GC Bradford Hosts Benefit for Bradford Historical Society

On Friday May 4th, Global Campus Bradford hosted a spaghetti supper at the Grace Methodist Church. Participants created the event as a community service project to benefit the Bradford Historical Society. Our theme this year is Building Community and in Bradford participants have enjoyed a strong focus on learning about their local history. This event was a way for participants to thank members of the Historical Society for a tour of their museum, and a guest presentation on Bradford's history at their campus by Mark Johnson, a member of the historical society. 


Months of planning and preparation went into the supper with many organizations in the community helping out including the Old Church Community Theater, Bradford Historical Society, Grace Methodist Church and the Colatina Bakery. The dinner was expertly planned to coincide with opening night at the Old Church Community Theater across the street! Shawn and Robin, two dedicated GC Bradford participants, volunteered their time on the night of the event, setting everything up, preparing and serving the food, and cleaning up.


"We served 50 people! Jim and Sherry Tewksbury came. We raised $250 to donate to the Bradford Historical Society! We had leftovers that we donated to the church." - Robin and Shawn


The campus participants plan to hold a check ceremony on May 22nd to formally present the funds to the Historical Society. Thank you to everyone in our community who helped to support this event and congratulations to the campus participants on a tremendous community service project!

GC Bradford Adventures in Time

Continuing our Academic Year Theme of Building Community, we decided to travel in time this Winter Interim, exploring the history of our local community. The Women’s Group put their questions in our “Test the Travelers” question box and we went to the Newbury Library to look up the answers. Here they are!

Did you know…..

The Bliss Hotel is haunted?

Water boxes were places in town where horses could stop and drink?

Tanya Aebi, from Topsham, was the first woman to sail alone around the world?

The movie Beetlejuice was filmed in East Corinth?

In 1870 there were 4.3 cows for every person in Vermont?

To finish our Winter Interim, we visited the Vermont History Museum and the State House in Montpelier. Jeannie enjoyed listening to the antique radio while Scott liked the room on the era of the railroad. Robin was interested in the Vermont Constitution. Did you know that Vermont abolished slavery in our constitution almost a century before the civil war? We also bumped into and introduced ourselves to Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott while at the State House!

By The Global Campus Bradford Core Group

GC Bradford Helps Their Community!

In September, Shawn heard a radio advertisement saying that the Bradford Food Shelf was low and in need of food items. She shared the idea at her campus as part of a discussion about a fall Community Service Project. Our campus liked the idea and created a food drive to help out. We set up a collection box at Upper Valley Services. Robin set up another box at the Bradford Public Library, and Shawn arranged to have one above the Local Buzz. We collected nearly 100 non-perishable food items and delivered them to the food shelf. Valorie reported today that the food shelf is now doing well. Jeannie says our food drive was, "Pretty good!".

- By the Global Campus Bradford Core Group

The Famous Pyramids of Egypt!

I was very excited to share my class on the Pyramids of Egypt. I had a great turnout for my class! I brought in a cardboard model of a pyramid, a poster, handouts, and little cards with images and facts on them. We attempted to mummify Andreas with paper towels, but they kept coming apart. He won't be preserved all that long. I asked the question to my students, "Can anyone guess how high the Khufu pyramid, the highest pyramid in Egypt is?" There is a new pyramid that was just discovered under the ocean off the coast of Asia.

- Robin, GC Bradford Faculty

GC Participants: Leaders in their Campus and their Communities

As Global Campus participants all over Vermont and New Hampshire grow through the process of engaging with their campus, they encourage each other to take on more responsibility and leadership. "It's our campus," we always say! Robin, a teaching faculty at GC Bradford decided that the local library would be a good place to spread the word in the community about her campus so she presented to the librarian about GC Bradford. Thanks to her efforts the campus has been invited by the library to have a display of our Fall Term Catalogs for community members to pick up, learn more about our campus, and attend our classes. Rena, a faculty participant at GC Randolph thought it would be great to offer her Baseball Bingo class at MENIG, an assisted living facility associated with Gifford Hospital in Randolph, so she went and talked to the MENIG coordinator and successfully secured both a venue and a very excited class audience there! These are just a few of the countless examples of campus participants taking charge and driving the growth and development of THEIR Global Campuses. Keep up the great work!

GC BRADFORD DEVELOPS THEIR CAMPUS WITH T-SHIRTS!

Global Campus Bradford recently celebrated the completion of a campus development project creating T-Shirts for their campus. During the Spring Term 2011, campus participants identified T-Shirts as a great way to spread awareness about their campus in the community. The project began with a raffle basket fundraiser to raise money for the shirts. The core group then designed the shirts and submitted the design for completion. On tuesday the core group went to pick them up and try them on! Look for them around town!

GC Bradford Participants Celebrate Succesful Semester!

Teaching Faculty, Student Participants, Resource Persons, and Campus Supporters gathered this afternoon to celebrate the completion of a dynamic teaching term at Global Campus Bradford. Participants were honored with certificates. Check out some of our classes from this semester!

Scott, "Trains", GC Bradford Spring Term 2011

Valorie, "MikMaq Nation", GC Bradford Spring Term 2011

Global Campus Bradford Hosts Community Connections Conference

On Monday February 7th, Global Campus Bradford hosted a Community Connections Conference at Grace Methodist church in Bradford, VT. This conference was created with the intention of introducing our campus to the community of Bradford, sharing the creative work we are all engaged in and making new friends and connections.

The core group was there first thing in the morning to get everything set up and ready to go. The room was beautiful with campus displays, photographs, past catalogs, and information about all the different campuses in Vermont and Thailand. As folks came in they received a program and name badge. Next they shook hands and were formally greeted by the core group. A beautiful dessert spread with coffees and teas was available for folks to enjoy at their leisure.

