Well it's now July and everyone is out enjoying the great weather we sincerely do hope! Enjoy the summer while you can because before you know it the gusty cooler weather of Fall will be upon us.

Of, course, with Fall will come the resumption of school, Sorry to remind you, nut it will come whether we like it or not.

So, it is. Like it or not, the right time to think about how to get the new year off to a good start. There is no better way than with a fun and exciting assembly program to welcome the kids back and let them know the year at school is going to be just as much fun as was the summer.

But what kind of assembly to choose?

Today, in life, young people face enormous pressure and often need more than the three R's to know how to effectively deal with life's challenges and how to deal with each other and the relationships they form. Part of education for our young is to teach them how to be ready for these challenges, and how to interact in a healthy manner with each other.

Mobile Ed offers several shows that are outrageously fun and perfect for kicking off the year with a bang but which also help to instill the strong values and conduct we all want to see in our young.

Inspector Iwannano carries the time worn and well respected message found in the Character Counts program developed so many years ago and still powerfully effective today. Respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, fairness, citizenship and caring are all indisputably good values to attain and hold onto as we grow into adults. These same attributes are the very components of the totally non controversial Character Counts program and they are made clear and fully and easily understandable in the wildly fun and exciting Inspector Iwannano.

But today we also face the challenge of bullying which is responsible for misery and heartache in so many of our children as they learn the lessons of life. Again, in this area Mobile Ed offers a variety of amazing programs to assist.

Stronger Than a Bully, You've Got a Friend, and The No Bully Zone, plus Stand Up/Step In, all offer slightly different but active takes on this perplexing problem, while doing so in a manner that is giggly good fun and also emotionally satisfying.

Within the sphere of training young people to deal with bullies there have been different techniques developed and propagated. As always, the best have risen to the top. Heading this list are two different bu similar approaches. One was created by the Olweus group and remains popular. Another was started more recently by the esteemed New York psychologist Izzy Kalman and is termed the Bullies to Buddies approach. Both work very well. In the case of our programs, Stronger Than a Bully together with You've Got a Friend follows the Bullies to Buddies approach while The No Bully Zone is based on the techniques espoused by the Olweus group. Either of these make great kickoffs to an amazing school year and all do so with great aplomb and lots of fun.

Meantime, let us not forget our older children who need help with bullying issues perhaps more so than do our young.

New this year, and for the first time, Mobile Ed will be offering a a series of bullying and character trait programs specifically designed to speak directly to our young in Middle Schools and High Schools, Anyone with children entering or living through these stressful year knows and will nod their heads in sage agreement that Middle School is one of the toughest periods in the lives of children and one in which many habits are set for life.

But children at this age cannot be treated like babies, nor do they often respond to adults whom they often regard with cynical suspicion. Mobile Ed has acquired the services of a rising star in this field, perfectly suited in age, wisdom, dynamic talent, understanding and empathy to speak directly to Middle School students and relate to them in a peer friendly manner that has proven to reach them when nothing else can.

Next week we will release details of this exciting new talent, who goes by the name Mr. Peace. With four different programs to meet four specifically different needs (Bullying, Leadership, Positive Life Choices and Diversity) Mr. Peace is likely to be exactly the program your Middle School students need at this formative moment in their lives. More news about this exciting new performer will be made available along with specific program descriptions and available tour dates next week

Regardless of what your needs and what age your students are, Mobile Ed now stands ready to give your new school year a really strong and powerfully effective kickoff and help set your students on the path to a wonderfully productive year ahead and in the years to follow.

But please do not delay. Call us soon for your date. These programs are always in high demand, especially for early in the year! Dates are filling fast!

Geoff Beauchamp is the Regional Manager of Mobile Ed Productions where "Education Through Entertainment" has been the guiding principal since 1979. Mobile Ed Productions produces and markets quality educational school assembly programs in the fieldsof science, history, writing, astronomy, natural science, mathematics, character issues and a variety of other curriculum based areas. In addition, Mr. Beauchamp is a professional actor with 30 years of experience in film, television and on stage. He created and still performs occasionally in Mobile Ed's THE LIVING LINCOLN. He also spent ten years coordinating assembly programs for the elementary school where his own children went to school.