Empowering Ourselves

The Learning Source is pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring three Wen-do Self Defence workshops for women and girls in January and February. Wen-Do Women's Self Defence is a registered charity and the oldest women's self defence organization in Canada. They believe that a woman's experience with and the fear of violence is typically different from men's, and it is therefore vital for women and girls to have access to self-defence courses taught by women, for women and girls only. Women and girls already have a wealth of experience in protecting their own safety. Females can use their bodies effectively; regardless of age, athletic ability, disabled or non-disabled, to resist or defuse violent situations. Wen-do training aims to build on participants' prior knowledge and increase their self-confidence by teaching a variety of awareness, avoidance and verbal self-defence strategies, and simple, practical physical techniques that are designed to be effective even against a larger and stronger attacker.

The goal of Wen-do workshops is to increase the choices available to women, and to provide suggestions and ideas, not a list of do's and don'ts. Instructors emphatically reject any approach that tries to blame women and girls for having "provoked" or "failed to prevent" violent attempts to dominate and control them. We believe that ultimately each female must make her own decision about how to respond to a particular situation.

For more information on the Peterborough and Havelock workshops, visit here.

Paddle Making Responses

Here are some of the comments received from our paddle making courses:

I have a Paddle making book and although I could have learned from the book I realized the best approach would be to take a course. This one answered all my questions! People I show my paddle to can't believe I carved it by hand! Gerry was great to work with and extremely knowledgeable!!

I am very honoured to have had the opportunity to spend a day with Gerry learning how to craft a paddle form such a large blank and it honestly melts my heart every time I look at the paddle I made that fits just me :))

It was more demanding in skill level and fitness than I thought. However, the instructor was very helpful in assisting so the paddle could be finished.

Gerry's experience and knowledge about paddles, canoes, tripping and the great wilderness in our back yard shows what an expert he really is.

Two more Paddle Making courses are scheduled for November 2 and December 7. Register early!

Winter is Almost Upon Us....A Home Improvement Workshop for Women

The cold weather is almost upon us, is your home energy efficient? We can help prepare your home for winter. Check out 'Getting the Nest Ready for Winter', a Home Improvement workshop for women. It's lead by our fantastic instructor Gisele Roy, who has well over 16 years of experience as a carpenter.

Open House Invite

We're hosting an open house on Monday, September 20, from 6-8pm at the Guild Hall at St. John's Anglican Church, 99 Brock Street and we'd love to have you drop by to meet us and some of our instructors, learn about our fall program and perhaps even register for something.

The Cuban sensation, Mayelin Lovet, will be doing Ballroom and Latin dance demos and we'll be serving some refreshments.

We'd love to see you!

Follow us and we all win!

We want to reward your loyalty so if you subscribe to our e-newsletter, follow our blog, Twitter or Facebook accounts before September 7th, you will be eligible for our draw for a $50 Learning Source gift certificate. Just in time for one of our fall courses - spanish, yoga, dance, DIY, and much more.

Welcome to our Learning Community

After much frustration, diligence and cooperation, we finally have our new website up and running. So now we can really start promoting our fall courses. Sarah and I have been frantically working to pull together a program that is interesting and responsive to what our clients and supporters have indicated they are interested in. As an organization, we also want to find learning gaps in the community. One area we are particularly keen to develop is a green living series. If you have any ideas, please share them with us here.

Louise Racine
Manager
The Learning Source