Bits and Pieces!!

We have lots of little pieces of information and updates for you this week, so we’ll just get started.

Congratulations To ……

Pamela McKinlay has let us know that one of our Enterprise Programme students graduated at our ceremony on the 23^rd of November.

So Congratulations to Liz Gavin on her fantastic achievement and we hope everything goes well for her in the future.

Award Winners

Three members of the Healthy Working Lives Committee attended the Healthy Working Lives Awards Ceremony on Thursday 11^th October 2012 at the City of Glasgow College.  The college received two awards on the day which were the Mental Health & Wellbeing Commendation Award and the Healthy Working Lives Gold Award.

The college received special recognition for being the first educational establishment in Scotland to achieve re-assessment in both awards.

Hub Open Day

The Hub will be hosting an Open Day on Tuesday 11th December in room 3/15.  This is a drop in session and will run from 10.00 am until 2.00 pm.

Hub staff will be on hand to discuss any issues that students may be having. We will also be able to chat to students about any skills they wish to develop, e.g. report writing, C.V. building or time management.  Please drop in for a cup of tea or coffee and a chat.

Students’ Association Meeting

All Class Representatives and all students are invited to a Students’ Association Meeting  in the Boardroom, 5/1, on, Tuesday the 11th of December  at 12.00 pm.  This is an opportunity to discuss your College and to hear about developments.

A buffet lunch will be available.  The minibus will leave Stow West at 12.00 and return after the Meeting.”

ILS News of The Week!

This week ILS is pleased to announce that our new ILS page is now available on Moodle.  On the homepage of Moodle, you can see the link to the Learning Gateway and can now go to our Moodle page too using the ILS Moodle icon there.  Alternatively, go to the Student Area and select Information and Learning Services from the list.

On our page you will find:

• What’s new in ILS;
• Links to our electronic resources accessed via Athens;
• All our How to guides (e.g. reflective accounts, GANTT charts, copyright, notetaking, using Google)
• All our information skills series booklet (writing skills, exam preparation, bibliographies, research skills)
• A bookcase containing our ebooks from Dawson Books (links to these resources)

There are also links to MyPC (to book a PC in the Learning Centre); ILS blog (more information on new resources etc.); upcoming events; and latest news from ILS.

Have a look and let us know what you think!

Mary’s Meals – Managed Learning Week  

This week has been fairly quiet but busy.  We have had students and staff handing in lots of wanted items for the backpacks. We very much appreciate every effort people have made to help end the project on a successful amount.  This week we received a lot of clothing and toiletries which have helped us fill at least another 33 backpacks.

We are proud to announce that we have completed: 176 BACKPACKS.

This is an amazing amount and well over our target.  Each backpack represents the value of £20.00.  So in total we have £3520.00 worth of items.  So thank you everyone who has made this possible.  All donations raised so far have helped towards this great amount.

We will publish our last update for week 8 next week to let you know our completed figures.  We will be sending our backpacks out for shipment on: Wednesday 12th December at 1.30pm so that it will reach Africa in January 2013.

Stow College has helped change a lot of lives for families and their future.  There will be at least 176 children that will receive an education and one meal a day for a year.  Thank you for your continuous support

Keep Safe Online – Keep Social Networks Real

This message is from Strathclyde Police

You wouldn’t give a stranger lots of personal information in the real world, so it shouldn’t be any different online – and a new campaign by Strathclyde Police explains why.

Social networking is a huge part of most young people’s lives. When used properly it’s a great way to socialise, catch up with friends and let people know what you’ve been up to.  However, it has also become a bit of a social networking competition among young people to have the most popular page, with many of you trying to outdo friends by having more ‘followers’ or ‘friends’ than they do on Facebook or Twitter. But this is where the danger lies – you need to be careful about who you interact with.

You’ve probably heard of ‘grooming’, which is when adults chat to young people online and pretend to be a lot younger than they really are. Unfortunately it’s really easy for criminals and groomers to create false social networking profiles. They can then try to build friendships, trick you into meeting them or even encourage you to do things you wouldn’t normally do.

A new campaign from Strathclyde Police raises awareness of the risks associated with social networking. It’ll encourage you to think about who you’re speaking to online and the information that you’re posting. Exactly who are speaking to? Are they who they say they are? Who are you sharing your information/pictures with? Are you giving too much information away? Without realising it, your content could end up in the wrong hands and you could become a target for online groomers.

