Aunt Sally

To call 'Aunt Sally' a local game is an understatement, as one guest was heard to say, "I live 20 miles from here and have never heard of the game!" With the mystery deepening, and after a tour of the local brewery, the intrepid GSE team from District 9320 was inducted into the club of the knowing as we enjoyed a few rounds of Aunt Sally.

In South African terms, Aunt Sally is like Jukskei on a tarmac (but the kitty sits on top of a pole - which makes things pretty interesting!)

Needless to say, after a few goes, the District 9320 team was crowned king of Aunt Sally - was it my imagination or were the Witney Rotarians not so keen on the proposed rematch after supper?!? hee, hee... Of course they reminded us that it was just an ellaborate April Fools prank!

What a good evening!

Good Friday!!

Its been a busy week at Witney and it has been great all the Rotarians have recieved us with much enthusiasim and excitment. After our Rotary GSE Rally on Monday evening we got down to some serious business. I visited BMW Mini Plant in Oxford for my vocational day on Tuesday, and it was spectacular to see those shiny Mini's rolling off the line. Its unbelievable that BMW Mini produces 230 000 units per year. The Oxford plant manufactures the Clubman, Cabriolet and the 3DR!! The Austria plant is set to produce the Crossover Mini, looking forward to seeing that on our SA roads.

Wednesday the team set off to Oxford for the day!! We toured the Christchurch Cathedral, had lunch at a lovely Itailian resturant and did a major walking tour of Oxford and its various colleges. After freezing and getting rained on (which is part of the GSE experiance) my host Chris took Moipone and I out or maybe i should say took us inside a coffee shop for a warm hot chocolate. One of the criteria of being on GSE is that you should have a huge appetite, so off we went for dinner to a Malaysian resturant that served delicious food and large servings of everything including wine. After dinner we dashed off to the Sheldonian Theatre to watch the Messiah and the performance was outstanding, it left me with a warm fuzzy feeling!!!

On Thursday we embarked on a minibus tour of the Cotswolds. We were lucky that it was not a walking tour as it was raining constantly throughout the day. The team was happy to have an English style pub lunch around a crackling fire!! Upon returning to Witney we went on a brewery tour at the Wychwood Brewery. I'm not much of a beer drinker so that beer tasting at the end proved to be a challenge!! Dinner was served at the Witney Snooker Club, where we were introduced to a game called Aunt Sally, I'm not going to try and explain it all I can say is that the GSE team won thanks to our Aunt Sally SA Champion Andrew Evans and rookie Geoff Antrobus!!!!

The past few days have been great!!!
Cheerio
Poppy
P.S. The GSE Team was also in the local newspaper (I'm a celebrity :-))

GSE Rally

Monday night in Witney saw us gathered for a combined meeting of Rotary Clubs (hosted by the Witney Rotary Club). The evening was a rather festive one and our presentation was well received. The Mayor of Witney joined us too - which was great.

The attached picture is of our team with the Witney Rotary Club President, Keith Crawford (left) and Ken Mumford who led a GSE Team to India some 23 years ago.

Gardens

Spring is finally arriving in England and I have had the fortune of visiting some gardens in the last few days.

On Thursday, as part of a vocational visit, I went to an organisation called Thrive (bottom picture) which specialises in using gardening as therapy. I'd never heard of a 'Gardening Therapist' until Thursday, but it's clear that the work is very popular and very successful.

Then on our weekend off in London, I went with Geoff to visit the Kew Botanical gardens. It was a fantastic day out (and we only managed to see about 1/5 of the place!) There were even two areas specifically deoted to South African plants - we felt like we were home for a moment.

We are now in Whitney and are looking forward to a productive week.

Honda - It's BIG!

Went to the Honda plant today, It's BIG!! Had an amazing tour of the plant and then a great lunch with our tour guide Sam. It amazed me how free they were with information and so we got some good insight into their business and people philosophy - impressive! I was particularly amazed at their focus on quality and the fact that it takes 1500 people to assemble an engine.

Enjoyed another excellent Rotary meeting with the Reading Matins club in the evening (more chicken to eat!)

The district 1090 conference 2010

Saturday started at 9:30, a number of presentations were delivered, mostly centered around the work inn Africa and Haiti. Rotarians are doing an incredible job, helping out where help is needed the most, hence the theme of the conference 'hands on rotary'.

The foudation session, which the team feared the most, gave our 12 minutes presentation and a song. Simphiwe did his thing, singing and dancing, most ladies liked him & he enjoyed it.

A light normal lunch at the hotel, toasted sandwishes and a glass of wine/beer.

Then the foundation rally a general knowledge quizz. GSE vs the ambassadorial scholars, the GSE team did us proud, they won.

The DG pre-dinner drinks at the grand hotel then the DG's banquet and ball. Wooow all the ladies dressed up and the man looking good. Poor us we were stuck with our khaki pants and blazers. Lots of ballons flying over, not suprising the average age is 80 years or so. We enjoyed a lovely performance, oooops!!! I forgot the name of the group.

We then snigged out with Poopy to sleep.

Honda manufacturing of the UK

Full details coming soon