Today ended the two day conference which was really very well attended…these Minnesotans are mighty nice people! A few of our users from Laura Backer Services Association stopped by on both days to say Hi and are excited about their on-site training tomorrow with Stephen and I.

After we dismantled the booth we began our mission to gather supplies for the upcoming Therap South Dakota Conference next week. Now I can’t tell you what we were out purchasing, as that would spoil all the fun and surprises, but I do have a few hints for you

The GPS took us on a wild goose chase in trying to locate Best Buy…we ended up at their corporate headquarters. So for future reference people, the corporate headquarters does not sell anything!

Stephen calling Justin for help in Circuit City.

The heart of Mall of America is an amusement park…apparently the largest mall in America. This is where Stephen and I called Allison for help but she was busy sipping something or other with, I suspect, olives in it (or is it a lemon rind??).

We’ve got some serious fun planned for you folks attending our conferences…let the games begin!

~Maureen

Today was the start of the ARRM conference and my first time ever in Minnesota! As usual my flight in was Perfect!…landing in O’Hare a half hour early and smoothly gliding on to my connection in the very next gate from where I arrived (obviously Kara is not with me :o)

The conference is abuzz with attendees to top 1,000 tomorrow….luckily I have Stephen with me to keep the stamp seekers happy on their quest to win some unknown prize (I have asked people what they are trying to win but they have no idea…but it’s something, they say)

After the day of chatting about Therap, as usual I fly out the door to seek sunshine and nature…luckily the rain stayed away and the sun shone brightly. I managed to find a local preserve just down the street and did a little photographing with my now repaired camera:

Enjoy!

~Maureen

Last few days I have been visiting international organizations and attending the YAI conference. Yesterday I went to Rehab International and met with their membership coordinator Ms. Leoner Coello. I will also be visiting the UN sometime this week.

Today I spent the evening with Richard and his family. His wife Dana prepared a wonderful dinner and afterwards we spent a while chatting. Dana wants to visit Bangladesh and stay there for some time. I think its a good idea especially if someone wants to know a place better. So Dana, we welcome you to Bangladesh!

I just came back from Washington DC. I went down there this morning to meet with Daniel Mont in the World Bank headquarters. Mr. Mont is a Senior Economist of the Disability and Development Team of the organization. He had visited Therap during his last trip to Bangladesh, and has been helping us since with his comments and suggestions on our project. Today we had an engaging discussion on the survey questionnaire; he gave me some materials and contacts for further reference. Later I met with Qaiser Khan. Mr. Khan is a Bangladeshi working as a Lead Human Development Specialist of the Human Development Sector, South Asia region of the World Bank. I heard about him from Richard and it was nice to finally see him. I will be meeting more people tomorrow in New York. Looking forward to those meetings..

Those of you who are attending this Conference don’t have to wait much longer because the 13th of May is just round the corner

This is just to let you all know that the schedule for the conference has been updated (on 5/4/08) and you may visit http://therapservices.net/SDConference3.pdf to have a look at the fun and interactive sessions that we have lined up for you. Some of the cool sessions users can look forward to are the Video Game Night and Extreme Therap Jeopardy, among others.

If this is the first time you are reading about the Conference in South Dakota, click here to know more about what its all about.

The Therap conferences are a good opportunity to discuss your experiences with other Therap users, and to brainstorm with Therap team members on how to further improve Therap. We also demonstrate and encourage users to play various Therap training games and exercises.

Hope to see you all there!

After the huge success of the Conference in Delaware, Therap is excited to be hosting a conference for Nurses and Clinicians in Connecticut. We have opened up online registrations for this conference and strongly encourage you to register for the conference by May 15, 2008. You can access our online registration forms directly by clicking here.

The conference is a beneficial platform for experienced, new and potential users of Therap. If you know anyone else who would love to take part - now is the chance to invite them to contact us at therapconf@therapservices.net about attending.
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Me and Priyanka are in New Yok for this weekend. We had all sorts of exciting plans for this weekend but it seems the weather is not with us. We will have to stick to shopping and museums if it goes like this today.

Yesterday we started from Times Square and went to the Barnes & Nobel store. We spent an hour or so there and then went to the Diamond District at 47th street. We took lots of pictures and I had good reason since I just bought my new Sony Alpha DSLR. After lunch we visited M & M, Hershey’s, Virgin Records and Toys R Us.

We wanted to spend more time there but we were supposed to have dinner with Priyanka’s cousin. We had a good dinner there and specially for me it was even better cause I was having authentic home made Bangladeshi food after one long week. By the time I was back in my room it was about time for a good sleep.

Yesterday I visited a day program, Bidwell Facilities and a residential progam, Anawan in Connecticut. I took a tour of the classes and talked to some of the support people. I was impressed to see the dedication of the staff and the supervisors. I spent the whole day with them and tried to learn about their daily activities. This was a special day for me, will remember always.

It is always a bit challenging to coordinate between time zones and finding out maximum overlaps. Yesterday, I was trying to catchup with my team members back in Bangladesh and passing some ideas and feedback we found during the Delaware conference. By the time I was done, it was a little late but it was a pretty sunny day outside and I couldn’t resist anymore from going out. I had plans to do some planning before going out but since it was already late, I had to skip the planning part. I started with shopping at Macy’s at Herald Square. Every time I go inside this Macy’s, by the time I come out, I find half the day is gone. Then I went to Borders at Penn Plaza. Book stores are always my favorite place to sit back and relax and skim through pages. Other than books, I also like buying those cute little stuff they sell in these book stores. I was pretty hungry by then and trying to find out a place for late lunch. I ended up in Tracks Raw Bar and Grill at Penn Station. I loved the way the have done the Rail Road theme. It takes you back to history and you can easily forget the waiting time before they serve food. The food was pretty good. The also have one of the longest bars in New York city. After having good food and crazy shopping, I was happy enough to head back and take a nap and do more 7.3 planning.

Maureen and I came to Connecticut last night. It was 4/5 hours drive from Delaware and the view was beautiful. I am staying at Corwne Plaza in Southburry and our office is in Waterburry. These are two seperate towns but looked more like two neighbourhoods to me, as they are only ten minutes drive apart. Today I visited our Connecticut office and spent the day there with Jim, Justin, Maureen and Kara. Tommorrow I will be visiting two of the user agencies here and will go back to New York to spend the weekend with my cousin and her family. Good Night!