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Our Journal 2004
Please click on the following links to jump to the month you require.
March April May June July September October December
March 14th 2004 Steve writes
Today we finished this web site in preparation for the Emigrate 2004 Show at Sandown next weekend. Our intention is to burn several copies of the web site to CD so we can distribute them to people we make contact with at the show. We're hoping that this will be a way that we can establish connections for our visit to Alberta in June of this year.
March 21st 2004 Steve writes
Well here we are after a weekend of ups and downs at the Emigration fair in Sandown (London). On Saturday we were all for going and nothing could stand in our way. We had had a long chat with our emigration consultant (Stuart Bennett of Hand In Hand Emigration) and some other people and made contacts in preparation for our visit to Alberta in June. We also had a long and very positive chat with the Canadian High Commission.
Karen is the lead applicant as she has better education than me. She has had confirmation that we can add her HNC in Hospitality Management to her qualifications after we submit our application. This is due to complete in June of next year and as the waiting list is about 18 months long we can send the details later (using our filing number). As things stand she has 70 points and with her HNC this will give her an additional 5. The lady at the High Commission said that when she evaluates applications she stops counting when she gets to 67 but it's nice to have that additional buffer in case we are wrong in our own estimate.
On Saturday evening we realised that there was still an obstacle to get over ... my children from my previous marriage. While the twin boys (aged 16) are estranged, Emma (aged 12) is not. We cannot guarantee that we will get the cooperation we need here and we cannot jeopardise our application. We decided that we had to speak with the High Commission again and also to Stuart Bennett the next day at the fair.
Sunday brought us more confusion. The lady we spoke to on this day from the High Commission said that the children had to be a full and active part of the application even if we intended not to bring them out with us (which is in fact the case). This was a surprise to Stuart as he thought that if we wrote a disclaimer then this should be sufficient. We also realised that we had already heard the same from the High Commission the previous year. We ended up going to an emigration lawyer who confirmed that if we write a disclaimer all should be OK. So this is what we are intending to do, even though it doesn't sit well that we are not giving Emma as much help as we would otherwise be able to if she ever wanted to emigrate to Canada in her own right.
March 27th 2004 (Karen writes)
Well what a busy weekend last weekend was at the immigration show down in Sandown, I personally found the first day a boost to the system and when I left the show I felt confident that we as a couple would have no issues on emigrating to Canada, that was about to change and steer the whole process into another direction.
Upon leaving the show on the Sunday my head was well and truly splitting, I felt very negative and was very confused about the whole picture as we had been given such different and conflicting answers to every question we asked regarding Steve's children this was such a contrast to Saturdays close of play! I even asked the question was all of this worth it ......
The whole of this week has been very stressful for me as I have learned that for us to emigrate as a couple we do have to declare Steve's children on the forms and seeing as I am the lead applicant Steve's children have to become my dependants. This if you can imagine has been difficult for me to come to terms with but if it is what we have to do to emigrate then I have to go along with it, there are obviously a lot of questions around this scenario and it all needs careful clarification before we can apply.
Moving on, whilst Steve has been away this week I have worked solidly upon returning home from work, sending e-mails to people to find answers out, gathering forms together for the police checks, writing to ex-employers for past employment details, photocopying certificates, getting the house valued by three different estate agents, making appointments for our photographs to be taken by a professional photographer and basically filing all of the information received in one place so that it does not get misplaced.
As you can see the initial ground work is time consuming and a lot of work I hope that after this is all sorted and the forms are sent we have a positive outlook to look forward to.
March 28th 2004 (Steve writes)
Another big step was taken this weekend. I told my parents of our intention to emigrate to Canada. Karen's parents already knew of our hopes as they had considered the move when Karen was a small child and as such we had wanted to discuss things with them and to benefit from their experience.
I was pleased with Mum and Dad's reaction. Dad's biggest concern was that I would be able to get a job in IT as this is where my biggest earning potential is. While this is true I've heard that you have to be prepared to look outside your professional scope sometimes in order to get a job. I think the first priority is to get a job and get a regular income coming in. After this time we'll be able to think about moving professions if we are not where we want to be. Again I've heard its easier to get a job once you already have one so maybe that's the way forward. But all of this is still a long way off.
