Special Olympics Ontario St. Thomas

A Few Reminders:
> Our Regional Coaches Meeting is October 15th; please RSVP to me by October 12th.
> There will be two NCCP SOC level one courses taking place in October. These will be the last of the courses before we switch to the new system where this course is two days. Please encourage as many volunteers to attend as possible.
> Attached you will see the flyer for the Family Planning Day being offered on November 4th. This is a new endeavour from the Provincial Office and I encourage parents of athletes to attend that wish to learn more about SOO and things we can do as a Province.
And finally, we have a couple of new staff to add to the Provincial Office list. Miguel Ferreira comes back to us now that he has wrapped up his work on the Niagara Games. Miguel will be the Northern Ontario Liason looking after Regions 9 and 10. Along with Miguel we welcome Teri Rivard who has joined us as our Special Projects Coordinator. Teri will be working on putting together the Provincial Conference amongst many other things. We welcome them both.
Jeannie Skeggs,
Area Coordinator Regions 1 and 2.

Feature Guest/Staff:
Aaron Collins
Manager, Sport Services Special Olympics Ontario

Aaron Collins has been Manager, Sport Services for Special Olympics Ontario for the past year and a half and works on many different aspects of the sports programs throughout the organization. He has recently been updating Sport and Competition policies, the SOO Sport Club Manual and each sport specific insert, the Regional Competition Management Team Manual and has been redeveloping the Competition Host Resource Packages to be more useful for local communities to run events.
One of Aaron’s main responsibilities is the implementation of the “new NCCP” system, which will be in place sometime in early 2006. There will be a new SOO technical course, which all new volunteer coaches are required to take within their first year of service and which all current coaches are encouraged to participate in.
Aaron graduated from Queen’s University in 1999 with a degree in History and then began a one year internship with Special Olympics Incorporated working with the Golf Department. Aaron also volunteered with Special Olympics at various events through 2000-2001 before becoming an assistant Basketball coach with an SOO program in Toronto.
Sport is Aaron’s passion as he plays baseball, hockey and golf consistently. Thus, SOO has been a perfect fit and will hopefully be for some time to come. Sport questions? Feel free to get in touch: aaronc@osoinc.com

Can you believe its been
Twenty-Five Years??
At this year’s Provincial Conference, Special Olympics Ontario will present their first ever 25-year awards. The recipients of these awards, along with a guest are being personally invited to attend a luncheon that is being held on their behalf where they will receive their award from Dr. Frank Hayden himself. I wish to thank and congratulate each of these volunteers on behalf of the region. The recipients from Region 2 are as follows:

Brantford; Sherri Lafleur – Guelph; Paul Turner – London; Ruth Ann Mills, Bill Mills, Jim Haycock, Larry Rogers, Gary Terry.

NCCP Level One SOC Technical Course
This is the course required by all coaches to attend within one year of registering with Special Olympics Ontario.
This course is also required to be a coach at the provincial level. If you do not have this course you will be unable to attend any provincial games as a coach.
These are the final dates for getting this course before we begin the new CBET system in which this course becomes two days. Please encourage as many people to attend as possible.

The following are the dates and locations

October 22nd 9am-5pm at School TBD in Chatham

October 23rd 9am-5pm Woodstock

Woodstock Developmental Services Building
212 Bysham Park Drive

Items to Bring:
Lunch or money for fast food place - Pen and paper

Please notify Jeannie Skeggs
ASAP on your attendance and what course you will go to at
905 304-5705
1-888-333-5515 x244 or region1and2@osoinc.comAny questions please let me know.

April 20th to the 23rd/2005 we participated at the Mall for “Volunteers Week. (See photo Volunteer Week).
May the 6th was our Annual Sports banquet with 115 in attendance. The ladies from the Army and Navy Auxiliary did, as usually, a great catering job for all. In attendance was the Mayor of Stratford, Representatives from the Army and Navy, Canadian Legion, Kiwanis Youth Group, Rotary Club and other sponsors. Meaghan O’Donovan received the Female Athlete of the Year Award, Aaron Moses the Male Athlete of the Year, Jamie Koebel the Most Improved Floor Hockey Award, Sean Darling the Mark Perrier Award, Patti baker and Sean Darling the High Single Bowling Award and Fran dale the Volunteer of the Year Award. It was a busy night and everyone enjoyed themselves. (See marked photos).
May 14th we held our annual Car Wash, the weather co-operated and we had a great time (See photo).
We also participated in the Torch Run. (See photo)
The highlight of this year was our celebration of hosting 20 years of Softball Tournaments. We invited Lori Henderson for this occasion. Pete helped start the annual Softball Tournaments, for two years he came and helped me then he just said: “You are OK, you can do it by yourself”. (See photo with Lori) The first time in 20 years Stratford won!!!!! We won in the “C” and “D” Division, the athletes and coaches were ecstatic. We had two T-Ball teams and they had a great time just playing ball. It is a shame that we did not have more T-ball this year.
August 19th Patti Baker, one of our athletes and mother of one of our athletes, did some Fundraising. She biked from Stratford to Grand Bend in 3½ hours. Her son David biked with her for a few kms. The weather co-operated with Patti. We thank her for the great job she did in fundraising. (See photo)
We also had a Soccer Team and Dart Team this year (See photos)
Now that the summer is over we will be starting again with the following sports: Curling, Darts, Floor Hockey, Basketball, Swimming and Bowling.

