The Importance of Creativity...

Gemma Melton works in our UK Head Office and is part of our Activity Camp team. Her background is in Fine Art having graduated from Norwich University of the Arts. Her creative skills and passion for all things creative are leading the way to make our Activity Camps even more spectacular!  In this blog she talks about how important creativity at camp can be. 

Gemma writes: 'Arguably, children attend camp to participate in adventure and sports activities, but what is the ideal balance between sports, adventure and creativity? Can the two things occur simultaneously?

When you hear the words Arts and Crafts, you might think about knitting, maybe some sketching.  Well here at Xplore we have broadened our horizons and come to terms with the fact that most children have an app which overrides the tradition of these skills.

That is why we have devised creative themed sessions where children learn these important skills but under the disguise of a cool fun project!  Our creative sessions are no longer under the generic ‘Arts and Crafts’ title, but instead take the name of the activity, so for example ‘Rocket Making’ or ‘Build a City’. 

We have also added free courses to our new programme for 2014, with a particular focus on learning new skills within a creative subject area. For example we have Fashion Design, Art and Design, Multimedia and even a Dance and Fitness course to get you cutting some great shapes on the dance floor! Keep checking our website for more details on these free and fun courses.   

This is all very well but you might ask, what is the need for creative sessions as part of a Multi Activity Programme? Well, we see these as some time-out from the fast paced life at camp. We want children to engage with their artistic side, as this brings out many qualities associated with child development. For example it can build confidence, improve problem solving skills and attention to detail.  

Children learn through playing and being resourceful as suggested by research into early education.  The bottom line is, children are makers and discover things by working with materials rather than through direct instruction.

To incorporate some of these ideals in to our sessions we can incorporate movement, take our sessions outside of the typical classroom, play music and allow sessions to work within a flexible structure.

However, in order to keep this programme in line with our adventure ethos, we must be resourceful and environmentally friendly by up-cycling, creating work spaces outside and using the surroundings to fuel creativity. With such beautiful landscapes surrounding our centres, it would be silly not to utilise this.

In a recent survey of 100 customers, 70% agreed that creativity is important, and we feel it’s development is essential. But as our most popular activity as voted for by our customers, remains to be quad biking, we’re left racking our brains for some sort of quad biking art-a-thon..!'

Children enjoying making Halloween themed decorations to scare their parents when they came to collect them that evening!

These boys decided to make a crazy full body skeleton costume. It was a perfect fit and look great at the Halloween ball.

New adventures await our students in New Zealand

Timo Becker is Xplore’s Program Manager for our High School Programs and is based in our office in Koln, Germany. This month he went out to New Zealand on a Fam Trip – a familiarisation trip.  In this blog article Timo highlights what makes New Zealand unique and why it offers a brilliant opportunity to our international students…

Our students have the option of studying in New Zealand for between 1 and 4 terms. The school facilities in the high schools we work with are impressive with a wide choice of subjects available. The people of New Zealand are genuine and friendly and the Maori culture is also very interesting. The scenery as we know from many feature films is breathtaking with a mix of mountains, glaciers, lakes, rivers, coastline and forests alongside multicultural cities and picturesque towns.

When visiting schools with a view to offering it to our students, we take into account the local area, the school’s facilities and classrooms, learn about the international mix of students and meet with the Principal and staff team.

Outdoor Education Class

Starting in the beautiful city of Auckland on the North Island, I visited 3 schools in Tauranga, a bustling city in the Bay of Plenty. The Bay of Plenty is comprised of a variety of unique destinations, from beautiful white sand beaches to charming rural country towns. It is also the gateway to White Island, New Zealand's only active marine volcano. Our partner there showed me round the schools and I was soon taking part in an Outdoor Education class! 

I then went on to visit 2 schools in Auckland, these were very large as you might expect from inner city schools but also very well equipped. There I met the International Dean of a school and was treated to a barbeque.

