Where to From Here

So back to my everyday life of leading a Decile 1 primary school - Merivale.

It's been a hectic month and it doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon! I have been struggling with recovering from the flu. I don't recall ever being so sick. It really kept me quiet for a long time. When I was feeling better to the point I could start concentrating on future directions my focus has gone to my sick family.

This week, however, I was able to travel with the Tauranga Moana ICTPD Cluster to Auckland to view several schools. What an amazing and inspirational experience. In schools we operate in silos so it's always great to view external practice with the opportunity to compare to your own context. What came through from all schools and sites we visited was they had developed a philosophy of curriculum delivery that was uniquely theirs. At Merivale we are currently reviewing our action plan to improve pedagogical delivery. The reflections of our visit will be used in this review.

We have spent a large amount of time reviewing our philosophy - the 'why' that makes us determined to make a positive difference for our children. Now our focus is on the 'what'. It's certainly exciting times - getting 'it' right will see our children engaged in their learning and achieving outstanding results. The end result will see a curriculum which is uniquely ours!

Back Home

It's great to be back home again :-)
On Saturday we left Kamien Pomorski at 5am which enabled us to spend the entire day in Berlin having another look around this beautiful city.
The Simpsons and the Tildesleys spent the day on the scenic city bus trip which tours around some of the most historic spots in Berlin. Zak, Ellie and I spent the day negotiating our way around the Berlin subway revisiting places we had seen on the bus tour on our first visit to Berlin two weeks earlier. The trouble for all of us was that the day was 44 degrees making it extremely hot!!
Despite the heat we had lots of fun getting to know the colourful history of Berlin.
The next day we travelled as a team back to the airport to begin our 37 hour journey back home. Our experience of getting the sail tube on the plane in Berlin was a bit more successful than our earlier woes in Hong Kong. This time Lufthanser seemed to have no worries taking the tube even though in Hong Kong I was assured that they didn't carry such items unless we paid for it. I think I might just have to go for a claim back for the money we paid in Hong Kong!
We came back through Tokyo where we had a wonderful day with Ken and Joe's Mum Masae as our tour guide. I think we had a snapshot of the city that most aren't privileged to due to the fact we had the expertise of Masae :-)
Sleep was welcomed on our last flight back home where we were very happy to see our families waiting for us at the airport.
The trip was an exceptionally wonderful experience for both the sailors and the adults. Joining with the two Australian sailors was a wonderful opportunity to strengthen our team and enabled us the opportunity to forge new friendships.
I know the sailors have all come back with new goals for their sailing for 2010 and 2011. For me I have had new insights into what it means to be a sailing mum :-)

Closing Ceremony

I'm sitting at the closing ceremony for the European Championships. Today was a long drawn out day with no wind and no sailing. It was such a shame because we only sailed 3 out 6 days totalling 7 out of 12 races.
On the positive side,however, the experience has been awesome and I am sure that all the sailors will set themselves new goals with their sailing. It is amazing to all the other countries here that New Zealand sends their fourth ranked team to the second ranked regatta in the world. What is also amazing is that our sailors perform so well. Getting top 20 results in the races is wonderful and shows our sailors can match with some of the best in the world.
Now we are off to Berlin tomorrow at 5am so we can have the day there to do more looking around. Farewell to Poland - the people here have been lovely and given us an experience we will never forget :-)

Waiting For Wind

Our last day of sailing was two days ago due to a complete lack of wind. Yesterday was a frustrating day of sitting around waiting for the wind to come in. The day before our girls had their best day of the regatta with Carolina getting a 10 and Ellie coming 16th. These results are fantastic as the competition here is extremely tough.
Zak said he had some of his best ever sailing when he made up 30 places in the second upwind leg of the last race - the smile was definitely pretty wide on his face. All of the sailors in our team keep commenting on how much they have learnt from the experience of coming here which is really exciting for us to hear.
Now we are heading down for the last day of the regatta and really hoping for some wind :-)

