Planes, Trains and Automobiles….

Last week started early for me I travelled to Heathrow on Saturday evening to spend the night in a hotel in order to be up early to collect Anna and Danna the speakers for our conference from their long haul flights.

06:45 on Sunday morning saw me up and on the way to Terminal 5 to meet Anna off her 07:00 flight from Uganda. You can imagine my mood when I arrived to find the flight delayed until 08:40.

08:40 came and went the flight from Kampala showed on the arrivals board as landed, then waiting for the bags to arrive, then baggage arrived, then it disappeared from the board altogether still no Anna! By 10:30 I was beginning to panic I didn’t relish the task of telling Sheila I had lost her keynote speaker, I already had three missed calls from Sheila on my phone. When I say three missed calls they weren’t exactly missed I just never answered them. I searched in every coffee bar, restaurant and shop in T5, no sign.

I tried to call Anna on her phone; ominously the dialing tone was not a British one.

I emailed her, no reply, I sent a text asking where in Heathrow she was, nothing. In my desperation I was now searching behind every potted plant in the terminal, I had been thrown out of the ladies toilets twice and two heavily armed Policemen were eying me suspiciously I had now been in the terminal for nearly three hours, and Danna’s flight had already landed at terminal 3

The phone rang it was Sheila, I had to answer, “hello luvvie” was her jaunty welcome to me “I’ve been trying to get you on the phone for ages, have you got them? Are you on the way home”?

My knees had become quite week and I had to sit down, I was sweating profusely and finding it hard to breath. The Policemen were starting to move towards me their firearms at the ready.

“I haven’t got anyone yet” I said in a voice that I didn’t recognise……..to be continued

 

Northern Ireland Visit March 2014

The NWG were invited by the Western Trust and Health and Social Care Northern Ireland to speak to practitioners from a range of services and specifically to those from services that look after children and young people in residential care and those with an interest in community safety.

We have to confess to leaving booking our flights to Northern Ireland to the last minute only to find when we did finally get round to booking them, the site kept crashing! Sophie (our volunteer) found it extremely frustrating and threatened to leave us, we offered loads of team assistance with encouraging words like “stick at it Sophie” from across the room!

Leaving Birmingham airport on Monday afternoon we had a leisurely flight out to Belfast for an overnight stay before being picked up and taken to Antrim for our first day. The surprise at our first hotel was being asked if Mike, Ray and myself were sharing a room or if we had separate bookings, even given the option we still choose separate rooms!

The following morning approximately 110 delegates whose main role was supporting children in residential or foster care came along and were enthusiastic and engaged well in tabletop discussions and activities. Talking to people during the day over coffee and lunch breaks we met lots of people who were keen to learn more and very interested in the resources for working with young people. The evaluation sheets at the end of a huge day showed we had got it right for most people there.

That evening we travelled across to Derry ready for our next day and what a place to billet us in for a couple of days

 On Wednesday morning 220 delegates poured into the Everglades hotel from a range of services who support young people, the day was designed to encourage professional curiosity, challenge attitudes and decision making; to explore the ways sexual exploitation manifests within in your society; and the ‘Say Something If You See Something’ campaign. We met so many interesting people, heard about frustrations and successes, and made more new friends and managed to catch up with old friends like Jacqui Montgomery Devlin from Barnardo’s and Ann Marks form Northern Ireland Police Service during our time there.

 A return to barracks and a walk round the grounds for a breath of fresh air before meeting Bina who flew in that afternoon. It was good to get together for a drink before dinner as this is often the most time we have together, our hectic schedule means we’re all ships that pass in the night usually.

Bill Clinton has stayed at our hotel a number of times previously, and we were surprised to find him back in Derry the same day as the NWG.   We asked if he was due there again as Mike who had slept in his bed in Holland in November was keen to meet his bedfellow in person, but sadly he had to go back to the USA, my fear was no one had actually told him we were there otherwise we feel sure he would have extended his stay to see us too 😉

After a fabulous dinner, we regrouped to sort out the next stage of tour.  The main issue of the evening was could we possibly fit in the Good Morning Ulster radio interview we had been requested to do, Mike and Sheila were returning to the airport; leaving at 6.30 am, Bina and Ray were due to be picked up at 8.40 for their session back at the Everglades hotel in Derry. Bina being younger and not as jaded as the rest of us felt, volunteered to get up extra early to do the job and a discussion on what needed to be included prevailed.

We adopted Evelan at dinner, a polish young lady who was staying there on her own for a week and so made another new friend, we wished her well and retired for the evening.

Up early Thursday for the journey to the airport for Mike and Sheila, Bina set off for her interview and Mike & Sheila listened to her on the air porter bus, what an excellent interview she did too! Clear and concise, very articulate and I bet she looked beautiful too, even that early (she always does)!

Ray and Bina then headed off to deliver an two information sessions on community safety and young people, the first one in Derry, then with a 60 minute change over they have to get to Omagh to deliver the second session to more community safety partners.

Ray is our very own Irish contingent and is staying over in Ireland for a few extra days to catch up with family and Bina flew home the same evening.

It’s been an excellent few days; we’ve met lots of new people and hopefully have made our service widely know so professionals can ask for assistance in the future.

For the whole time that Mike has been with the NWG Tweeting has been something he claims to struggle with but surprisingly this tweet went out complete with photo in less than 30 seconds, obviously highlighting the boss’s errors is an incentive to get to grips with tweeting, so now you can all look forward to more tweets from Mike in the future.