Bay of Plenty

Mayor of Wanganui

Four hundred kilometers south is Wanganui where I spent a week visiting 5 schools and meeting the Principals of each school and the Mayor! On the Monday I was given a traditional Maori welcome by 8 of the students, which was a great experience. I visited the boarding school ‘Wanganui Collegiate’ and watched a drama rehearsal. In 1982 Prince Edward spent 2 terms at the college during his gap year.  It is a very traditional English private boarding school with 10% international student population.

Traditional Maori welcome

Whilst here I also had the opportunity to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which spans the length of Mount Tongariro and is one of the most popular day hikes in New Zealand.  This World Heritage Site was the scene for much of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

On 16^th March I left for the South Island, with Nelson being my first stop followed by Abel Tasmin National Park.  Here I visited 2 more schools and met the Principals. I then left for Dunedin to visit a further 5 schools.  Here I caught up with two of our students studying in high schools. They updated me on how they are getting on at school and with their host families.

Before I left, one of our partners in New Zealand gave me a ‘Pounamu’ pendent. This traditional Maori gem plays a very important role in Maori culture. It is considered a taonga (treasure) and is often presented as a gift to visitors.

Back in Germany I will now set to work on the new High School brochure, introducing some new schools that I visited during this trip. It is very beneficial to view schools in person and the information gathered will enable our staff in Koln and Hamburg to help students decide which school is right for them as they embark on their international studies. 

Blogging from the skies!

Ian Lewis is our Managing Director.  He is the driving force behind the amazing programmes that we offer to young people, he is a keen sportsman and often cycles hundreds of miles for charity…he even makes the team a great cup of tea! In this blog article Ian 'Lewi' Lewis gives us a snapshot of his life in the fast lane! 

'As part of my job for Xplore I get to travel to each of our offices and this is one of my favourite parts of the job.

I am currently sat on the plane on the way back from my recent visit to our Xplore office in Shenzhen in South China. As the man next to me is snoring I thought I would write an article for our blog! The travel to our offices in the US and China is not straight forward and makes a trip to our Hamburg office seem very easy. I flew out 7 days ago via Beijing, the flight time from London to the Chinese capital is about 10 hours and then it is a further 3½ hours to Hong Kong and then from the airport to Sheouk (my hotel area) it is a short 30 minute ferry ride.

I am lucky that on my trips our local teams look after me and help with my arrangements and meetings. As the time is pretty tight my schedule tends to be full. I set off from the UK on Monday and arrived late Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning at 8am it was straight to the office. 

David Clarkson is our Asia Director has been based out in the Far East for 23 years, he is fluent in both the language and the culture. He has been working tirelessly to grow our business out in the region and has made many key contacts for Xplore. He is supported by Merak and Vivi in the office who look after the account management of our current customer base. Merak has been accompanying groups to the UK for the last 5 years and therefore has a great understanding of how our summer operation works. Vivi has been working for 4 months now and is local Shenzhen, she is fluent in English and has a background in business and marketing. They have all done a fantastic job setting up our office and bringing a bit of Xplore to South China!

Food is a big part of business out in China and you find many meetings are held over lunch or dinner. This approach has allowed me to eat some weird and wonderful food, I think it is fair to say that you if you are fussy about your food then perhaps this is not the place for you. I have eaten some chickens feet (boiled and deep fried), cow intestines, grubs, chicken cartilage and crab where half of it was poisonous.

Communication is a key part of our success and so at 9 am we had a conference call with Jens in our US office to bring us up to speed with the developments of our 'MyChoice' high school programme over there. We then jumped into a cab to meet a Shenzhen intercultural company who are planning to send 3 groups to our summer camps.

We grabbed lunch on the run as we had to be in Foshen for a meeting with a new partner. The train network is fantastic and while I appreciate many countries have a good rail network, coming from the UK this was a treat. We had dinner with an agent who is hoping to bring a group from an international school to visit our US summer camps.

The next morning David had to leave for Shanghai and so Merak accompanied me to Macau and our meeting with our friends from AES who run Volunteer International. We had to get a high speed ferry across to the Las Vegas of China, it is an amazing place and although under main land rule still has a lot of Portuguese influence. As ever our meetings were very productive and finished with dinner with Robbie, the Group Director of AES and his team.  Sadly due to a 5 am start Merak and I didn’t venture out afterwards!

