Introducing the Children’s Captain

Catholic Concern for Animals is pleased to welcome Finola Hickey as the new Junior Membership Secretary, or Children’s Cap’n!
Here she introduces herself to our adult readers.

By Finola Hickey

I am very pleased to have joined the Ark Committee and to have been asked to take on the role of Junior Membership Secretary. I now have police clearance, so not only will I be able to correspond with the children but, hopefully, later be able to visit schools and meet them and help to promote the Junior Ark.

Before I start this work, I should tell you a little about myself, how I have been involved with children and why I am really looking forward to playing a part on the Ark team.

I am the eldest of a family of eight children. We always had pets, mostly cats because they were more independent than dogs. As long as I can remember I have always loved animals. At present I have one cat and walk a dog for a 96-year-old friend. I was born in North West London and now live in North London and, apart from one year teaching English in Madrid and two years studying at the College of Librarianship in Aberystwyth, Wales, have spent the greatest part of my life as a librarian with special responsibility for children in an inner London borough. In the Good Old Days before rate-capping, our borough had a full-time children’s librarian for every branch library, and our days were busy with school class visits from the nursery through to the top primary classes. After school time children of all ages, from primary as well as secondary schools, came to borrow books etc., or to do their homework.

Later, I became Special Educational Needs Librarian for Children and Young People. The needs varied from moderate learning through to severe learning difficulties and children with behavioural difficulties. In the Bad Old Days these would all have been called educationally sub-normal. I really loved this work but, sadly, the post was cut to part-time, so half time was spent in the Schools Library Service and half time visiting the Special Schools or encouraging these classes to visit the Public library as only these classes were permitted to do.

More staff cuts resulted in much less contact with the children as one had to be prepared to work in all departments. One hour could see me sitting on the floor singing and telling stories to under-three-year-olds and the next hour I could be on the busy adult lending library enquiry desk.

In the two years before I retired, I was involved in setting up a new service working with deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

I retired at the end of 2002 and promised myself that, as soon as I had cleared all my clutter, I would look for work where I could bring children and animals together and, hopefully, also use my knowledge and love of children’s books. Well, I’m still surrounded by clutter but now you’ll understand why I’m so happy to be involved as the children’s captain on the Ark!

At present I am taking various computer courses to help me with this Ark work, and admit I have much to learn. Before I came aboard, the first Junior Ark was well received and generated much interest so, to ensure its continued success, I am going to need a lot of help and here is how you all can be involved.

Those of you who have children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, etc., please enrol them – with the permission of their parents. I will need to know names, addresses, whether male or female and, very importantly, their ages so that my welcoming letter can be age-appropriate.

Remember, there is no charge to become a friend of the Junior Ark.

Maybe you are a teacher – you could introduce the Junior Ark to your class and encourage contributions from the children – short stories, poems, drawings of animals, birds, fishes,insects, flowers, trees – all are welcome. Practising or retired, you may have knowledge of useful educational resources that could be passed on to other teachers. If you can contribute quizzes. crossword puzzles, word searches etc., to the next issue please submit them. Any item of animal-related interest will be welcome. As I enrol each child, I encourage them to send me something which may be used in a future issue. However, I know I’m really going to need their adults to encourage them. Then, no doubt, I’ll be inundated, but will have enough material for some time to come to choose from. I want this to be the children’s own magazine that they will want their friends to read and that will encourage other children to think more about animals and how to care for them.

Once we have sufficient material for the second issue of the Junior Ark,and it is published, I will need help in promoting it. This is where those of you who belong to parishes where the adult Ark is known may be able to take copies of the Junior Ark for distribution. Anyone and everyone can help and I look forward to hearing from you!

At this stage I am concerning myself with the Junior Ark, but I feel there really is a need for a youth magazine and hope someone will come forward to edit another issue o f Teen Ark. Again, we could all be involved. I’m sure there are lots of Ark readers with much to contribute. Let’s see what we can do....

• To contact Finola write to 21 Ingram Road, East Finchley, London N2 4HD, or email: finolahickey@yahoo.co