Approval

Now I have heard that Dominika has received approval from her national agency. Plus that she had been worried because she had heard that everyone had been approved except her! At least now we know who is coming and that everyone will receive the grant.

Dominika, Nikos and Georgia will be with us all week from the 13th to the 19th. Susanne and Nina will be here from the 13th to the 17th wheras Stella will arrive on the 16th and leave on the 19th.

Dominika has asked for suggestions for activities outside what is the agenda for the preparation of the application. I have suggested a few simple things such as a reception with the Director when they arrive, a tour of the school and also a couple of trips outside the school.

There has been a lot of confusion over exactly where we are and to which airport they have to fly. It seems that for them it is difficult to understand that they will arrive in Tortosa, the hotel is in Tortosa but the school is in Roquetes and that in fact one is very close to the other.

It has been agreed that everyone should stay in the same hotel to make things easier, the only problem is that Dominika can't find the prices on their web page, which is curious as I can. I am sure we will sort it out.

More official invitations

I have had to take the afternoon off classes today to run around and send more official invitations for the people who have to come to the week of meetings that will be from the 13th onwards. Stella Lantsia will be coming but only from the 16th, the Wednesday because she can't come sooner.

Nikos will be coming together with his colleague Georgia and it turns out that the Swedes will be three people Nina, Susanne but also Susanne's husband. Apparently he is coming with them to play golf!

Now it only remains for everybody to receive approval for the visits from their national agencies.

Another school drops out, but another joins

We have just heard from Dominika that now her friend in Malta, Tatjana, will have to drop out of the preparatory meeting and participating in the project altogether because now she has changed schools her new school doesn't want to start a project like this and she feels she is too new to do so on her own and in her old school they can't find anyone willing to take it over. This is a shame as, to be honest, I would have loved the chance to go to Malta!

It is swings and roundabouts however as in the same mail she has told me that we now have a new partner, Stella Lantsia from Cyprus. She is applying for the grant for the preparatory meeting so we hope to see her here with us not too far in the future.

Money and invitations

Dominika has just written to me forwarding to me a mail she has received from Nikos in Greece asking me to urgently send a written invitation to him in Greece, it appears that his agency will not accept the application unless they have a written invitation from our school. Nikos needs this by the 20th.

I have checked that an e-mail from me is not enough and that it is only an official school mail that will in fact suffice, then I had to explain to Tere (the school Secretary) what I needed and that she had to let me use the school's official e-mail. This in itself was not easy as she wasn't really sure how to get into it, apparently this is normally only Francesc's (our director) job. Finally I was able to write the mail and send it, I can only hope that it is in time for him to complete the application.

Until now I haven't really received any information about the partners we will have in the project but at least now I have seen that he is from Thessalonika, in the part of Greece that is Macedonia. I really would have been nice if Dominika could have sent out info about the rest of the partners to all of us but from what she tells me she is very busy with a Moroccan exchange at the moment.

He has included this image of the island of Nisyros.

Additionally I have spoken to Nuria Estrada about the visit and she has informed me that curiously the host school on the preparatory visits doesn't receive any money towards the visit. I had had ideas of using the money I thought I would receive to take the people on a couple of visits and for buying something for them. Now I will have to think again, I suppose the school will foot the bill for some things and I can always ask the local council and the parent's association for help in funding the visit.

Nesrin won't be coming

We have just heard that Nesrin Kacan from Turkey will not be attending the meeting, apparentlyher national agency (which being outside the EU does not receive any EU funding towards visits) won't pay for it, so obviously she can't come. Luckily they have said that she will be able to participate in the project so that is good.

I have sent her a message expressing what a shame it is that she won't be able to come.

Preparations for the 13th

Dominika has asked me to send her details of IES Roquetes, legal name and address, where the school is exactly so that people can include this in their applications for the grant for the preparatory meeting. I originally thought they would come over for only two or three days but now she has said she would like the meeting to last all week, the week of the 13th to the 19th. I have no problem with this if she feels it is necessary.

At the moment we have schools from Sweden, Greece, Germany, Poland and Spain (of course). We are also waiting on Malta, Cyprus and Turkey for school which should be able to attend the meeting as well.

She has told me that all the participating schools receive a standard grant of about 1000 euros that has to cover all costs during the visit. I have been asked to find out about hotels and flights and if there is somewhere we can use for meetings. Hotels and stuff I think I will include in the blog so that they can look at them at leisure, though I think it would be easier if everyone is in the same place. As to a place to meet the IES seems the logical place, I first thought of the library but that is too big and we won't be that many people (though if two come from each school I don't know) so perhaps just the foreign languages department itself.

I have sent the link to the blog on and am waiting to hear what they think.

Preparing for the preparatory meeting

As part of the work towards the preparatory meeting that will be held in January I have created a blog page that will act as a guide for the people who are thinking of attending the week of meetings here in Roquetes.

The Roquetes virtual tour is just a way for them to situate themselves as to where Roquetes is and what our school is like. This comes as a result of a few rather confused mails in which people expressed their doubts as to where Roquetes is and to which airport they had to fly. I have already sent detailed instructions but I do appreciate that it can all be really confusing and after all, no one is going to meet them at the airport. I have also done it out of concern that the problems we have been having with trains recently may well make their journey more than a little interesting.

There are maps and photos and even a couple of simple videos.