End of October

We are now at the end of October and after a very hectic week I have finally found a minute to write something here.

As for Comenius this week I am not having a meeting, this is mainly because we are well advanced with the work and it seems pointless to get everyone together just to answer mails. I have found the time to send Dominika the summary of the questionnaires that the students completed and also three logos, the only ones I have been given.

I have my group sending and answering mails to the German students. These are the only ones they can correspond with at the moment but at least it is going well. They have also been surprised to see that the level of the Germans is not really any different from their own. I think everyone expected them to be fantastic.

Administratively I am still waiting for the money to appear, I know that the Germans and others have received their 80% already so I suppose that we should get ours soon. I have to send a list of the teachers who are going on the trips to Ensenyament but how I am supposed to know who will go to Cyprus two years from now I have no idea.

I have got together a list of contacts for publicity, newspapers, radio stations and even TV. Now it is a question of contacting them and getting them to come and have a look at what we are doing. I have drawn up invitations for the Mayor of Roquetes, and other dignataries, along with all the parents but now we are so close to the trip to Poland in November that I don't think it is worth doing the inauguration now. I have decided to wait till we have got back, then I will have more material to show people and I also hope that the other countries will have their webpages up and running. At the moment Germany and us have a working page.

Poland's is up and running but has no content.

Bulgaria has a homepage, and as I have just checked, it also has the details of half a dozen students so they are starting to move, that is great.

This afternoon I have received a mail from Italy with an address for their page but it is an online generated forum and is a little difficult to navigate around. Additionally it is full of posts in Italian and I don't really know what is going on in each section.

First steps

I haven't written for a while as we have been busy with the first steps of the project, the actual project!!

It seems odd that finally we are actually involved in the work of the project itself.

Well anyway as I think I have said I have 4-5.30 on Thursday afternoons for the project with the students in Informatica 2. Not the best place as it is hard to use the projector but it is good enough. We have already completed several of the first steps of the project.

We have created the blog, even though Dominika wanted a webpage not a blog, and I have managed to include photos of all of the students on the blog. I have insisted that they be careful to give me decent photos to post on the blog as I know that some of them love taking pictures of themselves and others hate it. This led me to think that if some of them on the page look great and the others look like real morons they would not get the same level of attention from the students of our partner countries. Still now it is done and they have all posted photos of themselves and a short bio on the page.

Initially I thought that the pen pal network would be administered by Dominika, precisely for these reasons. But she has decided that they can all write to who they want to. Fair enough we have started to do just that though at the moment it is only the Germans and us. Poland and Bulgaria have web pages posted but there are no details on them and no one to write to. Still in our last meeting I was able to see that some of the students have already received mails from some of the Germans students and had to reply to them. I have insisted on receiving a copy of everything written by them... because I trust them about as far as I can throw them. Some like Ferran are already seeing this as a great chance to "pull" a foreign girl and their mails read the same way as a dating page!!

Apart from this we have also completed quite a lot of the work that has to be done about basic facts about the country. This has been a mixed success as I have received one piece of work that has been through a translator online and a couple more in Catalan!! I have now reminded them that I need it all in English and they have to write it themselves. The second part of this work has been shared out and I am waiting for the results now. We have only produced a couple of logos that are really worth it and I will send them to Dominika when I get a moment to scan them.

I have also asked the students to think about the contents of the exchange box and I have to chase up on what they think this week.

Admin details...

Ok so the contract has been signed and completed and sent off.

I have been on the net and reserved the flights for the visit in November to Poland. I am going with Guillem and Salome, Guillem is from the music dept and Salome teaches English with me. There is the hope that Guillem and I can use this visit to organise a music trip to Poland for the orchestra this year, a sort of English Music combination, and that is why he is coming along for this trip. Music, after all, is very transversal.

Unfortunately we will be away for nine days in total!!! The flights out are no problem, although we have to take two to get to Katowicwe! But on the flights back here we have to spend one night in the UK in Stansted. Of course as that is where I am from it presents no problem, I will phone one of my uncles and impose upon him!! The only other bummer was that I had to pay for the tickets myself and then ask for the money back, no problem except for the panicky phone call from my wife when she went to the bank and saw I had spent 700 odd euros on something!!

I have spoken to Nuria Estrada about all the things I needed to checl, basically she doesn't want to know, she has enough paperwork already and only wants to contact with us when she wants to. Fair enough that means I am on my own and responsible for the whole shooting match. Chould be fun.

