Another baby giraffe has been born at Marwell Wildlife and I was delighted to see him again this weekend… this time with my camera.  He looked so small and cute compared to the others, despite still being around 6 foot tall! 

Marwell are running a vote on their website so you can help to name him.  The choices are: William, Merlin, Sekani, Kwame or Louis.

More photographs of him can be found on my Flickr website.

Today I led a team of volunteers from IBM Hursley in delivering a workshop entitled ‘Managing Creative Meetings’ for staff at to Marwell Zoological Park. It was running as one of IBM UK’s 2007 On Demand Community Challenges. These challenges offer IBMers and contractors the opportunity to make a big difference in their local communities by working together in teams for a day. During the autumn around 80 challenges will be completed by teams from IBM locations nationwide and will cover everything from business and technology workshops, through to environmental work in the community.

Last year, as part of this scheme, I ran a presentation skills workshop up at Marwell which went down really well, so I was keen to return. After talking to some of the senior managers at Marwell they suggested that it would be good to have a session on meetings, particularly thinking about how they could make them more creative, whilst at the same time setting the participants expectations.

The day went down well, and we received some excellent feedback again from the staff:

“Thank you for the excellent opportunity to spend time working on real issues with staff within and outside Marwell.”
“It was all very productive. There are many key pieces of information I will take away.”
“Fantastic, very beneficial and a useful exercise in refreshing best practice.”

Putting together a workshop for others is an excellent way to refresh your own memory and so my team all felt that we learnt a lot too. Some of the sessions we ran during the day were a chance to think about how meetings run today and what we can do to improve them. We discussed some general principles, best practices and explored some techniques which were new to many people.

As a reward my team got to go and feed the giraffes with one of the keepers.

Today, the weather was still lovely so we decided to get out for another walk this morning.  We had a spa session booked at 1, so we decided we didn’t want to go too far today.  I found Walk 1819, from the Walkingworld website, which took us around Chilworth and Lordswood.  The walk took about 1.5 hours and took us through the village, around the Golf Course and through some of the Chilworth Forest.  It was fun being nosey at some of the large houses in Chilworth and working out which we’d like if we had the money!

We then had a very pleasant lunch by the water at the Fishers Pond.  The cygnets that Stef and I saw a couple of weeks ago had really grown but they were still grey and somewhat fluffy.  I had a chicken and bacon sandwich and it was a really generous sandwich on doorstop sized bread.

After lunch, Sarah went off for her pampering session at the Zuri Salon in Marwell Hotel.  I had a couple of hours to kill, so I popped into Marwell Zoo.  Marwell seems to have had a real baby boom in the last few months!  There were baby giraffe, ocelots, coati, warthog, zebra, rhea to name but a few.   They were all really sweet, but the new warthog made me laugh running around chasing it’s mum and trying to grab itself some milk!

After Marwell, I went to the hotel for my pampering session.  I’d booked an Elemis Spa Ritual which was a two hour session including a full body massage and a facial.  It was a perfect end to a nice couple of days…shame I have to go back to work tomorrow!

We drove down to Tampa today to visit Busch Gardens. We got the tickets as part of our Discovery Cove booking and I was looking forward to going to see the white tigers.

We thought we’d get some of the big rollercoasters done first before the queues built up so we first headed for Gwazi which is a double wooden rollercoaster. It’s named after a fabled Lion with a Tiger’s head and the two rollercoasters are a Tiger and a Lion. The old wooden style rollercoaster certain rattled us right through!

Next up was Sheikra which is a a dive coaster with a 90 degree 200 foot drop which scares the hell out of you! The slow chug up the slope is almost as scary as the drop itself…although the worst moment has to be the second or so that the rollercoaster teeters you looking down over the drop. As there was no queues we got on the front row of this ride just for that extra bit of scariness.

Walking clockwise we then came to the Kumba rollercoaster. After Skeikra it almost seemed tame with its 135 foot drop and series of turns and loops! It has one of world’s largest vertical loops and even gives you 3 seconds of absolute weightlessness.

Thinking it was time to settle our stomachs we headed next to Rhino Rally to see some animals. Once aboard your jeep you head off around an off-road adventure track past some rhino’s, zebra’s and other African animals. We then went on the Serengeti Railway which loops most of the park. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the train for the best views.

Deciding it was time to get wet so we had time to dry off, we decided to head next for the water rides. First we headed to Stanley Falls which is where we met our longest queue of the holiday. We had to wait about 25 minutes for the log flume which was quite surprising as some of the better rides here had no queue at all. Next we headed to Tanganyika Tidal Wave which starts off as a really pleasant float through a jungle waterway, and then ends with a 55 foot plunge that gets you, and anyone silly enough to stand on the bridge you go under, absolutely soaked. Finally, we headed to the Montu rollercoaster which is one of the tallest and longest inverted rollercoasters in the world.

Finally we headed to the Serengeti Plain and Edge of Africa to see some more of the animals including the lions, giraffes and hyenas. The lions were fast asleep right up close to the glass which gave us a fantastic view of them, but wasn’t so good for photographs!

We could have easily spent a second day at Busch Gardens if it had been closer to Kissimmee like the other parks. I was very disappointed that the white tigers were currently off show – although pleased to hear that they were getting a nice new enclosure built for them. There were a few rides we didn’t have time to go on, including the Skyride which closed early morning due to the wind picking up, and some animals we didn’t get to see. I’ll definately visit again if we’d ever in Florida again as this was probably my favourite of the parks with a good combination or rides and animals – without comprimising on either.

More of my photographs from Busch Gardens can be found on my Florida Flickr set.

