Good Day!

We’re excited bring this great opportunity to your school community.  A big thanks to you for helping your school start their True North Friends Junior Balloon Twisting Club.  Below is an overview of our program and steps to book the workshop so your school can start twisting!

Program Goals

The goal of this initiative is to teach 12 students a fun, creative and employable skill while promoting the importance of growth mindset, healthy social skills and acceptance of self and others.   After the workshop, your newly trained “Junior Balloon Twisters” can then help launch your school’s own Junior Balloon Twisting Club with the complimentary club starter kit, which we will provide.  

Students who learn this creative skill will have another cool activity in their “life toolkit” that encourages them to put down the electronics and enjoy building meaningful connections within the community.

This unique initiative is supported through the Healthy Kids Community Challenge Rexdale’s Theme 4 – Power Off and Play: Bright Ideas Initiative and is brought to you by Let’s Get Together and Healthy Kids Community Challenge – Rexdale.

Book workshop date and time

To get started, we need to confirm a date and time to deliver the one-hour workshop.  This can be done either at lunch or after school. Please select 3 dates/times from the list below that best suits your schedule and send them to us by email in order of preference.  We will send you a confirmation email within 36 hours along with your customized flyer, parent letter, social media message and media waiver form. If selecting a lunch time option, please let us know what time this occurs  **Note: we will do our best to accommodate your request but ask for some flexibility pending our Junior Balloon Twisters Trainers school schedule.

• Tuesday, May 15 to Friday, May 18th – lunch time or after school
• Tuesday, May 22 to Friday, May 25th – lunch time or after school
• Monday, May 28 to June 1st – lunch time or after school
• Monday, June 4 to 8th – lunch time or after school
• Monday, June 11 to 15th – lunch time or after school

What to expect

Our facilitation team includes an adult coordinator and a Junior Balloon Twister Trainer (scheduling permitting). Our Junior Trainers are Grade 5 to 7 students.  We do ask that one adult from your organization, whether it be a parent, teacher or staff, be present to actively help support our team. Our team will arrive approximately 20 minutes before the start of the workshop to set up.  We can kindly ask that the room and equipment be ready to ensure we maximum our teaching time. This will also help minimize missed class time for our Junior Trainers for lunch hour workshops. The first 10 – 15 minutes of the workshop is about the concept of growth mindset, while the last 45 minutes will focus on teaching balloon twisting.  Take down time will take about 10 – 15 minutes. If possible, please provide a venue that is located close the main doors for ease of access.

Workshop materials, equipment and space

The ideal space is a classroom or a venue with desk, chairs and minimal distractions.  

We provide all the balloon twisting supplies along with healthy snacks (fruits, nut-free granola bars and a water dispense) and a complimentary Balloon Twist Club Starter Kit.  We have a short video and powerpoint presentation to share so we kindly ask your organization to provide a screen, projector, laptop and sound equipment. If you’re unable to provide any of these materials, please let us know in advance so we can make adjustments to our presentation.

Selection of Future Junior Balloon Twisters

Since one of the primary goals is to help your school start your own Junior Balloon Twisting Club, it’s best to try and recruit at least 6 students who are willing to help start the club after they’re trained.  Students who have a positive attitude towards learning, enjoy trying new things, work well on a team, has past experience helping others, is a good communicator, and is willing to invest time into growing this initiative would be ideal.  We will be sharing additional balloon twisting resources on our website www.truenorthfriends.ca/workshop throughout the year as we build an online Junior Balloon Twisting Community.  

Contest & Challenge

We are currently running a True North Friends Colouring Contest for kids ages 4 – 14 years of age. Attached is the colour contest poster along with the colouring sheet.  Feel free to share this with your school community. Submissions will be accepted until May 31st. Prizes will be awarded for each age category and they include a class set of True North Friends growth mindset bookmarks, mini posters and positive attributes buttons.  We can also arrange to pick up the submissions at a mutually convenient time.

We will also be hosting our first Junior Balloon Twist-Off Challenge at the Foodie Festival on July 6th.  This event is being held at the Toronto Public Albion Library.  Information will be posted on our website and shared over the next couple weeks.

Promotion

Once we confirm your workshop date and room location, we will send you a customized flyer which you can post at your school.  We will also include a parent letter to send home and/or include in your newsletter, as well as a social media graphic message which you can share through your channels.  For social media, we kindly ask that you tag the following partners @GetTogetherTO @HKCCRexdale @ONThealth @TruNorthFriends (twitter) @TrueNorthFriends (insta).

We will also send you a copy of our photography and media release form to review with the parents and school administration.

Questions

We hope this gives you a better idea of what to expect.  If you have any questions, please contact me via e-mail or call me at 416-302-8349.  

Thank you once again for your time and we look forward to twisting with your school!

Have a great day!

Ali