Tuesday 27th April 2010

Phew....what a day! Two presentations down, only eight to go.

The day started with a visit to the University of British Columbia ('UBC'), Kelowna Campus. Gwen Ziln, a Rotarian and an employee of UBC kindly gave us a tour of the campus. I think we were all impressed by the quality of the buildings, and the provision of student study/social areas including flat screen TV's to watch movies! We then journed to Vernon, where we joined five Rotary clubs for lunch, and did our first presentation. I think we all did incredibly well, and there were no technical glitches (phew!). Lunch was followed by a trip to the Silver Star ski resort, which still had a covering of snow. The resort had only closed three weeks ago, but still had a fine covering of snow. Ironically it started to sleet as we travelled there. Following a brief play in the snow we travelled on to Salmon Arm to meet our host families, and joined three local Rotary clubs for a meal and our second presentation.

Tomorrow we will all have our first vocational visit. and I will have the privilege of meeting a retired Provincial Court Judge. I hope that this will provide me with the opportunity to learn how the Canadian criminal justice system compares and contrasts with the UK, and to discover the efforts which are being made in Canada to rehabilitate offenders.