Royal Colombo Golf Club - 28 January

Members of the Colombo Uptown RC treated the team to cocktails and dinner at the Royal Colombo Golf Club. This club is very much like the Newark RC when it comes to socializing! Hans and Lynsey became fast friends sharing (lots of) Lion beer. Good thing last order comes at 10:45! We enjoyed Hopper night at the Club and again I filled mine with spicy Sri Lankan food.
Tomorrow we shift to the Colombo Reconnections RC. Many, many thanks to the Colombo Uptown RC for their wonderful hospitality and fellowship!

Vocational Visit to Fentons - 28 January

This afternoon I had an interesting and informative meeting with Mr. C.W. Abhayaratne, Managing Director of Fentons. Fentons and Tri-M are practically mirror images of each other ... full service electrical contractors ... electrical, security, telecom, fire alarm ... for commercial and industrial clients. Like Tri-M, Fentons works on both design-build and plan-and-spec projects. We also share similar woes - the slumping economy, cancelled projects, frustrations with getting paid, customers shopping our numbers, and the like. There is quite a bit more emphasis on renewable energy here, especially with regard to small system hydro power.
Mr. Abhayaratne gave me a full tour of the facility and pointed out to me the onsite apartment in which he lived for many years ... I'll think twice before complaining again about taking my work home with me!
The photo above is of the electrical division. At Fentons one person is responsible for a project from start to finish - estimating, managing, purchasing, as-built drawings, and everything else. Interesting to know they do all of their estimating by hand.
www.fentons.com
A separate point of interest - each of Mr. Abhayaratne's three sons attended Washington College in Chestertown, MD - small world isn't it?

Visit with the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka - 28 January

This morning our team, the Sri Lankan team, DG Nalin and GSE Coordinator Ari visited the US Embassy in Colombo and met US Ambassador Robert Blake. A frequent speaker at Rotary Clubs, Mr. Blake was interested to hear about our GSE program. He is from Bethesda, MD so he is quite familiar with our district. Mr. Blake then gave a brief overview of the function of the Embassy and also spoke to the Embassy's role in assisting with a political solution to Sri Lanka's civil conflict.
(I'm slightly out of order here ... the visit to the US Embassy was before lunch at GOH.)

Lunch at the Grand Oriental Hotel ... on York Street - 28 January

Our lunch today was a buffet of Sri Lankan food taken with our partner GSE Team at the Grand Oriental Hotel. The GOH is located on 2 York Street in Colombo. For those of you who don't know, I was born and raised in York County, PA - thus my interest in this street sign. The restaurant provided a nice view of the Sri Lankan Ports Authority. No photos were taken because phoyography of the facility was not permitted.

Meet the District 3220 GSE Team

Columbo Uptown Rtn. PP Clarence Siemon is the GSE Team Leader for the GSE Team traveling from Sri Lanka District 3220 to District 7630 Delaware & Maryland's Eastern Shore. He invited his team members to attend Tuesday night and they all made the meeting. Pictured above are Ajantha (AJ), Ima, Ashani (Ash), Chamara, and Clarence. A fine group of young professionals, they will be a great team to host! The two different teams enjoyed the opportunity to get to know one another, hopefully we will see them some more during our stay in Sri Lanka.

Columbo Uptown RC - 27 January

Two Past Presidents 2005-06
Jen Reider (Newark, DE, USA) & Manoji Samararatne (Colombo Uptown, Sri Lanka)

Our first group presentation was to the Colombo Uptown Rotary Club. The meeting was held at the TransAsia Hotel in Colombo. The Uptown Club is a dinner club and the home club of each of our hosts. They normally meet on Monday evenings but made the change this week to Tuesday so that they could host our group. District Governor Nalin and GSE Chair Ari also attended the meeting. Our presentation was well received by the audience. Governor Nalin gave a short talk as well and complimented our team on being an adventurous group as proposed exchanges initially with Denmark who could not gather a team and secondly with Sweden who could not find a team leader both fell through.
Some club business followed our presentation and then the meeting adjourned for fellowship and a buffet style meal. I had my first Egg Hopper for dinner - a hopper is kind of a thin, crispy pancake but not sweet like our pancakes. I filled it with a spicy vegetable mixture and a hot chili sauce. It was very tasty and folks were impressed that I could eat it - and live to talk about it!
During the fellowship I met PP Manoji Samararatne who presided over the Uptown Club the same year I was the Newark RC president. Manoji is a Marketing Lead for Microsoft and we enjoyed a few minutes of conversation about the challenges of being club president as well as the challenges facing new US President Obama.

