MS. FORD: Ladies and gentlemen, if I might have your attention. Thank you. We have a few more things that we would like to share with you, and I am going to ask Blair Stambaugh to join me to talk about her trip to the Girls School Association of Great Britain.

MS. STAMBAUGH: I am enormously grateful to NAPSG for the privilege of representing it at the Girls School Association of England Conference in November 2008 in Winchester. I set out with two friends to see Jane Austen's house and to have a real pub lunch on the day before the conference. They continued to explore while I attended the conference, and then joined me for a day and a half in London.

The conference topic was ≥Women: Unlocking the Power Within,≤ which was explored in terms of women as board members, in relationships, as CEOs, and as people with personal talents. Topics such as, "I Blame the Parents," "Fundraising for Bursaries," which I learned meant scholarships, and "Meeting the Challenges in an Increasingly Competitive Market" were also hot topics.

I was struck by stark contrasts, the beauty, mystery, and timelessness of Winchester Cathedral, where the Association service took place, compared with the excitement, transparency, and timeliness of Barack Obama's election. Many Brits stayed up to watch the election and were as caught up as we were. It was exciting to be an American.

Although food did not used to be synonymous with the English -- that is an understatement -- I was impressed with hot breakfasts, tea time, a wine tasting at which my table garnered the honors on a quiz, and lovely formal dinners. The conference was interspersed with ten-minute video presentation of member schools, which gave me a feel for the GSA.

London was thrilling, punctuated by a duck tour on land and water, dinner with friends overlooking the Thames, the play "Wicked," the Eye with its view 443 feet above the ground, and a visit with a NAPSG former member, Corinne Hester, now head of the American School in London. Much of these adventures were aided by some discretionary funds you gave me.

Not surprisingly, the British are more formal in dress than their American counterparts, but their hospitality was as warm as a southern welcome, whether from Sue Massey, a GSA staff member, or Vicky Tuck, principal of the Cheltenham Ladies College and president of the GSA, or from Penelope Penney, honorary member, author, and former head of St. Catherine's Bramley, or from Jill Berry of Dame Alice Harper School, the president elect. I mention those names because I thought maybe one of them might be here.

Thank you so much, with a host of envy to the lucky person who will attend next year's meeting in Harrogate.

MS. FORD: Thank you, Blair. I was the fortunate recipient of an opportunity this past fall to represent NAPSG at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Independent Schools in St. John, New Brunswick, where I was warmly greeted and engaged by Tam Matthews, head of Ashbury College and new member of NAPSG, Paul Kitchen, head of Rothesay Netherwood School, which hosted the conference in St. John; Jim Christopher, the executive director of CAIS, and many others. It was a special treat to reconnect with someone you all know, Sue Groesbeck, who is here, and is now the head of Havergal College, but you may remember that she was in her headship last year at Hilton Head Preparatory School, which was the site of last year's NAPSG conference.

The CAIS program was instructive and informative, and reassuringly similar in its topics as to what interests and appeals to all of us here south of the border: Leadership, governance, strategic planning, technology, building a strong faculty, finance, and demography, the big issues in the offices of any school head, and it was very nice to see that despite the distance, the geographic separation of us with CAIS and I suspect with GSA, as well, we really are all in this together and we all have the same goals and aims, and it was a lovely experience to realize that.

Pat Bassett was present, which was also a very familiar thing, and the conference ended with a superb lobster fest at Rothesay Netherwood School served by their board of trustees, adorned by chefs' caps and aprons, including -- and I thought it was a very good idea -- the senior member of the Irving family. You all may know this, but that's the family that founded and runs the oil company whose gas stations we see so often in the United States. It's all centered in St. John's, New Brunswick.

I can't thank enough the ranks of the school heads in CAIS whose hospitality and good company made my stay such a pleasure, and it's an additional pleasure to introduce to you all now the new head of the Canadian Association of Independent Schools, Patricia Dawson, who is the head of Crofton House School in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dr. Dawson.

DR. DAWSON: Well, it is certainly my pleasure to bring greetings on behalf of the Canadian board and the Canadian contingency that we now include Sue as a part of. And of course, I loved that dinner and Mr. Irving happened to serve me dinner, and then auctioned off his hat and apron. And I think $500 later I left that dinner.

It's absolutely wonderful to be here. CAIS is an association of about 80 schools stretched from coast to coast, although we do collect on the southern border, your northern border. Our mission is very similar. We want to promote excellence in independent schools in our country, although our membership includes large and small schools, rural and urban schools, co-ed and single-gender schools.

The school that I head, Crofton House, is an all-girls school, a school from grades 1 through grade 12, and our headmistress emeritus -- some of you may have met her -- Rosalind Addison, also known as A.D. -- continues to be an affiliate membership of this association, and sends her warmest greetings.

On a personal level, I feel very fortunate to be at a conference with JoAnn Deak. Personally, when I did my doctoral dissertation, I was very interested in investigating how we make the tough decisions that go with being heads of schools, so I interviewed the women heads across the country, and we explored how we balance an ethic of care with an ethic of justice, and realized that time is the biggest contributor to making our decisions where we can really, in context, decide what is best for our students and our staff when faced with those very, very difficult dilemmas.

And of course, I'm so pleased that I took the time to come to San Antonio and we'll be renewing our membership in this association, if you will have us, Burch, but I do hope a year from now, you will find time in your calendars to come to Vancouver. One year from now we will be hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. So for those who are headed to Napa and perhaps on to San Francisco, do come to Vancouver, and if you're a skier, head up to Whistler.

So again, thank you very much for making me feel so very welcome at your conference.