Dinning with the Summer Workshops at UCLA

Sue and I had a delightful time at the cafeteria at UCLA.

This year there didn't seem to be as many cheerleaders at camp as last. The majority of others dining at the cafeteria were SIG groups. These are gifted kid camps. Most of them were respectful to us older folks. There conversations were very interesting. One boy was telling in a rather patronizing voice to another.. "Well the indians in the United States... "

His collegue answered "I don't need you to give me a history lesson on this.." and neither one took offense at the other for bringing up the obvious.

This is indeed a different conversation than the cheerleader one which usually revolves around whom did what to whom or whom committed the fashion mistake.

We had good food. Hamburgers,hot dogs and pizza were always available as choices for lunch or dinner as well since it was in buffet form were a starch bar with browned potatoes or plantains, roasted vegetables including tofu, rice in in its many ethnic forms and soups. The salad bar was more than adequate with hard boiled eggs and the usual delights. The pasta bar usually had two choices, one vegetarian and the other meat. The Euro bar had a variety of choices, some of them were not very Euro. Sweet and sour chicken was good and its equivalent in tofu. One lunch had paella with muscles and tiny bay shrimp and scallops. Sue wasn't thrilled with the Thai salad that came with a saffron noodle piece and some mint flavored chicken pieces with red onion. The desert area had lots of sugar free items and then some that were pretty high in sugar.. baklava. Small donuts and twists were there as well as bananas and fresh fruit.

Overall it was a great bargain for Sue's part.. we paid for her food and the unit picked up mine. 200 dollars. 6 days of food 15 meals we didn't need to make or clean up after.

She only missed 2 meals the entire time we were there.

Our room had a TV and we could manage the coolness of our own air conditioner. The bathroom was handicapped enhanced but was missed the chair. We borrowed the chair from the front and used it for the shower.

We had a very quiet time there and the overall accommodations were excellent for a camp style setting.

The content of the training was great.. delivered in a little speedy manner for most. That was why it was important that people had some experience at the table to take advantage of the power that was trained. The group this year was very appropriate to the task. We had three people in our simulations that had been spokespersons at the table. Only one had had only one year at the table. I thanked the leader for being so touch in setting up the requirements and filling the candidates for the conference with people that met those requirements. She said that it was tough as CTA wanted to include others that did not fit the requirements. Our simulations had us going agaist our trainers who played the school management team. Last year half of the team was management and the other was teachers. A big component this year was the inclusion of strategic planning at the table and for organizing.

The trainers were each very high powered people. Each had a different approach to the issues and we grew by each of their expertise and take. We did not get bogged down with a few chapters telling their war stories. This is a particularly vulnerable area for a group like this. We used a "parking lot" for people to put their specific question up with sticky notes. They were then addressed by the trainers who had specific interest in that area. This was done at the end of each day, and when we came back as a group from lunch.

Overall it was a great experience and a credit to CTA who took the info from last year's training and reworked it and made it better.

: ) Pat