A Busy Week...

Over the weekend Sharyn headed to Christchurch to meet four more incoming volunteers who are going to be spending their placements here working at YMCA Outdoor education camps, the first time we have had these kinds of placements in New Zealand! Tom and Hannes are off to Camp Kaitoke near Wellington, whilst Lasse and Christian are heading to Camp Wainui in Akaroa.
Here are the boys just after their arrival:

As well as lots of information, the boys got a chance to see some of the sights of the city, and meet up with Ann-Kathrin who is at a school in Christchurch and arrived with the other volunteers at the end of August. There were tram rides, visits to the beach, and a gondola ride, they also went punting on the river.

Yesterday was another busy day, and a great chance to catch up with some of the volunteers in the Manawatu region. The Lattitude staff, including our new CEO Paul, eight current volunteers and one prospective volunteer went over to Hato Paora College to take part in a forum about volunteering and gap years.

We were given a tremendous welcome by the boys, including a tradtional Maori welcome, a phowiri, as well as a whole school Haka which was breathtaking! After our welcome the visitors and four of the Hato Paora students, including our scholarship candidate Karetai, who are going overseas next year talked to Paul about why they chose Lattitude and what they hope to gain from their gap year.

In true Kiwi fashion we then all went back to Sharyn's house for a barbeque.

All in all it's been a pretty hectic week! We're back in the office now and working hard to get placement offers out to those people who are waiting on them.