Ceylon Motor and Yacht Club - 27 January

Our hosts very nicely arranged a rest day for us before starting us on our official duties. Rotarians from the Colombo Uptown Rotary Club treated us to a quiet afternoon at the Ceylon Motor and Yacht Club, where my host Hans is an honorary lifetime member. The photo to the right is a view from the club's porch overlooking Bolgoda Lake. We enjoyed a fine lunch of Chicken Lumprise - a mildly spicy dish of rice, chicken, egg, brinjoles (similar to eggplant), a fishball, and katta sambol (the spicy stuff). Then Hans took Lynsey, Tim and I on a quick motor boat ride around the lake. We could have stayed all day, but we had to return home to make ready for our first team presentation at the Colombo Uptown RC.

A Warm Welcom from Our Hosts - 26 January

Don't we look a sight?!? But our hosts did not care - they welcomed us with fresh flowers, hand shakes and hugs!

The trip from London to Bangalore and then on to Colombo was uneventful. Well, it was uneventful for us but not for Tim's luggage. We're not sure what part of the world his bags saw but they didn't catch up to us for over 28 hours! Tim took it all in stride and really maintained a positive attitude.

Rtn Clarence Siemon and his wife Suranganie had a nice spread of snacks, coffee and tea for us. We enjoyed egg salad sandwiches and fishmeatballs while we got to know our host families. Chris and Lynsey left with their hosts while Ken and I went shopping with Tim and Clarence to find some replacement clothes for Tim. Clarence then delivered me to my host family. Hans and Beverley Svendsen opened their home to me like I was part of the family. Then a hot shower, more snacks, more chatting, a cold 'n tasty Sri Lankan Lion beer, and finally a nice bed and I was out until morning.

London In 15 Hours

Buildings Along a London Street

We arrived at Heathrow about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. After a quick dash ... as quick as you can dash in an airport as monstrous as Heathrow (18 minute bus ride from terminal 5 to terminal 4) ... to the Kingfisher desk to check in for our evening flight, four of us set out to explore London for a few hours. We were in the Tube by 9am and at Picadilly Circus before 10am. We made a brief stop for caffeine and then we were off: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament, Westminster Abbey, a long walk along the Thames to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London with a stop on the London Bridge. Then back in the Tube to return to Heathrow. Quite an impressive amount of touring for a short amount of time and except for the Tube rides to and from the airport we did everything on foot. We didn't really have a choice - the two primary Tube lines in the tourist areas were closed for the day for maintenance - apparently not uncommon for a Sunday in London. Our tour of London turned out to be a really great added bonus to our GSE trip.

Bon Voyage

The Team Meets at PHL - Chris, Lynsey, Tim, Ken & Jen

The team met at Philly International at 4:45pm on Saturday, Feb 24. We were all excited to travel and even more excited when we learned Chris reserved exit row seats for each of us. Flying with leg room on budget travel ... who would have thought.

Five Days Till Liftoff Part 2 ...

Max is ready to go too ... but he's not as relaxed as Fred about the adventure.

Five Days Till Liftoff ...

That's Fred on Mom's lap ... asleep before leaving the driveway!

Last Thursday the team met for the final review of our presentation. DG Cam stopped by and spent some time chit-chatting with the team. He was also patient with us while we worked through some kinks in our presentation. It was nice having another set of eyes, especially since he hadn't heard nor seen it before. He offered some valuable feedback. Over the weekend I merged all pieces together and it seems to have developed a nice flow while still maintaining the unique individuality of each team member.

We also discussed our layover in London and packing strategies. All of us purport to the philosophy of packing light ... but will we translate it into reality??? I'm not holding my breath.

On Sunday Mom and Dad drove down to pick up the boys ... Max and Fred to those of you who don't know them. I miss them terribly. Only a few hours went by before I was calling to check on them. They, however, seem very excited at the prospect of staying with Grandmother Joan and Grandfather Dean. They know the cooking will be LOTS better. It's now been more than 24 hours - I suppose I'll survive.

Check-Out These Links

Team Member Chris' GSE blog
Rotary District 3220 Website
Rotary District 3220 DG Nalin's Blogsite

Good info and interesting reading. Note on DG Nalin's blogsite that so far over 500 Rotarians have registered for their district conference ... IMPRESSIVE!