Hotel view in Shanghai

The next morning was another morning of travelling as I was due in Shanghai. I said goodbye to Merak at the ferry terminal and purchased some green tea for the girls in the office! First a ferry to the airport, followed by a short flight then an hour taxi ride into central Shanghai. My flight was delayed and so I was late for my first meeting. Although as this is not uncommon in travel, our agent Mr Wang and Keeping were very understanding. David had been with the team from Only all day training them in our year long high school programmes. Our second meeting of the day was over dinner. We met a student wanting more information about studying in the US, and we also caught up with Amber and our new agent Sophie. Sophie came to us last summer as a parent  and is now an agent for us.  Amber taught English last summer at our Finborough Hall centre and when Sophie asked if we could help with someone to teach English to her and her daughter Alice it was an easy decision to ask Amber if she wanted to go. Amber has been out there for a month and is loving her time, and will be featured on this blog soon.  The dinner was great and as with many of our customers it is like sharing food with friends.

Another queue at another airport,
you really have to learn to stand in line
when you are travelling! 

Saturday morning and time for another meeting with an organisation called People Impact, both Michael and Nick have been in the student education market for years. They have some really interesting programmes that we might consider adding to our summer camp courses in 2015. They also have three groups for the UK this summer and asked for more information on our college programmes. Before David had to depart for home in Shenzhen we had a bit of time for planning and reviewing our meetings over the last week and future operations. After he left I found a quiet corner to plough through my emails and wait to watch England V Italy in the final round of games of the six nations. As I had to be up at 4:30am it was straight back to the hotel after the game.

Homeward bound after 5 flights,
4 train journeys, 3 ferry rides and lots of taxis.

So today Sunday 16^th of March is another travel day I had a flight back from Shanghai to Beijing then a BA flight back to Heathrow. I will then jump on the Heathrow Express, the Underground and a train to Cambridge. Where I will meet my wife Jose, and children Ema and Oscar for dinner at Pizza Express before continuing home to Stowmarket. While it is pretty tiring I have to say that I enjoy meeting our various teams and customers, it great for us to see that our planned expansion is going well.'

Hello from the USA team!

Hi folks around the world! This is Jens writing to you guys from the Xplore USA Head Office in Asheville, North Carolina.

I'm the Director of Xplore's USA operations, a relatively new addition to the Xplore family. We have been running programs here in America for eight years now and I'm very lucky to say that all our short-term summer programs have enjoyed great success in various states. What makes our programs truly unique is that we encourage Americans to interact and mingle with our visiting students and they love it! Americans love it! We love it!

I am proudly presenting the latest addition to our selection of programs here in America! Starting immediately, international students between 14 and 18 years of age will now have the opportunity to enroll on a year long academic stay in America. Students will be living with a host family and attend a local high school for their study abroad experience.

As always with Xplore USA we individualise each applicant's experience with a very personal touch. With Xplore, students will be 'names' not 'numbers'.  As I said above I'm personally very thrilled that we now offer this new program as I have more than 25 years experience in organizing such programs. Also, I am very pleased to tell you that we had have some of the finest people in the industry join Xplore USA on this journey. My new US colleagues have all very successfully worked in organizing high school programs for international exchange students in the past.

We are all very passionate about student academic exchange and how it can touch so many lives in such a powerful way. Email us in the US for more information: info@xploremychoice.com.

Comfort food and culture!

Ruth Newberry has joined the Xplore team in the USA working with our students who are about to begin their adventure of living and studying abroad.  In this poignant article she talks about spending much of her childhood in a foreign country and how food sparks memories of the culture and family that made Spain her home for many years. 

Mercedes, myself and Mom

'Comfort food. When I say those two words, I’m transported to another place. I think about my family, my childhood, my history. It’s funny how food can do that for you. Same is true for smells. I grew up in Madrid, Spain, in the 1980s. It was not a particularly good time for smells but it was for food…and still is.

