Museums, museums, museums

My most recent vocational visit took in three museums in a single day; each unique and each well worth the visit.

First stop was the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, where we met Director of Exhibitions Roy Campbell. The museum highlights the bio and geodiversity of North Carolina, with exhibits such as Prehistoric North Carolina, Coastal NC and the Arthropod Zoo. It offers plenty of live specimens throughout, including snakes, fish, insects and a butterfly house. As well as seeing the existing museum Roy told us about the development of the Nature Research Centre which will adjoin the museum with more display space, research labs, outreach and science communication facilities, to be completed in 2011.

NC Museum of Natural Science Director of Exhibitions Roy Campbell discusses dinosaurs with my host Barry Philips.

Inside the Living Conservatory at NC Museum of Sciences

Next up was the NC Museum of History where we met Director Ken Howard who first took us through the current blockbuster exhibition ‘Knights of the Black Flag’, which looks at pirates, specifically Black Beard. We also toured permanent galleries such as the NC Sports Hall of Fame, the decorative arts of NC, ‘A Call to Arms’ (military history) and ‘Elected to Serve’ about the Governors of North Carolina. The Museum of History also has development plans, with a new café and a gallery dedicated to telling the history of North Carolina planned.

Marine artefacts in the ‘Kinghts of the Black Flag’ exhibition.

My final visit was the Gregg Museum of Art and Design at NC State University where we met Director Lynn Ennis. This museum exists to complement the curriculum for the students, but also as a publicly accessible gallery. The current exhibition, curated by Lynn, is of artist Thomas Sayre.

The current exhibition at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design

All of the museums I visited were really generous in the time and information they afforded me, and I was really impressed with what they are able to achieve within their differing budgets and resource restraints.

Roxboro, North Carolina, on horseback

Woo-hoo!! My wish came true - I got to go riding. True to his word, DG Don got me on a horse. Thanks to Lacy in Roxboro, I met Katherine and her beautiful horses. We loaded them on the float and headed to Hill Forest which was one of the most amazing rides I've been on. We crossed a pretty decent flowing river with Katherine's sound advice, "Don't look down, just keep your eyes on the exit point!"

I rode a beautiful paint mare calley Okey, who was an absolute darling. Katherine's horse was called Cisco and he was great too. We had four dogs with us who ran and ran all day long. We saw six deer with their white bushy tails who just came out of nowhere.

Kel and Okey; a great partnership!

Now onto the rest of the day. Prior to my fantastic horse ride, Ross took me on a tour of my host's turf farm. The rolling green hills just brought out the cartwheeler in me. Everything is so green here in North Carolina. My hosts, the Carver family of Carver Bros. Turf also grow tobacco, which I saw at seedling stage in the hothouse. Once again, great people and a wonderful family environment.

Doris Carver, who is the Chair of the Roxboro Chamber of Commerce, took me along to the Good Morning Coffee Hour breakfast meeting where I met the Sheriff (always a good move), the County Commissioner, a couple of Councillors and other great people. I now feel I can walk down the main street of Roxboro and give some folks a wave.

After breakky we went and had lunch at Bob's BBQ. Surprise, surprise, more meat. I am loving it! We had a lovely, informal Rotary meeting with wonderful people, including President Dana who put us on the spot with impromptu speeches. They worked really well and we had a great time.

After that we went to Thomas Farms (a hog farm). We saw bucket loads of pigs, from cute baby ones to big fat, ugly Papa ones. I now want a cute pig to add to the Fyfe Family Farm.

Cutesy little pig, but I'm not sure Scott agrees.

See ya. Keep posting those comments! To Corey's workmates, we are all on him to write blogs and his excuse is, "I have to go to the gym!" I'm eating doughnuts and he's going to the gym!

Kel.

A Day of Rest, Relaxation and Reflection

After one week on the exchange we were given a day of rest. It was nice. It gave us time to catch up on washing and the little items we had not been doing. We spent the day with our host families and joined in on individual activities.

Serge, my host, was hosting the whole team and some locals for a 'Pig Pickin' in the evening so we organized that and started cooking the pig at about 10am and relaxed. 'Pig Pickin' is like a pig on the spit. It is very much like our BBQs but it is classed as a traditional southern meal. IT was fantastic.

Serge the super cook, with the scrumptious Pig Pickin' BBQ.

The other team members went on hikes around Eno River and jet skiing. The experience so far has been wonderful and all of our hosts, and everyone we have come into contact have been absolutely beautiful people who will do anything to make you feel comfortable and welcome.

