hopes to get another one quite soon. She is collecting any spare first aid equipment she can, so if you have any please pass it on to her.

Pam’s daughter is collecting dental items for us to pass on to our dentist in Gorkha.

Fund Raising this Quarter

Thanks go to the following people:

Blues Night: Deja Blue who donated their time freely for our Blues Night.

Plough Monday: Kent Korkers, Pork Scratchins and Rumford who joined Hands Around in Horndon-on-the-Hill for an evening of dance, music and song.

Sail Loft folk Club: who made a kind donation. www.sailloftfolkclub.com

Burns Night: To all of you that supported the event and helped us raise £565.48. A fantastic night was had by all!

Looking Ahead

March 18^th 8pm – St. Patrick’s Night: Village Hall, Horndon-on-the-Hill tickets £6, bring your own drink.

Blues Night - date changed!

May 13^th 8pm - Blues Night: Village Hall, Horndon-on-the-Hill tickets £6, bring your own drink

July 23^rd – Garden Party: Warden’s Cottage, Weald Park

We have had requests to run the following:

Curry Night, Quiz Night, Race Night and Wine Tasting Night. If you would like to run any of these we would love to hear from you.