Check out our campaign film below to see why online safety is so important: http://tiny.cc/ga4kow

You can also follow the campaign on Facebook www.facebook.com/StrathclydePolice and Twitter @keeppeoplesafe

We’re also working with CEOP (Child Exploitation Online Protection) to ensure you have the information and the resources you need to keep safe online. Check out some great resources and information on its website: www.thinkuknow.co.uk

Follow the CEOP Facebook page at www.facebook.com/clickceop

That’s us again for this week, but check back next Friday for more news and updates.

The Graduates and Other News!!

We have reached the end of November already and the Christmas holidays are rapidly approaching, along with all the ice and freezing temperatures we expect at this time of year.  No slowing up for us though, we have had yet another busy week, so let’s get caught up.

Graduation 2012

The following piece was submitted by Billy McEwan, a TUC Graduate.  Billy graduated at our ceremony in the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall, on the 23^rd of November.

Friday 23rd November a date that will be forever etched in our minds….Stow College graduation. On arrival at the Royal Concert Hall we met up with old friends (fellow graduands), put on our robes and had our photographs taken by the resident professional. Then family and friends were able to take even more photographs ( this seemed to continue throughout the night) …..no one complained truth be told we enjoyed it.

We entered the hall sat in our seats and were entertained with dancers, singers and live bands ……what a performance!!

Then it was time for the ceremony each student went up to rapturous applause. The ceremony seemed to fly by……but what an experience!!

A special part of the night for us was to meet up with our tutors especially Hugh Higgins and Gus Grubb who received a M.A in Employment Law.

As for our Diploma a big thanks to George Waldron. George’s catchphrase throughout the course was “you are where you are” and here we are graduates.

Photos shown were kindly submitted by students, check back next week for some official Stow pictures.

Graduation Performance

One of the performances at our Graduation Ceremony was by the Young Aviators, fresh from this performance at the concert hall on Friday they have released a new single which is out this week and here is the video to go with it.

Young Aviators – Hollywood Won’t Feed The Kids by Young_Aviators

The single is out on the Electric Honey label and is called “Hollywood Wont Feed the Kids”

New articulation route agreed with Glasgow Caledonian University

Staff from the Faculty of Science, Health and Care have been working on a collaborative curriculum mapping project with their counterparts from Glasgow Caledonian University, City of Glasgow College and Cardonald College to develop a ground-breaking articulation route taking HND Social Science students directly into Year 2 and Year 3 of the BSc Psychology programme at GCU.

While a longstanding arrangement is in place for direct entry to the BA Social Sciences, and a curriculum mapping project was completed last year to promote this route and ensure learners were fully prepared for the transition to University, finding a route for Psychology has been more challenging.

Psychology programmes in UK universities require British Psychology Society (BPS) recognition if their graduates are to progress to professional psychology programmes, leading to careers in Clinical Psychology, Educational Psychology, Counselling Psychology or work as a Chartered Psychologist. In the past, HND students wishing to take a BPS recognised degree had to start in Year 2 in order to meet the requirements, with HNC students forced back to the start of Year 1.

One of the major stumbling blocks for college-based candidates has been lack of access to SPSS, a prohibitively expensive software package used extensively in Psychology for statistical tests. However, with the use of modern technology and opensource software, a suitable alternative has now been identified (for free!). The added bonus is that students will no longer have to undertake laborious calculations by hand…

After identifying and resolving curriculum ‘gaps’ through careful planning of the HND curriculum, and changes to the GCU timetable to allow direct entrants to pick up additional credits in Biological Psychology, guaranteed direct entry places have now been agreed and will take effect as early as September 2013, benefitting the current cohort of HND 2 students at Stow.

Psychology has been a consistently popular option among HND students and we are delighted that our learners will have the opportunity to further their studies while gaining full recognition of their achievements at college. The articulation route will be launched on Wednesday 12 December at GCU.

ILS News of the Week!!