The people of North Carolina are very hospitable and friendly, whenever we open our mouths people want to talk to us because of our accent, but I keep telling them that they have the accent.

Today we are going out to Sportsplex and around Chapel Hill, this is where the Tar Heels basketball team are from and they are playing the championship game tonight, which is exciting. The basketball fans are fanatical here and if they win they will go absolutely crazy. Franklin street will be set alight with bonfires and people spraying blue paint everywhere we are told. On Saturday night when they reached the championship game, that was exactly what happened. So 'GO HEELS'.

I must say that the rivalry that Aussie rules fans have between their teams is similar but at times the Carolina people's rivalries between University of NC and Duke University is very fierce. You are born into the team and if you choose to swap alliances you will be disowned from your family. Maybe not to that extreme but pretty close.

It has been a lot of fun being involved in the whole lead up to the play-offs with basketball and ice hockey. It had given us a real sense of what sport means to the American people. It is very much a way of life here. I like that they really do love the team and their town.

Scott

Catching up with the 7710 team

Last night it was great to see the team from North Carolina who came to Adelaide (and the rest of D9520) last year. All except Katie (who is studying on the West Coast) came to the Wooden Nickel in down town Hillsborough to catch up over a few drinks and watch the basketball.

Kelly with Karin and Susan

We enjoyed hearing about their experiences in Aus, and also got plenty of advice from them on how to get the most out of our GSE. Hopefully we can catch up with them again while we're in NC.

We had the best intentions of watching the basketball, but the conversation (and meeting the locals) took over somewhat.

They're going sports mad here at the minute, the Hurricanes (ice hockey) won on Thursday night and again last night, which puts them into the playoffs, so we'll be hearing a bit about the Hurricanes during our stay.

They've also gone basketball mad. The NC Tar Heels, the college team from Chapel Hill, won the semi final last night, with the grand final being played on Monday. We've been warned about going to Chapel Hill on Monday night - the students spill onto the streets, light bonfires and spray everything with pale blue paint (team colours). Even last night after the semi they showed footage of the main street in Chapel Hill and they were going nuts! We're presenting at a Rotary Club in Chapel Hill on Monday night, so we'll be right in the thick of it!

Building Bridges for Peace

We were fortunate to be in Chapel Hill at the same time as the sixth annual conference of the Duke-UNC Rotary Centre, with presentations by the Rotary World Peace Fellows. There are six Rotary Centres worldwide, each partnered with a major university, and the Peace Fellows undertake a two year masters program in fields related to conflict resolution, peace studies and international relations.

The six speakers (including two Australians: Jane and Pia) spoke on topics as diverse as acid attack violence, military intervention in regional conflicts, and migration and xenophobia in South Africa. All were clearly passionate about their studies and inspirational in their approach to world peace.

The Aussie contingent: GSE Team 9520 with Rotary World Peace Fellows past and present. The two graduating Fellows who presented on the day were Jane Welsh (second from left) and Pia Simonsen (second from right). Pretty amazing people.

The Rotary Centres and Peace Fellows are, like the Group Study Exchange, sponsored by the Rotary Foundation.

Our last day in Cary

OK, so we're a bit behind in our blogs! Thursday was a vocational day so we all went our separate ways. I met with some interesting and colourful characters, learning lots along the way. Enough about that. Each of us can fill you in with our vocational experiences when we get back.

Thursday night was AMAZING. We went to watch the NC Hurricanes kick the other team's butt in ice hockey. We were in the sponsor's corporate box. Very nice indeed. Thank you to Progress Energy for an unforgettable experience. No matter how hard I tried, I unfortunately failed to get my mug on the big screen. And believe me, I was trying!

Go Canes!!

So, onto the next day, Friday. Well, much to the disappointment (he may argue 'glee'!!) of Poppa Don, the Oz team bid goodbye to Cary and hit the road in a full to the brim 'truck' to Hillsborough. But not before an action-packed day around the traps.

First port of call, a 7am meeting of the Rotary club of Cary Page. This was after our late night at the ice hockey and some of us also chose to continue celebrating the Hurricane's victory further. Our presentation went well, with once again, a lovely audience. I had a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, fruit and something that resembled bacon but I think someone had forgotten to stop it cooking long after it was done.

We jumped in the bus with Poppa Don and Mary as our able guides and headed to the nuclear power plant of Progress Energy. We already had a great relationship with Progress Energy through their generous hospitality at the ice hockey, so we continued that with our tour guide Kim. She took us into the control room simulator which was amazing; all I was missing was my Star Trek outfit!

Scott enjoying the experience in the simulator and Tim trying to understand how it works!

