Durham Trinity School

Today Barbara, Caroline and I went to Durham Trinity School to collect some pictures that children at the school had drawn especially for us and our trip to New York.
I for one (and I know that Barbara and Caroline feel the same) will be proud to take them with us, as they are absolutely wonderful. They cover allsorts of Anglo-American icons from London buses to American high rise flats and the Statue of Liberty. There are definitely some budding artists at Trinity!
As well as receiving the pictures, we also got to sit in the assembly and watch the children receive their awards that they had earned with their work during the year - definitely well deserved by the sounds of things.
Unfortunately, we were too late to buy any of the raffle tickets that may have let us win one of those delicious looking Easter eggs.
To give you a bit of background on the school, Durham Trinity is a school that caters for pupils of all abilities between 2 and 19 years old from the Durham region. It is for children who have a range of disabilities.

Ann Southern (Deputy Head Teacher and Rotarian) is a Comenius Ambassador sponsored by the British Council and she generates a lot of international work within Trinity itself. Therefore as a school, it is no stranger to travel or integration of cultures, an invaluable asset as we are about to find out.

There is an Interact Club that is run by Durham Elvet Rotary Club at Trinity and Barbara plays a part in this, hence our group link to the school.

Finally, I would like to thank Ann for inviting us to Trinity to share in their assembly and also a big thank you to the children who created the pictures for us. We will let you know on our return how the trip has gone and who was lucky enough to receive the pictures.

District Council

This evening was time to present at District Council - our last practice presentation before we head to the States, and the first time we've done the shorter version of our presentation.

As I gathered during the course of the evening, District Council is a quarterly meeting and Rotarians from all Clubs in the District are able to attend. It's a mix of updates from District officers and committees, but also voting on resolutions - and the debate that goes on before the vote! As a result it was quite a long agenda so we were in no doubt that we would have to stick to our shorter presentation when we got our opportunity in the middle of the meeting.

Fortunately there were no technical glitches this time round and there was no food to interrupt us! We were missing Helen today, who was at work, but Barbara did a sterling job of standing in for her. I think it went pretty well and I hope that those in the audience who've seen our earlier presentations would agree that it's come on leaps and bounds since our very first run, just over a month ago.

There were many faces in the audience that we recognised from previous presentations and it was a chance to catch up and say our farewells before we fly out in two and a half weeks time. Saying those farewells definitely made the exchange feel a lot more real - and it will probably be even more so after our last team meeting next week.

RC of Longbenton with Killingworth

This evening, we made the journey up north to visit our District Governor's club, Longbenton with Killingworth. Barbara drove herself and Tom, and picked me up on the way; the traffic was unexpectedly light and we got there nice and early. We met some of the club's Rotarians, and just after we made it to the bar, Helen arrived with Dave Sadler (previous GSE team leader and our GSE coordinator.)

Sadly, this time we had to meet without James, who was busy with the sets and lighting for his amateur dramatics society - in his absence, Barbara delivered his portion of the presentation instead.

The evening proceeded very quickly and without fuss - the club was a really lively and entertaining one, though poor Barbara was on the reciving end of numerous pieces of banter (which I am far too polite to repeat here!) We had a lovely 2-course meal - sorry James, you'd have really enjoyed it! - and after some brief business, including the re-induction of a former member, there was a short break for us to set up our equipment.

The presentation itself is definitely getting easier for us and flowing much more smoothly. I think we all remembered to introduce the next person this time, and we're gradually slowing down our delivery. For me, the speed was something I really focused on this evening, and I feel as though my presentation was clearer because of it.

After the obligatory feedback (which was, as always, extremely helpful) instead of a raffle, the club played a quick game that involved flipping two coins. All the players had to stand up and guess the coins' results, by putting their hands on either their heads, their 'tails' (i.e bums!), or a mixture of the two. The president then flipped the coins and called out the result. The people whose hands were in the same position as the coins (e.g. 2 tails; 2 hands on bums) got to play a second round - the rest of us had to sit down. The lady who won the second round was the overall winner, by being the only person who correctly predicted two heads. She won a fab box of chocolates which she passed around the club. (By the way, this is a super game and I will definitely be stealing the idea to use with my children's reading group!)

All in all it was a really fun evening. We'd all like to say a big thank you to the president, Michael Coulthard, and all the other members of Longbenton with Killingworth for being such good hosts, and for providing us with some more useful feedback.

Rotary Club of Barnard Castle - 2nd March 2010

Less than six weeks to go until we arrive in New York State, and Tuesday night saw the fourth run through of our presentation. The other members of the team made the journey over to the Rotary Club of Barnard Castle, despite the snow that had surprised us that morning.

Our thanks go to President Gerald Blake, and all the Rotarians who made us feel so welcome. I'd personally like to thank everyone at the Club as they are sponsoring me on this trip, and it was great to see so many familiar and friendly faces.

The presentation itself went smoothly with no technical problems. James and Barbara are quickly becoming experts at dealing with laptops and projectors, which bodes well. As a team we're growing in confidence each time. A number of people have made the point that we're not coming across as individuals giving separate talks, but as a team delivering one cohesive presentation. It's reassuring to hear that.

Yet again we got a lot of constructive feedback from the club, and more fantastic stories that I'd love to be able to incorporate. Maybe we could do an hour long presentation?

Next week sees us making the journey to the Rotary Club of Longbenton with Killingworth for another practice. Here's hoping it goes as well as the others.