Copyright is a very important issue in education and the wider business community. All those creators of printed or electronic works, software, music, video etc. must be protected from intellectual property theft and plagiarism.  The College has copyright licences from CLA, NLA, PRS, PPL and ERA which allows staff and students to photocopy printed works, digitise selected materials, record television programmes to show in class, play music,  and more – legally.  There are copyright handouts available on the staff portal and Learning Gateway to provide the basics of what you can, and cannot do, under the licences.

A new feature of the CLA website – CLA licence covers text and still images – allows you to search for a particular title to see what you can legally do e.g. photocopy, scan and save to Moodle, use excerpts in presentations.  The search tool is easy to use and the permissions are clearly indicated.

The CLA FE licence includes the rights to re-use and copy digital original material, including websites, in addition to photocopying and scanning rights.  Rights are granted by publishers on an ‘opt-in’ basis and the list of participating publishers can be found on the CLA website.

If you have any queries about copyright or about how to legally use materials in the classroom, please get in touch.  Linda Vaughan, lvaughan@stow.ac.uk ext. 651

Forced Marriage Help

Arranged marriages are a part of everyday life in Scotland for many communities, but being forced to marry is wrong.  Every human being has the right to choose their own partner and Scottish law now supports that right.

You can take out a Forced Marriage Protection Order to legally prevent anybody from forcing you to marry against your will.  This is a big step, but please don’t be afraid. It’s your first step on the road to a happier future.

For advice, support and protection, call 0800 027 1234 in complete confidence, or visit yourrightscotland.org

Mary’s Meals – Week 7 Update

We now come to our 7^th week of our appeal.  It has been an interesting journey and very much challenging at time but we have certainly enjoyed every bit of it.  Students have started to backpack and have now completed 113 backpacks which brings us over our target so well done all.

Week 8 will be our last and final week of our project and to celebrate this we are having a tombola stall on Wednesday 5^th December in Cafe connect on the fifth floor from 10.00am – 12.30pm.

This week we are looking for any unwanted Xmas items, wine bottles, chocolates, perfume, flowers, cakes etc.  We need these items to help us top up our donations and help us to buy more items for children supported by Mary’s meals.  Please see Enterprise staff or you can hand into Pamela McKinlay room 5/9 Monday and Tuesday. Every bit helps!

Well that’s us again for today, have a great week and we’ll see you back here soon.

College Challenges and Student Participation!!

It’s Graduation Day today, so congratulations to all our Graduating students, we hope you have a fantastic time.  We will tell you more about this event next week, but for now let’s catch up with college activities over the past weeks.

One Day Challenge, a Students View

The following was written by Rachael Gibbons one of our HND Events Management students.  She recently attended our One Day Challenge, which was held on the 16^th of November in The Lighthouse.

When we arrived at the one day challenge we were put into teams and each team was aided by a business mentor.  The idea was each team had to come up with an original business concept and then expand to create a brand name, full business plan, marketing strategy, conduct market research and so on.

Each team was given advice from their allocated business mentor and then were given the chance to pitch the idea to every other business mentor and apply their constructive feedback to our business plans.  The teams then allocated one person to give a 60 second presentation to a panel of tough judges and this decided whether you would be one of the four able to give a four minute presentation to the judges and the best business idea would win.

I enjoyed the one day challenge as it allowed me to discover skills in myself that I never knew existed but it is a different, creative way of learning outside the classroom. It also allowed us to socialise with other students and the staff at Stow which I think is important with creating a sense of community between everyone. I also was able to meet my business mentor Alison who we loved and will stay in touch with.

I hope the staff who created the one day challenge receive the recognition they deserve for organising such a great day and I would advise every student to attend events like this in the future. I loved every second of the one day challenge experience and hope there will be more like it in the future.

Artbox Presents … Stow Winterland

Looking for a night of fun and entertainment all in aid of a good cause? Come along and join us on Wednesday 28th November at The Griffin Bar located on Bath Street in Glasgow City Centre for a night to remember! Have a few drinks, relax and be ready for a few surprises!   The doors will open at 7.30 pm and the official start 8.00 pm.  There will be a £5 entry fee at the door.

The line-up for the night includes Colour Cells, Letitia Lam, Asian Persuasion, Chuck Tsang and more.

There is a Christmas themed dress code so wear the colours red, white and green and don’t forget your Santa hat.

All money raised will be going to Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS) so get along to this great night out.  For more information visit the Facebook Event page.

