Opa Vandenboom

Mary's Dad moved in a retirement home where he has his own apartment with a small living room (see photo above), a bedroom, washroom and kitchenette. The meals are provided to all 50 residents and the staff also takes care of the daily medications (mostly taken during the meals). The building is just five minutes walking from where we live (and where Susan & Ralph live). We can all stop by a lot which will be nice for him. It was not so easy for us to stop by frequently where he lived in the city of St Thomas which is a good two hours by car from where we live. It will take some getting used to for Opa Vandenboom but he will turn 90 in February 2020 so it is probably good timing.

Seneca promotion activities

During the periods of January to April + September to December, our team has 10-12 international business development managers on the road whose primary task is to market the "Study at Seneca" options to interested prospective students around the world - from Ukraine to Lebanon, from China to Indonesia, from Russia to India and all over the Americas and the African continent. This week I am doing some travel with our new student recruiter for Spanish speaking Latin America. Here is what he did today in Bogota with representatives of a few agencies with whom we have business relations in this city to market our programs and who then guide prospective students making the right choices for their overseas study interest as well as assisting with the student visa applications.

With old SENA friends

Such a privilege to be able to get together again with Colombian colleagues I worked with for a full year during 2013 (see my posts from that year). Juan Guillermo (on the left) has been an incredible leader in the SENA organization; now retired and living the life of a (hobby) farmer. He really should write a book about his years with SENA! Anyhow, he came to join us for lunch which was great! Before we "earned" that lunch together we did some forward looking work with some of the folks who continue the amazing work of the SENA organization at the regional HQ in Medellin. I really love working with these community developers offering training programs to 7 million Colombians each year both in their big cities as well as in some of their smallest communities...

I almost got away with one of their trophies but they frisked me at the exit..... In the evening Alfredo did another good job promoting the "Study at Seneca" options at one of the study abroad agencies with whom we work. Tomorrow we will make our way back to Bogota....