I have to say GOOD BYE...

Dear blog reader,

after 6 month as an intern with Cape Windjammers Education Trust, unfortunately I have to say good bye. My internship is over now and I have to go back to Germany to finish my study in media management and write my master thesis.

I had a great time in SA - to write and create e.g. the blog for team SA and to be with them throughout the whole selection, preparation and follow up process was a rewarding and enriching experience that will stay with me.

It was so nice to meet Sarah, Belinda, Daphné, Sakhe, Valentino, Theo, Kelvin, Nonkanyiso, Thandikhaya and Marlon. You all have such great enthusiasm, power and grooves :) ... don't give up and believe in yourself.

In German there is a saying: "Man sieht sich immer zweimal im Leben!" That means, you will meet a person twice in life...and who knows what happend! :)

Take care and much love,
Anja

Amazing - what a wonderful homecoming celebration!

On Tuesday 4 September 2007 Cape Windjammers Education Trust organized in cooperation with False Bay College/Westlake Campus a homecoming celebration for team SA. Many donors, local stakeholders, friends, familiy members of the team and of course the back up team joined Belinda, Daphné and Sarah through the evening.


Certainly you will know what happend during this celebration?

Well Patrick Fraser, the Chairperson of the South African Sail Training Initiative, gave a short introduction speech to the audience explaining the background of this project. He was followed by Antje Nahnsen, the Programme Coordinator of Cape Windjammers Education Trust, sharing more details about the selection and prepartion process of the team.



And then surprise surprise - the electricity was gone. Nobody knows why that happend, but after a couple of minutes and the help of the staff from False Bay College, the electricity was back and a video about the Tall Ship's Races was presented. Very special about the video is that the footage was taken solely by the team members and we congratulate them on a brilliant job done! The editing of the video was done by Cape Windjammers Education Trust with the help of Ulf Kaschl and German actor Daniel Krauss. To both of you a big THANK YOU - we could not have done without you. The audience and especially the team members were inspired, because they saw the video for the first time.

After the video presentation the team spoke about their experience during the race and what they learned during the trip. Dennis Stevenson, the president of Cape Windjammers Education Trust, then handed over certificates to team members honouring their achievments.



And then it was time to give space for the back up team to raise their voice: while having trained hard to be on the team they did not make it into the final team - this year that is. Sakhekile Qoyi on behalf of the back up team appealed to the audience to come on board and to support them to raise funds for a new team to join the Tall Ship's Races 2008.



As a kick off for that a raffle was running, to collect start up funds.



Throughout the whole evening the web blog and a slideshow were running on all computers in the Open learning Centre to inform the audience what the project was all about.



The event was lots of fun and we hope that lots of potential donors and supporters were inspired! Big thanks go to:

Karen Hendriks - False Bay College/Westlake Campus for facilitating the use of the venue
Jeanne Bonnema - False Bay College/Westlake Campus for helping us to set up the event
Daniel Krauss and Ulf Kaschl - friends of Cape Windjammers Education Trust, who supported us to edit the footage of the team
Family members and team SA - for preparing food for the event

THANK YOU TO MAKE THIS HOMECOMING CELEBRATION HAPPEN!