Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Even more photos

Kim, Cath and Matt
Steve, Andrew and Kay
Matt, Aussie Steve and Steve

More conference photos

Meeting between the two teams.


Kay, Carrie and Jessica
Jessica, Natalie and Kim

Rotary District Conference


Here is 'The Team' all kitted out in our resplendid uniforms.
We had a good time meeting many Rotarians and the GSE team from Indiana. We enjoyed watching their presentation and getting more of a feel for what this program is all about. We had a great meeting with the team from the US and bombarded them with questions all about their trip and their home state. The conference was very enjoyable and we really enjoyed many of the fabulous guest speakers that we had the opportunity to listen to.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

First Team Meeting.



Here is the team at our first meeting in Canberra on Sunday the 11th of November. We have finalised the uniform today, it's very smart! We have all done or are doing our homework and we have a direction for our presentation. Things are shaping up well. It seems from the photo that you can get 25% off Steve at the moment judging by the sign in the background.

Signing off Matt.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Preparations

Latest Update of Preparations by Matt.
Preparations are coming along nicely for our group. We have had the very stylish tastes of Natalie and Andrew choose our uniforms. We have all managed to write our biography's that have been posted on this site. It's a pretty easy subject to write on, yourself! We are meeting tomorrow in Canberra to have our first complete meeting with us all present. We will be discussing the upcoming conference, our presentation, travel details, vocational interests and needs for the trip. We will update further following the meeting.
We look forward to not only meeting the incoming Indiana team but to also see their presentation at the district conference. This will give us some ideas as to the style of presentation that will be expected while we are away.

Friday, November 2, 2007

GSE Team Member Andrew Casey


My name is Andrew Casey and I am 27 years old. I was born and raised in the city of Goulburn, NSW. I graduated from Northern Territory University, Darwin, in 2002 with a Bachelor of Teaching in Primary Education (5-12 years). I am currently completing a Bachelor of Teaching and Learning in Special Education through Charles Darwin University, Darwin.

I am employed by the NSW Department of Education as a primary teacher at Goulburn Public School, Goulburn. I have been teaching for 5 years and have taught in several rural and isolated communities across NSW. I especially enjoyed my teaching at central schools (K-12). I am very interested in inclusive education practices within diverse classrooms and catering for students with special needs.

I have an older brother and sister as well as a twin sister. I have 9 nieces and nephews that I love dearly and 2 more on the way in March/April. My mother is a Head Teacher of Human Services for TAFE NSW and my father owns and operates a taxi cab in Goulburn. I love spending time with family and am very fortunate to have all my family live in Goulburn or close by.

Additionally, I work part time at Trinity Catholic College, a coeducational secondary boarding school in Goulburn. I supervise/care for students (12-18 years) after school and on weekends in an academic and pastoral care capacity. I have been working in this field for 6 ½ years and am fortunate to enjoy and share the lives of students from a different perspective. I began at St Johns College, Darwin caring mainly for indigenous students from remote communities throughout Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. This was a valuable experience and a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the culture of our indigenous people.

In terms of hobbies and interests, I enjoy renovating property, hiking, rugby union, cricket and spending time with friends as much as I can. I follow the Canberra Raiders (rugby league) and the ACT Brumbies (union) who are both considered local teams as I am approximately 50 minutes from Canberra.

GSE Team Member Natalie Forrest



Hi, I’m a 34 year old journalist who’s excited to be able to explore her profession overseas as part of Rotary’s Group Study Exchange.

I live in Canberra, Australia’s capital, with my husband Clinton and our two dogs. We have lived on the Eastern side of the country for about 4 years. My husband and I are both sandgroppers (originally born in Western Australia). We’ve been married for about 5 years. Both our families are from the West Coast, so we frequently return for visits. But we love living in the nation’s capital, its diversity, all it has to offer and its centrality to most places.

I have been a TV journalist for the past 10 years after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, double major in English and Media from Edith Cowan University in WA. I currently work as a News Editor/Presenter for Prime Television, responsible for 50 news updates each day across 3 states. I also teach Broadcast Journalism and Journalistic Writing at the Canberra Institute of Technology.

In my spare time, I enjoy traveling and getting outside with our two pups. I play netball, love watching movies, catching up with friends, shopping, and reading.

I’m very excited at the opportunity to head to Indiana in 2008 and the chance to learner and meet a wide variety of people.