Have a great new season and “Thank You!” for featuring Stratford.
Ingrid Newbery, Co-ordinator

REACHING OUT~ STRETCHING OUT
STRENGTHENING OUR FAMILY CONNECTION

Family Planning Day

Dear Special Olympics Ontario family member,

SPECIAL OLYMPICS ONTARIO NEEDS YOU!

As you know, families with a family member who has an intellectual disability can provide invaluable support to each other by sharing experiences, frustrations, knowledge, and joys. There is a common bond among families of people with disabilities. Yet, many times these families are not able to discover this bond because they don’t know where to turn to find other families facing similar situations. Through the Special Olympics experience we have learnt that athletes meet new athlete friends and SO families meet new families. There are many wonderful family stories to be told as a result of the SOO experience.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS ONTARIO is in the process of forming a Provincial Family Development Task Force, a network of parents and family members of Special Olympics athletes, who will reach out to new families to welcome them into the Special Olympics community, who will spend time with our existing families to work towards strengthening our family connections.

WHY? We think it is important that new families are connected to our existing SO families. We think it is important to connect with community organizations that provide services to people and their families with an intellectual disability. We think it is important that families (the backbone of the organization) contribute to the mission and vision of S.O.O. All of these lead us to our belief that families play a very important part in reinforcing SOO’s mandate, which is to provide sport training and competition to all people with an intellectual disability. We believe that through the heart and pulse of the athlete’s life, families can be our ambassadors and are fundamental in assisting the organisation in the spirit, growth and future development of our organisation.

We also believe that families who work together on behalf of SOO will benefit from being a part of the greater Special Olympics Community and that connecting families across the province assists families in sharing their resources, their talents, their challenges and share in the celebration of their successes.

FAMILY PLANNING DAY WORKSHOP: SOO is hosting a one day planning workshop for families. Unfortunately we are limited to 80 spots. First come first served ~ at least this time around!!!
If you would like to participate in a one day planning session with other family members to talk about Reaching Out and Stretching Out - The Special Olympics Family, please email your request or fill out the attached form and drop off to:

Family Coordinator, Special Olympics Ontario, 18 Wynford Drive, North York, - email: families@osoinc.com

Purpose:
To distribute all pre-event information, and team uniforms, to each Provincial Team Member (athlete and coach) within their Region, for the National Games, and ensure that all required information is returned completed to the Provincial office by the required dates.

Qualifications:
• Strong Leadership skills.
• Strong communication and writing skills.
• Strong organizational and administrative skills.
• Ability to work as a team player.

Duties and Responsibilities:
• Act as a direct liaison with the Manager of Competition Services/Chef De Mission on all matters Uconcerning the National Games.
• Act as a Regional contact for Special Olympics Ontario' Provincial Office, in regards to the
National Games.
• Complete a profile of the current addresses and contacts for each Provincial Team Coach and
Athlete within the Region.
• Receive all pre-event information and materials, and ensure distribution to all Provincial Team
Members within the Region, including medical forms; registration forms; uniform sizing forms;
and, travel information forms.
• Ensure that all information is completed and returned to the Provincial Office by the deadline
date, including medical forms; registration forms; uniform sizing forms; and, travel information
forms.
• Arrange travel to central point of departure for Provincial Team members within
the Region.

Time Requirements and Duration of the Position:
The position will be effective from July 2005-August 2006

Accountability:
The Provincial Team Liaison is directly responsible to the Area Co-ordinator.

** NOTE: This person does not accompany the Team to the National Games.

And the last word!!
As you may have noticed, this issue of Why Not Me? has been distributed quite late compared to the other issues. I have a wonderful reason for that. As many of you know, communities in Region 2 had put in bid packages to host the 2010 National Summer Games and I am very proud to announce that the City of London will get those honours. The city of London had submitted a great bid package to help achieve these honours and with the help of some of the locals they were successful. Congratulations to the London Executive for their hard work and effort and to Bill Mills and Dennis Bordin who will be co-chairs for the games.