Skittles and dancing - meeting the GSE team from Turkey

LtoR: Begum, Hilal, Cagil, Yildirim, Kate, Captain Bob

Earlier this month the GSE team from District 2440 in Turkey were hosted by Rotary Club of Chippenham as part of their visit to District 1200. Captain Bob looked after the team as they completed their busy schedule including a trip to Avebury and a tour in the Brewery in Devizes. The team also visited Good Energy, the company I work for, which is based in Chippenham.

I met the team at a skittles evening in the Wellesley Arms in Sutton Benger. I had never played skittles before but ‘Team Turner’ (my husband Will and I) came a very respectable joint first place in the competition! The Turkish GSE team joined in and enjoyed the quintessentially english country evening. It was great to meet Hilal, Begum, Cagil and Yildirim, and chat about their GSE visit so far. Seeing the Turkish team together brought back a lot of memeories from my own GSE trip. The team told me that their vocational visits had been great and that they had enjoyed visiting Bath, whilst seeing Stonehenge was a highlight for Yildirim in particular!

 I was very impressed by the team’s enthusiasm and language skills, if we thought GSE was exhausting, imagine doing it in another language! Rotarian Reha is the team leader for the D2440 team and gave a speech about how GSE had been an amazing experience, not just for his team but for him as well – something I know Captain Bob would agree with. We were treated to some fancy dance moves on the skittle alley too - Reha is a professional dancer ( Adele would have loved it!) It was fantastic to meet the GSE team and see once again what an impact GSE can have.

It was a great evening and good to spend more time with the Rotarians, seeing familiar faces and meeting new ones too. I’m looking forward to being reunited with my own GSE team for our final presentation on Monday!

GSE team from D2440 receiving their certificates from President Rick

Rotary Club of Yeovil penultimate presentation!

Bob, Kate, President Michael Nethaway, and Seb

On Tuesday, Bob, Seb and I were welcomed by President Michael Nethaway to the Rotary Club of Yeovil, to give our penultimate presentation about our Group Study Exchange. I can hardly believe that over 10 months ago the GSE adventure was only just beginning for me. The time has flown!

It was a pleasure to meet the rotarians and I really enjoyed speaking to them during dinner and sharing our tales of travelling. Our presentation went well, and as ever it was great to relive our experiences through describing them to the rotarians of club. As I said in my presentation, although the GSE trip was over months ago, our journey has continued, through the clubs we have visited in our District and through the friendships we have continued to make.

A very big thank you to Rotary Club of Yeovil for your warm and friendly hospitality. We enjoyed hearing about the pig racing too - what a good idea for a fun fundraising event!

We missed you Adele and Alice but look forward to our team reunion in Chippenham in April!

Rotary Club of Chippenham 64th Charter Anniversary Dinner

Bob and I looking smart in our black tie!

On Friday evening I was honoured to attend the Rotary Club of Chippenham's 64th Charter Anniversary Dinner. My husband Will and I were seated on a table with no less than three Past-President's of the Club, including GSE Team Leader Bob Nation.

We were treated to a wonderful meal followed by speeches from President Rick Squires, District Treasurer Rory O'Donnell, and the special guest speaker Nigel Redman, coach for Worcester Warriors and ex-England Cap.

Bob receiving his Paul Harris Fellowship from President Rick

We were inspired to hear about the amazing achievements of the Club, and the amount of hard work, effort and time that the Rotarians dedicate was plain to see. The Rotary motto of 'service above self' was vividly demonstrated during President Rick's speech when he honored members of the Club as Paul Harris Fellows. Paul Harris founded Rotary International and the Fellowship is awarded to individuals who have given outstanding and exceptional service. It was fantastic to see our illustrious GSE team leader awarded his Fellowship from Chippenham Club, very well done Captain Bob!  
It wasn't the only award for Bob, he also received recognition for his work with the team of Rotarians who fund raised for and designed the SNAP hydrotherapy pool at St Nicholas School, which has subsequently won a national award for the design of the pool!

Bob & the Rotarian's with their award for the design of the SNAP hydrotherapy pool

The guest speaker Nigel Redman made us all laugh lots with tales from his rugby past. He said that good clubs need good people - as true for a team of Rotarians or Rubgy players! The other big laugh of the evening was Bob's surprise for President Rick - see the photo below!
A very big thank you to President Rick and the Rotary Club of Chippenham for kindly inviting us to the dinner, we had a great evening! We look forward to visiting the club again in April with the rest of the GSE team. 

Will the real President please stand up?

 

A quick check-in from South Africa

Hi everyone,

I thought I would send a quick update on where I am and what I am up to at the moment. I am still on the Rank Award grant, researching and gaining experience in interventions aimed at working with young women.

