Aspinall Business Club 14th July 2010 at Port Lympne
http://aspinallbusinessclub.co.uk
Visitors and members present
Suzzane Emson http://www.kentwildlifefund.com
Jaci Godmin-Irvine http://www.estatelegacyservices.co.uk
Carol Arter http://www.arterworks.co.uk/
Lee Freeman http://www.kentbusinessdirectory.co.uk
Alan Noake http://www.theicelab.co.uk
Barry Nutley http://www.viridisec.co.uk/
Christine MacSween http://www.lionaid.eventbrite.com
Trevor Cobb http://www.microwaveservice.co.uk
Steve Orca http://www.OrcalocalHythe.co.uk
Chris Raines http://www.copy-link.co.uk
Peter Wood Hawkeye
Robert www.aspinallfoundation.org
Dreda Van-beer http://www.juststyle.me
Jo Dodds http://www.jododdssocialmedia.com
The Meeting
Robert Boutwood introduced the meeting, giving us an update about the animals that have been born over the last month; an Elephant calf that was rejected by the mother as it was her first baby. The keepers have hand reared it over the last six weeks spending 15 hours a day feeding and caring for the calf, the latest news is that the calf has been accepted back by the elephant herd so is doing very well.
Mark Kingstone Jones – Eduction and Research Officer
Mark gave a talk through a thunderstorm about the varied work that the Port Lympne does to educate children, teenager and adults and companies about the conservation work. This takes different formats depending on the audiences.
School Groups
At school groups it is mainly talking about conservation, zoos, and adoptions. The zoo has out-reach officers go to schools and give talks Port Lympne also offer junior keeper for the day experiences http://www.totallywild.net/schools/index.php.
Mark and his team run Enrichment programs for the animals that makes the visitors experience much more interesting as well. Using ropes and karabiners supplied by a company Port Lympne have made the snow leopards life much more interesting by hanging prey from a tree see this great video of the snow leopard in full flight climbs a tree to get a special treat in the snow.
For the children they give them a task of taking the lid off some black barrels, putting in a selection of food, then writing their names in large writing on the barrels and putting the lids back on securely. The barrels are then carefully placed in with the Gorilla, to work out how to get the lids off and into the food. The children can see which barrels are theirs because of the writing and the Gorilla’s can have an interesting thing to play with.
Corporate Team Building
Port Lympne also run corporate team building workshops which are tailored to what the company wants to get out of the day, how many people are involved, and how much time they have available; one activity we saw was four teams making a reindeer for the lions to play with. The team members all had fun making the reindeer from papier-mâché. The lions then loved tearing the reindeer apart and throwing them up in the air to catch in their mouths.
Lion Aid
The English Lions, the Dutch Lions and the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon all lost the battle for the World Cup
Real Lions are also losing their battle for existence in Africa. Join Lion Aid on 22nd July 2010 for the Lion Aid Challenge Trophy and ensure lions will participate in the WILD CUP forever. Brad Burton, the MD of 4Networking, will be dressed up as a lion and we invite Company teams and individuals to participate in the competiion to splatter Brad with paintballs. An amazing Business Networking opportunity and a chance to support Lion Aid. The participants will take part in the following challenges:
- Paintballing
- Par 3 (9 hole) Golf
- Water Walking & Archery.
The venue is Great Chart Golf and Lesiure centre, Great Chart, Ashford, Kent, TN23 3BW. Whole day including lunch is offered for only £35. Ticket and information www.lionaid.eventbrite.com
chris@lionaid.org. Phone 07772697498
Alan Noake
Trip to the Aspinall Reserve in the Congo
Alan Noake gave a talk about his trip to the Republic of Congo to visit and do some voluntary work for the Aspinall Foundation at their Western Highland Gorilla reserve. Alan talked about the Gorilla explaining that they eat 9K of fruit a day and that adult males weigh up to 200Kg. A Gorilla spends approx 30% of its time eating, 40% sleeping and 30% travelling. The gorillas are social animals and live in groups with one dominant male, 5 to 7 females and infants. Female gorillas have one baby approx every five years. While there Alan saw the lodges that the Aspinall foundation are building so that they can have visitors close to the Gorilla so helping with the funding of their re-introduction of gorillas into the wild.
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