Learner Services E-Bulletin

Learner Services has developed an E-Bulletin and the first edition of this available online now.

This issue focuses on the Hardship Funds and cover topics such as who is eligible and when payments are made.  To read this new issue visit the Learner Services November E-Bulletin

ILS News of the Week!

Resource of the Month time again! There will be posters on the Learning Centre noticeboard and slides on the plasma screen to highlight Issues Online.

Issues Online is an online reference source for those who need up-to-date information on contemporary social issues. There are hundreds of articles on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, alcoholism,

refugees, poverty, terrorism, bullying, and disability.  Each topic has key facts (short pieces of information)and key statistics (charts, tables or data analysis) available which provides a great one stop resource for information on topics for essays and reports.

You can search using a simple keyword search, or via topics such as Crime and Justice ; Drugs and Alcohol; Environmental and Global Issues; Health and Well-being; Media; Rights and Discrimination; and Science and Health.

Ask in the Learning Centre about Athens access to this resource.

Glasgow 2014 … Do You Want to be Involved?

Glasgow 2014 are looking for up to 15,000 friendly people to volunteer at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

From now, people can register their interest on our new volunteering site before the online application process opens mid-January 2013.

For full details of the process, including how the application process works, the types of roles available and the benefits of taking part, please visit the 2014 website.

You can download our volunteer digital toolkit which will provide everything you need to begin talking to your networks, members and/or staff on how to get involved and “be the Games”.

If you’d like to discuss further details please feel free to get in touch with our contact centre on 030 3333 2014 or email them at contactus@glasgow2014.com.

Mary’s Meals – 6 Week Update.

Week 6 has been a mission.  All students have been working really hard sorting, counting and bagging items into categories so that backpacking will be made easier.  We had another 4 lucky draws this week and I am pleased to say it is winners from the Enterprise programme this time so congratulations to: Katie Barton – student, Alison McInally – staff, Nancy Man – parent of student and Debbie Kelly who is one of our helpful carers.

Backpacking in the Enterprise is under way and it has been a great achievement seeing the backpacks filled and tagged, ready for shipment.  All students have been really excited about this knowing that a child in Africa will be using it to help them in school.  We now have 2 more events coming up; graduation (Fri 23^rd Nov) and also Tombola event (Wed 28^th Nov).  These events will round off our appeal and hopefully we will achieve our targets of:

• Backpacks filled: 100 +
• Donations: £1,000

Please Note from our charts, we need lots more children’s clothing (T-shirts/shorts/thin trousers/skirts/dresses – ages 4-12 years), backpacks, hand towels and shoes/sandals (sizes 10 – 5).  Your help at this stage would be much appreciated.  We can do this!

That’s us again for this week, but make sure you come back next Friday for news on how our Graduation went.

It’s All About The Students!!

Another busy week here at Stow and as we write this a 100 of our students are at the Lighthouse taking part in our One Day Challenge, a fantastic opportunity for them all.  We plan on telling you all about it next week.  However we have loads of updates for you just now so let’s begin.

Schrödinger’s Cats Win the YouTube Treasure Hunt.

A quick update from Ron Dillin on the YouTube Treasure Hunt held earlier in the year.

The winning team from the YouTube treasure hunt were four students from NQ Applied Sciences who went by the team name of Schrödinger’s Cats.  Megan Tierney, Andrew McKay, Sam Smith and Duncan McLaren successfully completed the challenge … and hopefully learned a lot about the colleges and the services it offers in the process.  The treasure hunt was devised by Fraser Purdie and Ron Dillin, in conjunction with a whole lot of other staff in the college.  For the treasure hunt, the teams had to watch YouTube videos on the college’s official YouTube channel,  http://www.youtube.com/user/stowcollegeofficial . They then had to go to a number of locations in the college (such as the Hub and Learner Services) and answer a series of questions in each location.

The winners were each given a £25 Amazon voucher and are  photographed here with their prizes.  (L to R Megan Tierney, Andrew McKay, Sam Smith and Duncan McLaren).  The students said they found the treasure hunt to be good fun and an innovative way of learning more about the college.