My mother, a full-blooded Irishwoman from the north of the country, was brought up on potatoes and vegetables from her father’s garden during World War II. My great-grandmother would always keep a pig in her tiny garden. You knew where your food came from and it was an honest place. The food wasn’t seasoned with exotic spices or interesting ingredients. It was straightforward and served a purpose. 

I was six when we moved to Madrid, the perfect age to be particularly fussy about food. I loved pizza, Fruity Pebbles, McDonald’s Happy Meals and bubble-gum ice cream. I also loved the tuna casseroles and ramen noodle experiments my mother tried. I most certainly did not like the strange shellfish and anchovies marinating in tin cans with pull-tops. I feared the little plates of octopus and the cow’s tripe sautéed in a fragrant tomato sauce that were brought out at the city bars my parents would wander into. During the week, I attended a British school where the food was bland and recognisable.  On Saturdays, my dad would bring me to the American base where he worked so I could play with other American kids and load up on hot dogs and popcorn, while my mom checked out books from the library.

Alberto and David

Mercedes, who became a second mother to me, is the mother of my two best friends from my youth, Alberto and David. They lived two floors below our apartment and are my definition of a true Spanish family. They held season passes to Real Madrid games and spent their summers in the pueblo where Mercedes grew up, a sleepy town two hours east where sheep are still herded through the dusty, cobbled streets. The boys marched home in their school uniforms every day for two hours to eat their main meal of the day prepared by their lovely mother.

The children from the neighbourhood

Back at home, though, I spent hours watching those two boys play in the courtyard of our apartment complex from my bedroom window on the fourth floor. It didn’t take long before my parents pushed me out the front door and locked it behind me. I had no choice but to make friends with my Spanish neighbors and learn their language. The boys’ father taught me to swim and their mother taught me to eat. I started spending hours in Mercedes’ kitchen, watching her prepare meals and learning to make what would become my comfort food. I ate the exotic white asparagus with homemade mayonnaise, the fish head soup, pork empanadas, the bean stews and cocidos, without asking what was in them. I learned to suck the juices from the shrimp heads and gobbled up morcilla, blood sausage, without complaint nor question. I began to crave the foods in the Spanish market and turned my nose up at the tater tots and French fries in the frozen aisle of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.

Before we moved back to the states, my dad recorded Mercedes and me on VHS cooking tortilla Española. It’s a cute video that I’ve watched a hundred times, not only to reminisce but to perfect my cooking of the dish. Despite this, mine will never be as good as hers. Comfort food to me is about finding my childhood and recreating a memory. It’s hard to do that without Mercedes, her family and Spain itself…no matter how hard I try.

This summer, families from Asheville, N.C., and Brooksville, Fla., will host international exchange students from Spain, Germany, and Italy. I’ll be supporting these brave teens in their attempt to try on American culture and life for size. These kids have chosen to leave their comfort foods and loving families to try something new in a strange home. They are looking to understand a foreign world and culture. My hope is that they will leave the U.S. with a memory they will want to recreate in the future. They will be introduced to foods that their host families will prepare and encourage them to try. Strange foods like collards, buttermilk biscuits, pulled pork barbecue, key lime pie. Maybe they’ll try ramps or scapes for the first time, perhaps molasses or apple butter. Maybe it will be a recipe passed down generationally from other parts of the country. More than that, though, I hope they’re introduced to someone like Mercedes. A person who has invited them into a completely foreign way of life, who encourages them to create memories associated with food and culture. Someone who will make these foods for them again when they return years later to visit as adults. 

They might not ever turn to American foods for comfort, but they will turn to the memory and find comfort in the friendships they created over here. Even though I don’t speak with my Spanish family as often as I should, I have this whole other culture I’ve been invited into. There is nothing in the world that feels as good as belonging.'

5 Stars for Walnutree Manor

We know that our staff at Walnutree Manor in Suffolk are a great team working to maintain our high standards, and this was affirmed last week when an impromptu Environmental Health Inspection awarded our facility with 5 stars.  We can't ask for more than that… other than perhaps a celebration cake by our fantastic chef Gordon?… Well done team!