April 1st 2004 (Steve Writes)
Things are still progressing quite quickly. We sent off the retainer agreement to the emigration lawyer yesterday so he can start working on the disclaimer for the kids. Writing that here still leaves me with a bit of a guilty feeling but we have to do this or we run the risk of having problems down the line. If Emma wants to come in the future she will be able to get her in her own right. She's bright enough to get the qualifications and to work hard enough to get in.
We've started keeping an eye on the Canilink discussion board. This is really useful - not only will it be somewhere we can ask questions and get answers and look at answers to questions we haven't got round to thinking about yet, but also I could see this being a list of useful contacts for when we eventually land.
May 7th 2004 (Steve writes)
It seems ages since we've written anything but that's not to say things haven't been progressing. We've now got almost all the supporting documentation required for our application, we just need a couple more things to come through. The task this week-end is to complete the forms in preparation for a meeting with our emigration consultant (Stuart Bennett of Hand In Hand Emigration) at the Emigration Show in York in a couple of week's time.
Today I took the TEF examination to evaluate my level of French. It's not required as I'm not the principal applicant but I felt it was appropriate as I've done a little French in the past and wanted to formalise my knowledge. The results take about a month to come through and we are intending to apply before then so (if the results are any good) we'll send them on once we have our file number.
May 23rd 2004 (Karen Writes)
Well Steve and I drove up to the emigrate show at York yesterday to see our immigration consultant (Stuart Bennett) to ask a few questions and basically finalise any niggles we had before we could actually say that our forms are complete and ready to send.... well guess what they are complete! and ready to go. We are going to get everything photocopied before we submit, this is basically just for our records and if there are any niggles later on down the line. On Tuesday 25th May it will be sent to the High Commission registered post. Whilst we were walking around the show we decided to look at the next stage of costs that will come which is that of removal companies (being positive that everything will be ok) so we went around a few of the companies there and picked up brochures plus prices to give us ideas of costs. We are going to Calgary on June 4th and one of the areas we will cover on this research trip is that of the cost to replace our furniture with new furniture when we get there, so we will be visiting home stores to get a feel for costs etc. If it is within our budget then we will obviously consider selling our furniture off before we leave, we know this is looking way into the future but being positive as we are we want to explore every aspect of relocating before it is just dumped on our laps and we have to go! Other factors within the decision about taking our furniture with us are firstly the cost of shipping and secondly we have heard that wooden furniture from the UK falls apart in Calgary due to the altitude and atmosphere. On the whole I feel that the hassle of "information gathering" has now gone and we can just sit back, visit Canada and wait!
May 25th 2004 (Steve Writes)
Its gone ! We've sent off our application. It's strange how we feel ..... there's a mix of emotions in both of us.
Excited that its gone. Relieved that that part of the process is over. Apprehensive, is it all OK? Also I felt it was a bit of an anticlimax. We've been working on the application since Sandown in March (had to wait for a couple of documents) and its such a big thing to get it sent off I suppose I expected a Brass band at the Post Office to celebrate.
We sent it Registered Post so we can check tomorrow (on RoyalMail.com ) that it's got there and then the big wait starts.
Straight into the next phase now ... research. We're off on June 4th for 2 weeks so hopefully the expected lull of nothing to do now for two years will not appear.
May 31st 2004 (Karen Writes)
Well everything I feel is at a stand still, there is no more "information gathering" to do for the forms as this generally was the weekend task for the the last three months. So for an idea yesterday (Sunday 30th) I suggested that we attended and took part in a car boot sale, we have lots of videos and bits to disperse off and I thought it may be an idea to give it a try for future reference with regards to the selling of items we can't take with us. We arrived at the site at 6.40am! and was the second car there, it did start filling up quickly and by 7.45am it was ready to rock and roll. It cost us £7 entry fee and then what else we made on the day was our profit. The good news is that we managed to sell over 3/4 of the videos all of the CD's and a few other bits and made £94! and we had a laugh as well. We will be attending another car boot sale when we return from our holiday later on in the summer. I feel that it is a good way to shift any unwanted items, so long as you do not browse around other stalls and gather up more "new unwanted items" to take home!!
June 28th 2004 (Karen Writes)
On the whole we found that the trip has been another eye opener. Just when you feel that you have things worked out in your head something or someone crops into your mind and throws the whole picture out of focus. Karen got depressed one evening over the job front wondering and analysing what we both have in England and what we would be giving up to move across the ocean. As we are discovering there will be a lot of emotional ups and downs and the trip highlighted this. We are glad we went and we came away with a lot of information and full brains! It is hard to switch off from it all as you are continuously on a buzz and a high.