Flight Plans

See you in a month ...
24 JAN 09 - SATURDAY
AIR BRITISH AIRWAYS FLT:66 ECONOMY MEALS
LV PHILADELPHIA 655P EQP: BOEING 777
DEPART: TERMINAL A 06HR 55MIN

25 JAN 09 - SUNDAY
AR LONDON HEATHROW 650A NON-STOP
ARRIVE: TERMINAL 5
AIR KINGFISHER AIRLINES FLT:2 ECONOMY MULTI MEALS
LV LONDON HEATHROW 1005P EQP: AIRBUS A330
DEPART: TERMINAL 4 10HR 00MIN

26 JAN 09 - MONDAY
AR BANGALORE 135P NON-STOP
AIR KINGFISHER AIRLINES FLT:63 ECONOMY SNACK
LV BANGALORE 300P EQP: AIRBUS A320
01HR 20MIN
AR COLOMBO 420P NON-STOP

Trip is over ... time to come home
23 FEB 09 - MONDAY
AIR KINGFISHER AIRLINES FLT:64 ECONOMY BREAKFAST
LV COLOMBO 915A EQP: AIRBUS A320
01HR 15MIN
AR BANGALORE 1030A NON-STOP

AIR KINGFISHER AIRLINES FLT:1 ECONOMY MULTI MEALS
LV BANGALORE 1255P EQP: AIRBUS A330
10HR 50MIN
AR LONDON HEATHROW 615P NON-STOP
ARRIVE: TERMINAL 4
OTHER LONDON HEATHROW

* FORCED OVERNIGHT *
OTHER LONDON HEATHROW

24 FEB 09 - TUESDAY
AIR BRITISH AIRWAYS FLT:67 ECONOMY MEALS
LV LONDON HEATHROW 1115A EQP: BOEING 777
DEPART: TERMINAL 5 08HR 00MIN
AR PHILADELPHIA 215P NON-STOP
ARRIVE: TERMINAL A

Wednesday, January 7, 2008 - Another Shot & Team Meeting

Another shot today for Japanese Encephalitis.

The team met this evening to work on our presentation, but we spent the first hour discussing the itinerary our hosts have prepared for us. Having the itinerary in hand now has each of us really excited about going. The map to the right pinpoints areas of Sri Lanka that we will be visiting.

Wondering about what each day will bring in Sri Lanka made it difficult to focus on our presentations, but we did eventually get around to dong some actual work. We now have a solid outline of topics that each person will present ... the trick will be keeping each person's segment from being too long ... four minutes each is not a lot of time. We'll meet one more time next week and then we'll be ready to go.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - Itinerary!

I received the proposed GSE program from our host district today. It arrived by email from DG Nalin. This is very exciting. Like team member Chris said - "it seems official now". I also learned today that our plane tickets are issued. That makes things "really official."

We will be staying - in this order - in the cities of Colombo, Ratnapura, Bandarawela, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Kurunegala, Wariyapola, and then back to Colombo. We're scheduled to meet the US Ambassador and visit the South Coast cities of Hikkaduwa and Galle. There is a day scheduled for us to share vocational knowledge with school children and we will participate in a Rotary Quiz Competition. We will visit gem museums and gem mines, a tea factory, the Temple of the Tooth Relic, an elephant orphanage, and more! They have even slated time for us to watch the Super Bowl! All this on top of nine club visits, multiple vocational visits, and the District Conference! WOW - what a schedule our hosts have prepared for us. Many, many thanks to our hosts for the significant time and energy they put into planning our visit.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - Immunization Day

One word describes today - OUCH! Five shots - Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, TDP, and Japanese Encephalitis. Also filled scripts for an antimalarial drug and an antibiotic for traveler's diarrhea - lovely.

Friday, December 19, 2008 - Field Trip to Salisbury, MD

Today the team took a field trip to Salisbury on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Since all of us live or work in New Castle County it seemed only appropriate to venture south and get a feel for life in this part of our Rotary district. We met with Don Hackett who is a Rotarian with the Wicomico County Rotary Club. Don began his Rotary experience as a GSE team member to South Africa in 1995. It was an added bonus of the day for the team members to hear about his experience as a team member. They got to ask a lot of questions about what they can expect during the trip. Don so enjoyed his GSE experience that he joined Rotary and now is District Governor Nominee for 2010-11.
After chatting with Don for a while we visited the Wicomico County Tourism Office and then the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art (pictured). Affiliated with Salisbury University, the Ward Museum houses an impressive collection of wildfowl art and carvings. It is named for brothers Lem and Steve Ward of Crisfield, MD - "wildlife counterfeiters in wood" - who elevated decoy carving to a fine art.

