Lunch & Learn Meetings for Italy Travelers

Last week Lunch & Learn advisors met and hashed out a schedule for some of our club activities. Given my responsibilities and other scheduled meetings, we decided to pencil in Italy Trip meetings for the First and Third Mondays of each month.

Meetings will take place during Lunch A and B (come to whichever fits your schedule) in rm 136 (Mrs. Welle's room). This is your chance to get involved in fundraising and to learn more about our fabulous destination: Italy!

Because of the Labor Day holiday, we will not be in school on the 1st Monday in September. Thus, our first Lunch & Learn meeting will be September 21st (the third Monday of the month). Since I may have information that needs to get to you BEFORE that date, be sure to watch for blog posts regarding fundraising and/or trip information.

Totals for Car Wash Fundraiser

I apologize for the delay in passing along this information, but the total income from our car wash on August 1 was $418.50. Great job!

When you divide that among the 64 hours worked by our 13 travelers, it comes out to about $6.53 an hour. So you can figure out how much you made according to how many hours you worked. Those who worked all day made about $40 ($39.18 to be exact). Not too shabby!

We'll be kicking off the school year with a catalog order sale of some sort. I haven't nailed down what type, as I'm still attempting to make contact(s) with a couple of vendors. We'll certainly discuss this at our first Lunch & Learn meeting with students (also to be scheduled yet - our scheduling meeting is at 11:30 today).

D-Day Trip Playlist

If you are like me, you returned home from the D-Day trip with songs that Tom had played for us on the bus running through your head. Recently, I got an email from a traveler requesting a playlist, so I passed the request on to Tom. If you have any additions to this list, post a comment so we can all download our "trip mix". :)

Here is his reply:

I know I played Lily Allen some songs from her second album. There is a lot of Lily Allen on You Tube. Her biggest song over here was Smile from her first album. I'm sorry I cannot remember the titles I played from the second one (I think the song about the Chinese food was simply called Chinese and it is my favourite), but there would be a tracklisting on the net easy to find. By the way I will be going to see Lily Allen in December here in Dublin, as I really like her. Here's a link to Smile. Just in time for Christmas!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihRB35ZuKnI

The second female artist was Duffy from her album (she has only one so far). I love the first song Rockferry, but her big hit was Mercy which I recall playing a lot. Warwick Avenue was also big over here. Again, easy to find Duffy on You Tube. Here's Rockferry!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB_qvjeLjjI

And then there was the great Amy Winehouse who has a once-in-a-generation voice which reaches all the way down to her soul, that's why they call it "soul" music maybe. I played Rahab of course and Back to Black from her Back to Black album. One of Amy's biggest hits is Valerie which is in various versions on You Tube. Here's a link to a great version of Valerie. Patience!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEv9O2GdPBc

Apart from that I know I played some U2 who played here in Dublin recently, various songs from their Singles CD.

And I played Carla Bruni, wife of French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. and here is a link to that song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNqTH3mb314

Warmest regards to all.
Take care, keep in touch, Tq.

ps good luck with the return to education!
pps here's a couple of bonus songs for Megan, stuff that did not make it to the bus! First my favourite song last year!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myJnsqGgxxM&feature=fvst
And I think I'll be playing this on tours to come!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR-Q52njXiI

Good News for Former D-Day Travelers

Hey, I just opened my school email inbox to find this message from Lars Berg (President of EF Tours):

Dear Virginia,
I have some good news that I want to share with you about your recent 2009 EF tour. Today, we are notifying all of your paying participants that they will soon be receiving a refund for a portion of their airline departure fees.

As you know, the airlines’ fuel surcharges skyrocketed to record highs last year. Fortunately, those fees started to decrease just before your group’s departure. Therefore, we are happily refunding the difference that we are receiving from the airlines. There’s nothing you or your travelers need to do. The refund checks will be mailed directly to all participants in the next few weeks. I just wanted to let you know the good news.

We truly enjoyed the opportunity to help you show your students the world, and we look forward to traveling with you again soon.

The message had no information about how much the refund might be, so let's all hope it's $100! Of course, it may be $5 for all I know. But, apparently, the D-Day Travelers will be getting checks in the mail.

Just in time for back to school shopping!