Liverpool here we come!

The team headed off to Liverpool for a day of sight seeing. We were extremely fortunate to have 6 tourism students prepare a tour for us.

After a morning of sight seeing on foot and some dinner we climbed aboard the magical mystery tour to take in everything Beatles that Liverpool had on offer, we even went for a drive down Penny Lane and past Strawberry Fields, it was "beatlerific!"

Day 1 & 2

Day 1

Our first day in Preston commenced with a Welcome and Briefing from DG Mick Eady, Richard Bird GSE Coordinator and Preston Guild President Geoff Oldham and PP John Ward.

(team presented here with DG Eady)

Following this we received a welcome from the Mayor of Preston and a tour of the Council Chambers.

For lunch, we went to Salmesbury Hall which was followed by a tour of Hoghtons Tower. The day was ended by a tour of the Ribble Railway.

Following this, we were all introduced to our host families and departed to spend time and have fun with them!

Our sincere thanks to Geoff and John who spent the day with us - not only coordinating the tours, but taxiing us to each venue and looking after all of our needs.

Day 2 - we each participated in our first vocation day for the GSE program.

Samuel spent the day with the Myerscough Agricultural College; Sarah was with the Preston Planning department in the morning and with Conlon builders in the afternoon; Leah spent the day with the Youth Offenders Team; Dyani met with the Chorley Building Society and the HSBC Bank ; while Rod visited the Barton Grange Garden Centre and also met with Councillor Hudson and his deputy.

Tomorrow (day 3) we are off to Liverpool for the day and then that evening we will complete our first presentation to the Preston Guild club.

GSE team is off!

The team headed off Easter Monday at 9:30pm from the Tullamarine Airport with a number of GSE dignitaries seeing us off. Our sincere thanks to Mani, Sherwani, Peter, Alan, our clubs and families for giving us such a warm send off.

Our flights over were all good - with the only incident being that Rod "lost" his glasses before we set off from Melbourne!! Alas he did find them in his bag when we arrived at Dubai - not before he wore Leah's pair of glasses so he could read on the plane.. yes, he did look pretty..

After a 14hour flight we arrived at the Dubai airport looking a bit weary... and then lined up again to travel to Manchester (7.5hr flight)

Upon arriving at Manchester, we were warmly greeted by Richard Bird, John Ward and Geoff Oldham who kindly drove us to the Barton Grange Hotel, where we were to stay for the night.

GSE Alumni dinner - 13th March 2010

On Saturday night our team attended a GSE Alumni dinner in Yarrawonga. At the dinner we were able to meet with past GSE team members, Rotarians, GSE chair and the incoming / outgoing GSE teams (USA and UK).

We all had a great time with lots of laughs and fantastic conversations.

For our team, it was also a great opportunity to meet and get to know the UK team. It was great to be able to discuss their experiences in GSE / Rotary here in Australia (district 9790) and find our more information about the district 1190!

Presentation at Benalla Rotary Club

Our team was invited by the Benalla Rotary Club to attend their meeting on the 21st January, to share our presentation that we will be using when we visit District 1190 in April.

This was the first run through our presentation to a live audience (not to the computer screen or the blank wall at home!)

We received fantastic feedback and tips on parts that we could add in and advise on areas that we could improve on.

The night was also a great opportunity to wear our new uniforms!