I am currently in Johannesburg, South Africa, working with a missionary organisation called 'Cherish', who run 8-week programs with girls and young women educating them on their worth and value, sex and relationships, HIV/AIDS and how to live a 'pure' life. 

I flew out to South Africa on 18th January and spent the first two weeks in Worcester, on the Western Cape. Whilst I was there, I organised and spoke at a large conference for teenage girls. Twenty-one girls attended from the local farming area and I taught on identity, true femininity and self-expression. The day consisted of teaching, practical activities, arts and crafts and a free lunch for the girls. We had really great, positive feedback from all the girls that attended and they've apparently already been asking when I will return for the next girls' conference!

On 1st February, I flew to Johannesburg where I started working with Cherish. On my second weekend here, we drove to Swaziland to deliver training in how to set-up and run Cherish groups. I helped to deliver the training as well as participating in the training itself! We had a wonderful weekend of fun, particularly on the first night when 10 minutes into the training session, the power cut out and we had to complete the session by candlelight!

Training local women in Swaziland how to educate young girls about sex and HIV/AIDS

During my time in Johannesburg I have set up and I am currently running four Cherish groups; one in a local school, one in a home for girls, one in a shelter for women who have been abused and one in the local community. I am also teaching two creative workshops for girls, including a dance class, leading a bible study, mentoring some girls one-on-one and tutoring one girl in Maths and English. So I'm keeping pretty busy and out of trouble!

I am currently writing up my proposal of what I plan to do with all this experience and training once I return to the UK. My vision and passion is to set up a program where girls can learn about their identity, worth, sex and relationships and what being a woman really means, in a safe environment. At the heart of most of the issues young girls face today are low self-esteem, lack of identity and faulty views on what it means to be a girl - I'd like to address these root issues before they turn into bigger problems. At the moment, I am figuring out the finer details of how this will look and what my next steps need to be. I'll keep you all informed of how this is going once I return to the UK. I am also in correspondence with projects I met on the GSE and talking with them about how we can network and what we can do to help them. What an amazing adventure this is!!

Rotary Club of Glastonbury & Street

Rotary Club of Glastonbury & Street

On Monday 25th February, the team presented to the Rotary club of Glastonbury & Street at the Wessex Hotel in Street. The location familiar to all as it was where the GSE team would all meet prior to our trip to district 9210, some fond and entertaining memories of this place and of course the place where we all first met!
We were greeted by the club president Peter Davey, enjoyed a relaxed meeting with the updates of various charity and sporting events occuring in the club whilst tucking into a fantastic meal.

The team comprised Captain Bob, Alice and me and we presented to the members of the club. Personally I think that Bob is using his props and gifts improving his presentation no end, I love listening to the way that he describes how epic, adventurous, educational and useful the Group Study Exchange was. The enthusiam from Bob rolled onto Alice where she presented herself perfectly and then detailed the life and experiences of Kate, her plans for future solar projects and her progressions in her career!
I had the last slot of the presentation and was discussing the possibility of working with Rotary supported charity Bikes4Africa hoping to send bikes to one of the countries that we visited during our trip.
Watch this space for more!

Overall a good presentation, questions thought provoking and a great evening had by all!

Thank you to the Rotary Club of Glastonbury & Street.

Pictured Club President Peter Davey, Team Captain Bob Nation, Her Royal Highness The Queen (painting only), Seb Cope & Alice Jones

First presentation of 2013 - Rotary Club of Frome

On Tuesday evening we were welcomed by the Rotary Club of Frome. This was our first team presentation of 2013 and it was lovely to catch up. It was the fab four again, as Adele is now in South Africa on the next part of her research placement (hello Adele, hope Joburg is fun!)

 After a delicious meal, with pancakes for pudding (yum yum), we made our presentation to the Rotarians. It is always so fantastic to talk about our GSE trip and I find that it really brings back all the wonderful experiences we had. Our presentation has evolved over time - as Bob described it in his introduction - our story is slightly different now that we have been back for several months.

We have all been thinking about the next steps, especially with regard to possible projects from our time away. I got some very useful fundraising pointers from the Rotarians I was sitting with during dinner, it’s so nice to be able to discuss ideas with people with plenty of experience of fundraising, and I learnt a lot. Hopefully we will have some exciting updates on that front to share in the near future – watch this space!

 We’d like to thank the Rotary Club of Frome for welcoming us, listening and asking questions, we all enjoyed our evening very much.
Here are a few more photos from our visit:

Answering some questions!
 

Rotary business in action

Bob being fined by 'Boris'