My Workshops at the Taylors Hill Neighbourhood House - Term 3, 2014

Please find details about my workshops for term 3 2014 at the Taylors Hill Neighborhood House below. 

While I pre-plan all of my workshops to ensure we cover all of the relevant topics in an effective and engaging way, I tweak the programs to suit individual groups' skills and interests. 

There is also lots of time for questions.

Please note that the Pro GamerS (PGS) computer gaming group now runs from 4pm to 6pm on Friday afternoons. To book you or your child's place for term 3 2014 (beginning 18 July), please call Melton Youth Services on 9747 5421. 

Cheers,
Emanuel

Press Release - Pro GamerS: a computer gaming group for teens

I would like to introduce you to a group of 12-18 year old computer gamers who meet at the Taylors Hill Youth Centre. We go by the in-game tag Pro GamerS (with a capital S - PGS for short) and currently have thirteen members.

Every Friday, from 4pm until 6pm, we play the latest team-based computer games in a room full of high-end gaming rigs. Melton City Council's Youth Services provides the computers, games, snacks, toasted sandwiches, milkshakes, and other activities like a pool table, arts and crafts, board games, music and console games FOR FREE. We host quarterly in-house tournaments where active Pro GamerS members compete for a swag of awards and prizes. We also hope to attend a major computer gaming convention in 2014.

The young gamers have a lot of fun socialising with like-minded teens, and their parents are thrilled to see their otherwise reserved children out of their bedrooms and talking passionately about belonging to our community-based, open-to-all computer gaming group.

Every time we meet, I also address pertinent issues such as internet bullying, healthy eating, good posture, making school work a priority and complementing their gaming with regular breaks and daily exercise.

The Taylors Hill Youth and Community Centre is located at 121 Calder Park Drive, Taylors Hill. They can be contacted on 9747 5422. We have room for only a few more members, so bookings are essential.

Kind Regards,

Emanuel Cachia

Workshop update: Creative Writing, Book Making and Computer Gaming

I've been really enjoying my workshops at the Taylors Hill Youth and Community Centre, Taylors Hill Neighbourhood House and Twilight School at the Rupertswood Mansion in Sunbury. It's been great meeting so many interesting, creative and productive residents of Melbourne's outer western suburbs - my home town. We've shared a lot of laughs and learnt a ton from each other. 

While I've felt confident instructing and engaging workshop groups for some time now, I'm still astonished at the quality and amount of work many of the participants produce after only the first few weeks. Quite often, after I explain a few general principles, talk about common ways to approach a given task, answer a couple of questions and encourage the group to unleash their creativity, the group produces inspirational bodies of work.

If you've been in any of my workshops, thank you for your support and encouragement. Seeing you develop new skills and explore your creative sides has given me the confidence to offer workshops to a number of new community-based organisations. I can't say much about some of the initiatives at the moment apart from *cough* sessional teaching for Victoria University in 2014 *cough* watch this space!

In the mean time, 12-25 year olds can join my FREE creative writing and book making workshop next Saturday (26 October) without missing much from the first few weeks. We will spend the next three weeks making our hand-bound journals, befire the creative writing side of the program begins. While participants are welcome to join any week, they will get the most out of the workshop if they join on the 26th of October, or 16th of November.

If you or someone you know have any questions, or would like to book a place in this program, please call Kat on (03) 9747 5421, or send an email to her @ katrionag@melton.vic.gov.au. I'll most likely return your call or email myself.

Another program I'm currently running is Pro GamerS [PGS], a weekly computer gaming group for 12-18 year olds based at the Taylors Hill Youth Services Centre.

We are playing the most popular PC games (League of Legends, Planetside 2, Starcraft 2: HoTS, Minecraft, Terraria, FTL: Faster Than Light, Civilization V, Tropico 4, Game Dev Tycoon, Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Plainswalkers 2014, Don't Starve) on a bunch of super-fast, top-of-the-line gaming rigs.

If the list of games doesn't impress you, how about a room full of 22inch HD LCD screens and PCs with 2gig graphics cards, Quad-Core AMD processors, 12gigs of RAM and a super-duper fast internet connection.

Still not convinced? We've also got XBoxs, Playstation 3s, and Wiis, not to mention free refreshments and an awesome workshop facilitator: me!

And that's not all! Group members will choose which games feature in our quarterly tournaments and be able to enter for the chance to become the Pro-est Gamer and win a swag of awesome prizes.

If we attract enough members, we can buy even more games and go on excursions to the Melbourne gaming conventions.

Join Pro GamerS NOW by calling Melton Youth Services on 9747 5421!

*Pro GamerS look away!* Parents and guardians can be confident knowing their teens are having fun in a safe setting outside of their bedrooms. The participants will be socialising with like-minded people and becoming aware of the importance of ergonomics, healthy eating, balancing thier gaming with regular exercise and a homework-first attitude.


Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you or someone you know in one of my workshops.
Emanuel