Mom... I'm bored

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, April 29, 2009


"Sign my kid up for everything."

That is a direct quote from a phone call I received last spring from a parent looking for summer activities for their child. Once again it is time to think about finding great things for kids to do during those 12 weeks of summer.

Typically the excitement of being out of school wears out after about three days. Kids get restless; parents are pulling out their hair trying to come up with something to keep the kids out of their hair.

Never fear - Hill Country Kids is here! This long-running catalog of kids summer activities pulls together the best diversions in the area. Inside is a directory listing of every single organized kids activity in Kerrville, Hunt, Ingram, Comfort, Fredericksburg, Boerne, and points in between, along with detailed information on select offerings.

For starters, you'll find every Vacation Bible School in the area. Then there are the camps, from MO Ranch to the YMCA. Is your child interested in tumbling, dancing, riding, swimming, or playing music? Look inside - see what you find. There are even some diversions that don't fit any category. Try taking a trip to the Wild Animal Orphanage just this side of San Antonio, where you can spend a day visiting more than 150 lions, tigers, bears, and other exotic animals.

Or round up your cowgirls for a summer camp at the Enchanted Springs Ranch, where the buckarettes will learn how to care for animals, cook dutch oven style, garden, and rope.

These activities are not just mindless diversions to fill time. Don't let your children know, but they might actually learn something. Club Ed for Kids is sending up rockets again at the Shoot For The Stars rocket camp. We also are running the full array of science and art camps featuring Lego building bricks, engineering, claymation, robotics, and junior engineering. We even snuck in one class for adults - Beginning Guitar. No reason to take the summer off from playing music!

The Hill Country Arts Foundation is offering a theater camp, Boerne Gymnastics is reprising its popular and fun Circus Arts camp where kids will learn acrobatics and clown skills. Speaking of clowns, our cover clown "Sunshine" is putting on a magic class and balloon sculpting class for wannabe show people, all supplies included.

The list is endless: twirling, tennis, tapping, drawing, karate, golf, reading. There is no reason to ever hear those grating three words, "Mom... I'm bored."

Pick up a copy of Hill Country Kids, and sign up your youngsters (or grandyoungsters) for everything!

XXX

Hill Country Kids catalog is sent home with every elementary and middle school child in public and private schools in the hill country. You can also pick up a copy at local chambers and libraries, or by visiting www.hillcountrykids.net. Or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

Shooting for the Stars

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal April 22, 2009


Calling all future astronauts and rocket scientists. You might get your ticket to outer space by launching your very own rocket right here in Kerrville.

The Shoot for the Stars Rocket Camp is our best-attended summer program. Every year, we offer several four-day workshops where kids ages 8 to 13 get their hands on model rockets. This camp was developed by Brett Williams at Fredericksburg High School, as an offshoot of his nationally-recognized aeroscience course. It is offered throughout the hill country and is taught by Williams' current and former students.

While the camp is great fun, the youngsters cannot get their hands on their rockets until they learn some basics of flight. They must take notes as the instructor introduces them to Newton's Laws, the laws of thermodynamics, and the Bernoulli Principle (any of you grownups want to take a stab at reciting those?). It's tough training, but soon they will see these scientific concepts applied to the real world.

That is the fun part. Under two instructors' guidance, the students soon are selecting body tubes, gluing on fins, and mounting recovery systems. Over the next four days, they determine the center of mass and the center of pressure, then weight the nose cone with BBs to compensate. The final step is adding the engine mount, making their rockets launch-ready.

Launch day is a big event. Families are there, as short kids and tall kids carry tall rockets and short rockets out to the football field behind the Auld Center. All are hand-built with care and pride.

That drilling on laws earlier in the week pays off, as each student must answer a few basic questions on the principles of flight before they are cleared to launch. They then take their rocket to the launch pad and connect the wires that will ignite the engine.

The countdown begins, as the crowd takes up the chant: 3... 2... 1! The young rocketeer punches the launch button.

Every bird goes up. Some ride the plume straight and true, some corkscrew and wobble. More than we like end up in trees or on top of school buildings. The best descend gracefully within the bounds of the football field.

But when you look in the eyes of the young man or woman who has just watched his or her creation ascend to the clouds, there is no doubt this rocket camp has ignited something straight and true.

XXX

Shoot for the Stars Rocket Camp will be held in Kerrville and at Ingram Middle School the week of June 8. Details on these and all other summer programs can be found in the Hill Country Kids catalog being sent home with area students. Information also available online at www.hillcountrykids.com or www.clubed.net, or by calling 895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

Send in the clown

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, April 15, 2009


I once assessed my "skill set" as I reworked my resume in anticipation of a job search. I could juggle, ride a unicycle, was good with kids, and could do magic. Great, I realized - I'm qualified to be a clown.

