out of the office

I'm not in the office this week so may have delays in replying to E-mails.
Any of the dates in January are fine - the sooner we decide the better though so holiday plans can be fitted in.
I reckon we have enough to sign off on a theme. Not stealing the show but to summarise on comments. It's looking like Aussie theme around the room, very casual, possibly wear something from your visited country but not a full national dress, with something representing visited countries on the tables (a flag) if we can get them.
Piece of cake - I'll start packing the esky.
Catch you all soon.

More on themes

I got a bit carried away and instead of publishing a new post, I submitted this as a comment. So here I go again.... (I'm still learning!)

I too like the Aust theme concept. This will keep the cost down as the materials will be easy to get. What if we have the invites, and decorations set to this but get the people to turn up in their uniforms (which I think might be a problem) or wearing something from the country they visited, ie, all the members of our team have "hey Jimmy hats"?

I think the 2 min talk might be a better option so that we don't end up with too many people speaking. Shall we also ask each team to maybe submit 10 photos from their trip and we then start putting them together for the background persentation (this way we don't end up with too many to work with).

Getting different flags might be expensive but they might be good table decoration. Shall we look into this once we know what the budget is?

Comments

OK I too agree with the KISS principle.... Always a goodie? !!!

To combine thoughts to date how about - Aussie theme with celebration fireworks and images of WA or something similar on invites etc? like a banner celebrating all things WA and the breadth of where GSE has been and come from?

Get the Rotary flags and stands to have around the walls (no cost) See if we can get table flags at no costs that represent the countries GSE has been to? say 2 flags a table? Probably at no cost.

Multi-media - I too like the idea of them sending in a few photos to represent their team and trip. I have a really good scanner and probably some staff that can help with that side of it. We can then put them together.

Micks Theme Ideas

Thought I'd better let you know what i look like. This was a hosts Harley in Myrtle beach that i had a pleasure of a short ride on.

Two approaches for me.

firstly I agree with the KISS theory. Keep it Australian theme on the tables and decorations and invitations. I also support the multi-media approach. We've had some get togthers and had photos rolling over in the background. (this may require some IT skills as the older teams will be on slides or may be hard copies that will require scanning) We'd also have to vet an amount per team as I know we had hundreds of photos.

Do we stick with just decorations or extend the theme to dress? If it's australian then we'd end of with a hundred swaggies i guess. OR dress from the countries visited.

Second choice would be if it's a sit down evening then I'd assume the teams would sit together, so each table could be made up in the colours of the country the team visited. This would take a lot more co-ordination though and probably cost more.

a question for me to close out on. Do we get a rep from each team to give a 2 minute presentation or simply pass the microphone around to each table for an informal hello this is who we are and where we went?

A Theme for Evening?????

The theme for the evening has to be something easy and relatively cheap to do??

It could be something that is built around featuring all the flags of the countries that GSE has been to. We could access the flags and stands from the Districts? and perhaps get table flags for each table?

Or it could be something built around Australia as the theme or Rotary. This was the background used on the slides for our presentation in the USA. USe of wattle and gum trees?

It could be just about colour blue and gold of the Rotary symbol - balloons and streamers?

We could have stars and helium balloons with little star confetti on the tables?

Reply with thoughts and what you think might work? Once we have a theme for the evening we can start working on the program

Hello From Joy

Hi everyone

By the looks of things, I am the odd one out - The Yanks out number the Scots 4 to 1! I promise to behave and be good (for a short time at least!).

I am looking forward to this new challenge and meeting all of you. The GSE experience was great. I have been back from Scotland for almost a month now. I have been slowly getting back to the swing of things - its hard getting back to reality after being spoilt rotten for 5 weeks. We had 6 in our team. Our members were from Bunbury, Harvey, Busselton, Albany and myself from Katanning. I stayed on for a week after the exchange in London and my wife flew over for that week. It was part of her birthday present.

A little bit about me - I'm a Chartered Accountant based in Katanning. I'm a member of the Apex Club and I enjoy socialising. Most of my time is spent with my 3 year old daughther who never stops talking. I am very happy today as I have nearly finished my GSE report.

Here is a pic of me at Loch Ness after scaring off the monster.

isn't technology amazing

Hey y'all,
the south carolinian accent is still with me even though we've been back since may 07.
it was good to hear the alumni got some legs. we got to share our travels with a team from wales and we all talked about the concept.
I still haven't been able to comit to formely joining Rotary yet but enjoy bumping into members on projects around the community.
I'm from Collie and the rest of the team were scattered fromKojonup, Kataning and Albany, so it will be interesting to catch up to see if we have some common friends.
I travel to Perth quite often for work so this may help getting together for meetings.