A Windy Day

Overall our sailors had an improved day today due to improved wind conditions. The European winds we expected reached 18knots today with gusts over 20. Tom from Australia got a 5th and a 1st causing great excitement in our camp. I'm putting it down to the fact I lent him some longs when we got to the venue as he was seriously underdressed for the colder conditions :-) Our best results of the day were Jack with a 12th, Zak with a 13th and Ken with a 17th - very exciting finishes at this level of competition. Watching the live GPS tracking makes the racing very exciting on shore although today the Internet was down for quite some time and we were left to play guessing games.
Our two girls found the conditions a bit tough today although they both had some achievements to be proud of. Carolina made improvements throughout the day while Ellie rounded the top mark in the last race in the top 10 before getting her life jacket hooked in her boom and capsizing.
On the shore the town has organised a festival around the event. On the big stage there is a concert every night and we are fortunate to hear the soundchecks during the day. The wonderful orchestra's concert was stunning. A fair for the younger children is running beside the race office with a very loud and annoying clown singing his way through the afternoon. Hopefully he's not there tomorrow :-)

We have wind :-)

Day 3 which is really day 2 and yes we have the best wind since we have been here :-)
It's probably been about 15 knotts and building. All our children launched which was a bit of a mission. Now we wait until the start.

Day 2

Today was lots of waiting around in the heat. The sailors launched right on time with the ramps once again proving to be a bit of a mission. We were all in the press room at 12 waiting to see the start but there were huge long delays. There appeared to be more wind than yesterday but it must have been too difficult to set a course because at 3 all the sailors came to shore. We waited until 5 when racing was postponed for the day. We are now back at the hotel hoping for more wind tomorrow!

First Day of Racing

The winds came in at 3 and were initially strong but soon died to just a few knots. However the race committee got all races away with the children coming off the water after 7pm!! I've never been in a regatta where the children have been on the water for sooo long. As Susannah says today was a day for the midgets with all the frontrunners being tiny as. Our kids are not little and were very much the backrunners today. However they have remained upbeat and know tomorrow is another day. This is a 6 day regatta and the kids know that wind will make a big difference to them. They all really loved the starts as they are way more agressive than the starts in New Zealand. They are certainly on a steep learning curve which is great. Launching and bringing the boats in is proving to be a real mission with it taking place off a floating pontoon. The problem is when everyone decides to go onto the pontoon at the same time it completely sinks. Today I managed an altercation with one of the officials from the French team who decided it was okay to try and push past me not caring if I could fall in the water. Try having an argument with someone when you both speak different languages - it must have looked very funny to others watching it.
We have managed to get our children to bed at a reasonable hour and will now be willing the wind to arrive for tomorrow.

First Day of Racing

Well here we are sitting under the tree at our team area waiting for the wind to come in! We have had wind everyday except today and it's very very hot!! The sailors got sent out on the water this morning and then the coaches were called back in due to a muck up in the ribbons -girls had been put in the boys fleet! So all the New Zealanders have had to change their flights. Next the AP flag was raised and all kids were towed to shore. And now?? Well the wind has just come in - instantly it's hit! So activity has hit and it looks like we are going to get racing today after all :-)

Opening Ceremony

We have just arrived back at the hotel from the opening ceremony. What a big and impressive ceremony it was! Obviously hosting this event is huge for Kamien Pomorski as it seemed the whole of the town turned out.
The evening started with the parade of nations. Funnily enough New Zealand came right at the end after Uruguay and before the host nation, Poland. Every other country got ordered in English alphabetical order. We think they may have disregarded the New in our name and ordered us by Zealand. They certainly didn't like it when we tried to reorganise it :-)We paraded past most of the township who were going wild as we approached (we do believe however that it may have been because Poland were right behind us).Zak was our flag bearer and Carolina was Australia's flagbearer.They had to carry the flags up to the front area of the stage. There were speeches, dancers and Vikings - really it was a great evening.A lot of work was put into making the children feel special. We missed the fireworks as they were not starting until 11pm (it is only dark here about then) and we needed to get our children back to bed.
Tomorrow is Day 1 of the regatta. The first race is at 12 which is about the time the wind comes in every day. Boys and girls race separately. Each fleet is split into four flights. We know our two girls are in the same flight but the boys have not been posted yet. Zak told me he was hoping to get into the green flight as this is the beginner flight back home and he doesn't have the opportunity to race in this flight at home.

