Say Cheese!!!Team OZ hits Chatham This Week....

A story on Team Oz's upcoming trek was published in Chatham This Week. You can read the article here!

Click here to read article

One step closer...but watch your step!

Hello to everyone who is keeping tabs on our blog - we are so excited you've stopped by! Yesterday our team had another great meeting, this time in Chatham, Ontario. We discussed many things, but the highlight was being able to talk to two gentlemen (Ken Boorman and Maarten Graham) who used to live in Australia - Ken in Brisbane, and Maarty in the Sydney area. The team had a lot of questions, and Ken and Maarty provided us with a wealth of useful information. We loved hearing of the different words the Aussies use, and were startled for a moment when Ken suggested that the ladies on the team would probably like to bring a pair of thongs along on the trip...after startled looks and laughter, it was made clear that thongs in Australia are what we here would call sandals! :-) We also had a great lesson on the wildlife in Australia...Katy especially asked many questions on our behalf about the poisonous snakes...we were told to watch our step and we would be fine. I personally would be more than happy to not see a legless reptile of the poisonous variety - or maybe just be able to take a picture of one from a great distance with a telephoto lens! Speaking of pictures, we had a few pictures taken by local media, so if you are in the Chatham-area, check out the papers in the next day or so, and you'll see our smiling faces!

With every passing day, our team takes one step closer to embarking on our journey. I am so excited to meet our hosts and experience Australian culture in a way that most are not privileged to be able to do! Until later!

Our Planning Weekend in Michigan

This past weekend, the entire GSE team met in Troy, Michigan at the Homewood Suites by Hilton. (just a little plug for a great hotel and deal that Melissa offered us, being connected with Rotary) Friday night was spent enjoying a dinner together in a local restaurant. A patron actually approached Barry at the table and shook his hand exclaiming something along the lines of "Congratulations! I'm not sure how you did it...but they are all beautiful women!" We then headed out to the mall looking for the dreaded uniform. While we shopped Barry decided to chat with some mall patrons and observe Dance Dance Revolution. Apparently he had some practice at it over the holidays. So how did we make out with the uniforms? Well, after much stress we decided that we had so many comments at the Gala from people wondering whether we were actually wearing our uniforms that we decided to stick with what we had in the area of black suits for the Rotary meetings and presentations. Over a few glasses of wine and braiding licorice back at the hotel...we were able to surf around on the internet and find some informal golf shirts to be embroidered.Saturday morning we were up bright and early. We were lead through a couple of personality inventories and team building exercises. Thank you Jeanette. We can all agree that is was a great morning getting to know each other a little more, how we tick as well as how we would fair if our plane crashed in Northern Quebec...don't worry, we survived. We all wished Katy farewell as she left on her cruise. Thanks to Mindy, a local Rotarian who was able to pick her up at the hotel and head to the airport in the snow!!! During our working lunch we went through our agenda items which still included our uniforms, flight information and planning, marketing collateral and our presentation. We also planned for future meetings as well as our Send Off Party! It was a great weekend and there is truly a great team headed for "OZ"!