Promptly at 12:30, Robin presented the keynote welcome address. Audience members were then invited downstairs to enjoy an hour of teaching presentations. Robin, Shawn, and Robert taught in one classroom while Jeannie, Valorie and Scott presented in another. The classes were fantastic and everyone was quite impressed!

After the teaching presentations we all came back upstairs into the large gathering room to participate in a panel discussion. Shawn, Robin, Patrick, Scott, Robert, Val, Jeannie, Lorraine, and Jim were all on the panel with Andreas moderating. First everyone shared how Global Campus has affected their lives and then we all had a chance to share how we thought Global Campus has benefited our community. The audience was eager to jump in and we had a great question and answer session to round out the afternoon. After a big round of applause for the tremendous successes of the day, the audience had the chance to browse our displays and talk with the core group while enjoying the last of the desserts.

The conference was a tremendous success and all the campus participants are very proud of their hard work and accomplishments. What an impressive event, congratulations and thank you to everyone who participated!

GC Bradford Celebrates Fall Term!

Global Campus Bradford has just completed an extremely successful Fall Term 2010! The fall term has been a buzz of fresh classes, new initiatives and campus projects. The GCF academic year theme is “Our Stories” and at Global Campus Bradford we spent some time early in the fall semester exploring and sharing our own unique stories and experiences through writing, storytelling, artwork, photography, and even some classes! Scott taught a class called “My Family Tree” sharing his family genealogy. Shawn presented about Lake Okeechobee in Florida, where she grew up. Aaron presented about his families favorite annual vacation spot: Cape Britton, Nova Scotia. Cathy taught a class about her experience of graduating from high school. We’ll be exploring “Our Stories” more throughout the upcoming Winter Interim and Spring Term 2011.

Other classes this fall included Beading Club, taught by Shawn, Fabric Coloration Workshop, offered by Jodi and Jeannie, and “24”, presented by Patrick. Robin taught a great three-part class entitled The Oil Spill in the Gulf. Lynn, a Global Campus resource person, offered a very informative and dynamic class on Banks. Dennis and Patty from Global Campus Springfield visited our campus later in the semester to present their classes on Jeff Gordon and The Kennedy Family, respectively. Scott represented our campus in attending a few classes at the Global Campus Shiremont Soft Term. GC Shiremont is a budding community supported campus in the White River/Lebanon area.

The core group of Global Campus Bradford accepted a new leadership opportunity this fall by taking over the facilitation of the Campus Seminar. Each week a new volunteer leads the group through our seminar agenda and then together we create a new agenda for the following week. Robin, Scott, Aaron, and Patrick all participated as facilitators. Another new initiative this fall was creating more space in our group to give more time for folks who might take longer to respond to a question to think about it and answer in their own time. A key initiative this fall was deciding to host a Community Connections Conference on February 7, 2011 at the Grace Methodist Church in Bradford to introduce our campus to the community and establish new connections and opportunities for our campus. The core group of GC Bradford is directing and implementing the event. For our community service project this fall we hosted a Halloween Benefit Dance and raised $94 to support our local food shelf and to help fund our Community Connections Conference.

Looking ahead to the Winter Interim, we’ll be exploring stories, legends and myths around the world as we travel and visit different countries. So far there is interest in traveling to Romania, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and Florida. Stay tuned as our adventures begin in mid-January!

GC Bradford Spring Update

This has been a tremendously successful academic year for Global Campus Bradford. The capstone of the fall term was the fall conference in Burlington where Scott, Shawn, Robin, and Patrick all taught classes and participated on panel discussions. We were all very proud to share all about the successes at our campus with several hundred people who were part of this event.

During the Winter Interim we traveled the world with a flight simulation experience the first week to learn more about what is happening in different parts of the world. We each chose a different country to focus on for the duration of the Winter Interim. Robin explored Thailand, Patrick went to Mexico, Scott journeyed in Iraq, Shawn traveled to Africa, Jeannie checked out the green hills of Scotland, Cathy was in Central America, Jodi explored the culture of Copenhagen, and Carol visited Australia. Our travels culminated in a festival and giant board game that we all created together during the term.

The core group of Global Campus Bradford presented some inspiring classes this spring term. Scott presented on Barbara Eden and “I Dream of Jeannie”, Patrick made us all sweat in his Wii Fitness class, and Jeannie shared her love of keyboarding. Robin was so inspired by her travels to Thailand during the Winter Interim that presented three classes on the country during the spring term. Shawn was also touched during the Winter Interim learning about hunger and AIDS in Africa so she presented a fantastic class on Tanzania. Global Campus Bradford is blessed with a committed group of resource persons who also love to teach! Lynn taught a great class on Money, Nate brought in his enormous sled dog, Ootek, Carol shared her passion for Farmville blown up on a projector, Michelle shared a photography class, and Jodi presented about Mount Washington.

Two highlight of our semester involved the Campus to Campus Connections program. Hudson and his support person, Matt, visited our campus from Global Campus Springfield to present a class on Facilitated Communication. We also had the opportunity to travel to GC Springfield as a core group to visit their campus and participate in a few classes. These were both exciting and enriching experiences, we all can’t wait to do more with other campuses!

Our semester culminated in a wildly successful Spring Break Dance and Awards Ceremony! Nate was the DJ pumping out beach tunes and the Outback (where our campus meets each week) was decorated with beach towels, beach chairs and umbrellas, and beach balls. As folks arrived in their beach attire they each received a lay. Jodi blended some delicious smoothies that were topped of with little umbrellas. It truly felt like spring break! We raised about $40 in donations for our campus at the event and collected non-perishable donations for the local food shelf.

Congratulations Global Campus Bradford!