And their team name?  Nothing to do with an interest in quantum physics…it just so happened that one of the team was wearing a Schrödinger’s Cats t-shirt when they were looking for a name.  If you are curious, you can find out more about Erwin Schrödinger and his cats at One Minute Physics on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOYyCHGWJq4 .  Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all those who took part.

Marker Maker Winners!

Congratulations to team Salus Solutions who came in a respectable third place in the final of the Market Maker competition.

On the 12th of November the team travelled to Institute of Directors in London to their ideas to pitch their business idea and to receive expert opinion on the likely success of the venture.  Part of the competition involved developing a business plan and setting a marketing and advertising strategy.

Salus Solution’s members; Barry Gilliespie, Tony Mitchell, Elio Coletta, Andy Cawte and Geoff Nduru pitched their idea for the Salus Safety App which is a is a safety solution to eliminate the use of mobile phones when driving.

Their business idea went down well and they were awarded 3rd place, their prize being a selection of books.  Well done to these entrepreneurial students.

Diversifest 2012

This article was submitted by Amandine Eap, an HND Events Management student.

Stow has been putting on an event promoting diversity for the past few years now, with the help of Margaret Cairns, students and tutors are working together on this yearly event in order to bring people together and raise awareness about ethnic cultures, disabilities, social difficulties and diversity in general.

So here we are, fellow students and I, meeting just after 9am at Stow. The event takes place in the Cafe Connect on the fifth floor of the college.  After welcoming and setting up all our information stands, workshops and bongo drums, it is time for the first live entertainment of the day with the bongo drums workshop.  People could join in in a circle and get to learn how to play some percussions. This seemed to be great fun and people enjoyed it a lot, including the disabled people present on site.

Lunchtime is when the world wide buffet takes place, where students and tutors are welcome to try out something new…  Choices of Steak Pie, Vegetarian Pakora, Chicken Pakora, Vegetarian Spring Rolls, Meat Spring Rolls, Chicken Satay and more were on offer!

Then it is time for more entertainment and the Fiddlers take place, an ensemble of guitar, violins and even a ukulele played some songs and invite people to give it a try via their night courses!

Supa Jme then played some songs and entertained the crowd whilst the dancers were getting ready next door for their performance.

Stow West dancers rehearsed a few routines for everyone to enjoy, displaying different types of dancing and various skills. They had 3 different formations and executed their routines within the space offered by Cafe Connect.

Then it was the turn of a Chinese Dancer, inviting us to join the Chinese school and learn how to speak mandarin for example. She then executed her dance sporting an authentic Chinese outfit on a soundtrack of her choice.

People seemed very pleased with the event and I believe they enjoyed watching the artists, along with participating themselves in the bongo drums, henna and origami workshops that were available all day.  Any feedback would be welcome for us to make it an even more memorable event next year!”

ILS News of the Week!

The new online resource reported a couple of weeks ago on the blog – Primal Pictures anatomy and Physiology Online – is accessed via Athens. There is so much information in this resource, that a guide on how to get the best out of it is now available to pick up in the Learning Centre, or download from the Learning Gateway.

All of ILS publications and guides are available on the Learning Gateway too, so have a look and see what can help you. Alternatively pop in and browse our guides and pick up whatever is useful!

Award up for Grabs!

You may remember a few months ago we told you about an event that Ken McCluskey was co-curating, an exhibition for the photographic work of Harry Papadopoulos. The exhibition was held in Street Level Photoworks, Trongate from the 17^th of December 2011 until the 25^th of February 2012.  Harry is a gifted photographer with a wealth of experience and his exhibition is well worth a visit. For more information visit the Street Level Photoworks site.

Well this exhibition has been nominated for a Creative Scotland Award and was listed in the Scotsman on Sunday on Sunday the 11^th of November.  We wish Ken all the best in this and look forward to hearing how he gets on.

Order in Court.

Laura Grant has been letting us know what the NQ Applied Science students have been up to.

Students on NQ Applied Science Year 2, as part of their course work for their Forensic Science class took part in a mock court day.

The students were expert witnesses for the day. They all put in a lot of thought and dressed smartly as though they were attending court. They then presented their evidence, which they had collected from a simulated crime scene to the judge.

The effort made by the class was fantastic and the session was great fun and the students enjoyed the day especially seeing their lecturer dressed up as a judge!