Sunday, December 14, 2008 - Experiencing Sri Lanka II

L to R: Jen, Kamal, Chris, Tara, Lynsey, Ken, Tim

Part II of our intercultural training involved meeting with Kamal and Tara deFonseka. Kamal and Tara are both native Sri Lankans. They live now in Wilmington and both work as consultants in their respective fields - Kamal in chemistry and Tara in financial investments. Kamal is a member of the Wilmington Rotary Club. We spent about an hour discussing the core values of Sri Lankans, verbal and non-verbal communication, typical topics of conversation, traditions & celebrations, and behavioral norms & etiquette. It was a very informative meeting and the team members felt a lot better about understanding Sri Lankans and their culture.

Sunday, December 14, 2008 - Experiencing Sri Lanka I

A One Day Intercultural Training

Today the team benefited from a very informative intercultural communication seminar lead by Camilla McGill. Ms. McGill is an intercultural consultant and is a member of the Caesar Rodney Rotary Club. We discussed the complexity of culture and our cultural values as Americans. We then discussed how our values may differ from those of our hosts in Sri Lanka and how we can effectively navigate a culture that is different from our own. The key is to adaptable and flexible ... easy to say but challenging to do when you are the minority and your support infrastructure is back home half a world away. (Pictured above are Camilla (right) and I).

Monday, December 01, 2008 - Newark Rotary Club

Today each of the team members attended the Newark Rotary Club regular weekly meeting. The Newark Rotary Club is the club I belong to and is also the sponsor club for Chris and Tim. I think each of the team member's enjoyed the meeting and the fellowsip they shared with the Rotarians at their table. Rotarian Jean Andress commented to me after the meeting what a nice looking GSE team our district has put together. I could not help ut agree.
After the meeting I gave out our uniform blazers and we briefly reviewed our presentations. Everyone is well on their way, but I think the challenging part will be combining them into a seemless presentation. I am confident it will all come together with time and practice.

Sunday, November 23, 2008 - Dinner at The Anderson's

L to R: DG Cam Yorkston, Kathy Yorkston, Tim, Ken, Jen, Lynsey, Chris, GSE Chair George Anderson

The team ventured to southern Delaware to meet our GSE Chair PDG George Anderson and his wife Peggy, and our District Governor Cam Yorkston and his wife Kathy. George and Peggy live in Bethel, Delaware and were our hosts for the day. It was a really nice day with regard to both the weather and the company. DG Cam gave the team a statistical and geographical overview of our District and a description of how Rotary is organized from the local club level up to Rotary International. It was interesting and will be good information for the team to know during our travels. Cam also described the circuitous route through which the District 7630 & District 3220 GSE partnership was formed ... one that I am certainly glad has occurred!

Saturday, November 15, 2008 - 2nd Team Meeting

Nothing too exciting to report about this meeting - it was all business. Uniforms, shirts, presentations, cultural training, Rotary training, gifts, pins, etc.

Sunday, November 02, 2008 - 1st Team Meeting

Team Members from L to R: Ken Carson, Chris Hughson, Lynsey Kocenko, Tim Dean

Not pictured is Team Leader Jen Reider (someone had to take the picture)

Today our team finally met for the first time and we started to get to know one another. We introduced ourselves and talked about our predeparture preparations.

• Ken Carson is the Executive Director of The Lorelton - an 82-bed assisted living facility in Wilmington, DE. Ken is sponsored by the Wilmington Rotary Club.
• Chris Hughson is the Manager of Financial Reporting and Analysis with Corporation Services Company in Wilmington, DE. Chris's sponsor club is the Rotary Club of Newark.
• Lynsey Kocenko is a Civil Engineer who works as a Project Manager for the Delaware Solid Waste Authority in Dover, DE. Lynsey is sponsored by the Newark Morning Rotary Club.
• Tim Dean is a Senior Probation Officer with the Serious Juvenile Offenders Unit in Wilmington, DE. Tim is also sponsored by the Rotary Club of Newark.
• Jen Reider is a member of the Rotary Club of Newark and is a Senior Estimator with The Tri-M Group, LLC - a full service commercial and industrial electrical contractor located in Kennett Square, PA.