It's Almost Closing Time

Hey Everyone,

So it's almost been a month since I last wrote so I figured it was time for a bit of an update for you all in my travels and studies around england! So for those who read this for the travel aspect this post might be a little dry however if you want something a little more travel centered stay tuned later this week, and the upcoming weeks!

We'll after getting back from Nationals in London things started to gear up for deadline time. I had two papers, a few quizzes, and a sales video. Shout out to the boys I worked on the video with for putting up with me filming my part as I only had a few hours of sleep that morning. But even though the deadlines seemed endless I got through them all and I am moving to get my last two done as well.

Things with Enactus are slowing down as I take a step back from Recreo. I'm glad I'm leaving now so they can focus on the ideas that were built on this year and take it even further. I can't wait to see what the program will look like in the following months, and I will be the first international buyer of our product! From my time here I look forward to seeing what I can do to see what I can accomplish back with Enactus Plymouth State, it will be a lot of hard work starting a project from the ground up again, but I relish the challenge once again.

I did make the journey with a few of the Enactus crew up to Exeter to watch some horse racing. It was something I will remember for the rest of my life! I think I might have made some money I'm not sure, but I did pick one winner. I will always remember the Gone To Far for being the first horse I had win for me! It was a great time out with the gang and I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

                                          Photo Credit: Hannah Yarr, @hannahyarr

Then about a week after that I celebrated my 21st birthday. I can finally drink a legal beer in the States! However since I've been following the english laws for the past year it's going to be nothing new to me when I get home. But it was the first birthday in a long time that I got to celebrate it with people. My flat surprised me with a cake, and so did my Enactus team in our meeting. Then there was a crew that went out on a Tuesday with me. Needless to say it was a great time and thank you to everyone that came out to celebrate, and making it a birthday I will never forget!

Quick side note, thanks to committee having the last Enactus Social after my birthday. Even though I was dragging it was great to go out with the Enactus crew at least one more time.

So besides my birthday I also got to play my final games as a member of UPFC Sparrows. I know most of the boys wanted a shout out in this blog, because of all the banter I get from them. So boys here is your moment. I want to thank you all for letting the token American play the sport your country had created. I know I wasn't a Tim Howard or Clint Dempsey but I did my best to try and play the position you asked of me. Seb, I wish you and Newcastle the best of luck in getting back to the Premier League at the first time of asking. Ismael, you keep up with that touch on the ball, and yes the Plymouth 2 Plymouth banter was good. Scott, keep that backline in check and Lucien keep calling for the ball on the wing you'll get Morgan to switch the play at some point. And for the rest of the team, especially Adam, and Will it was a pleasure to play with everyone of you, and I wish you luck on whatever team you get to play for next season, and I hope I get to see you on my side of the pound at some point.

On the topic of Football I did attend my final English Football match on the 7th of May. Argyle took on Hartlepool United winning 5-0. It was a perfect way to end my English Football experience. I am going to miss how inexpensive tickets are, and how close to the park I was. But above all I will miss the amount of heart that is showcased every sunday on both the pitch and stands. Plymouth has turned me into a green, so up the Argyle boys and get the win at Wembley to get to League one. I'll be supporting wherever I am.

But I think that is it for right now. I have one more final deadline and then I have an exam next week and then my England adventure is coming to an end. I still have a ton of travel plans that I will be telling you all about so keep on the lookout for that. I hope you're having a good day well you're reading this and remember be safe and enjoy the moment.



-Tucker    

Enactus UK Nationals

Hello everybody,


So I know that I posted just three days ago about my time in Sweden, but I felt the need to write this post sooner rather than later. Since I'm writing this the night before we have our first meeting back since our journey to Nationals, I thought I would explain my experience at the Enactus UK Nationals with you all.

