Discuss expectations for vocational study as a team prior to the trip. Try to get an understanding from the host district on what they will provide. Get your occupational introduction paragraphs and questions completed and sent to UK ASAP.

Be prepared to give up control over your schedule. Sudden itinerary changes and communication gaps can combine to put you in a state of “total clueless ness” regarding where you’re going and whom you’re meeting with next. At first this made us anxious. By the end of the month, we just enjoyed not having to worry about it.

Each team member should take a digital camera. Download images to team notebook computer when memory cards fill up. Rename your photographs daily.

Carry one notebook computer in a Team for PowerPoint presentations.

Having your own LCD projector for presentations is very handy, you must send a request to GSE Chair regarding this.

Take a business card organizer book for the cards you will receive and expect to fill it up.

Take lots of vitamins and take them religiously. Take plenty of aspirin, paracetamol, or ibuprofen and carry some with you. Take at least a weeklong course of cold and cough medicines if you get sick, Indian medicines feel like lifesavers.

Air Force Blue blazers make a great uniform for both men and women. You can dress them up or down according to the situation. They are also easy to co-ordinate other clothes around.

Be open to new foods—“Like, seriously open.” Just try everything once. However they respect your restrictions as a vegetarian.

English and Indians have very different concepts of get on time & free time. We joked about how we were encouraged to “Hurry up and relax.”

If you have professional connections in your host district, tactfully pass these on through your Team Leader and/or GSE Committee Chairman. Rotary in UK may or may not have strong connections in your field.

Have your GSE Committee Chairman pass on the list entitled “Care & Feeding of Your Indian GSE Team Member: Suggestions for a Successful Home Stay” to his/her UK GSE counterpart. We put this together with our UK hosts for the benefit of future GSEs to UK.

International calling cards are very useful. If you buy one in the India, make sure you can use it for calls from UK. Telephone calling cards in UK are widely available from airport/ post office.

Change money ASAP—even though you probably won’t spend a lot of it. We each brought 500 pounds in cash or travelers checks. Our UK hosts picked up practically everything for us, but we still managed to spend about 150 pounds each for train fare on mid term break, small souvenirs, eating out, and treating a host family to ice cream. Several team members spent significantly more on jewelry, art, or other discretionary items. Visa and MasterCard worked great for these purchases.

Ask your Rotary GSE hosts for a list of all host families’ addresses and phone numbers, e-mails. Distribute a copy to each team member. This is handy for contacting fellow team members during a home stay while in country and imperative for sending letters after your return.

Take minimum 150 GSE team business cards with you everywhere you go. It’s very helpful to have your vocational information printed on the card.

It would be useful to have a central store of slides on District 3060, which could be used for future GSE presentations.

You will receive an almost unbelievable amount of presents during the GSE. Some of it will be beautiful. In order to keep track of who gave you what, we suggest labeling presents or even taking digital pictures of them. This is especially important for presents from host families, prominent Rotarians, and vocational hosts you may wish to send thank you notes to later.

Daily when you return to host home send an e-mail to the person whom you want to thank for, this will be highly appreciated. I have sent 152 such e-mails in 35 days of my GSE.

As a team and individually, you must be flexible, open-minded, and forgiving. Delight in your sense of humour. Remember to always look for the big picture and keep things in perspective. Play off of each other’s strengths. Give each other space when your teammate(s) need(s) it. And most important, have fun!

If your GSE experience is anything like ours, it will remain with you very happily forever after you return home.

Several months after our trip, we remain in frequent contact with our Rotary friends and host families and look forward to welcoming several of them on their planned trips to Gujarat later this year.