Greetings from the U.K.!

Greetings from the U.K.!

As we are now approaching the half way point of our trip, it seems aboot (the spelling is a reference for our Canadian friends) that I posted a note on our Rotary GSE blog as well.
First of all let me just say a huge thank you to all of our Rotarian hosts and friends that we have met on this trip so far. Their hospitality has far exceeded anything that I could imagine, and they have gone to such lengths to put together a wonderful trip for us all. Thank you!

As the other members of our team have previous documented, we have been having a blast doing a wide range of activities. We are getting an in-depth cultural experience as to what daily life is like in Southern England. Everything from marvelling at grand cathedrals, walking on ancient Roman roads, feasting on fine English meals of lamb shanks and wood pigeon, and of course enjoying all the amenities that the local pubs have to offer. My favourite experience so far has been the time spent exploring the English country side. There are vast expanses of farm land, and scattered throughout is an extensive network of walking paths. I have thoroughly enjoyed going for a few walks along these paths and coming upon unexpected farms and villages, and enjoying the beauty that this region has to offer. It’s been bloody muddy and I’m glad that I brought my hiking boots with me; they have come in very handy on multiple occasions. The vast areas of rolling hills that we go walking on are called the Downs, and essentially they were formed a very long time ago when millions of little sea creatures were deposited on top of each other, back when the ocean still covered the island. The collection of all their remains has resulted in these elevated areas of land, and due to the decomposition of their organic sea shells, this area has now become a very large deposit of chalk. Anyways, walking on these Downs is amazing, and I’ve got lots of great pictures to share when I get home.

As far as the vocational side of my U.K. adventure, I have visited a local physician’s office, a retail pharmacy, and two hospital pharmacies. The local physician’s office is very similar to what we have back in the States, except it has a “dispensary” in the back, which essentially is a pharmacy. The MDs write an Rx for their patients, and then before the patient leaves the office they swing by the dispensary and pick up the Rx. There is no pharmacist onsite which is allowed because there is always a physician onsite who is responsible for the whole operation. The local retail pharmacy that I visited was equivalent to the local independent community pharmacies that we have back home. I met a very nice Irish pharmacist onsite and she explained the whole operation to me, it was a great experience. The first hospital pharmacy that I visited was an oncology specific hospital pharmacy. They specialize only in the inpatient chemotherapies and have a fascinating system of operation. Lots of automation like we have back home with a few differences. The last hospital that I have visited was essentially a mirror image of Memorial hospital (the hospital I work at) back home. The Director of pharmacy met with me and gave me an in-depth explanation of how the pharmacy healthcare system works in the U.K., and explained the daily operations of his facility. We ended with a tour of his whole hospital, a very unique experience.

People have asked what unexpected or interesting things I have learned or experienced so far and here are some thoughts to end this post:
- Every Rotarian that we have met over here has been so incredibly gracious and nice; it has just been a wonderful experience.
- Walking along the English country side has been a thrill and was everything that I had hoped it would be.
- My pharmacy vocational experiences have been fascinating. Two interesting things that I have seen so far are:
o EVERY medication is unit dosed. Medications come pre-packaged in blister packaging in small boxes (with brail on them, which is interesting too), and the physicians write the quantities of their prescriptions based on how the medication is supplied. For example, amoxicillin capsules come in boxes containing 10 blister packs each, a typical short course for an antibiotic. Generic atenolol comes in boxes of 28 blister packs, a typical once a day dose for a month. Pharmacists RARELY split up boxes to complete an Rx because they already come packaged in the quantity that the physicians are writing for. A sharp contrast to what we do in the states where we will have a 1000 count bottle of a medication and count out 30 pills for a patient on a counting tray (which the English pharmacy I visited couldn’t even find because they don’t know they last time they had to use it).
o The payment system for prescriptions is very interesting and complex. There are too many finer details to explain here, but essentially, if you are over 60 years old you get ANY and ALL your prescriptions for free. There are a few exceptions where you can be less than 60 years old and have other qualifications that also lend you to this category. Also, if you have to pay for your prescription, it is only 7 pounds and 20 cents. Period. Even if the medication only costs pennies or if it costs 5000 pounds, which is the price you pay for one prescription. Essentially the U.K. has a national formulary which their equivalent of the FDA has approved, and as long as the proper channels are followed and the drug is on the U.K. formulary, it is what it is. This whole concept is very complex and confusing, and I’m trying to sort it out while over here, hopefully I have it straight in my head so I can explain it when I get home.