So my journey to nationals didn't start in the UK like most of my teammates. Mine started on a beautiful Swedish morning in Stockholm. At this point in the morning I was already checked out from my hostel, and I had my morning cup of coffee. I found a bench overlooking the Gamla Stan, and began to truly memorize my script for nationals the next day. I had read the script over and over again since I received the finalized script, but I didn't quite have it fully memorized yet. So for about three and a half hours that morning, I spent reading my script out loud on that lovely park bench. Where my bench was it was a busy footpath, and a lot of people walked past me as I was learning my script. My only thought was those people thought I looked crazy. I managed to get most of it down before I got on my train back to the airport for my flight to London for Nationals.

The flight went well, and after a getting back over the UK border it was a quick stop at the airport Boots to get some essentials for me for nationals the next morning. I called the rest of the gang to let them know I was on the way to the hotel, and to my surprise Keith still hadn't showed up so I was doing ok on time then.

So after a quick tube ride and a half a mile walk I managed to get to get to the hotel were everyone was. It was great to see Anthony, Alex, Laura, Lenni, and Keith again, but meeting there was for business and we got right down to it after I showed up. Then for the next three hours we practiced our script and folded annual reports. Annual reports, I might add, were the best of the whole competition. So big shout out to Tom S for the report. We managed to get some food and once we got back we all practiced our lines till we passed out.

After a great night sleep we managed to get ready to show Enactus UK what we did this year. I donned the suit Anthony was grateful enough to bring to London for me. And after a shower and shave I looked sharp in that suit. We all looked sharp that morning, and right then I knew we were ready to go. We did one more run through and I was confident we were going to do a great job during our presentation.

 
After meeting the rest of the crew (Tom D, Tom S, Catherine, Laura, Shashank, Toby, Emily, and Andrew) at the Hammersmith Novotel. We found out we were in the same league as Newcastle, GCU, Warwick, and Bedfordshire. When we saw that we knew it was a tough league, but we would do our best to come out on top. Then after Newcastle presented we were up. We were all on nevers for the three minutes of step up time, trying to remember lines to make sure that our presentation was prefect. After a bit of a rocky start we pulled it back and finished strong. I personally could have done the Q and A better, but we learn from our mistakes. However I could not have been prouder than I was with how we did.

Although we didn't make it to the semi-final round we were able to show Enactus UK what we were doing and who we plan to impact in the coming months. It was a weird weight off of my shoulders, but right there was when I realized that I am an Enactus UK Alumni, and an Enactus Plymouth Alumni. It was a bittersweet feeling, and I knew it's going to be a lot more work with my team back at PSU, but I'm ready for it. And I think it was also knowing I'll be leaving my project Recreo, however I know the team will continue to impact more people in Plymouth. But after finding out our faith we had a team dinner, and that made me mood change real fast. It was great to see everyone celebrating our achievements this year.

We got up the next morning and headed to nationals once again to see the semi-finals, and the finals. We were able to showcase our projects at the Project Fair, and get some great feedback from other teams. We stayed and watched the final presentations, and every team deserved to win it but huge congrats to Enactus Nottingham for winning it all. You guys will kill it at the World Cup. After that we headed to our hostel and got ready for a night out on the town in London. And it was well worth the feeling the next morning to have such a great send off for Nationals.

But I just want to take a second to thank everyone at Enactus Plymouth for a 'phenomenal' year. It was an honour to work with everyone of you, extremely skilled students. For those of you reading this who just joined, know your time spent here will be some of the best memories of your life. For committee this year, you all showed why you deserved your roles and made this team what it is. And for the Recreo Team it was an honour being your team leader this year. It was a pleasure to get to know you all, and I know you all will do big things with the rest of your lifes. But keep working hard and this project will be great in the coming year. But thank you all again, I wish you all the best in your future endeavors, and I hope I get another chance to work with you all!

Ok, so that was the last of my travel posts for now since I'm back in Plymouth. But there will be more of those to come in a few months time. I hope you're all having a great day, and remember to be safe and have fun!

-Tucker        

Enactus: UK edition

Hey Guys,

So I know a few weeks ago I told you that I was going to fill you in on some of the things that happened during that spell in October where I really didn't post because I was so buzy. Well now I'm going to try and fill you all in on a few things here and there that I think were cool that happened to me that month. So the first thing that I want to tell you about is the trip I went on with Enactus Plymouth to Grantham for the Enactus UK training weekend.

