UFM summer team, day 3

The first Tuesday of the mission is tradtionnaly Rostrenen day. Rostrenen is about 45 min drives from Guingamp, in central Brittany. There are not churches in or around the town. The closest would be about 30 km away.

Tuesday is market day. Two of us went to the market while the others went distributing flyers in the letter boxes of the town. For my part, I went around the shops trying to ask them if I could put posters up. The town was quiet because the Tour de France was passing in the area.

The weather turned wet and we had lunch slightly earlier that planned in order to shelter from the rain. In the afternoon, we finished distributing flyers in Rostrenen and split up to cover other villages. In spite of the rain, we managed to distribute all our flyers.

3 more people joined us today which means that the team is now complete. Tomorrow will be different. We’ll have a short meeting in the morning and have a break from 11 until 16:30. The reason being that the Tour de France is going to go through the middle of Guingamp and roads will be cut off for several hours. We’ll meet up again later in the afternoon, after the roads have reopened.

Ufm summer team, day two

After a relaxing Sunday, the real work started today. We hadn’t received the literature we want to distribute in the area, so it proved a bit difficult. We found some tracts and headed off to Chatelaudren. It was market day, and some of us stayed on the market to do some surveys and hand out some tracts, while some went distributing  in the streets. But I must confess that I always find this a daunting experience. The fact that the market was small and that it was obvious that everybody knew each other. We survived and headed back to Guingamp for Lunch.

We were supposed to start distributing in Guingamp in the afternoon, but we sere still waiting for the delivery of the literature. So we changed plans and decided we would meet later in the afternoon, after the flyers had arrived. It was a good move because it was a very hot afternoon , and it was a bit easier after 5 pm.

We finished after 7pm. Tomorrow, we are going to Rostrenen and the area to distribute literature on the market and on letter boxes on the market and in the area.

We’ve got a French registration number!!!

It was about time for us to get a French registration number for the car. We probably should have done it earlier. If you ever have to register your British car in France, here are the steps:

  1. You’ll need a certificate of conformity. To get this, you’ll have to get a form from a government agency called the DREAL, look into the yellow pages, or google it to find where yours is. Once the form filled, send it back with a check, and they’ll send your certificate back.
  2. While you’re waiting, you might as well go to your local garage to change your lights for French ones. You really need new lights, the whole thing. The stickers you put on them when you go on holidays to the continent won’t do.
  3. Certificate in hand, you’ll need to pass the French MOT. Don’t bother going if you haven’t changed your lights, the car would fail the test.
  4. Once you’ve got all these certificates in hand, passed the MOT, you’ll need a quittance d’impot from the local tax center. That’s a paper proving the VAT has been paid.
  5. You’ve got your certificate of conformity, MOT certificate, quittance? Well done, but you haven’t finished yet. Head to the prefecture or sous-prefecture to get a registration form. Fill it in, and go back to the office with all the papers required (there’s quite a few of them). Make sure you haven’t forgotten anything or they’ll send you back home. Take your check book with you, you’ll need it.
  6. That’s it, you’ll now have to wait for your “carte grise” (registration certificate). It should come through the post very soon, about 2-3 weeks.
  7. Once you’ve received your carte grise, you can change the registration plates. Make sure you’ve insured your car.
  8. That’s it, well done.