Okay, well I have rambled on enough for now. In closing, I hope everyone back home is doing well, I hope Spring is there when I get home, yes Mom I am taking care of myself and not getting run down, Scotty loves his wife very much, and as always, Dexter (the puppy dog) is in charge while I’m gone.

Cheers!
-Scott

Fish Heads...

Well I'm a bit behind as this is my first post, but Kevira has been doing such a good job so far I haven't had a lot to add.

I had a vocational visit yesterday at a financial planners in Arundel, he had a book in his waiting room called "101 Bunny Suicides", and sure enough thats exactly what was inside. It was al cartoons and not gory, but still a little odd... The visit was quite good, there are a lot of similarities to how things are done in Canada, but also some pretty major differences. England is moving to a fee-based planning system in 2012, so instead of having the planning costs embedded within the MER of a mutual fund, each client will be required to pay per hour, similar to an accountant or a lawyer.

Today we wandered around town a bit (fuddled about is the technical term) then went for lunch at the harbour. It was freezing!!! Gale force winds, rain, and it was only about 3 or 4 degrees. So I had chili for lunch which helped. My host had White Bait which was little deepfried beeer battered fish. Whole. Eyes, guts, and the whole nine yards. So I had to try one, everyone else did to!! I picked a wee one that pretty much had fried down to nothing so it just tasted like eating batter. Was still very weird to have my food looking at me though! Afternoon went to Goodwood Circuit where they hold the Festival of Speed every year. Wasn't much going on though, just had a cup of tea and left.

Catching Up

We've been so busy that none of us has had time to update the blog, so here is a glimpse of a few of the activities we've been enjoying since March 27th.

Sunday, after breakfast on the waterfront, and lunch at the Arundel Rotary Club president's home, we were taken to an ancient Roman Villa that dates back to 230 AD. It's hard to imagine the degree of Roman culture and architecture that was common all over southern England during this time. We also took a walk along the old roman road at the top of the Downs.

Monday I visited a secondary school. I'm still trying to figure out the educational system here. Public schools are really private, colleges are often for age 16 and up, grammar schools are nearly gone, prep schools are for the younger kids, academies are schools which haven't made the grade and have been re-named and re-tooled, and then there are $20,000 per year boarding schools. All these are driven by a national curriculum, although public (private) schools have more flexibility in how the day-to-day things are done.

We were handed off to the Chichester Harbor Rotary Club for the next few days Monday afternoon, toured some of the area, and relaxed with our host families. I stayed with Sue & Malcom Danks. Sue will lead the District 1250 GSE team that will be coming to our district at the end of April.

Tuesday, I visited Aldingbourne Farm, a facility that assists developmentally challenged adults by helping them run various enterprises. They grow and sell plants, refurbish furniture, sell crafts, recycle wood, and other activities. The place deals with around 90 clients, and has a volunteer staff of 40 part-time people helping out. After lunch at yet another PUB (they are the common place to have drinks and a meal), we were taken for a walking tour of downtown Chichester, which included the marvelous Chichester Cathedral and St, Mary's Hospital (which is really a boarding place now). That evening we gave our presentation to the Rotary Club of Chichester (our hosts that day). About 90 people were in attendance.

Our vocational visits and Arundel

Note: I think my cold addled my brain. Earlier I misspelled one of the Rotarians' names. It's now fixed.

I'll make this short, since I'm nursing a bit of a cold and need to get to bed. We all spent time learning about similar businesses to ours over here in England. I talked to Gary and Theo at the West Sussex County Times, and also spoke to Matt at The Resident, another newspaper in the Horsham area. It was very enlightening and left me with some new ideas and an understanding that newspapers here are struggling just like those in the United States. As a side note, the Times of London announced yesterday they will begin charging readers for access to its content online.

Brad spent a day with a police detachment in West Sussex; Jim went to Lancing College, also in West Sussex; Scott went to a hospital in Brighton; and Cam went to two separate financial services facilities. They'll have to fill you in later about what they learned, but it sounds like they had a wonderful time.

Yesterday we were treated to a tour of sites around Arundel by Rupert Brooks, a local man who wrote a book about pub sites around the area. We got a nice view of the castle (here's me in front of it), but we're looking forward to a better view next week.

We then headed to the St. Mary's Gate Inn, a local pub, and met Rotarians James, Mark, Keith, Tim and Stephanie. We also met James' wife Helen and Keith's wife Sam. Mark's wife Clare was a bit ill and couldn't join us, but since I'm living with them I was able to visit with her yesterday and today. We share a love of Jane Austen and visited Jane's home in Chawton today. It was amazing. Tomorrow we will spend more time with the local Rotarians, we will move on to Chichester on Monday, we'll have more vocational visits on Tuesday, and we'll do our next presentation Wednesday.

