Literacy and Learning Symposium

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the annual Literacy and Learning Symposium.  It was a full week worth of training, meetings and food!!!  It was a lot of fun!

To start our trek, Trudy (the Adult Literacy Coordinator) and I drove together to Edmonton!!  We only got off course once when we missed our turn onto Deerfoot from the ring road, we were so into our conversation that we totally missed our exit!! We made it to Shagganapi where there was an exit to go back east, so we really didn't add on too much time!!  We stopped in Red Deer for gas and supper and then continued on our way!  We made it to the hotel with no trouble at around 9pm.  We unpacked and got settled in for the night, a busy week was ahead of us!

The next two days we spent in the Introduction to Adult Foundational Learning training class.  I thought it wouldn't benefit me much since I am in Family Literacy, but I gained so much knowledge not only for my program but as well as learning more about the Community Adult Learning Program (CALP), who we are funded by!!  Everything just sort of came together!

The first night I met up with Cora and her roommate and we went out for supper.  We went to Earls and had such yummy food, and the best raspberry lemonade ever!!  We talked and talked about all the girls are doing and it sounds like they are having a lot of fun!!

We ordered in pizza to our room the second night and the three of us, Trudy, Barbara and I, sat around and talked and talked while we ate!! The pizza was yummy and I even tried jalapeno poppers, mmmmm...so yummy!

Day three was a little less formal, we learned what it meant to belong to the CALP staff and where we can go for support.  The afternoon was all about designing evaluation forms.  Very informative!!

Trudy and I went out for supper to the Cheesecake Cafe, so yummy, we even took a slice of cheesecake back with us to the hotel!!  A delicious midnight snack!!

Day four was more meetings and a guest speaker, he was funny and it took my mind off all we were learning for a couple of hours!!  That night was a banquet that evening so Trudy and I dressed up, put some make up on and headed over to the banquet!  It was so delicious, I was glad we decided to go, even if we did sneak out before the awards ceremony!! 

Friday was the closing speakers, and lunch!  And off we headed home!  It was a great symposium!  I learned so much and met people who are more knowledgeable in their position than I am, it was great passing emails and contact information back and forth!  I am already looking forward to next year and all we will learn!!