Practice Race

The practice race of the regatta was held this afternoon. I'm not sure why it's called a race because there is nothing about it that resembles a race at all! The kids have lots of fun on the water in a semi race course. Jack, one of our team members, managed to start in two different flights and at one stage members of our Australasian team were sailing backwards on the reach! The purpose of the race is for the officials to ensure everything is in place before racing proper starts tomorrow.
We are waiting now to return to the racing venue for the opening ceremony. They have built an amazing stage and have been sound checking all day. It looks like it will be amazing. Zak is the New Zealand flag bearer and Caralina is the Australian flag bearer.

Viking Village

Last night we travelled about 30 minutes to view a working Viking village from the 10th century. It was really amazing. A large number of people actually live there in the summer months just as the Vikings did all those years ago. It certainly gave us all a new appreciation of the Vikings. I think for many of us our only knowledge was of Astrix :-) The children were able to put on the armour and fight with the weapons and yes they were real - OSH would have such a field day in this country!! Today is the practice race for the regatta at 2pm and the opening ceremony at 8pm. The children are starting to get excited about racing so more from the venue later on. More importantly today is Zak's birthday so he's very very excited today :-)

At the venue

Yay we now have Internet access at the venue. So here I am at the venue sitting under a tree accessing the Internet. How cool is that :-) we have just registered the team - a two minute process!! We all think Susannah, our coach, was telling fibs about how hard it was in previous years :-) The kids are out on the water training in exceptionally light winds today. Susannah has decided we will only have a small session today so as not to get the kids too tired! Later on we are going to do some sight seeing and then we are off on a trip to the Viking Village. Yesterday the Mums visited a stone museum! Yes exactly as it sounds a museum about stones :-) It is housed in a tower built in 1100. It certainly wouldn't pass our OSH standards! Very exciting news overnight when Susannah got selected for a sailing team which keeps her on track for Olympic 2012 selections. Yay - it was very exciting. There seems to be a webcam over looking the venue for the opening ceremony which is an amazing outside venue the township has created. I will see if I can get the URL to let you know where it is.
The whole town here has got behind this regatta and are doing everything possible to make this a fantastic event. The practice race is tomorrow before the opening ceremony - Zak's birthday. The best thing I wouldn't be without on this trip is my currency convertor. It's invaluable!!

We have joined up with the two sailors from the Australian team to form an Australasian team of six. Yesterday the children got their charter boats for the first time. They all really liked their boats as they are brand new Blue Magic boats. Zak got to rig his brand new North sail for the first time and Ken purchased a brand new J Sail from the venue. The children had their first session on the water of four hours getting used to the local conditions. I think a few eyes were opened with the difference between NZ and Polish sailing. The children joined in with the large Polish team of 14 children for races in the afternoon and found themselves quite competitve. Measuring was an easy affair taking less than 15 minutes - quite a contrast to the whole day it took last year's team!

First Day of Training

We are staying in a health resort about 6km from the sailing venue. Most of the other teams are staying here too so it's a bit like a mini United Nations with lots of different languages around all the time. This place is supposed to be a resort area where many Polish people come to spend their summer holidays. It kind of reminds me of a 1950s holiday camp with organised activities for the guests. There's also a big presence of imposing security guards roaming throughout the place. Yesterday we shared a shuttle from Berlin to Poland with the team from Israel. They travel with their coach and their two huge security guards from the army. They are not allowed to wear their team uniform any where other than the venue as at no time can they be identified as being from Israel. It was a real eye opener for our team.
The bus doesn't leave to take us to the sailing club until 10 however our sailors were lucky to get on a hotel shuttle and leave earlier. The rest of us are now waiting for the shuttle to arrive.

