You say "Slaithwaite" and I say "Sloughwait."

To Colne Valley to facilitate a meeting of their town team... part of my new equipping by Yorkshire Forward in the noble of facilitation. A bit strange because I think I counted three consultants (propper ones) at this gathering of a dozen. It was beginning to feel a bit like my Swedish Trip, all professionals and no volunteers. To be fair most of the professionals were on their day off, as of course I was. It turned out to be a great meeting if a bit over loaded: so much for Tom's advice of focus on a few things per meeting.
It was awkward at first, I discovered that Slaithwaite was only pronounced "Sloughwate," as I had learned to call it living nearby in Huddersfield, by people who could trace their ancestry back 500 years in the valley. You say "tomatoes" and I say "tomatoes etc." Very soon we settled into it and worked very hard to review their amazing work. It was a bit heftily reliant on RDA's and councils for it's activity and was trying to focus on ten projects at once but seemed to be doing it.
It made me think about our own situation in UCVR as any visits to anywhere make you do, why do you always have "home thoughts from abroad?"
I think it made me realise just how much we had grown as groups in the Calder Valley, how much confidence in each other and in our possibility of acheiving things, not just with others, but also on our own.
I had a Dorothy moment: "There's no place like home."