Filter by Category
All Classes
Children’s Book Publishing
with Preethi Fernando, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Achieve your dream of getting your children’s book published. You will learn the traditional book publishing and self book publishing routes, getting your book published on Amazon, how to get your book formatted, design your cover, upload your book to Amazon, get printed copies, and more. This class does not teach you how to write your children’s book. It teaches you how to get it published- online or in printed format, and how to get your book into the market for others to access your book. Preethi Fernando is the author of fifteen books. She is the winner of Stephen King’s Haven Foundation Award. Visit preethifernando.com. Objectives: How to design your book cover and format your book; How to find a publisher for your children’s book; How to publish your children’s book on your own; How to upload your children’s book to Amazon.
Finding Money for College Financial Aid, Scholarships, and Grants Using Chat GPT + AI
with Preethi Fernando, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Families face many hurdles during the college admissions process. Many of those hurdles are related to money and the question “can I afford it?” Don’t let money block your son or your daughter from attending their dream school. Allow AI to lift the strain of finances during the college admission process. AI such as Chat GPT and Google Gemini can burst open doors for parents, students, high school college admission counselors, during this process. Learn how to find scholarships, grants, community awards, at a fraction of the time. Learn 24+ killer prompts to give AI to get the best results. Get specific financial aid info from the university of your choice. Preethi Fernando is the author of “Free Money: A Guide to Financial Aid, Scholarships, and Grants.” Objectives include: 1. How to give great prompts to AI to get focused answers related to college financial aid; 2. How to write persuasive grant proposals for college using AI; 3. How to search for colleges that you have never heard of, that give awards and grants.
14 A.I. Tools for the Small Business Owner
with Preethi Fernando, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Artificial intelligence business tools help small businesses work smarter, not harder. Learn to automate e-mails, create pie charts for your reports with chat GPT, screen resumes, creating social media posts, AI videos, website content creation, sales forecasting, and more. Cut back costs on hiring staff, by knowing how to use AI to boost your small business. Get your health back and save yourself the unnecessary stress and headaches of office drama by replacing your toxic employee with Chat GPT (and not have to worry about a lawsuit or them talking bad behind your back). This class shows you how to replace a toxic employee with neutral AI, improving productivity at your workplace plus cut back costs in having under performing employees.
Middle Eastern Belly Dance Mixed Level Drills & Thrills: Part 1
with Josephina Gasca, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Authentic Belly Dance, or raks sharqi, is an ancient form of dance. Raks sharqi means “dance of the east” in Arabic. Belly dance celebrates every body type and every stage of life. The dance is proud and powerful and soft and sinewy with elegant and isolating movements emanating from the core. It’s the Pilates of dance. And so much fun! This is a great refresher class for experienced dancers and suitable for dancers new to belly dance. Please wear comfortable clothing, similar to what you might wear to a yoga class that will allow for free movement and the ability to see your movement. Hip scarves make it even more fun. You can dance barefoot or in a pair of comfortable dance shoes in the studio. Zills (finger cymbals) will be used in class. Check in with the instructor before you purchase any. As an added bonus, you will also have access to a video library with instruction, drills, and ongoing choreography during the length of the session. *This class meets on the following Thursdays: 9/3, 9/17, 10/1, 10/15, 10/29, 11/12, 12/3, 12/17 (8 sessions total).
Life Skills for Living and Working with a Difficult, Toxic Person
with Preethi Fernando, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Toxic people play emotional hostage and mind games. The emotional, mental, financial drain caused by a toxic person is like a leaky faucet, slowly and silently getting bigger and more destructive. Bullying, narcissistic behavior, controlling, lying, manipulation, pitting one against the other, silent treatment, cunning behaviors, withholding recognition, blame, are toxic behaviors that can drag us down like a sea anchor. Stop trying to change the toxic person. Start changing yourself. Learn how to be calm when the toxic person pushes your buttons. Find peace of mind, increase your productivity, and live stress free, as you master the life skills for living for working with a toxic person. Preethi Fernando is the author of “You Got This- How to Work with Toxic People.” Preethifernando.com.
Mushroom Walk
with David Spahr, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Join seasoned forager David Spahr on an immersive mushroom hunt, exploring habitats, structures, and safe foraging practices. Uncover surprises in each walk, shaped by season and location. Suitable for all ages (8-15 with a registered parent), this moderate-difficulty hike promises an exciting, educational adventure. Supply List: Notebook and pen to take notes, sensible clothing and footwear, water, snack and bug repellant. A basket or bags are optional. NOTE: This class will start with an outdoor talk at the waterfront followed by the walking portion.
Adobe Illustrator CC Essentials
with Andy Helmi, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard computer illustration software. Use Illustrator to draw shapes and design logos, flyers, posters, banners, business cards or any other vector graphics for print or web. In this course, you will learn Adobe Illustrator fundamentals to set up a print document and use various tools to draw, type and color all kinds of shapes and illustrations. Learn how to efficiently manage layers and artboards, and create print-ready PDF documents. Access to Adobe Illustrator software required. For all online Adobe classes, students are responsible for purchasing their own software for their course. Trial versions of Adobe software are sometimes available on the Adobe company website.
AI Certificate
with Elizabeth Flanagan, Merrymeeting Community & Adult Education
Give your organization a competitive advantage with Artificial Intelligence (AI). And position yourself in an emerging knowledge specialty and growth area. Explore what AI can do to reduce costs, gather more and better business data, automate time-consuming tasks, improve efficiency, lower human error, reallocate staff time for higher priority functions, and more. Then master the concepts and fundamental techniques of implementing AI. Finally, develop an AI plan and strategy to deliver results for your workplace. Walk away with the knowledge and confidence to help lead your organization into this exciting new area of business expertise.