January 2011 Newsletter

Greetings from Flow Circus

You Are Here - Program Ideas & Video Contest

Summer Quest 2011 Camp Schedule

Grant Information

Upcoming Flow Circus Tours

Greetings from Flow Circus: Happy New Year! Hope you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. At the end of the year, we like to reflect back on our accomplishments of the past year and set new goals for the upcoming one. Although the specifics outcomes change from year to year, our fundamental goals boil down to the following three items:

Goal 1: Promote the message that reading & learning should be fun.

Goal 2: Introduce tweens/teens throughout the East Coast to the benefits of juggling & skill toys.

Goal 3:Provide adults with the opportunity to play through professional development programs.

We look forward to using this monthly newsletter to keep you up-to-date on how we are taking action to achieve these goals and to provide resources for you, our partners. Please feel free to contact us with questions, suggestions, and ideas for future partnerships. Here's to a productive 2011! Playfully yours, Paul & Dawn



You Are Here - Program Ideas & Video Contest: This summer's theme for the children's Summer Reading Program One World, Many Stories provides librarians with a wealth of ideas for engaging programs. In talking with some of you, the teen theme You Are Here seems to be a little more challenging for YA librarians. Whether you are planning to take a cross-cultural approach to the theme or will be exploring different time periods, we have a few programming solutions for you:

Play Fundama: The Japanese kendama, French bilboquet, Mexican balero, and Native American pommawonga are essentially the same skill toy that has existed throughout different time periods and in different cultures. It has been made out of birch bark, dried squash, deer toes, and other materials available depending on the geographic region. Your teens can make their own versions of this toy out of paper cups, string, and masking tape (on a very small budget). Our website PlayFundama.com has a Photo Gallery of World Toys, Instructional Videos of how to make fundama, activity ideas for programmers, and downloadable posters to promote a Play Fundama program at your library. Play Fundama is an evolving site so let us know if you have ideas for other videos or resources we can add to help with your planning.

Skill Toys from Around the World: Flow Circus can visit your library to conduct a 90 minute, interactive workshop for your tweens/teens that introduces them to 5 different skill toys that have been popular in different regions and time periods. Playing with flower sticks, Japanese kendama, jitter ring, spinning plates, and diabolo will remind your teens how to unplug and unwind. Comparisons between these skill toys and modern day toys will help them to reflect on the You Are Here theme. Contact Dawn at dawn@flowcircus.com or (919) 604-3462 for more information about workshops.

You Are Here Video Contest: The Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP) is currently conducting a video contest to promote the 2011 You Are Here Summer Reading Program. Your teens can submit a video and win $250 (and your library gets $100). If you have had Flow Circus at your library in the past, think about having teens juggle or incorporate skill toys to make their video stand out. Winners will be announced in April. For more information about the contest visit the CSLP Teen Video Challenge website. If you are not the teen programmer for your library, please feel free to share these resources with your colleagues.



Summer Quest 2011 Camp Schedule: For the 9th summer in a row, Flow Circus will be returning to the Cary Academy Summer Quest program to conduct specialty camps for kids 9-14 in the Raleigh area. In addition to offering Beginner and Advanced Juggling, Magic, and Balloon Sculpting camps, we are adding a new camp this summer focusing on juggling, skill toys, and related DIY projects. Below is the schedule for Summer 2011:

June 20-24 (9am-noon): Beginning Juggling, Magic, & Balloons
June 20-24 (1-4pm): Juggling & Skill Toys
July 25-29 (9am-noon): Beginning Juggling, Magic, & Balloons
July 25-29 (1-4pm): Advanced Juggling, Magic, & Balloons

Summer Quest does not have the summer schedule posted yet, but we wanted to let you know our dates as you start to plan for your summer. Keep an eye on their website for on-line registration to begin next month. In the meantime, take a look at their blog to learn more about Summer Quest offerings. If your children have taken Flow Circus camps in the past, we appreciate you letting other families know about our programs. Feel free to contact Paul at paul@flowcircus.com or (919) 426-9157 if you have any questions.



Grant Information: This grant was recently posted by YALSA and we wanted to share it with you in case you haven't seen it. The Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust has announced the availability of small grants (under $5000) for school and public libraries seeking to offer innovative programs that promote reading for pleasure for young adults. There is no specific deadline to apply. Applications will be received and reviewed on a rolling basis. Applications that feature new or creative programs will receive special consideration over those simply seeking funds for collection development or for a book discussion group. For further information and/or for an application, please contact:

Julian L. Lapides, Esquire, Trust Manager
600 Wyndhurst Ave., Suite 246
Baltimore, MD 21210
(410) 464-0100

*The Trust prefers to be contacted by postal mail or phone which is why neither an email address or website is provided.

Most people don't think of juggling and skill toys as a tool to promote reading, but Paul actually learned to juggle from a book. It was a transformative experience for him because that was when he realized that books can contain more than just fictional stories and math problems! Our programs introduce the basic skills needed to juggle, and then encourage tweens/teens  to use books and other library resources to further improve their skills.

If you are interested in applying for a grant to bring skill toys to your library, email Dawn for a program description that outlines the objectives and benefits of the Skill Toy Program.



Upcoming Tours: We have decided to keep this as a regular feature of our newsletters so you can keep up to date on when we will be in your area.

January 27-28: Lancaster, PA
February 18-25: Northeast Tour (NY, NJ, PA)
March 9-11: South Carolina Tour
April 19-22: Northeast Tour (NY, NJ, PA)
Summer 2011: Visit our blog for more information

We are continually adding new tours to this schedule so feel free to contact us about setting up a tour in your area. To book a Flow Circus performance/workshop or schedule a tour in your region, contact Dawn at dawn@flowcircus.com or (919) 604-3462.