Onaway magic

Well, it's been a busy time and I have not been able to log on and blog until now. We had an uneventful flight over and a neat trip up to Neenah by school bus. We had fantastic hosts in Neenah and while it was very relaxing it was also busy as we helped them prepare for a 4th July Party. Their house has a fantastic location just beside Riverside Park, and a harbour location with a private dock, so we had a spectacular view of the fireworks.

Saturday we came up to Onaway where the weather has been fantastic most of the time; we had a short thunderstorm on Monday evening, but otherwise warm and sunny. There are the usual activities; water skiing, tubing and shark riding (a new version of the ever popular banana boat) as well as a variety of Danish and Scottish influenced activities as we have had a Danish and a Scottish day. The usual camp fires at night as well accompanied by prolific mosquitos, and a fantastic opening leader provided campfire choreographed by Scott Crane.

Right now I am staying out of the sun as I have to supervise swimming etc deepside later today, and the sun is really hot. Tomoorow Friday is another busy day, starting I nbelieve with a surprise for the campers. Time will tell.

Well, it's the last day of June. We leave for Wisconsin at 0655 tomorrow morning from Glasgow Airport via Manchester to Chicago. That means checking in at 0530 and an appallingly early rise - the things I do for Boys' Brigade! I have taken today as holiday to have time to do last minute things, and to pack for the trip.

I think if anything can go wrong it has on this one. I had problems with the design for our special trip polos and Tshirts, and so only got them on Friday. The sizes seem to have been a bit wrong this time but a phone call first thing this morning established that it is too late to get any more done. The screens need set up again and then there are four print runs, so job cannot be done in a day! So tomorrow some people will be wearing shirts that don't fit!

I got some pennants done specially as well. Went to collect them on Friday as well, and discovered they had only done one instead of the five I had ordered. So trip back there on Saturday morning to collect the remainder.

That was on top of them not being able to work off a Word document for the engraving I wanted done. Needed it in Adobe Illustrator - the sort of program we all have on our home PCs. Ended up having to change my idea about a gift entirely, and do it all over the phone. What I have now is a bit smaller than I would have chosen, but no matter.

Called BMI group sales this morning to pay the fee for changing a name on the tickets (long story on that one, but let's not go there!). They wanted £75 for that although the contract said £35, so after long debate they finally accepted the contract price.

Now the bank have been on to say they can't pay the international transfer as the SWIFT Code I have given them is coming up as invalid! Need to wait until 3 pm our time to raise Brigade in Neenah to check that!

Hey ho! What next? Went to the airport this morning to try to set up an easy checkin with our group of 26, and all was sweetness and light. Not phased by the number or the idea of several sets of bagpipes as extra luggage! Bet BMI don't have the boarding passes etc all prepared tomorrow morning as promised to speed us on our way! But something has to start going right sometime soon.

Anyhow, here's are some pics of where we are going. Let's hope the weather is good!

Wisconsin 2008

Well, I have finally decided to join the blogging community, although I was forced to creat a blog a while back to post a comment on someone else's blog. However, this summer's little adventure is a trip to Wisconsin to celebrate the centenary of Onaway Island as Brigade in Neenah's camp site. We are joining up with FDF Balle (near Silkeborg) and the Brigade in Neenah for a week on the island as an International Camp, and round about that we are spending time with host families in Neenah. We leave Glasgow on 1 July, and are due back on 16 July. I thought it might be fun to post a blog in addition to the formal reports which will appear on the Company website at www.1stBearsdenBB.org.

Where are we going? Well, Neenah and Menasha are twin cities on the Fox River where it flows in to the north west corner of Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. The principal employer is Kimberley Clark and paper mills are a prominent feature of the area. Dairy farming and cheese are the other major products of the State.

Brigade started in Neenah in 1900, and now caters for about 750 kids from Grade 6 through to 12, employs a number of staff including several full time programme leaders and in addition to Onaway has its own four storey headquarters building with immense facilities. 250/300 volunteer leaders support the programme.