GSE Team Member Matt Crozier


I am a 35 year old only child. I was born in Canberra and grew up around the district. I live on a farm that I own with my wife Mandy near Bungendore, which is about 45 minutes drive from Canberra. We raise beef cattle on our 450 acres. We have two sons Charlie who is 4 and Max who is 2. They love growing up on the farm with animals around, learning to grow veggies, ride horses and motorbikes.
I studied Farm Management at Orange Agricultural College and have under taken many vocational based training courses since.
I am currently the General Manager of Gidleigh Pastoral Company, a 6600 acre agricultural operation located next door to our home. It is owned by a city based business group. We run 10,000 Merino sheep for wool production and 900 Angus beef cattle. We carry out some cropping of grain for stock feed and have 7 rental houses on the farm that we property manage. I am passionate about modern sustainable agriculture and improving the environment that I look after. My goal is to leave the land in better shape than when I took it over.
Previously I owned and ran an agricultural contracting and consulting business performing a range of tasks for other farmers in our area. I had a 5 year stint as a Futures Trader on the Sydney Futures Exchange making my living out of trading interest rate, currency and agricultural markets. I have managed or worked on other farms throughout NSW including my parent’s who are now retired.
In my very scarce spare time I enjoy playing polocrosse, camping, fishing, hunting and skiing. I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, eating out and watching rugby union and cricket.

GSE Team Member Cathy Crawford

I am 38 years old and grew up on the farm here at Yarra since I was 5 years old. I now live in my grandmothers old stone farm house that I have been gradually doing up for the past 12 years. I love spending time in the garden, riding my horses and playing with my two border collar dogs.

I obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sydney and started teaching secondary mathematics in Macquarie Fields. I retrained in the Natural Resource Management Field after teaching for nine years. Over the last 5 years I have worked as a Riparian Coordinator (working on rivers), caring for Council land, landcare coordinator for the Southern Tablelands and a Weed Resilient Landscape officer. I now work in the vertebrate pest management field as a Program Development Officer for the Department of Primary Industries.

During my spare time I am chair of my local landcare group, currently we are looking to rejuvenate our Yarra tennis courts, I sing with a number of local choirs and enjoy the odd musical performance with the local musical society. Currently I am rehearsing for Footrot Flats the Musical. I love to travel when I have the time, go dancing and spending time with my friends.

GSE Team Leader Steve Shirvington


I have been extremely fortunate to be selected as the Group Study Exchange Team Leader for the GSE District 6540 exchange to Indiana April to May 2008. I live in Cooma NSW with my wife and we have three grown sons two of which live in Cooma and one in Canberra, just north of Cooma. We moved to Cooma in 1997 to get out of the Sydney “rat race” and haven’t looked back. My wife and I have now been very happily married for over thirty years. Our boys have all participated in Rotary programs such as RYPEN, RYLA and Global Youth Exchange.

My career has been quite varied, in the early 70’s I completed schooling and took on an apprenticeship in electronics. Two years later I joined the Australian Regular Army as an electronics technician and served for nine years. After starting a family I left the army and after a short stint with a Dutch electrical switchgear manufacturer, joined the multinational Philips working in their defence related projects division. Philips won the Australian Defence Contract to manufacture and maintain the radar for the then McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet Fighter. This project then lead to new opportunities with various divisions of Hughes including Hughes Space and Communications Company when we began building components for their very successful HS601 communication satellites and other military satellite platforms. During this thirteen year period I ran several aspects of the business including the Defence group, Satellite manufacturing group and the Asia Pacific region of the Traffic Systems group.

One item of note was a relationship with Magnavox Electronic Systems Company based in Fort Wayne; manufacturers of military communications and electronic-warfare systems equipment. I traveled frequently to the USA on Business but unfortunately did not make it to Indiana to see the Fort Wayne factory.

During my time with Philips I was lucky to form long lasting friendships with many of my counterparts in the USA who have from time to time visited us in Australia. I hope to catch up with some of them on the west coast after our GSE tour.

These days I am a Business Manager for five hospitals and allied health facilities in my region; my role encompasses the financial and administrative control of these sites.

I have a small 300 acre farm south of Cooma bordering the Kosciuszko National Park which takes in most of Australia’s ski fields. As a ski enthusiast this makes a great base in winter to take part in my favourite sport. I am a keen Rotarian and have served on our club board for the past five years. Our club is very active in community and international service. I returned from my second aid trip to Papua New Guinea in October 2007 where we installed a 216,000 litre water tank in a remote village east of the capital city Port Moresby. To find out more about Cooma club see http://www.d9710.rotary.org.au/Cooma/