Another update — this time with pictures

We've moved on to the city of Arundel, and just left Horsham. But let me catch you up with pictures.

This was our welcoming party in Horsham. From left to right are Gaby (whom I lived with for five days), Janet, Jim, Mary, Brad, Peta, Brian, Scott, Richard and Cam. You can also barely see Geoff behind Scott. Gaby, Brian, Richard and Geoff are members of the Horsham Rotary Club. Jim stayed with Richard and Janet, Scott stayed with Geoff and Mary, and Brad and Cam stayed with Brian and Peta. We've spent a lot of time visiting with them and sharing information about our jobs, our hometowns and Rotary clubs in America and the U.K.

They made us feel SO welcome. We were very sad to say goodbye to all of them last night and today.

This is the bed and breakfast Geoff and Mary own — where Scott stayed — called The Thatched House. It looks exactly like I always imagined a thatched cottage would look.

This is the Church of St. Andrew and St. Cuthman in Steyning. It was built on the site of a church built by St. Cuthman in 750 AD. The story goes something like this: "His legend states he was a shepherd who had to care for his paralysed mother after his father's death. When they fell on hard times and were forced to beg from door to door, he built a one-wheeled cart or wheelbarrow (with a rope from the handles over his shoulders taking part of the weight) in which he moved her around with him. They set out east, towards the rising sun, from his home and, even though the rope broke, he improvised a new one ... deciding that when that rope broke he would accept it as a sign from God to stop at that place and build a church." It broke in Steyning.

And for now I'll end with this story: A worker was fixing a wall in Steyning. Someone in the past had, for some reason known only to him, put a pair of false teeth into the wall. So the worker who was fixing the wall asked for people to bring their false teeth to him. He put a pair he received into the wall. :-)

I'll fill you in tomorrow on our vocational visits and what we toured yesterday and today.

Mid-week Activities

Wow! It's hard to keep up with all the activities we have been doing. Tuesday we met Rotarians from another club who took us to tour the old town of Steyning. Houses in this own date back to the 1200's, and are still lived in. Most structures are of the 14-1500's. A very lovely town with narrow alleys, and winding streets. We then went to see the oldest airfield in England.

The weather was cloudy and cooler, but we had a great timc. I still can't get used to riding on the left side of the road, and when I get in the car, I automatically grab for the steering wheel, which is now in the other side of the car. I have also found myself lifting the toes on my right foot as if to regulate the non-existent gas pedal.

Wednesday was a vocational day, and we were all out to different places of business that match our vocations. I spent time at a youth center created by three different churches, and one that has had a big impact on anti-social behavior in local youth. I then went to Lancing College, a private boarding school for 13-18 year-olds. It looked more like our universities, with a chapel that rivals most big cathedrals here.

We're here and loving it

After about 18 hours either in a plane or an airport, we arrived in London about 1:30 p.m. Sunday (about 6:30 a.m. Wenatchee time). It took us about another hour to get through the line for passport checks and then we were off to Horsham. By the way, we were greeted by the most friendly, wonderful people at the airport - about 10 of them. In Horsham we sat down with all of them for some tea and biscuits. After tea, and dinner at our respective homes, we were a bit tired. :-) So forgive me for not writing before now.

We're getting the Internet thing worked out (I'm using someone else's computer right now), so hopefully updates, pictures and Skype calls home will be coming soon. Today I ate breakfast, met up with the whole group, toured the local district government, ate lunch at a local pub, walked to a local church and by some older homes (as in 17th century kinda old), and then toured items that will be auctioned later this week (ranging from the 17th to 20th centuries).

Now we're resting for a bit before heading to a Rotarian's home for dinner at 7 p.m. So far it's been amazing, and it's only been one day! The people are wonderful, the food is good (and there's plenty of it) and the countryside is absolutely beautiful.

Wanna see where we're going?

We will be traveling throughout Surrey and Sussex, England. Here are the towns we will be visiting:

Horsham, Arundel, Chichester Harbour, Portsmouth, Southsea, Worthing, Burgess Hill, Reigate, Redhill, Farnham, Guildford and London.

These are some of the sites we'll see:
Weald and Downland Museum
Bignor Roman Villa
Arundel Castle
Chichester Cathedral
HMS Victory
Jack and Jill Windmills

Our presentation

GSE Englandpresentation

View more presentations from kvoegele.