An amazingly informative tour later, we re-boarded the bus and headed to Hemlock Bluffs Nature Reserve which is a great town recreational asset for walking and bike riding.

Next we went to an 'urban' winery called Chatham Hill Winery, the concept of urban wineries being rather than people driving to the vineyards' cellar door, the cellar door is brought to where the people are. It is a small winery in comparison to some in Mildura, but the wines were nice and the food that was brought in from La Farm? La Bakery?, a local NC business, was awesome. We had hand-made potato chips which were divine.

Not too hard to get accustomed to this!

Then we headed off to visit the most amazing business operation that left us gob-smacked. The company is SAS (the largest privately owned software company in the US) and I can see why their staff turnover is miniscule. They have built a town on their 'campus', complete with two childcare facilities, gym, sports grounds, cafes serving real food, a medical clinic, a wellbeing centre and other things I may have missed.

They have 4,400 employees on-site and are Cary's largest employer. The owners contribute to the community in many ways and we were all a bit over-awed by the whole experience.

The Town of Cary (local council) was our next stop and the first thing we were taken to was the Council Chambers. Being the characters we are, we all jumped into the roles of Councillors (Mayor Tim constantly saying into the microphone, 'All in favour of moving the motion to ..., say 'Ay' - I think he loves the sound of his own voice).

GSE Council, Town of Cary (why so serious Corey? Nice look Mayor Tim!)

In the same building were the Cary Police (a local level of police that we don't have in Australia). We met with the Chief of Police who was inspiring. She was a super-friendly woman who also gave freely of her time, including taking us up to the 911 emergency control room.

We met Mayor Harold and he was very generous in his time and openness in our discussions. At the conclusion of our time with him we presented him with an Aus/US badge which I told him I expected him to wear to the next Council meeting. As their twice monthly Council meetings are televised, I will be checking up on him, which I am sure he will be expecting.

After this, we were all pooped. We headed to a carpark somewhere to be picked up by our next hosts. Except that it was only one person, with one car for five people and five sets of perhaps a bit excessive, luggage.

Thankfully, as like everything in America, his car was big, and we managed although I have no idea how. Then we headed to the country. Jim's wife Joan was ready for us bedraggled lot, with a beautiful spread for dinner. Bless her!

As Jim was Corey's host, the rest of us waited for our hosts to come and collect us. This was around 9pm so by the time we got home to our new lodgings it was straight to bed for us!

The sight from my bedroom window is pine trees and more pine trees; the woods they call it! It is very relaxing.

'Til next time friends,
Kel.

PS. As usual, a verbose blog from me, but I am excused as it was really over two days so if you halve it, it is actually OK.

Our Official Welcome to D7710

Photo: The GSE team: Tim, Corey, Kelly, Margaret & Scott with DG Don Bruckner.

All our planning was leading up to this day.

Our first official visit to a Rotary Club in North Carolina. The setting was lovely: The MacGregor Downs Country Club, with an outlook to a lake, dogwood trees, starting to blossom, bulbs in the gardens. We had gone over our presentation the day before, culling many slides to make it all fit in the 20 minutes we were given.

The Rotary Club of Cary Macgregor opens its meetings with prayer, followed by the Oath of Allegiance. President Jim Smith conducted the business of the club, in particular presenting substantial cheques for Polio Plus to District Governor Don Bruckner. The sergeant's session was brief. GSE Chair, DGN Kaye Brown briefly described how this visit to D7710 had been organised and then we were introduced and welcomed by DG Don.

It was now our turn to give our first presentation: Could we do it in the time remaining, half an hour till the end of the meeting at 1:30 pm? Well we made it, with 4 minutes to spare.

Margaret introduced D9520, explaining that D9520 was larger than the state of Nth Carolina. Tim spoke about Adelaide, aboriginal culture, and our native flora and fauna. Scott described our exports, particularly beef, wine and the effects on them of the nine year drought. Kelly's topic was environment and agriculture with special emphasis on the importance of the River Murray. While Corey discussed our festivals, sport and life style, finishing with an invitation to the those present to try some 'Aussie gold' Vegemite. Margaret concluded with some examples of special Rotary projects and how money is raised by clubs for these projects.

The audience response was enthusiastic, they laughed at our jokes, and made extremely flattering comments. What a high!

At 2:30 the team went to the Cary Chamber of Commerce, where we met our vocational advisors and learnt something of the success of Cary as a centre for business. The evening started with drinks at President Jim's, followed for me and Scott with a delicious pot luck dinner for 14 in the home of my hosts Mary and Art Kamm. It was a great finish to a very successful day.