Friday 1st July 2011; Expectation Exercise Revisited & Closing Ceremony

Week 12 of 12 
Module 6: Synthesis

Today was the final day of the 17th International Course on Stone Conservation. We gathered this morning along with Joe King, Director of Sites Unit ICCROM, and Susan MacDonald to revisit the expectations exercise that we carried out on the 3rd day of the course (see Friday 15th April 2011; Expectations Exercise...).

At the closing ceremony brief speeches were given by, Joe King, Jeanne Marie Teutonico (GCI), Simon Warrack (ICCROM), Kecia Fong (GCI) and on behalf of the participants Anita Krivikas (Australian participant). We were each presented with a certificate and a group photograph and the group photograph was added to the wall of photographs from the past 30 years of courses.

We will now disperse back to each of our corners of the World and take all of the last 12 weeks training with us to pass onto our colleagues and countries. I will be giving several seminars on my return to Scotland and I hope this way I will be able to begin my transfer of knowledge gained on this course. I look forward to continuing my work at the Scottish Lime Centre Trust where the busy summer training season is well underway. On my return to Scotland I will fill in the gaps in this Blog so that it is a more complete record of my time spent studying Stone Conservation at ICCROM in Rome.

I would like to thank the huge number of people who contributed to the organisation of the course, the lecturers and assistants who gave such a generous amount of time and knowledge (and patience) to us but most particularly to Simon Warrack and Kecia Fong the course coordinators and Cristina Cabello-Briones, course assistant, who really made the course the fantastic and enjoyable experience that it was. I would like to thank my fellow participants; the huge diversity in our backgrounds made the course all the more interesting and every one of them added to my experience and enjoyment of the course, so thank you to Anita (Australia), Stefaan (Belgium), Eliane (Brazil), Rong (China), Jakub (Czech Republic), Susanne (Denmark), Irakli (Georgia), Valerie (India), Jiyoung (Korea), Rutger (Holland), Michel (Palestine), Ileana (Romania), Sveta (Russia), Antonia (Portugal), Sumedha (Sri Lanka), Dodie (Sudan) and Rouba (Syria).

 Group photo taken in May including lecturers and staff (picture (c) ICCROM).











Finally I would like to thank all of the generous sponsors from Scotland and the U.K. who made it possible for me to attend the course and especially the Scottish Lime Centre Trust for allowing me this opportunity to develop my skills.