To answer that question we need to go back to our time in Tanzania (and probably before, though we'll stop at Tanzania for now).
One of the things we both enjoyed most when living and working in Mbeya was the opportunities we got, both structured and informally, to share our knowledge, experience and passion with colleagues, friends and others we met (you can read some old posts from that time here, here and here). Some of it you would recognise as 'training', standing at the front of a workshop introducing new concepts to try to help others innovate and develop the work. Much of it, however, you might not immediately recognise, such as the times when we were chatting through problems with colleagues in the office or at home. Whatever it looked like, in my book it was all about learning.
So when we returned to the UK I (Matt) knew I wanted, if possible, the opportunity to keep on being involved in these kinds of learning processes. One way to do that was to do some teaching on the Masters course I had recently completed. At the time this was being delivered at the Wycliffe Centre between Oxford and High Wycombe and so we decided to relocate to Thame to be near enough for me to be involved in this way. In summer 2013, however, these training courses moved to Gloucester to be taught at Redcliffe College and so we are following them there.
Training, of course, is only part of my role, with the majority of my time spent focusing on supporting language, education and development work in Asia (you can read a nice article about what that actually means here). Over the last couple of years, however, I have loved having the opportunity to constantly access and relate the theory that I encounter when preparing to teach, with the practice that I see and work with in Asia (I try to explain some of the impact of our work in this post, and the subsequent series of blogs entitled 'Connections').
Although the process of moving isn't fun, we are hopeful that Gloucester can be a real home for us as a family for the foreseeable future. That said, given that Gloucester will be the 7th place (don't ask about houses... that's even more!) we've lived in since leaving Sheffield (just 7 years ago) another move wouldn't be out of character...
One of the things we both enjoyed most when living and working in Mbeya was the opportunities we got, both structured and informally, to share our knowledge, experience and passion with colleagues, friends and others we met (you can read some old posts from that time here, here and here). Some of it you would recognise as 'training', standing at the front of a workshop introducing new concepts to try to help others innovate and develop the work. Much of it, however, you might not immediately recognise, such as the times when we were chatting through problems with colleagues in the office or at home. Whatever it looked like, in my book it was all about learning.
So when we returned to the UK I (Matt) knew I wanted, if possible, the opportunity to keep on being involved in these kinds of learning processes. One way to do that was to do some teaching on the Masters course I had recently completed. At the time this was being delivered at the Wycliffe Centre between Oxford and High Wycombe and so we decided to relocate to Thame to be near enough for me to be involved in this way. In summer 2013, however, these training courses moved to Gloucester to be taught at Redcliffe College and so we are following them there.
Training, of course, is only part of my role, with the majority of my time spent focusing on supporting language, education and development work in Asia (you can read a nice article about what that actually means here). Over the last couple of years, however, I have loved having the opportunity to constantly access and relate the theory that I encounter when preparing to teach, with the practice that I see and work with in Asia (I try to explain some of the impact of our work in this post, and the subsequent series of blogs entitled 'Connections').
Although the process of moving isn't fun, we are hopeful that Gloucester can be a real home for us as a family for the foreseeable future. That said, given that Gloucester will be the 7th place (don't ask about houses... that's even more!) we've lived in since leaving Sheffield (just 7 years ago) another move wouldn't be out of character...