Fingerithmatic Newsletter04 Dec 2002

Hello Everyone,

Well its all go here! When everyone else is slowing down, I am speeding up. Next year is going to be a busy one.With this new website making sending newsletters and updates so much easier, its going to be fun keeping in touch. I just have to make sure I push the save button regularly as I have already found out.I have family, my cousin and her husband from Holland, coming to stay next week and am very excited about this. They are hoping to travel around the South Island while they are here for a month, so I'm sure time will fly for them.
My son Jono has just returned from 4 months in South East Asia and I am catching up on all his news too. He spoilt me with gifts and I now have about 10 sarongs to wrap around my hips for the summer (what summer)?This week I am teaching a Korean how to speak English, a subject I still struggle with myself, and also a man is coming for a Qwertqwik lesson. Men only take about 30 minutes to teach the keyboard, so that will be the easy part of the day. Its the garden and lawns in preparation for my visitors that will be the hard stuff. 2002 (in brief)What a busy year it has been.

In March I traveled (travelled for my fellow New Zealanders) to Wellington and taught at Lower Hutt, Petone and on the Kapiti coast. Some people interested in marketing my business invited me there. While I was teaching a family in Petone, my cell phone rang, I answered it to discover an invitation to teach for a community-based project. I accepted on the condition that I develop a way to teach spelling as well. 

In April I shifted house from Hanging Rock to Timaru, this was a major as not only did we have to shift house, but we had to shift our two Japanese students, my son’s tropical rainforest, his three tropical fish and turtle tanks, his exotic poultry, a hen and her hatching chickens and eggs, his peacocks, pheasants, parrots, pussycat, Pomeranian, wallaby and aviary.Phewww!!!!!!I couldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the help of family, good neighbors and friends.

In May I headed back to the North Island again to teach at Taihape, Rangiwaea and Ohingaiti schools. During this time I picked up a virus and between that, my food allergies and a secondary infection from a white tailed spider bite, my health was in a bit of a mess. I then flew on to Auckland where my family there looked after me so that I was well enough to travel on to Hamilton and Te Kauwhata by bus and then back to Auckland again. I highly recommend Colloidal Silver as it gave my immune system the boost it needed. While teaching a private teacher in Auckland I was asked how would I teach percentages using the fingers. I replied that I needed reminded as to how they were done at all. She showed me what to do and now I have perfected a percentage package.

In June I managed to master the new spelling technique required back in March. It is already working with great success and again is so simple. I taught a 9-year-old boy with Dyslexia how to spell the word ‘tomorrow’ and the next day he spelt it backwards to me, something I had not thought of nor would have been able to do before learning this technique. These are clever kids.

In July I headed north again, this time to ‘The Waikato’ to teach on behalf of a district council. I taught 21 teachers my entire system including the new spelling and percentage methods, and they went on to teach other students under my supervision. It was wonderful to see the results of this teaching, as some of the students had never had any real learning success, and the smiles on their faces were unstoppable. There are hopes to do some really good things in this region, and providers like WINZ, Skill NZ, CEG and others are very enthusiastic. I can't say much more at this stage, but I will let you know as things develop.I took Jono to the airport to fly to Bangkok for a four-month holiday and this was only a few days after my return home. Good-bye Jono!

In August I left Timaru to fly from Christchurch to Auckland to teach several home-schooling groups, individuals and schools. I was late to some of the home schooling venues and apologize for this and any inconvenience I may have caused. I then took a bus to Silverdale to teach there and then back to Wellington, Kapiti, Nelson (where again I was late), Masterton and Carterton to teach schools, professional development and individuals. I also met with some businessmen to discuss with them my Qwertyqwik program, and a marketer who traveled from Napier to meet me. He was the one who suggested this new website, so you can blame or thank him for this newsletter. I stayed in a boarding house near Parliament Buildings, but only got to bask in the sunshine there once, as all the rest of the time it was raining and blowing. Wellington the capital of all seasons! This was my longest teaching trip away ever (16 days) and while I was away, one of the turtles (Michelangelo) escaped from the tank and was lost. Maki, my Japanese student was left with the job of finding him again. He was found 2 weeks after his disappearance, behind the fireplace. He was in hibernation and had a wake up call when I dropped him back into the warm water.