Poland at last!

We have made our way to Poland at last! On Saturday we left NZ 3 members of our team short. The 3 of us left flew through to Hong Kong with Air New Zealand on a Boeing 777-200. I was told it would be a great flight as it was anawesome plane. Don't believe it!!! It was probably one of the worst planes I have ever been on. Even the two children were complaining of no leg room! We didn't get very much sleep at all and arrived in Hong Kong very tired. We had to uplift our bags and put them into storage which cost us $110 NZ. We then took the train into Hong Kong station. Wow Hong Kong had our eyes out on stalks - especially the children. It was hot, humid and raining. The two kids loved it. We took a bus trip around the city which had a running commentry. Our energy levels during the day flagged constantly so we had many stops to drink and eat to up energy levels. We decided to head back to the airport early due to our tiredness. It was there we had fun and games with the sail tube we were carrying. Lufthanser refused to carry it and I refused to leave Hong Kong without it. The compromise cost me $280NZ! We then flew through to Munich where we had issues with me reading the airport board wrong but more about that later! Onto Berlin - what an awesome city. If you haven't been here since the wall came down then you wouldn't recognize the place. The old East is where it's all happening and many places that once couldn't have been visited can be now. Zak and Ellie bought pieces of the Berlin Wall and had McDonalds at Checkpoint Charlie!!! I had my photo taken at the Brandenburg Gates - something I never thought would have happened when I was Zak's age.
Today we caught the shuttle through to Poland and have been so impressed with the generosity of the Polish people. We are also very impressed with how cheap everything is. I bought lunch for three people which cost me a total of $5 NZ. Tomorrow we get our boats and the kids get on the water for the first time - something they are looking forward to :-)

Oh No!!

Waiting now in Auckland Airport with Ellie and Zak but Ken has been unable to leave Wellington due to awful weather conditions. So here I am solo in charge :-) Two very lovely children to look after - how wonderful :-) Hopefully Ken and family can join us within a couple of days - fingers crossed.

Just a few hours left before Zak and I leave for Auckland to meet up with the rest of the team. Still so much to do - grrrr!! My oldest son, Liam, has been an awesome help. It certainly is a different pack to normal when I have to make all the sailing gear fit into the bags as well!
Lots of people have asked me over the past few weeks what we do with our boats and how we get those over there. The answer is we don't. We charter boats over there. We get to pick our boats up on the day we arrive and set them up. We take our sails over with us and anything else we want to have on the boat. Hopefully Zak knows how he wants his boat set us as this is an area I know nothing about!

Nearly Time To Go

It's all excitement in the last two days before my youngest son, Zak and I head to Poland. At Easter Zak qualified for the New Zealand optimist team to compete at the European Championships in Poland. At the time it seemed quite a way out into the future - but how fast time goes!! Zak has been counting down the days from about 35 days to go. Even then it didn't really register but now with two it's fast becoming a reality - eek! The next two days is going to be exceptionally busy with heaps left to do.

There are four members in the team, Zak, Jack, Ken and Ellie. The team has been practicing every weekend in Auckland since the beginning of May. It has been really impressive to watch how much effort these young people have put into their preparation. For me it's been hard work as I have had to drive two and a half hours each way on a Saturday for Zak to attend these sessions. I'm really starting to feel the effects of it having succumbed to a heavy cold in the last week. However it has been rewarding to watch just how much his sailing has improved and the effort has been well worth it.

On our trip over we go via Hong Kong, where we spend 17 hours before we fly to Munich and then onto Berlin. We are spending the night in Berlin before driving to Kamien Pomorski in Poland where the European champs are being held. The official website for the champs is http://www.europti2010.pl This will be the site to get official results. The team however has made their own Facebook page to update friends and family. On Facebook search for Euro opti New Zealand Team.