Shannon Anderson, owner of the Old Thyme Fun Shop on Main Street in Fredericksburg, went through a similar process.

"When I moved to Fredericksburg, I wondered what do I already know how to do to make a living?" she said. "Well, I already know magic, and I know balloons... I'll be a clown!"

Her first attempt at clowning was not much fun. In fact, she called it a "disaster."

"I was at this house full of fifth-graders, and they had every video game and a big screen TV, and here's this clown doing magic tricks," she recalled. "All of them were saying 'when are you going to leave?'" She chuckled. "I said, 'Now! Close your eyes and count to 10,' and I was out the door! I went home and said I'm never doing this again! Kids are mean!"

Luckily, Anderson - aka Sunshine the Clown - couldn't walk away from her clowning career as easy as that. She already had another gig booked.

She decided that to be funny, she would have to work at it. So she studied other clowns, read books and watched tapes, and attended conventions to learn the art of the clown.

"Some people think anybody can do it; you just slap on some makeup and funny clothes," she said. "It's not that way. There really is an art to it."

Anderson has begun sharing her clowning expertise with young and old. This summer, she will offer Magic for Beginners and Balloon Sculpting - the art of twisting dogs and giraffes out of balloons. In the fall she hopes to add local clowning courses for adults.

Meanwhile, you can see Sunshine rule her kingdom of kitsch in the Old Thyme Fun Shop. It's the kind of store you loved to go into when you were a kid.

There is the fake fly in the ice cube, the spilled coffee, the finger-shaped nose hair trimmer, a plastic rat, and the doormat that read, "Come Back With a Warrant." And then there are the classics: the handshake buzzer, fake vomit, and, of course, the rubber chicken.

A steady stream of kids and giggling grownups hauled away bags of fake bagels with the cockroach, hillbilly teeth, rolling eyeballs, and piles of T-shirts with naughty messages.

Anderson was busy showing a customer how to perform the national anthem on a whoopee cushion. Obviously, clowning is the central part of Anderson's life.

"Laughter is therapeutic, it shakes up all your organs and makes a chemical reaction in your body that no drug can replace," she said. "Letting yourself play as an adult is one of the greatest things we can do for ourselves in this hectic, serious world. There's humor in everything, like it or not."

XXX

Have Camera; Will Travel

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, April 8, 2009


One of the surprisingly popular courses this year has been our series of "how to" photography classes. Generously planned and taught by members of the Hill Country Camera Club, the courses range from using digital cameras to travel photography.

HCCC vice-president Joe Skymba was tapped to lead the travel photography class. He traveled ambitiously during 22 years as a Marine Corps photographer. That assignment took him from shooting battles in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic to a front row perch at John F. Kennedy's inauguration.

"We try to inspire the traveler to shoot more than pictures of buildings... or people standing in front of a sign," Skymba said.

One of Skymba's favorite travel tricks is to shoot "people" pictures - photos of indigent natives going about their daily lives. He always asks permission, even if he can't speak the language.

"In Europe, if I saw good image of a person, I would point at my camera, then point at him, then nod my head," he explained. They would either nod their head or say no. "Most of the time they said yes."

If you insist in shooting buildings, Skymba has some tips that make them more interesting. He suggests shooting in the rain, or shooting after the sun goes down.

"If you shoot it at right time - right after the sun goes down, the sky will be nice and blue. You will get the outline of the building, but you will also capture light coming from the building and from streetlights."

Today's digital cameras give travelers even more options. With speeds up to 1600 and even 3200, it is easier to capture images with little light. Digital cameras offer another benefit over film.

"When I used to travel, I would shoot slides, then develop them when I got back to the states," he said. "I did not have luxury of shooting 500 digital images. The digital age is really great, and getting better and better."

Camera club members help novices adjust their digital cameras to get the optimum pictures. Skymba notes that most set their camera on automatic and leave it there. That way, they'll get the picture, but that is not the best they can do.

But no matter what equipment a photographer chooses, the art of getting the best photos comes down to the person squeezing the shutter. Skymba offered two suggestions that would immediately improve the quality of your travel photos.

"First, move in closer on your subject," he said. "I'm not sure why people don't do that - even some of our club members don't. Second, shoot more than one shot. Try different angles, and you will be surprised what you come up with."

No matter which camera you use, or how practiced your technique, Skymba encourages everyone to take pictures whenever they travel.

"You will bring back memories for you and your family, and you'll have something to show your relatives and friends, and something to put in your scrapbook."

