An especially fine moment for me was when I was presented with a festschrift on my birthday by the teachers and students of our international summer school. This summer school has been organised 11 times, and taught by our regular group of six professors who became a close work community and circle of friends. My international colleagues also got to know many students at the summer school.
The festschrift was put together by the teachers of the summer school, along with my own students. Three of my colleagues travelled to the celebration (at their own expense!) and afterwards Janelle Reinelt and her husband Jerry Hewitt stayed for Christmas.

All in all, the Summer School has been a great experience. Even though it always meant a shorter summer holiday, the intensive two-week discussions about research with Finnish and international students and teachers gave me much-needed energy for the long winter. In 2006 we agreed to organise the World Congress of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). Previously we had arranged several smaller congresses. The IFTR seminars on theatre history and performance analysis, organised in Helsinki in 1993, were a great success. Now, however, the scale was larger and we took a financial risk, though we minimised it by organising the congress ourselves.

Much of the organising work was done by the department secretary, along with the students of theatre research. Postgraduate students were given jobs to do before the conference started, so they could still participate as researchers during the conference itself. Each person responsible for a different area received an information pack on organising conferences, and for two years students gathered every Friday to learn more about project work, conference organisation, and the structures of their field of research.

The university helped us to stay within our budget by providing the use of premises. Everything worked perfectly: 600 conference visitors received flexible and personal service, as everyone involved in organising the conference, from students to the university caretakers, were fully committed and knew what they were doing. The attitude and spirit of the people involved could be seen at the first seminar, where I gave a lecture on the structure and functions of the IFTR, and faculty representatives told us about their own work. The speakers were surprised to find the whole group of students packed into the first two rows of the lecture hall leaving the last rows empty.

The participants gave me a present that I still find moving. It is a large photo album filled with the names of the participants and entertaining messages, about 500 altogether, collected by the members of the board at the banquet.

Written by Pirkko Koski.

Translated as coursework by Sara Jormakka, Saana Kallioinen, Tanja Koski, Suvi Lehikoinen, Tuomas Mäenpää, Emilia Mäkinen, Emma Niemi, Eerika Norja, Anu Piippo, Riina Vepsä, Saara Viitanen, Marilena Constantinou, Liisa Eloranta, Teemu Heikman, Marika Holmberg, Cecilia Ihatsu, Juliette Lempinen, Elviira Mattila, Sinimarja Niironen, Milla Rautio, Riikka-Liisa Salomaa, Sebastian Wandao & Elina Virros.

Revised by Nely Keinänen & John Calton