Wednesday 12 May 2010

Carpets, Guns, BBQ and Magic

Tuesday 11th May

Our final morning in Dalton saw us visit a factory that this city is famed for, who ever thought that carpet manufacturing could be so interesting? We were given a guided tour by Howard who has a Phd in Chemical engineering and has worked at the factory for 25 years. His knowledge of the carpet manufacturing process was second to none and he wasted no time at all in passing this on to the team during the tour. Andrea slipped away early to go and visit the North Star Educational and Therapeutic Service and was given a guided tour by Debbie Cook. This service provides education for children from kindergarten to 12th grade who have severe disabilities and behaviour problems and although it aims to be a short term treatment facility the students often end up staying for long periods as it is the most suitable placement for them. This was a fantastic opportunity for Andrea to exchange information about therapeutic interventions and Autism, she even managed to get involved and help resolve a (bad - Ed) behaviour incident. It seems that even the most challenging children like the sound of the English accent! Whilst all this was going on Roy took the opportunity to coach soccer skills to a group of young girls from Dalton High School.

Lunch time saw us once again deliver our presentation, this time to around 90 members of the Dalton Rotary Club where Steve managed to strike up a bet with an over confident Mark Marlowe.

Mark seems to think that the USA will beat England in the Football (soccer to our American friends) World cup on 12th June. The gauntlet was thrown down and the looser will donate $100 to Polio Plus.

We once again hit the road and headed back along the busy interstates that weave their way through Atlanta sometimes 8 lanes wide in both directions at the pace of a snail. We met Doug the USA team leader at Conyers, Rockdale County and he whisked us away to a law enforcement firing range where the team got the chance to fire a huge range of weapons including Swat team M16s, 12 gauge shot guns and a Colt 44 magnum the most powerful hand gun in the world which could blow your head clean off! We also had about as much fun posing for photos as we did shooting! So you you’ve got to ask yourself one question, “Do you feel lucky? Well do ya, Punk?!”












 





Joking aside for a moment, we (the team) felt it was important to mention a painful event which occurred last Saturday here in this town of Conyers. A young police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty. The funeral is today (Wednesday) and the town and fellow police officers turned out to honour and pay their respects to him and his family. This brought home to us just how dangerous and deadly those weapons we were ‘playing’ with yesterday are and we would like to offer our condolences during this sad time.

After our afternoon activities we headed to a magnificent house and a wonderful BBQ (Southern style).


We were once again treated to a fantastic reception and met many lovely people. Fellow Georgian GSE team members Doug, Melissa and her husband James were there...



......and guess who else? That’s right! Chris.



We had a good chat, some more magic tricks were displayed (move over Paul Daniels) and we discussed what we could expect and enjoy doing in Atlanta on Friday – our last day! Sob sob.



Finally, Doug whisked us off and we met our respective host families in Conyers and eventually drew the line on a very busy but fulfilling day.

By Steve and Allison

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