In September the builders put new windows and sliding doors into the other building on my property, they put down new paths a patio and built a veranda over the patio. They also built a new bathroom and laundry, as this building was previously a laboratory. New carpet and vinyl were laid over the concrete floors. I painted all the new window and doorframes, hemmed and hung curtains etc. I dug and made new gardens using the soil from the patio.  Planted native shrubs we brought with us from Hanging Rock. Tidied, titivated and ran myself ragged between the two houses, but wow it looks good!

In October I took a shuttle bus and the East Coast Express through to Kaikoura where I taught my system to the local high school and a little country school. This was a wonderful experience, as I don’t often get to teach in high schools. I met the principal and his wife while teaching in Rangiwaea up near Taihape and they asked me to come to Kaikoura to help the students with their maths. My being asked to be the guest speaker at the Lions Club topped off the trip. I stayed at a lovely B&B called Bendamere and if ever you want to be spoilt while you are away, this is the place to go. I made a contact in Kaikoura to have my books published professionally, so this is a real step forward. My books had been sitting in a publishing house for almost a year before I rescued them.  In late October I again traveled to Christchurch, this time by car to visit a primary school. A class in this school had wanted to learn how to touch type so badly that they raised their own finances to pay for the lesson. What amazing results, these 10-year-olds just picked it up and ran with it, surprising themselves and their teacher. The whole school is talking about it and are keeping me in mind for next year.

In November: Since being home I have set up a new website, completed my own Bed and Breakfast which is looking wonderful. You can read more about this on my website www.timaru-hideaway.com under the personal interests page and even see some photos. The Information Center is sending someone to come and inspect it sometime this week, in order to advertise it to the general public and overseas tourists. I‘ve had some private students come to my house for lessons, some English, some maths and others typing. I also taught a young lass over the telephone the first 20 elements in the periodic table for her exams, now I have to learn about their protons, neutrons and electrons to really impress.

This is generally a quiet time for me teaching wise and I get to do my own thing and also smell the roses, which are absolutely beautiful. It is also the time when I get to develop new teaching tools. So look out for them next year! Jono is home again and chomping at the bit to go back to Sumatra, he is practicing the language with a few sayings that I am not too sure about, but I do hear them on a regular basis followed by a little chuckle. Two days ago he decided to clean out the turtle tank and put both turtles in our outside pond, while he was cleaning though, one of the turtles, Donatello decided to go for a walk and we haven’t seen him since. We have had search parties out looking for him, and as we are surrounded by farmland we don’t know where to start the search. We even resorted to getting my other son’s dog to help find a trail, but the cat dish was more appealing. (I will keep you informed of his unawhereabouts.)

December: Two days ago I met with ‘The Aoraki Development Trust’ in order to set some new business goals. They are getting back to me soon and have given me some names of businesswomen to talk to. These women are already through stages that I am yet to pass. I should learn quite a bit from them and hopefully I can share that knowledge with others too.Yesterday I taught a 55-year-old man how to touch type. He was so amazed at his new skill that he said “Why didn’t I think of it myself, it is so simple yet so clever.” His son is overseas and he wanted to be able to correspond with him and the 2 fingers he was previously using were not fast enough. He went away absolutely buzzing.

Next week I am going to Christchurch to teach some families and a class, and while I am there I hope to talk to a music teacher who read an article about me and wanted to know if my system would work with music too. I agreed that it would as music too is learnt on the fingers, and as I am no musician it is not something that I can teach myself. It is really exciting as it would be another string to my (violin) bow. We'll give it a go anyway.I have just received an email from a family with a child with Down Syndrome. I have offered to teach the child how to type and how to write using the senses, what a great privilege.

There are too many individual exciting things that have happened this year to write them all down here. Next year these newsletters will be bi-monthly so you won’t have so much to read at once. If you think they are worth sharing, forward them to your friends, otherwise there is always the delete button.I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your interest and your support throughout this year and to those I have taught keep those fingers wiggling. To all of my family who are on this newsletter list I send my love. I hope you all have a lovely relaxing summer holiday.

Thank you
(Cheers)

Francee More

PS The neighbours about a block away found the turtle and he was returned safe and sound even though he was on the driveway to their house!!