Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on setting up my next big venture, and since it is now official, I can finally announce it. I have signed on to mentor FIRST robotics team 3467 of Windham High School! FIRST was a huge part of my life during middle and high school, and I am delighted to be returning to my roots. My time as both a student and mentor of FRC Team 241 at Pinkerton taught me leadership, teamwork, and responsibility. The team is run by one of the former Pinkerton mentors, Scott Kukshtel, who is now the engineering teacher in Windham. The team is entering only it’s fourth season, and has already accumulated many prestigious accomplishments.  The team is hoping on capturing FIRST’s top achievement: The Chairman’s Award. The Chairman’s Award recognizes a team that personifies the FIRST values, betters its community, and is an role model for other FIRST teams to follow. The award involves a series of essays, presentations, and video creation. This is where I come in; it is the plan of Scott and I to have me help the students with their presentation and leadership skills, as well as using my eight years of experience working on FIRST teams to help them reach their biggest goals.

I attended the meeting on Tuesday to introduce myself to the team, find out who they are, and get a feel for where my talents can be best utilized. I observed the students working on their normal tasks, paying close attention to their dynamic interacting with each other (as well as the other mentors), and took notes on what I thought I could help the team with. Towards the end of the meeting, I pulled the team leaders aside and began working with them on what my expectations were for them, and how I plan on getting them to the level they need to be at to win the Chairman’s Award. The team overall has a solid crop of students, and I am eager to get to know them over the next couple of months.

In other news, “The Taming of the Shrew” opens next Thursday, and we have load-in this weekend. Soon we will be getting to test my abilities as a designer, and I am confident that the lights will come out as planned. It’s nice to have a safety net in Sam (the director) who has a fair amount of lighting experience herself. Between now and opening night I will be advertising the heck out of the show, as I am very impressed with the quality of performances being given at the rehearsals I have attended.

Last Friday night, I attended New Hampshire Theatre Factory’s performance of “Ghost Hunting: The Musical Murder Mystery.” NHTF is a new theatre group, and the show was an original production created by their artistic director, Joel Mercier. The show was lots of fun, and very charming. I hope NHTF continues creating enjoyable productions like “Ghost Hunting” as they grow into southern New Hampshire’s newest professional company.

I’m pretty sure that’s all I have to say this week. Still attempting to read three books at the same time, as well as trying to cut down on my enormous stack of comic books that I have fallen behind on. On top of load-in this weekend, I will also be seeing “The Odd Couple” at Seacoast Rep, and “Anything Goes” at UNH, both of which should be fantastic nights of theatre.

Until next time…