I still have worries about things, we will just have to see how some things pan out.

First meeting of the Comenius group

Yesterday afternoon I had the first meeting of the group. Not what you would call a tremendous success as most of them didn't come!

Four of them excused their absence beforehand but quite a lot simply didn't come because they had other things to do. I will have to make clear to them that this really isn't an optional thing and that they will have to attend. As it is I have made up an attendance sheet so that they will have to sign every time we have a meeting.

The meeting itself with the people who attended wasn't too bad, I did most of it in English but some of them, Ferran and Mayte, got lost immediately and I had to repeat a lot of it in Catalan. We did get the basics done, I have told them all to create a gmail account and I handed out the questionnaire and explained how to fill it in.

The fun part was when Mayte wanted to create a mail address called maytetas@gmail.com, I had to explain to her that this is not the sort of image we really wanted to present to the rest of the participants. She was unfazed but happily settled for mayteroq in the end. Mariona insisted we took a photo of the three of us on the first day and so we have been immortalised thus;












Who can guess which is Mayte? No prizes I am afraid. Mariona saw this photo and felt that she was being outshone by Mayte so we took another.












Today I have been doing documents for the students, I get the feeling that I have to make this appear official to them as soon as possible so they develop a work ethic for the project. Mayte and Mariona were just a little to "happy" yesterday and of course many of them just didn't come. I will allow a couple of weeks before really coming down on them hard in any way but in the meantime I want them to have to sign forms, fill in things and have to read the noticeboard so that they get a feeling of the official nature of what we are doing.

As for other things, the contracts have been sent off to Madrid, I hope, with a covering letter so that is done, now we just wait. I have commented briefly with Mª Jose about an official opening for the project and she said we could even get the Mayor of Roquetes to come. That would be good as if he comes it means photos and appearing in the press. I asked for "permission" to start working on publicity and she said I can do what I want. As a result I have to phone the local radio station as I want to appear on it to talk about the project, maybe take a couple of students too, and I will have to contact the local papers too.

I have talked with one of my colleagues, Batiste, about a webpage. He and I are in the middle of redesigning the school's webpage and he says that it wouldn't be too difficult to make up a webpage for the project if that is what I have to have. I am quite happy with the blog but if everyone has a page and Dominika asks for that then I will have to do something about it I suppose. We are trying to find a moment to meet and do something about it.

Mª Jose

Today I have spoken to Mª Jose about the contract and everything and there is no problem at all there. I want to phone Nuria Estrada to confirm some things, things that I think I am clear on but I want cleared, but this apart I will fill in the details of the bank account and get Francesc to sign them asap.

Completing the contract

Today I have seen and talked to Tere about the contract and what we are going to do with the money. The school apparently only has one bank account, why does that surprise me? And everything that the school receives has to go through it. So I have taken the details and I will use them to fill in the forms. They then have to be sent off to Madrid, once Francesc has signed them, and then we should receive one copy back and THE MONEY.

One immediate hiccup is that even if we had to money now we need to book the flights with a credit card and the school doesn't have one. Tere said that she is always asking for one but that the bank refuses to give the school one because two people have to sign on all school cheques and transactions. This seems strange as as she says a company is in the same situation and yet has no problem with issuing its people with credit cards. So anyway when I want to book the flights I will have to do so with my own card!

With regard to the flights I think I will book multiple flights through Ryan air, we will have to go to Stansted and then to Katowice through Stansted. This is no problem on the way out but on the way back we will have to leave a day later, on the 22nd, and spend the night in the UK as there is no continuing flight back to Reus. So this will add two days to the original seven and we will be back on the 23rd. I will have to look to see if this is just silly, I am not sure at the moment. After all if we have to come back on the 23rd we might as well stay in Poland and come back on Wizzair on their Sunday flight, the only problem is that it goes to Girona!

A little more study is called for and then I will have to book them, this week if I can.

We receive official notification

Now it's official, today Francesc told me to look at my mail whilst passing in the corridor and Mª Jose said there was something about the Comenius and lo and behold... the contract has arrived.

This was last thing this afternoon and really I haven't had time to do much more than print out a copy and glance over it. From the little I have seen it is an official contract in which all our obligations are set out and that basically what it adds up to is that we get 80% of the money now but God help us if we can't justify how we spend it as then the school will end up paying for everything.

I will read it further this evening and talk to Mª Jose and Tere Sabate (the school secretary and sort of treasurer) tomorrow.