We are just coming to the end of our first full year with Canberra Boys Grammar just about to leave. They were the last school to stay at the old centre and the last to stay at the new this academic year. Despite a pretty ‘interesting’ year in Thai politics which has hammered tourism, we are delighted that so many student groups still managed to get here and make for the best year ever, with some 50 groups and almost 1600 young people.

A quick count the other day revealed the fact that some 82 schools from 16 different countries have now been to the MRV.  Despite the ‘best’ efforts of the BBC, CNN and various governments such as the UK, USA and particularly Australia to give Thailand an image of a violent nation in turmoil, almost all school groups saw through this and continued to come.  It is strange that Australia has given the UK an even higher threat of terrorism warning than Thailand.....yet tourism to the UK goes on unabated. A school from Sydney has already cancelled for next April quoting a travel advisory from Foreign Affairs Dept (yet we have an Australian school here at the moment) Another example of bias is that the riots in Greece earlier this year only warranted a warning after suggestions not be drunk or nude in public, or to ride a motor bike without a helmet.

Anyway, that is my beef and luckily I can say that we have weathered the storm and the MRV will still be around for a few years to give students the sort of experience which has made coming here a highlight of their time at school (and here I am ‘precising’ various comments).