I had a day out in London on Tuesday thanks to the IBM Hursley Service Teams who invited me as a thank you for the work I’ve done with them this year. We were picked up from Hursley at 9am and the coach took us right into London. We arrived about 11am and were given some free time until 2.30pm. 
 
Having had a bit of a browse on the web the night before I’d decided the weather looked nice and I wanted to spend some time outside so I’d pre-booked a ticket to London Zoo. Finding the nearest tube station I purchased a zone 1 travel card and jumped on the Bakerloo line only to discover that the Regents Park station was closed. So I got off at the next stop, Baker Street, figuring it was a nice day and I didn’t mind a walk through Regents Park. Walking out of the station it wasn’t immediately obvious which direction the park was so I bought one of the London pocket maps from the station.
Regents Park seemed a million miles away from the bustle of the Central London. It was looking pretty with all the trees turning different colours and the ducks playing in the stream.
Arriving at London Zoo I was given a map. They’d marked a route around the zoo that allowed visitors to see everything without missing areas, but I decided to walk the other way around it as I was keen to go find the big cats. 

    
One of my first stops was to see the Komodo dragons. The dragons have saliva laced with deadly bacteria and so often wait for their prey to die from infected wounds. Next up I found the lion enclosure. At first I was a bit disappointed as I couldn’t find the lions anywhere, but then just as I rounded the last corner they were tucked up in a sunny spot asleep! 

After the lions I found the Sumatran Tigers. Although I knew the Sumatran Tigers were smaller than then Amur Tigers, like those we have at Marwell Zoo, I was surprised how much smaller they were.  One of the tigers was fast asleep, as cats frequently are, in the house, but the other decided to treat us to a prowl. He didn’t want to stand still for a photo and surprised me by suddenly turning and glaring through the window at me!

The zoo was a lot bigger than I had expected it to be in the centre of London with lots of smaller exhibits of birds that I didn’t have time to look around. The butterfly walkthrough was nice and I would have liked to have my better camera with me to take some close ups. 
 

As I approached the meercats people seemed to be looking in briefly and then just wandering past so I wondered if all the meercats were hidden away. I too was about to leave when I happened to lean over the wall and find the entire family sunbathing against the rock well hidden from view!   

In the Into Africa section I went to see the Tapir and found him asleep in his house. The giraffe’s were hanging around outside in the sun, as were the Okapi. I found it amusing when I got home to find I had taken a photo of this Okapi with 7 legs! 
 
After the zoo I met up with one of my friends, Chris, for a drink. Then we headed off to the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue where we were meeting up with the rest of the IBM group to see Spamalot, the new Monty Python musical which is based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The musical tells the tale of King Arthur and his knights in a totally new light. Whilst we were waiting for the musical to start the ushers were even selling spam sandwiches in the aisles! Before I went I wasn’t sure that it was going to be my cup of tea, but I found it funny and well created.

Finally, we ended the day with a trip to the Rainforest Cafe near Piccadilly Circus. I’d been to the Rainforest Cafe in EuroDisney so knew what to expect, but I think a few people got a surprise when thunder suddenly crashed overhead! I had Mojo Bones (pork ribs) to start, a steak for main course and chocolate brownie dessert. Considering they were catering for around 100 of us I thought they did very well with the food.

And so my day in London ended with the coach taking us back to Hursley for around 11pm. I had a lovely day out and thank Derek Treagus, and the service teams for inviting me to join them.

On Tuesday 17th October I led a team of IBMers in delivering a Presentation Skills workshop for staff at Marwell Zoological Park, as part of the IBM On Demand Community Challenge.

Many of the staff at Marwell give presentations as part of their job – this can take the form of less formal ‘meet the keeper’ type sessions, formal presentations for internal education and meetings to staff and trustees, right through to public speaking in front of an auditorium. The staff increasingly have a greater need for presentation skills and help with computer skills to assist them in the creation and delivery of their presentations.

Outside of work I am a volunteer at the zoo, and spend many a weekend educating the visitors on the ‘big cats’ and science and conservation in general, and it was through this relationship that Marwell came to ask me for help.

My team of willing volunteers came from a variety of areas in IBM – with skills ranging from technical, sales, management and user technologies.  It was particularly beneficial to have such a diverse range of skills and backgrounds to bring different aspects to the day, and various people on the team commented that it meant they gained something from the day as well as helping others.

On the day we ran two presentation workshops. We started off with some examples of what not to do, which brought a laugh from the audience along with some agreement from them that they’d seen some bad presentations before! We then moved on to sharing some top tips on getting your message across and got everyone up front having a go at presenting dynamic openings and closings for different scenarios.

Next up we gave them a whistle stop tour of what you could do with a computer to help a slideshow…remembering carefully not to break any of the tips we’d just shared about bad colour schemes, crowded foils and distracting animations! The final part of the workshop was a hands on session where we gave the staff a chance to have a go whilst offering personalised help to meet their needs.

The feedback and response from the staff at Marwell was tremendous.  They were delighted to hear that IBM supported the community in a variety of ways and said that the one-to-one support we provided on this occasion was invaluable: 

 “Excellent! Very useful and easy going people.”

“Thank you. A friendly and easy to learn environment.”

“Friendly, helpful and very well organised.”

During our lunch break some of the keepers gave us an insight to their world and took us to feed the giraffes. We took a laptop down with us to introduce IT to the giraffes but they were more interested in the bananas! Many thanks to everyone in my team for the professional and personal support that they provided with the planning, preparation and running of the event. Read the newspaper article from the Hampshire Chronicle.