Cash Calendar Winners March 25 - April 1

26-Mar-13	$30.00	561	Richard Glanville-Brown
27-Mar-13	$30.00	1009	Manson Slik
28-Mar-13	$30.00	170	Glenn Helm
29-Mar-13	$100.00	936	Bob Ferguson
31-Mar-13	$30.00	793	Melissa Attwells
1-Apr-13	$30.00	992	Wendy & Dean Goodman

Cash Calendar Winners March 5 - March 25

5-Mar-13	$30.00	1058	Jill E Moody
6-Mar-13	$30.00	218	Maria McCallum
7-Mar-13	$30.00	676	David Sutherland
8-Mar-13	$30.00	600	Elmer Hewton
11-Mar-13	$30.00	1327	Kevin Simmons
12-Mar-13	$30.00	678	Susan harrington
13-Mar-13	$30.00	310	Kelly Yuke
14-Mar-13	$30.00	1228	Muriel Wager
15-Mar-13	$30.00	439	Betty Masterson
17-Mar-13	$30.00	1000	Bettina Bake
18-Mar-13	$30.00	1337	Shirley DeMille
19-Mar-13	$30.00	773	Joan Langschmidt
20-Mar-13	$30.00	1368	Warren Skinkis
21-Mar-13	$30.00	424	Eleanor Istead
22-Mar-13	$30.00	651	Deb Simpson
25-Mar-13	$30.00	971	Doug Rose

2013 Waterfalls Tour

The Rotary Club of Picton will hold its ninth annual Waterfall Tour on Easter weekend.

The Rotary Club is inviting people to visit two such seldom-seen sites, waterfalls located on private property within the municipality.

Saturday and Sunday March 30 and 31, from 11a.m. to 4 p.m., the public is invited to join Rotary volunteers to tour the falls at Cape Vessey and Jackson Falls.

“This is our ninth annual tour and we’re doing it Easter weekend so people have a chance to bring friends and relatives who may be visiting out to see the falls,” said vice president Rick Jones.

People are invited to bring their cameras to visit the two sites as well as proper footwear. The Cape Vessey falls are located on Hoseein and Anne Banani’s property at 3718 County Rd 8, east of Waupoos, while Jackson’s falls is located at 1768 County 17 near Milford, on property owned by John and Brenda Law.

“We’re very thankful for our landowners opening up their properties once a year for our tour,” said Jones.

“They’ve been very supportive of our efferts.”

That’s because the tours are staged to raise money for a good cause.

Though it offers a free tour, the Rotary Club collects donations for water projects world wide.

Letter from Peta in Ghana

You know you have been out of touch when your brother asks if you have fallen off the face of the earth!  Sorry, no I have not, but the earth has been spinning at such a rate I am dizzy!  It’s been really hot, (

the rains will come next month) We have had extensive “lights out” meaning no power, so the sleeping is sweaty, working is difficult as my computer battery keeps running out, the fridge keeps defrosting and my phone battery keeps dying!   Suddenly when the power comes on at 3am in the morning I am a hive of activity, plugging in phones, printing reports, charging my computer, and finally starting to feel a breeze on my soaked body!  I will never take power for granted again!!

I knew this time would be busy, but am surprised just how hectic it has been!  The National Vocational Training Institute (Ghana Govt.) has “absorbed“ us.  This is a good thing, it means they are now responsible for all our operating costs!  But with that “absorption”, comes mounds and mounds of archaic paperwork. (virtually none on line!) Truly some systems are from the bureaucratic British Colonial period of  55 years ago!!  So yards of reports are required.  Assets, inventories, infrastructure, Board structure revisions, Committee requirements etc etc.  Their head office is 3 hours away, I am a very frequent visitor, they know me well!  Our own AVTC  Board who met recently have required a huge amount of extra work as well, particularly in the financial field and so I am happy that FINALLY I have a financial officer about to start, a fine young woman!(yea) It has all been a lot to shoulder, so am delighted to share the load!  We have also employed an exceptional English teacher, also a woman!  a great math teacher, plus two security men, (one is a hoot, called Innocent, and had the interview panel in stitches when he demonstrated how he would tackle a “thief”.)   

Next week we interview Welding, Masonry, Catering, Electrical and Dressmaking instructors! AND an Admin Assistant, yea yea!!  In one month our staff will have gone from 4 to 14! With our new students arriving we should more than double our numbers too! It is so exciting!

However I am hoping that the intense pressure will ease off once we stabilize!   During the AVTC holidays I intend to take some time out in Zanzibar in April. I have been working 24/7!  Can’t wait to go snorkeling there and wander the twisty stone streets of Stone Town.

            Transportation continues to be interesting, even scary at times with the back wheel of a friend’s tro tro coming flying off past her window as she rode back to Atorkor!   Last wee I had the best view ever,  I was riding back to Atorkor in the cab of a huge truck.  It had kidney shaking shudders if it proceded over 55 kms an hour so the journey was long, but I have never been so high up and the views of the villages and communities were fascinating, though clambering in and out in a skirt was a trifle tricky!  The truck was loaded to the hilt with equipment for the new programs, and perched precariously on the back was a very large, very expensive, bright yellow cement mixer!  Once we got to the school we had to unload in the pitch dark blackness of an African night (we had no forklift of course)  the students rigged up 2x4  boards and very

very gingerly, with the use of their mobile phone lights,  they guided the 3 inch wide wheels down the 4 inch

wide planks from the truck to the ground!   If one wheel had come off we would have lost the cement mixer!  Great cheers went up when they got it safely to the ground!

There are two volunteers here at the moment, and a third arrives in a day or so.  One is a Queens’s student doing international Development here, what an amazing young woman, dedicated and hardworking, sh  has established a computer club for the junior and senior students, and is working on establishing a micro financing program for our AVTC graduating students to give them business set up loans when they leave. The other is a young guy who has started a theatre club, and is writing plays for the kids about community things like trash collection, and not pooping in the bushes!  He is also working daily in the elementary school  library reading stories to the children, something that just does NOT happen here.  He works on their comprehension too, often they will read but have no idea what they are reading!  Our own AVTC library is very gradually filling,  I was able to snaffle 287 donated books from peace corp, that they would only allow me to have if i arrived with a trolley under cloak of darkness, no flashlights even!! to collect from a locked room that had maybe 2,000 more there!  I have no shame as long as the books are relevant!  I have a couple more  book leads in Ghana and more books arriving from Canada.  Chris the volunteer is cataloguing them, yea! I have been back 6 weeks, seems like i never left! So any day now the Canadian crate with all the tools and books will be arriving!  What a treat that will be, and I am quite sure it will be an adventure to clear and collect it from the port.   Will give you an update when it gets here!  Talk soon,  mama pee   (as was written on the last quote I received!!)

Picton Rotary Oyster Fest

CAsh calendar Winners Feb 19 - March 4

19-Feb-13	$30.00	549	Brad Hughes
20-Feb-13	$30.00	410	David Kellet
21-Feb-13	$30.00	408	Scot Powers
22-Feb-13	$500.00	422	Cathy Jones
25-Feb-13	$100.00	665	Brian Jewell
26-Feb-13	$30.00	1026	Henry and Lynn Miller
27-Feb-13	$30.00	255	John Hardon
28-Feb-13	$30.00	24	Kathy Terpstra
1-Mar-13	$30.00	611	Tammy Doxtator-Jones
4-Mar-13	$30.00	445	Muriel Callow