Rotary GSE Exchange - Our Danish Students

Be honest. Is visiting Denmark on your bucket list.? No? Is wasn't on mine either. But it is now. This week Matamata have had the huge pleasure of hosting the Rotary Group Study Exchange team from Denmark visiting our district. GSE is a programme where a small team of young (25 - 40 years), non-Rotarians, led by a Rotarian, visit a paired Rotary District to experience the culture and work of that country. The Danish Team visiting us consists of: Peter, Helle, Mette and Claus with their team leader Kjeld. They have been great fun, their English is perfect, their sense of humour wicked and they are all very intelligent and interesting people. We hosted Mette here at Cedar Lodge and she was an absolute pleasure! They arrived on Sunday but as we were involved in a fund raising 4x4 drive for Harriette's GIPS trip we could not pick her up until late afternoon. We immediately took her to Richard and Robyn's were we were having tea. Within minutes of arriving she was entertaining the 4 girls in the living room while we caught up with R+R. We hadn't seen them in ages! On Monday the team went out with the Cambridge Club and I caught up with them for diner in the evening. Tuesday I was on an office day so took a few hours of time owed and joined the team to walk up Wairere Falls. This is a walk that I have long wanted to do but with Eric's leg and 2 couch potatoes for children it was never going to be a family trip (Alice is still insisting she would do it). My calves still hurt!!! It was a 3 hour trip with some serious climbing. The falls are about 380m above sea level and, I think 153m, high. There is a lookout point half way up where you look across to the falls then another actually on the top of the falls looking down. I joined fellow Rotarians David H and Eric M for the trip. The soak in the Opal hot pools afterwards was much appreciated before going back to work for a few hours before the big district welcome in the evening, an event I had the pleasure to MC!!

Before the tramp on Tuesday the group visited a chicken farm. I had asked Mette what she wanted for dinner on Wednesday (the only evening they were at home) and she had said chicken. She changed her mind after the visit and we went for a fillet of beef instead :-) Wednesday they were hosted by a Hamilton Rotary club. Dinner at home, as I said then Thursday they has a vocational day going off in differnet directions. Fred took Mette to Auckland to visit a Fonterra base looking at aspects of the business. Mette works for another dairy co-operative in Denmark. In the evening Peter and Ineke hosted a BBQ at their place for about 30 of us. It was a great evening. Fish was on the menu. Some of the boys had been fishing as their vocational day was cancelled (I think). They caught heaps of snapper and David even gave us some to take home. Eric's unproductive fishing trips are well known in the club :-)

On Friday it was up at 5am to meet at Matamata racecourse where we were shown around by a local racing journalist and met one of NZ's leading horse trainers before having breakfast. The team stopped off at our place for coffe on their way to Tirau to be passed along to the next club. I had come home with all Mette's luggage still in the car. Luckily we were on the way!

We have learnt a lot about Denmark this week and it is certainly on out 'to-do' list now. I am sure we will have at least 5 families hwo would host us. Similarly, we hope to see each of these lovely people again as they return to NZ with their families for a mpore leisuely visit. They will be exhausted when they get back. They have 6 weeks of almost back-to-back activities staying with 8 host families!! We will catch up with them at the District conference at the end of the month.

Matamata's Latest Law Partner - Eric Tanner LLB(Hons) :-)

I will, I will, I will write my blog more frequently. I will, I mean I really, really will!!!! Well I’ll try anyway. Winter is drawing in and so I should start to get better at it as I’ll be less inclined to jump out of bed in the mornings so, maybe....

Where to start? Well the biggest piece of news is that Eric has finally made it. As of 1 April (no, not a joke!) 2010, Eric is a partner in MagillEarl Solicitors of Matamata 


In his jeans because it was the weekend!


I cannot tell you how very proud I am of him, well of us both really. I believe that there were several times when Eric may have given up on this journey. As I have explained before, it has taken so very long, from the time when we lived in South Street, Whitstable and we made the decision that Eric would study to be a lawyer, for him to get qualified. Partly because of the poor advice from the legal education council of NZ when we arrived. However, when he qualified he was very lucky to land a job with the afore mentioned firm. The partners were at that stage in their lives where they were looking to pass the firm on and Eric, and Paul, were the solicitors they decided were the right people for this. The handover is a staged affair over 3 years. Last year Paul took on a portion, this year Eric and next year it gets levelled out to a 50:50 partnership between them. We are certainly going to struggle for the next year or 2 but then, I am hoping that our financial situation will improve significantly   . On the 1st both the girls were out in the evening so I cooked and we had a very romantic, candlelit dinner with balloons and banners, to celebrate. We went out to dinner as a family on Wednesday this week, Eric’s first full day as a partner.


Another, about to be, major piece of news is that we (nearly) have some form of central heating. Anyone who has been here in the cooler months, or is familiar with New Zealand will know that our houses are appallingly insulated and therefore very cold in the winters. Our, being an old (by NZ standards) house is a classic example of this. We do have loft insulation but our old Jayline wood burner was next to useless. Well, prior to setting off to South Africa our hot water tank developed a leak. We decided to bit the bullet and as we had to replace the cylinder we would get the right one for the wood burner we wanted and get both. We did some rapid research and found a company here that supply’s reconditioned Rayburns www.classiccookers.co.nz . We wanted something that burnt wood, heated our hot water and that we could run radiators off. This is it:





As you can see it’s not yet fully installed. There’s a reason for that! We ordered it in December for delivery mid-Feb. It did not arrive until mid-March. Thank heavens Mark was here when it did arrive (he called in for a tea on his way to Auckland) as the girls and I were not. It weighs 220kgs and had to be moved from the drive, up onto the deck and into the kitchen. It took them 2 hours to get it shifted! Eric had previously relayed the hearth after reinforcing the floor and once in position the next job was to get the council to grant building consent then get the plumbers in to connect up to the cylinder and and install a flue. When the cylinder was installed I asked the plumber 3 times if he was positive they had the right one. Eric was adamant it wasn’t, and when we spoke to the plumbing firm this time round one of the senior guys came out and agreed it was the wrong one. So, we are currently waiting for the flue and correct cylinder to arrive. We are in the process of sourcing radiators but I am hoping that we will at least have heat and hot water by next weekend. The temperatures are dropping significantly at the moment so I am keen to get this fixed up asap. Last weekend, Easter, we spent some time gathering in, chopping and stacking fire wood. With all the tress we have felled in the last 18 months it is certainly not in short supply! I’ll keep you posted.

Next week will be busy for us. We have a Danish student on Rotary’s GSE (Group Study Exchange) scheme. We don’t have to worry about entertaining her as their programme is jammed packed. They will be exhausted by the time they go home. She arrives on Sunday and we are meant to be at another Rotarians for lunch but we will not be available. Harriette’s GIPS (Global Issues Problem Solving) team have a fund raiser that day. We have arranged a 4x4 drive across a whole lot of farms at the base of the Kaimais. I say we, I actually mean the local 4x4 drive club. They pay money and get to drive. We provide morning tea and lunch. Not sure what time it finishes but the students go to Hobbitton (the set of the LOTR’s movies) after lunch and then back to Kevin and Margaret’s do we will collect her from there late afternoon. Our Rotary meeting on Tuesday is a formal affair which I am MC-ing!! The girls are playing music at it so it will be a family affair.