April 16th - First Vocational Day

As the team's mentioned, today has been a vocational day. We all started off at Oneonta City Hall, before dividing off. James, Barbara, Caroline and myself stayed at City Hall. Helen and I then got to meet Judge Lucy Bernier of Oneonta City Court. In the afternoon we were honoured to visit the University Police Department of Oneonta College. Our thanks to everyone involved - the vocational visits have been incredibly rewarding, not only in helping me to consider the work that I do at present, but in seeing how similar issues are approached over here.
Today's highlights were:

• getting a better understanding of the link between national, federal and local government in the U.S, as well as the way that the three relate.
  
• meeting with Judge Lucy Bernier, who patiently answered my questions about the legal system over here, on everything from grand juries to family court proceedings.
• the staff of the University Police Department, and especially Tim and John who gave us a tour of their exceptional facility. I have no doubt that Helen will have more to say on this - suffice it to say that they were incredibly welcoming. Although the differences between the daily operation of our police forces seem small (to an outsider at least), we had an entertaining discussion of the differences and the best way to provide a high quality service to the public.
  

I'd also like to give a belated, but important mention to Charlotte McKane. I met Charlotte at the Oneonta Rotary Club meeting on Thursday. She has established her own charity, Charlotte's Circle, which raises funds for a number of organisations in the Oneanto area, specifically highlighting those areas that have been overlooked by government agencies. Contributors are then presented with breakdowns of how funds raised by the organisation are spent. She's also actively involved in challenging decisions made by her school board (did I mention that she's still in high school? And passionate, opinionated, and able to argue persuasively about the work that she does? As an occasionally cynical person, Charlotte did a lot to restore my faith in humanity. Thank you).