So that weekend started really early, and I mean really early. We all meet in front of the Cookworthy building at 5:00am to make the journey up to Grantham. There were eight of use including myself that piled into the van. There was Katie, Laura, Eleanor, Leecy, Fabian, Tom, Anthony, and myself that got up to get up to Grantham. When we left Plymouth I talked to Fabian for a short time then I was out like a light. We stopped once on the way up to Grantham, and that was at the poshest highway rest station I have ever been in. The rest stop had its own butcher! But after the quick ritzy stop we continued our journey. 

After Fabian took the wheel and finally got us to Grantham we pulled up to the place that we would be calling home for the next few days. The place that we would be staying at was called PGL, which I later found out stands for Parents Get Lost. Yep staying at a summer camps style place, but to be honest it wasn't as bad as some of you reading this might think it is. We got the room key after a bit of a wait where half of the group were off in pre-session to our actual training that the weekend had to offer. So it was myself, Tom, Fabian, and Anthony staying in a room, but since me and Tom had gotten to the room first we claimed our bunks first. But it was nice to be there. Made me miss working at Camp Lincoln this summer.

But after that me and Tom went to a career fair, which employers were looking for English born students, not international students. So it really didn't help me, but I still tried to make a few contacts. After that we all meet up as a group to get dinner. The food there was actually pretty good for what it was worth. After dinner we all went to the field house and had our kick off meeting. Enactus UK was still riding the high of winning the Enactus World Cup for the first time so everyone was extremely keen to hear what the speakers had to say. It was a lot of speakers and they gave out a few awards and grants where we, as Enactus Plymouth, got two grants. Shortly after that they explained how the weekend would work, and one of our many sponsors Enterprise Rent-a-car spoke, they also sponsored a bonfire and all the drinks for that later that night. I got a laugh of a rent-a-car company supplying drinks, when all we here in the states is 'don't drink and drive.'

We all when to the bonfire after and had a great time. We all called it quits early because we all know the next day was going to be a long day. We got up in the morning and right after breakfast we went right into sessions. It was a lot to take in a short period of time. I had three sessions back to back to back before lunch. Then after Lunch it was back to back to back again until we finally were done for the day. It was a lot of powerpoints early, and then later in the day it was a lot more hands on. But I will say some of the buildings that were on the property were stunning.

After all of our meetings we got a chance to relax for a bit, then we had to get ready for our send off dinner. We were all dressed nice and we got a great 3 course meal (it was only 2 courses for many of us because we were off to socialize), and we got to see the presentation that won the World Cup in person which was really great. After the presentation for some reason we got a picture with the World Cup. The rest of the night was filled with socializing and seemed a bit of a blur the next morning, but it was a lot of fun.

After slowly getting up the next morning we all headed off to the ropes course, where I realized I wasn't the only one moving slow that morning. We all had a go on the ropes course, and after we all jumped off a perfectly good tower, we went back to the field house to hear one more sponsor speak. Then we walked over to the other side of the camp and got a large group photo for Enactus UK.

We had one more meeting after the photo, and then we all packed our stuff got back in the van and we started our way back home. But as I slept on the way back to Plymouth I realized everything that I learned here will help me with my project Recreo: Renewing Creative Opportunity, and with any projects that I will work on when I am back home at PSU. That weekend I made new friends that will be around for a lifetime, and information that will shape how I do things, and interact with people for years to come. Thank you Enactus Plymouth for letting me come with you on such a great trip which let me learn so much. I hope I can put everything that I learned to use to make Recreo an amazing program.

So that was one of the things that I got a chance to do over the month. I have a few more updates that I need to give to you all, and those will be coming up over the next few weeks. Keep your eyes peeled for my experience watching the Devon Derby at Home Park, my first derby match here. As always I hope you have a good day!

-Tucker