Mary’s Meals Update

This week we have been helping out with the Diversity event by fundraising on the day.  This went really well and the students got to meet many visitors.  We managed to raise just over £60.00.  To add to this, we have managed to complete another 4 lucky square sheets, raising another £100 for Mary’s Meals so thank you all.

The backpacks are underway and we are filling as many as we can so please keep items coming in especially: backpacks, hand towels, toothpaste, clothing and footwear.  I know that Flip flops are hard to get at this time of year so if you can get alternatives e.g. croc shoes, sandals, shoes.  Then this would be great!  This is also the case with clothing; you can put dresses in instead of skirts and t-shirts or light trousers and long sleeved t-shirts instead of shorts etc.

We hope to set up a tombola stall in week 8 (Wed 28th November) at 10.00am – 12.30pm in Cafe Connect to round off our appeal.  Please if you have any unwanted Xmas items or any spare wine bottles or spirit bottles lying around, feel free to donate them to any member of the Enterprise team or pop up to my office in room 5/9 before Monday 26th November.  This will be our last week, so fingers cross we reach a nice amount to end on our appeal.  Our target is £1000.00.  WE CAN DO THIS!

Scottish Women’s Convention Young Women’s Group Event.

Finally this week news of an event that may interest some of our female readers.

The Scottish Women’s Convention Young Women’s Group consists of a core group of young women who volunteer to attend meetings.  Discussions take place around the educational, employment and social issues which affect young women in Scotland today.

With the support of the Scottish Women’s Convention, the Group will hold an event which will cover a wide range of topics including unemployment, rights at work, the sexualisation of young women, body confidence and voting. Through interactive sessions, discussion and participation, the event will provide young women with an opportunity to discuss important issues with peers. In holding this event, the Group aims to encourage young women to be aware of their skills and potential when entering further education or employment.

This event will be held on the 8^th of December from 9.45 am until 2.15 pm in the STUC Building, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow, G3 6NG.  All young women from the ages of 16 to 25 are welcome to attend.  Email info@scottishwomensconvention.org or visit the Scottish Women Convention web site for more details.

That’s us again for this week, but come back next week for news on how our One Day Challenge went.

Raising Funds and Blood Drives!!

It has been another busy week at Stow with fundraising, organising events and of course learning and teaching.  Here’s some updates on what our students and staff have been up to.

Yorkhill Fundraising Success

Students on the Pathways to General Education course raised £112 pounds on the 24^th of October for Yorkhill Hospital.

As part of their coursework for ‘Working With Others’ they had to organise and run a fundraising event so Taylor McAllister, Tracey McDonald, Natasha Borland and Katherine Campbell all got involved in raising the money.

The day had several elements to it including a bake sale, raffle and guess the teddies name.  To get the raffle prizes the girls contacted companies and stores for donations, which was very successful.  They enjoyed helping raise money for a good cause and are glad they achieved their goal.  Well done to all involved.

Stow Gives Blood

Five students from the Pathways to General Education (Michelle McVey, Patrick Mills, Mark MacDonald, Shannon Hoey and Alana Donachie) had a different kind of fundraiser this week when they arranged for the blood donation bus to come to the college on Monday the 5^th of November.

John Carlin told us the day went very well, there was a constant stream (no pun intended!) of donors throughout the day.  We don’t have a figure as to how much blood was collected, the blood transfusion service will get back to us about that, although someone mentioned a figure of 40 pints.  It was so successful that we believe toward the end of the day some people had to be turned away.  Again well done to the students involved.

It’s Showtime!

The Faculty of Creative Industries are delighted to present the first of the 2012 Performing Arts Productions.

Stowaways present ‘Spend, Spend, Spend’.  Don’t miss out on this great show. Tickets £10.00 and £6.50 concessions.  Performances will be held in the Eastwood Park Theatre, Rouken Glen Road, Giffnock from Tuesday the 22^nd of November until Thursday the 24^th of November. Tel 0141 5774956 for bookings.  Try and get along  to see this great show.

ILS News of the Week!

