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July 2018 Community Letter

Jul 31, 2018

Letter to the Community

Dear Friends,

The GLOBE Learning Expedition came to a close on 6 July. It was thrilling for me to be able to introduce GLOBE to my hometown, Killarney, and to see how much the GLOBE community enjoyed being there. It was a very wonderful week, indeed, one that I will never forget and I hope participants feel the same way. As many of you may know from attending annual meetings and GLEs, on the final night we have a tradition of showing a compilation of images from the previous days. This year we created a video, a video that captures the essence of a remarkable GLE and more importantly the wonderful GLOBE community that is characterized as the "GLOBE Family" by one of our student keynote speakers. I'd like to share it with you here.

I would like to thank so many people who made this event possible:

Mr. Pat Dawson of Killarney National Park, his staff, and park rangers. What great fortune for us to be able to enjoy the first and oldest National Park of Ireland as the dramatic backdrop for the week. The rangers' knowledge of the flora, fauna, and folklore of the park was exceeded only by their apparent love for the park. It was a great pleasure to be able to spend time with the guardians of one of Ireland's greatest treasures;
Our sponsors from the United States: NASA, NOAA, the National Science Foundation (who funded the meeting), and the U.S. Department of State, for their unwavering support for more than two decades; and the U.S. Embassy in Dublin for sponsoring the GLE Student Journal;
Our supporters in Ireland: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Environment, and Failte Ireland (all provided funding for the meeting), An Taisce - the Irish National Trust Environmental Education Unit, home of GLOBE Ireland;
The Chamber of Commerce of Killarney, local merchants, and retailers who donated items for giveaways and who gave discounts to GLE participants;
The Killarney Garda (or police service) who helped with the parade; and to the Gleneagle Brass and Reed Marching Band for leading the parade through town;
Our instrument vendors (Pasco, Vernier and Ward's Science), who supplied equipment for the field studies, and to Vernier and Pasco for donating instruments for our giveaway;
Our brave student keynote speakers and our inspiring adult keynotes too;
The GLE International Organizing Committee, for its contributions, and the many community volunteers, during the event itself and the Europe and Eurasia Regional Office staff for getting the inflatable globe to the event;
The staff of the Gleneagle Hotel complex (thank you Breffni and Gin!), and the audio-visual wizards of INEC auditorium who provided constant support and all the amenities we needed to do our work;
All Good Tales, our energetic Irish storytellers, funded by our strong foundation supporter, YLACES;
The great film crew and photographers at all the events who posted their images for all to see, and to the social media from SSAI for pushing the GLE out on various channels;
Michelle Murphy, for on-the-ground press and media coverage prior to and over the week;
And last but not least, my magnificent staff here at the GIO whose commitment to making this event a success was truly remarkable. They push themselves to make GLOBE great, and fan the flame of this wonderful program every day.

Thanks to all of you who attended and participated; all of you who followed along on social media; and to all who could not attend... there will be another chance in the future (in four years we hope) for the next GLE!

And so, as the Irish group The High Kings sings in the video, "goodnight and joy be to you all!"

Tony Murphy

Tony Murphy signature

Dr. Tony Murphy
Director, GLOBE Implementation Office
tmurphy@ucar.edu