This year, each school received a copy of Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones to give as a gift to the students who took time out to visit. Congratulations also go to Lloyd for being nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

Schools chose their lucky recipient of this award in many different ways. Some schools have a prize draw, others present the award to a dad that volunteers at the school by coaching a sports team or helping maintain the grounds. At other schools, children write stories and letters nominating their dad for the award leaving the teachers the very tough job of choosing a winner! This year each dad received a copy of 1905 Originals written by Dianne Haworth and Bob Howitt, a book which tells the story of the legendary first All Blacks tour.

Our popular Role Model Assemblies took place during term three. Many thanks to all our role models who participated in Book Offer 3 and grateful thanks to our wonderful family of sponsors. Thanks to the schools for your commitment and support with all aspects of the Duffy programme throughout the year.

Also during term three, we farewelled our Communications Coordinator Jenny Adshead and we warmly acknowledge her fantastic work over the last three years. Thanks Jenny. This month we welcomed a new team member in the office Phil Horrobin, who features in this newsletter.

As this is the last newsletter for 2007 I would like to acknowledge and thank our extended team. Thank you to our creative design, Lee Kretschmar, Rob Southam and the team at Scholastic Ltd, Pam Carter and the Penguin Books team and Fred Soar and his printing crew at Soar Printing. Trish and Paul du Temple at Wheelers Books, thank you for work with the Duffy ECE programme. Thank you to our IT technical support Farhad and Sandfield Associates and the Mainfreight IT team. A special thanks to Mainfreight Ltd for your support and another great year.

Thanks to Duffy’s Dance Diary theatre team of talented actors who performed to our schools this year. Once again thank you Orix NZ for providing the theatre car for our actors. Thank you also to FleetPartners for providing transport around the country for our regional representatives and role models.

Finally, to the board and team of Duffy Books in Homes, thank you for your commitment and contribution this year.

Enjoy the last quarter of 2007, and have a safe and fun break with your families over the festive season.

Linda Vagana General Manager

45 Early Childhood Education Centres around Auckland joined the pilot programme which was run in partnership with the Auckland Kindergarten Association.

Now the programme is being offered to Early Childhood Education Centres throughout New Zealand for the 2008 year. To qualify, centres must receive equity funding from the Government and also be chartered or registered. Centres have until the end of October to register for the programme and need to contact us at duffy@booksinhomes.org.nz or call 0800 383 392.

Here are just some of the great comments that we have received from centres on the trial programme.

What a great programme. Our children just love the books. You make their day when they get to take the books home to keep. Thank you so much.

Oranga Kindergarten

This is a fantastic way of encouraging parents to read to their children. Thank you for providing these books for our families.

KiNZ East Tamaki

The children are really looking forward to the books coming. One girl asked every day last time and was from a family who don’t have many books in the home. It is a great idea. Thank you.

Ellerslie Kindergarten

School Sponsor: Bay of Plenty Energy

So far this year our chosen themes have been BIG machines and seasons. The reason for our big machines theme was the wonderful author of ‘Doug the Digger’ who came especially to present our books. My year 7-8 class transformed our box into a bright yellow digger, and the person who went to collect the box was wearing a matching yellow hard hat.

So once again, I would like to thank you for sponsoring us our free books because I really enjoy reading books and now other people can enjoy them just as much.

School Sponsors: Dunholme Book Club and Salesforce.com Asia Pacific

We had three students from a local high school come to the school and they each talked about how reading has enhanced their lives. They were all great speakers, and we thoroughly enjoyed the assembly. Our speakers loved the books we presented them with, and enjoyed themselves too.

Thanks, Duffy Books in Homes, for giving us all these wonderful opportunities to showcase reading and books.