It is Global Entrepreneurship Week 12-18 November, and to compliment this, ILS will have a mini-exhibition of Entrepreneurship related materials on display from Monday 12 November.  Why not drop in to see the display and find out more?  You can also find out more about Global Entrepreneurship Week at http://www.gew.org.uk/

Mary’ Meals Update

Finally for this week.  It is now week 4 of our appeal and it has been a great week.  We have collected more donations to the value of £515.64 and items as you will see in our charts.  The support from everyone has been a very humbling experience and an education.  Our students in the Enterprise Programme have learned a great deal and experienced, through watching videos of children in other countries, fight to survive and have an education.  We have also been learning all about Mary’s Meals and how it started, together with learning how to spread awareness to others.  The vision of Mary’s Meals is very simple, all those who have more than they need, share with those that don’t, and that every child receives one daily meal in their place of education.  It is a simple idea that works.

On Sunday 4th November 2012, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall there was an annual event of Mary’s Meals together with a screening of the UK Premiere of Child 31 which I attended.  It was a very moving, inspiring and uplifting film bringing the message of Mary’s Meals to people who may never be able to travel to these countries and see the devastation and poverty they live in.  Guest appearances were Martha Payne (school girl who raised over £120,000), Gordon Brown (politician), Charlie Docherty (school boy who raised £20,000) and Magnus Barrow (Founder).

Please keep bringing items in; we need more to help fill the backpacks we have already.  We have 4 weeks to go.  Our aim is to fill as many backpacks as possible and to get them sent out before Christmas so that children in these countries have them before Christmas.  If you have completed backpacks, please hand them in to the drop off points as soon as you can, we need your help and support.  Thank you for your continuous support.

That’s us for another week.  Make sure you come back soon for more Stow news.

Business As Usual At Stow!!

Welcome back to another Stow College Blog update, lots to tell so let’s get started.

Professional Advice for Students

Elsie Jackson from the Engineering department has been letting us know about some recent visitors to the college.  On Thursday 25th October 2012 Steven Rodgers and Wolf Gerrit Frϋh made a presentation to engineering students, talking about the energy industry, their own involvement in the industry and the benefits of becoming a student member of the professional institution.

The presentation was very well received by students from all of the engineering disciplines, many of whom have now signed up for their free membership.  This will give them access to a large number of resources including access to the Institute library, monthly journals and networking events.

Steven and Wolf were thanked for such an interesting and engaging event.

ILS News of the Week!

ILS have started a campaign to remind you of the online resources available to you through Resource of the Month.  There will be posters on the Learning Centre noticeboard and slides on the plasma screen to highlight a resource every month, as well as on the College blog.

This month’s resource is SCRAN:  A searchable archive of 360,000 images, movies and sounds from museums, galleries, archives and the media. Pathfinder packs collate images etc. under topics such as the brain, bagpipes, the Jacobites, construction sites, human rights, Scottish Parliament, and Scottish inventors.  Or you can search everything with a simple keyword search!  Ask in the Learning Centre about Athens access to this resource.

Fundraising Updates

Now some news from Pamela McKinlay on the fundraising they have been doing for Mary’s Meals.

Halloween Raffle

Congratulations No 7 you’re the winner – Ann McFaulds wins the pumpkin flowers.  A big thank you, to everyone else for all your donations and support.

All proceeds goes towards our Mary’s meals backpack appeal.  We managed to raise just over £130.00 in this fundraising event.  Special thanks goes to the creator of the pumpkin flowers.

Balloon Auction

The Balloon on a broom finds a home!  Thanks to all who made me offers for the balloon, we raised £20.00 which brings our Halloween theme appeal to £150.00. What a great amount.

If you have filled backpacks please bring in as soon as possible.  We are starting to organise the packing for the last shipment of the year.  Ever bit helps!  If you are interested in how the fundraising is progressing, see the below charts.  Thanks again for your support!

Can You Help Children in Need?

Next, a question from Nicola Usher.  Would you like to help out by raising some money for Children in Need?

Why not complete the charity word search to be in for a chance to win some delicious cupcakes baked by Morven and some other goodies?

Each Word search is £1 and you will be automatically entered into the raffle.  If you complete the word search and return it to the Library or ILS Mail Tray then you will have the chance to win the Word Search Prize Draw!

• Raffle prize – One box of cupcakes + surprise
• Word search prize – Deluxe box of cupcakes + surprise.

All word searches to be complete and returned by 16th November before 11 am.

