Giotto

How Giotto Began

Giotto was started in 1986, the year of Halley’s Comet. It seemed to me a pity that the international contacts made by our students in their teens should disappear with the passage of time. It is not that they did not wish to keep up the contacts, it is just not easy to continue correspondence after the shared experience of the Course has faded from the memory. Nevertheless, I felt that these contacts, good in one’s teens, could be even more beneficial later on. I decided to contact all our past students to see how they felt. It was my biggest-ever mailshot and the response was overwhelming.

“Hi Ian
Just sat on the sofa in Brisbane reminiscing about being young …….
Giotto is still going so I need to update details, you never know, a lot of vacstuds folks find their way to these parts I am sure!
With 2 kids, Kate and I moved across about a year ago after 6 years withe M of D in Germany. Anyway, updates etc can go into giotto – a sophisticated facebook before it was ever dreamed up.
All the best and hope you and newbury are well. A life changing organization that I would love our boys to become involved in some day (all too) soon!
Warm regards
Phil Kefford”

This organisation was named Giotto after the collaborative European space-probe, Giotto, which
was sent up in February 1986 to observe Halley’s Comet. No one knew at that time if it would succeed or fail. In fact, it succeeded. The probe Giotto was so named because Halley’s Comet features in a work by the Florentine painter, Giotto. When I decided in 1986 to collate the names of our students from 1972 to date and create this international organisation, I did not know if it would succeed or fail. That the Giotto Book is now in its 13th Edition and contains more than 2000 names, suggests to me it is succeeding. It became so huge and heavy that I put it all on CD. Now that the Web is so universal, I have decided that this will be Giotto’s only medium. Some people now in the Book are rather young, but time will put this right. In a few years, the Giotto Bookwill include many interesting and useful people in various fields who are willing to be contacted.

Everyone who appears in Giotto is indicating a willingness to be contacted by anyone else in the Book. If you are visiting or need help in another country, here are contacts – people you already know and others you don’t know yet.

Giotto is open to those who have been with us as students, staff or parents. The only ‘condition’
is that everyone in it is willing to be contacted. I do, however, reserve the right to exclude those (very few)
that I have absolutely no wish to have anything to do with ever again….
Giotto is completely financed by Vacational Studies in order to further its aim of encouraging international contact. The
international contact concept of Giotto is ideally suited to the World Wide Web. Giotto is a web in itself.

Several parents have contacted me about their children’s continuing education in Britain.
I am happy to help, to suggest suitable schools and to follow-up students there. I make no charge. I receive no commission from the schools I recommend. I, in turn, have received much assistance in various projects from contacts worldwide.

I welcome comments on the website and on Giotto itself. It exists only to stimulate the positive
international feelings that our Courses develop in the summer.

Copyright Note

Great though it is to have this information at your fingertips, like all good ideas, the Giotto Book can be and has been misused.
We all receive enough junk mail and I do not wish any more of it to be inflicted on you. Also, I do not propose to allow free access to my client base to an unknown organisation – or even to a known one.

Everything Vacational Studies produces, either in print or on the web, is my personal copyright. I
have keyed in every word on these web pages myself. I have not allowed any other organisation to use my ideas or designs, nor have I allowed anyone to use the Giotto Book as a mailing list. I never shall! I specifically forbid the use of the material in this book for any commercial or mailshot purposes.

All addresses and phone numbers have been deleted. They are available to VacStuds people who request them. E-mail links only are included.

Use of Country Names and Other Contentious Issues

The names in the Giotto Book are arranged alphabetically according to address beginning with the largest unit, the ‘country name’. All address information given is as supplied to me. My linking of the name of a person or a town with a ‘country’ only indicates a postal address and is not intended to be interpreted as a statement of political recognition. Yes, I really have to say this! With some countries in the process of fragmenting and old hostilities re-emerging even in our enlightened times, at least one address in the Book has caused comment. I am not in the business of making historical or political judgements on such matters, so let me state here that I am merely reproducing addresses as given to me. If I change an address that is given to me, I can upset someone; if I leave it as it is, I can upset someone else. Sorry, but I can’t win! I can only print this disclaimer.

Would you like to send us an E-mail or request an address or phone number? Click on giotto@vacstuds.com to do so.