Haven't given the occasion any thought yet so will keep posted and I'm sure between all involved it will be an event that will create as many great memories as GSE itself.

that's it for now - i consider myself blogged. Will try for a photo next time.

g'day from mick

hey y'all,
just a short note to see if i can get the blog thing happening.
wish me luck and i'll be back later if it works

Hi From Suzanne

Just a quick intro from me. I have just recently returned from a GSE Exchange to Southern California (with Bec). It was an amazing experience, as I am sure you know first hand. I was lucky enough to travel for another 3 months after the GSE exchange - heading to Central America to learn Spanish and do some volunteer work.

I have been back in Perth 2 months, and am just starting to feel settled in. I have included a picture of me recently taken at a fancy dress party.. The theme was circus (in case you hadn't guessed).

Look forward to the planning the GSE dinner with you all over the next few months. Still working on ideas, but will add in another post soon.

Thoughts about the Program

To get the discussion going???

What do you think would be a good theme and how should it work??
- Should it be integrated into the program or stand alone?

How can the theme show in decorations, invites, the program etc?

Should be have speakers, multi-media presentations, find out who the oldest team leader it and who the newest?
Country representatives or decades???

All thoughts let me know what you think???

Introduce myself

Hi

I hope that you will each take the time to introduce yourself to each other and include your favourite picture of you on GSE.

I have been a Rotarian for about 6 years, grew up in Kojonup and was a Rotary Youth Exchange Student.

I was the team Leader for District 9450 to California this year and spent two weeks after the trip catching up with an old host mum, school friends and one of the GSE people from 4 years ago from Georgia (we actually met up in Paris!!)

I currently work for the City of Joondalup as Manager, Community Development and Libraries.

I now live in Perth and spend my time either on Rotary, rogaining (although not this year), entertaining and catching up with friends. I also like to play tennis, go to the gym and take my dog for a run at the park.

Introduction

Hi All

I am so excited that you have agreed to be involved with organising part of this fantastic event.

I hope this first entry will provide you with information and background as to what we are trying to achieve. With all of us located from Perth to Collie and Katanning it does make it a bit more difficult to get together and therefore hopefully this will replace the need for meetings over the next couple of months.

The purpose of the Alumni Dinner is to celebrate the Rotary Foundation Members and in particular GSE. The Alumni also includes Ambassadorial Scholars. Alumni Dinners used to be held annually and were organised by the returning GSE teams, although they haven't been held now for a number of years.

Background
District 9450 decided that 2008 should be the year to have another Alumni Dinner and a committee of Rotarians with representatives across all 3 districts has been convened to organise an Alumni Dinner most likely in March next year.

The event is required to be break-even and an overall budget is being drafted at the moment. Each District has been asked to provide some seed money to start the project off which will be managed by the Organising Committee.

A number of sub-committees have been formed including:
1) database and PR (updating all 3 district databases and creating the PR for the event)

2) venue and logistics program, (choosing the location and meals and organsing the multi-media equipment required)

3) invitations and decorations (us)

Our sub-committee is responsible for the theme, decorations, program for the night and also the invitations. It is made up of past GSE team members and at the moment there are 5 of us. I am hoping that we will have some reps from District 9470 join us as well.

I sit on the overarching committee and the other 4 members are as follows:
Suzanne Spitz - 9450 Team Member to California
Clare McMurtrie - 9450 Team Member to California
Joy Choudhury - 9460 Team Member to Scotland
Michael Hill - 9460 Team Member to South Carolina


Our sub-committee
Our role is come up with the program for the night which should include how we can acknowledge the long and colourful history of GSE during the evening and encourage people to attend and participate in the event.

Through this blog I hope over the next 2 months we will come up with all the ideas etc for the event and then to meet one weekend in late January to look at how we put these ideas actually in place.

Specifically we have to:

1. Identify a theme for the evening and associated decorations (on a very limited budget)
2. Design invitations that can be emailed and also posted
3. Liaise with the Database sub-committee
4. Come up with the program for the evening ie does it involve speakers, multi-media presentations, information etc

There is another meeting of the Organising Committee in early December and I need to take some information back to them about what we are thinking.

The crucial steps in the timeline are as follows:

• Database updates due end December
• First notices of event to be promoted early Jan.
• Invites to go out early February

The specific timeline will be emailed to you and hopefully posted to the blog for you to download when I work it out. So stay tuned.

Your commitment and involvement

As promised I am hoping that this means we won't need to have lots of meetings and it won't take up too much time.

From now until early Jan, it will be blogs and possibly emails, with a meeting in late Jan and then some work via email etc between then and March.

I look forward to working with you and your involvement in what will be a great event.

Rebecca