Deanna on Vacation until March 3, 2008

I will be out of the office for the coming week. No, I'm not going anywhere warm. It's school vacation so I'll be home with my daugther for the week. We hope to check out a movie or two and maybe get outside for some sliding.
If you're going to be around this coming week, it might be a great time to spend some extra time with your school-aged mentee--all of the local schools are on vacation so it might be possible to change up your meeting time. Or some other get-together ideas:

• Take Your Mentee To Work Day--show them what you do in a typical day at your job
• Do Lunch--there are several breakfast and lunch only restaurants in the area
• Start a Project--school vacation might give you the extra time you need for it
• Visit the VT Statehouse--go to http://www.leg.state.vt.us/ for more information

What other ideas do you have??? Share them here!

See you all in March!

Deanna

Welcome Mentors!

Hello Spectrum Mentor!
If you’re reading this, then you have found your way to the new Spectrum Mentoring Program blog and are seeing the first entry into it.
Now, even though I consider myself pretty computer savvy, this is the very first time I have ever “blogged” so please bare with me as I find my way with how to do this thing.
I was just looking over Spectrum’s Executive Director’s blog and see that he includes a lot interesting anecdotes on his as well as high profile spots about Spectrum. Now, Mark is a very accomplished writer so when he makes a blog entry, it’s truly a literary work. I’m not sure I possess such prowess but I promise to do my best.
For those of you who weren’t able to attend the Jan. 29th dinner to celebrate Dennis and Adam’s 5 years of being matched, you missed a wonderful evening of mentoring camaraderie! It was pretty hard not to become comrades during the event as there were 20+ people squeezed around our boardroom table meant to seat about 14. The food was wonderful (special thanks to Kountry Kart Deli and Deborah for ordering it!) and I think the kids really enjoyed the time together. I know that most of you mentors feel that you are a part of something larger here at Spectrum, but it can be really hard to convey that same feeling to the youth. That dinner made me feel though that at least those few youth who were in attendance do see the larger picture of mentoring and of being a part of Spectrum.
January was certainly a busy and exciting month as it always is with celebrating National Mentoring Month. I hope all of you were able to enjoy at least some of the festivities that were going on throughout the month. I was able to attend the Thank Your Mentor Breakfast and also the press conference with the Governor—please check that out on the link from the E-newsletter. Now, with February here, hopefully all of the publicity will bring in lots and lots of mentor applicants. Don’t forget to tell your friends how much you enjoy being a mentor!

Check out CCTV Channel 17, www.cctv.org for the new show on mentoring in Chittenden County!

Now it’s your turn…what do you have to say to the other mentors at Spectrum?