The visit was designed to coincide with the City of Joondalup’s Festival, held to commemorate their 10th Anniversary. Besides attending the festival and visiting the school, another of the delegation’s objectives was to focus on the proposed Sister City Garden Project in which each city will set up a garden featuring each country’s native plants.

The delegation was led by Ms Gong Xianqun, who is the Deputy Mayor of Jinan’s Municipal People’s Government, and consisted of other high profile members:  the Deputy Director of the Jinan Foreign Affairs Office, the Secretary General of the Jinan Municipal Government, the Deputy Director of Jinan Public Landscaping, the Director of the Jinan Press and Publication Bureau. The delegation was accompanied by their own interpreter, a range of City of Joondalup staff, as well as  other special guests, including our District Director, Ms Sue Cuneo , P&C President Mrs Virginia McNamara and an Access Asia representative.

There was a formal meeting to start the visit, in which the Principal, Paul Leech, and Ms Gong Xianqun discussed the importance of the Sister City and Sister School relationships, which the school has been a part of since early 2006. This was followed by an internet video link between the Principals of Jinan Number 9 and Woodvale and then with the Deputy Mayor of Jinan, during which there was further discussion of the Sister City/Sister School relationship’s past and future directions. Other focuses were Mr Charles Tetlow’s PowerPoint Presentation on his exchange teaching experiences at Jinan Number 9 in late 2007 and a visit to a Year 8 Asian Language and Culture class.

There was also a series of displays set up in the library designed to show-case aspects of Australian culture, the Jinan International Children’s Festival and sister school visits to which we have sent delegations for the past three years. The Jinan Government and Jinan Number 9 High School have generously hosted these events in Jinan and plan to do so again with this year’s proposed visit to Jinan. The school has been able to attend the Festival as City of Joondalup’s representatives and with the support of their sponsorship

Accompanying the VIP delegation to Joondalup was the world renowned Jinan Acrobatics’ Troupe who impressed their audiences at a variety of awe-inspiring performances at the City of Joondalup Festival.