We can’t wait to return and hopefully when we do go back a year from now we will know how we are progressing and have our AOR (acknowledgement of receipt) well and truly in our pockets.
For more details of our trip and some pictures please follow the Research Trips link.
July 25th 2004 (Steve writes)
Well it arrived last week (our AOR or Acknowledgement of Receipt). This means that we're officially on the waiting list. It got here on the Saturday morning and that brown A5 envelope was sitting on the door mat. It's strange but we both independently knew what it was even before we saw the CHC post mark on it. It arrived a month earlier than we expected as well so that was great news. At least we were not in the situation of wondering why it was taking longer than the 3 months we were expecting. Only another 18 months to go !
September 5th 2004 (Steve writes)
Well things are a bit quiet after the excitement or receiving our AOR at the end of July. Following the Canilink discussion board it appears that the High Commission in London are pulling out all the stops with getting AOR’s back to applicants … the best we’ve heard about is 21 days. Here’s hoping that they are working just as fast on processing the back-log.
Karen’s about to start her second year of a HNC is Hotel and Food Hospitality Management which we are hoping will be of interest to potential employers in Canada. She has also been accepted as a member of the HCIMA (Hotel and Catering International Management Association) which is internationally recognised.
Steve has been accepted for membership to the BSC (British Computer Society) the sister organisation to the CIPS (Canadian Information Processing Society). The BCS have also said that with the amount of experience Steve has then he should also be successful if he applied for CITP (Chartered Information Technology Professional). Both of these will add credibility to his resume when the time comes.
We’ve been keeping an eye on house prices through MLS but of course until we get that letter with our visas in there’s nothing we can do. Still it’s nice to keep up to date with what’s going on. Other than that we’ve been quietly clearing junk out. We’ve had 3 car-boot sales which have netted us nearly £200 in total which has gone towards our savings.
October 11th 2004 (Steve writes)
Happy Thanksgiving!
On Saturday we went down to Sandown Park for the Emigrate Show. We did the trip in one day which was cheaper (no hotel bills) but a long day (8 hours in the car and 3 hours at the show). We have mixed emotions about the value of the day to be honest. It was important for us to go as we had a few questions we wanted to asked the High Commission. We also wanted to find out if things were moving more quickly in terms of processing times. Unfortunately it appears that while the AoRs are coming through much more quickly they are not processing the applications any faster - the best we can hope for is 18 months but to be honest 2 years is probably more reasonable.
While it was a successful day in terms of getting answers to our questions and saying Hi to a couple of exhibiters that we know there we also found it a difficult day as it raised our frustration levels. What we need to do now is turn that frustration into a positive thing and let it help us to keep the fire burning and to keep moving towards our goal. We've decided to add another page to this site giving details of what we have done and want to achieve in the waiting period. This will be coming in the next few days.
October 20th 2004 (Karen writes):
Well this week we've watched the Emigrate Challenge dvd which Outbound Publishing (the people who publish Canada News)was selling at the Emigration Show at Sandown Park. One of the couples had bought a B&B business (By The Brook) in Canmore and we recognised the footage from when we were trying to decide which B&B to stay at on our last trip out. You can imagine how fed up we were that we hadn't decided to stay at that one. The Couple's names are Pete & Louise Green. We sent them an email not really expecting a response and thinking that they must get loads of people pestering them. Not at all. We got a really nice mail back from them the next day saying they would welcome the opportunity to spend some time with us comparing notes next time we go over.
December 3rd 2004 (Karen writes):
Well yesterday we received Canada News from Outbound Publishing and to our surprise we were mentioned! There is an article that details our story from when we first starting documenting it up to when we submitted our application (taken from this web-site) … well pleased! We have had a few more hits on our website as a result of the article which is positive and also e-mails from people who have visited the site and passed on wishes of good luck to us both for our future venture.
We both hope that the website helps people understand what is involved when applying to emigrate and illustrate to them all the scenarios (well some) that can be thrown at you.
Not really much to report though at this stage we are trying to get ahead of the Christmas rush and be organised in advance. (Santa Parcels to Canada already sent !).