GTN Event

Lastly this week, Stow is hosting an event for the Glasgow Technology Network next week on Tuesday the 6^th of November – Shadowboxing your way to a secure application.  The event will cover techniques used by security testers and hopefully application developers who want to improve the security of a web application from common security vulnerabilities.  Discussing different strategies for testing including use of automated tools and manual techniques. Pros and cons of each.

Would highly recommend this to Lecturers in computing, students and ICT. Management with responsibilities over web application security would benefit from an appreciation of how much effort it really takes to secure web applications.

It would also help anyone responsible for system security to give them a flavour of the kind of things that should be included in an IT security strategy.  Without testing companies have very limited assurance that software and system configurations are robust enough against attacks.

For more information visit the Glasgow Technology Network page.

Thant’s us for this week, but don’t forget to go to our Blood Drive next Tuesday (the 6^th November) you could help to save a life.  For more information, visit our Facebook Event page.

See you all again next Friday.

Glasgow Connection and Market Makers!!!!

We hope you have all return to us nice and refreshed after the October break and that you are managing to get back into the swing of things.

We have a couple of updates for you, but first, the second part of our Black History Month story from Margaret Cairns.

Black History Month 2012 – a Glasgow Connection

Recognise this street?   Did you know that there are a range of streets in the city centre which are named after the plantation colonies and the merchants who gained vast fortunes in trading with them?  These streets include Buchanan Street, Virginia Street and Jamaica Street.

‘It Wisnae Us’ written by former CRER researcher and Black History Month tour guide Stephen Mullen focuses on the buildings and streets of the city and highlights Glasgow’s tangible links with slavery.  But this historical exploration also tells the story of why and how Glasgow, the centre of the colonial trade in eighteenth century Britain, became the fulcrum of the anti-slavery movement in the half century after 1780.   For more information check out the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights website.

Now back to Buchanan Street – by night.   No need to say it has undergone big changes since the 18th century when the street was called Virginia Street after a house belonging to Andrew Buchanan, a rich tobacco merchant. If he came back today this “tobacco lord” would certainly not recognise his estate nor the street to which he had given his name.

To quote a visitor ’…as soon as the street lights are on, the whole area becomes blue and of a most beautiful kind of blue. I had never seen such a thing before. Quite exciting to walk in such strange atmosphere’

Photographs from http://www.scotiana.com/buchanan-street-up-and-down-one-of-glasgows-most-popular-and-coloured-streets/

ILS News of the Week

There are now 37 online collections available for use via Athens.  The new collection is Primal Pictures : Anatomy and Physiology Online (APO).  This online resource includes medically accurate three-dimensional images of human anatomy and provides students with a new way to view and to virtually interact with the human body.

Primal Pictures APO can be used to support subjects  that include modules on  anatomy and physiology , including courses in the areas of medical science, healthcare and sports science. Teachers may embed Primal Pictures APO in virtual learning environments (VLE), and students may incorporate images in their  learning portfolios.

To find out more, log into Athens or drop into the Learning Centre (Room 3/14).

Hearty Food

As part of Elior`s Autumn promotions we have some fantastic Winter warmer and Christmas Recipes for you to impress your friends and Family. Please help yourself to any of the recipe Cards on display at the till areas when visiting our Outlets.

Coming Soon

5th to 11th November National Sausage week. One dish per day to celebrate this great British Event. ( Look out for our Special Offers on Featured Dishes)

19th to 23rd November Curry Club and Bowl Food week. Authentic Asian Dishes to tempt you, warm and Satisfying.

Market Maker Winners

Thursday the 25^th of October saw teams of students take part in the first leg of the Market Makers competition.  The Market Maker competition encourages students to demonstrate their entrepreneurial , employability, personal and social skills.

Groups of students participated in a “Trade Fair” set-up in Cafe Connect.  Other students could approach the teams and “vote” for products with a Market Maker voucher, these vouchers were counted.  The teams then made a pitch to judges, this took place in Boardroom, the pitches are timed.  Finally after some judge deliberation the winners were announced.

Congratulations to Solus Solutions!!! This team will now travel to London, on the 12^th of November, to pitch their idea to a panel of judges, along with the winners from the other colleges involved.  The overall winner gets a trip to New York.  Good luck to our team!!

That’s all for this week, but come back soon for Stow news.