Friday 30th April - Owego and Conference

Friday was slightly bittersweet as we moved on once again from our host families. I was alone with Linda, one of my hosts, who took me to Owego Elementary School, where we were greeted by their librarian, Denise. I was able to sit in on two literacy classes, both of which were fantastic, and asked the teachers a lot of questions. The literacy work in the school was really great and used a mixture of team and individual learning methods - really supportive and creative atmosphere. Then I went back to the library. Due to renovations at the school, the library is temporarily half its usual size, with a Kindergarten class in the other half of the room. Despire this, Denise and her aide had come up with a super system that still enabled the kids to access the books. I watched the tail end of one library class and most of another - I took back some great ideas, and shared a few with Denise, too.
Following this, Linda took me to her library at a privately-funded Catholic elementary school. It was a lovely small school, the library was so light and roomy, and the children were delightful (one of them asked me if I sailed over on the Mayflower!)

During this time, Helen and Tom went to the probation office, where they met Brian Cane. He gave a very realistic overview of the way his department fits into the criminal justice system. They were surprised to learn that over here, someone on probation may not have any alcohol or weapons in the house, and spot checks are carried out on this. They then went to Tioga County Sherriff's Office and County Jail where they were shown around by Lieutenant David Monell, holding 105 prisoners which is small compared to some of our local jails.

Following a super lunch at Carolyn's house, we all went to see the District Attorney, Gerald Keene. Gerald is responsible for Tioga County and is elected on a 4 year term. This totally contrasts to the UK, where a prosecutor cannot be elected and is appointed on work merit. It was really interesting to learn about a vocation so different from my own, and the others asked some thought-provoking questions.

From here, we had a precious half hour of spare time. Since the weather was so great, we wandered around the shops and sat by the river. Beautiful.

Then back to Carolyn's, and we made 2 trips with luggage to the Owego Treadway inn, the venue for this year's District Conference. We ended up on a corridor with the other GSE team, which was really great. As it was so hot, we had a quick Team Conference on our patio...

Then off to attend the Conference's official opening ceremony, including a flag parade with the Youth Exchange students. Tom very kindly volunteered to carry the Union Jack for us, and the rest of us followed behind. The evening featured some really great speakers, especially David Salai, who cycled from NY state to California for Polio eradication. We had some delicious Lebanese cuisine, (I was thrilled with the Kalamata olives particularly!) and then watched a local bellydancing troupe.

After the proceedings were formally broken up for the night, we socialised with some of the Rotarians from our trip so far, especially Chad Smith and the 7170 GSE team (really super to see them again) as you can see below.

After that we girls crashed out in bed, sometime before midnight... the boys put us to shame by staying up, however. What a busy day!