XXX

The Travel Photography class will meet April 21. For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

My Club Ed Day

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, Apr 1, 2009


In 1986 there was a movie called Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In it, Matthew Broderick took the day off from school. The movie details his adventures eluding authorities and avoiding responsibilities.

Not long ago, I took a day on to school.

This day started at 5 a.m., when I rolled out of bed and headed to the Fredericksburg High School gymnasium. For an hour, I joined a group of marginally-in-shape yet enthusiastic men in our morning basketball game. That activity is community education - part of Fredericksburg ISD's program.

I showered and drove on to the Kerrville ISD Club Ed office. During lunchtime, I sat in on a new Conversational Spanish course. Monica Happ led our band of merry men and women through an hour of brushing up on our Spanish speaking skills. Esta es community education.

That afternoon, 30 dedicated dulcimer players descended on the Auld Center for their weekly jam session. For two hours, they practiced in preparation for a performance at one of our Kerrville ISD elementary schools. Of course, I had to tune up my mandolin and strum along on a few numbers. That is community education.

After work, I had just enough time to get across town and grab a chair in our adult beginner Take-A-Bow orchestra rehearsal. It is one of the many lifelong learning opportunities the United Methodist Church offers. Yes, that is community education.

At 6:30, it was time to zoom over to the dance studio, where I waltzed in and changed shoes for my adult tap and ballet classes. You guessed it - that is community education.

Whew!

I was describing my day to Emily Cale, who many of you meet as she takes your registrations and plans your courses for Club Ed. As I finished, she said, "Write that down. That is community education!"

For 20 years I have tried to come up with a 25-word description of community education. The concept is so all-encompassing and ever-changing that I have never succeeded (the other day I answered the phone and someone asked, "Is this the department of other things?"). But after my "Club Ed day," I realized Emily was right. What I did that day is community education.

Look around at how you spend your time when you are doing something you don't have to do. I'll bet you will be surprised at how many activities involve learning something new or stretching yourself beyond that stuffy comfort zone.

What's that? You're not doing those things? Well I happen to know a place where you can get started.

Unlike Ferris Bueller, we'll see you in class.

XXX

Plan your "day on" with our Spring 2009 Club Ed catalog! Visit www.clubed.net to sign up, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

Coaching the game of life

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal. Mar 25, 2009


We all have had coaches help us along - soccer coaches, baseball coaches, coaches as gym teachers, even birthing coaches.

Wouldn't it be great to find someone to coach us through life?

Meet your Life Coach.

"A life coach is a highly-trained professional who helps you gain greater satisfaction and well-being in your life and work," said Leia Francisca, life and executive coach accredited by the International Coach Federation.

Life coaching is as far from the stereotypical sports coach as a life goal is from a field goal. Life coaches do not stand on the sidelines and tell you what to do.

"Coaching is a guided journey to your own answers," Francisca explained. "We are not advice givers. Coaches believe you - the client - have the answers. Our real power is helping you clarify the issues, understand the possibilities, then help you take action."

The most common reason people approach her is that they are "seeking change."

"Every individual wants to change something in their workplace or life, but most are not sure what that is," said Francisca. "The majority say something isn't working in life - not that I'm sick and need therapy - I'm just simply lost and not clear on what to do next."

The real power of a coach is helping them clarify their situation, consider the possibilities, then take action. An effective coach helps people truly understand what they need to change.

Francisca calls it "coaching to the gap."

"My job is to see the disconnects, and work with people in transition. I help them understand what it is like to let go of the old and embrace the new."

Francisca went through a similar process along her journey to becoming a coach. She was successfully teaching at a college, but felt she wanted to do more with her life. She taught because she loved to communicate with people, and wanted to help people find out who they were, to discover that sense of purpose and strength inside themselves. She had an opportunity to try coaching, and now pursues it as her own career.

Today, through Club Ed, she wants to help others become coaches.

"There are not enough of us to go around," explained the instructor, who holds a Master of Arts in Bus Administration. "There are so many specialties to coach that there is room for everyone. And today, 90% of our work is by phone."

Francisco offers both life coaching and "how to become a life coach" sessions at Club Ed. The meetings are set up on an individual basis.

"People wonder where do I start, where do I go," she said, explaining her "how to coach" sessions. "Before they spend money, I want them to test drive this, to understand what is ahead of you."

Francisco emphasizes that coaching - life coaching - applies to anyone of any age.

"It is well documented that being coached enhances training and develops performance. Personally, people are more focused and more likely to carry out plans to reach goals. This also creates such a sense of self-discovery and centeredness. It's not just feeding you fish; it teaches you how to fish. You are never too old to develop your life purpose and goals."

XXX

To set up your one-to-one coaching session, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.