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4 episodes with kate nichols
5 episodes with kate nichols
2 episodes with kate nichols
2 episodes with kate nichols
2 episodes with kate nichols
2 episodes with kate nichols
2 episodes with kate nichols
Join Sam and Ellie as they chat with Kate Nichols about rediscovering adventure through travel, transforming fitness, and mending family bonds in sobriety.
Send us a textWelcome to the "Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast." In this episode, hosts Susan Larkin and Ruby Williams are joined by Kate Nichols. Kate shares her transformative journey of living an alcohol-free life, highlighting the profound impact it had on her relationships, health, and travel experiences. From savoring sophisticated mocktails like the Moscow Mule to embracing vibrant adventures in Cambodia and the Amazon, Kate illustrates how sobriety has enriched her life. She also touches on the ripple effects of her decision on her loved ones. How has sobriety enriched Kate's life and what can you learn from her experiences? Tune in for an empowering episode filled with actionable insights, and let's explore this path to a vibrant, alcohol-free life together! Kate Nichols is an Alcohol Freedom Coach certified by TNM and ALP trained. Find out more about Kate on her website: www.freedomaffect.comFollow Kate: @kate_sobrietyandfitness LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-nichols-af/Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and ask us any questions you have about breaking free from wine or living an alcohol-free lifestyle. Your question could be the highlight of a future episode! Join our Feel Lit AF Facebook Community for amazing support and connection! Watch Episode on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@FeelLitAlcoholFreePodcast/videosWebsites:Susan Larkin Coaching https://www.susanlarkincoaching.com/ Ruby Williams at Freedom Renegade Coaching https://www.freedomrenegadecoaching.com/Follow Susan: @drinklesswithsusanFollow Ruby: @rubywilliamscoachingIt is strongly recommended that you seek professional advice regarding your health before attempting to take a break from alcohol. The creators, hosts, and producers of the The Feel Lit Alcohol Free podcast are not healthcare practitioners and therefore do not give medical, or psychological advice nor do they intend for the podcast, any resource or communication on behalf of the podcast or otherwise to be a substitute for such.
In this episode we welcome the fantastic Kate Nichols on to the podcast! Kate, originally from near Derby in the UK but now based over the Atlantic in Canada decided to quit drinking when the strain was becoming too much on her family relationships. Now that she has quit, it has altered the course of all of their lives and her own life has improved immeasurably. Kate is infectiously positive and has a message for those of you thinking about giving up drinking: it's never too late! If you would like to know more about Kate's coaching, you can visit her website www.freedomaffect.com Thanks so much to Kate for coming on to the podcast and sharing your story! --- Get In Touch: Of course, you can always get in touch with us (publicly or privately) on our socials - @alcoholfreepod on Instagram, or search for "Over The Influence" on Facebook. We'd love to hear your story - please get in touch with us directly at otihq@overtheinfluence.co.uk or go to our website, www.overtheinfluence.co.uk --- The Premium Podcast: If you love OTI and you'd like to hear behind the curtain, subscribe to the OTI Premium Podcast now! --- Links: For links to alcohol-related support services, please visit our website. --- Disclaimer: All views expressed in this podcast are of the participants themselves, and not necessarily those of Over The Influence (OTI) Ltd. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We are not medical professionals but normal people giving their own experiences of removing alcohol from their lives, and as such this podcast should not be considered professional advice. If you are dependent on alcohol, or think you may be, we strongly recommend that you seek professional medical advice. --- Helpful Hashtags: We found hashtags and sober social media accounts really helpful in our early days alcohol free, as following them can help to reinforce that you are not alone! These are some of the hashtags we've followed: #alcoholfree #stopdrinking #healthandwellnessjourney #zeroalcohol #idontdrink #sobercurious #healthydrinking #alcoholfreelife #soberaf #alcoholfreeliving #sobermotivation #podcast #healthpodcast #noalcohol #nobooze #sober #sobercurious #soberlofe #soberliving #sobercommunity #afcommunity #soberwomen #sobermom #sobermomtribe #sobersisters #sobriety #soberuk #soberjourney #sobrietyrocks #overtheinfluence #oti
In this episode of The Writing Corner with Authors Alcove, host Agnes Wolfe sits down with the accomplished journalist and author, Pamela Kripke. They discuss Pamela's latest works, "And Then You Apply Ice" and "At the Seams," both of which offer profound insights into the female experience. "And Then You Apply Ice" is a compelling collection of short stories that explores the nuances of women's lives as they confront various forms of hurt and resilience. Meanwhile, "At the Seams" follows the journey of eight-year-old Kate Nichols as she uncovers a family mystery, delving into themes of generational trauma and maternal strength. With a writing career that includes contributions to The New York Times and The Huffington Post, and teaching stints at DePaul University and Columbia College in Chicago, Pamela brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her storytelling. Join Agnes and Pamela as they dive into the creative process, the blending of truth and fiction, and the powerful themes of female resilience that permeate Pamela's work. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the art of storytelling and the complexities of the human experience. ------------------------------------ SHOW ME LOVE OVER AT PATREON - https://patreon.com/authorsalcovepodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink BUY THE WRITING PROGRAM SCRIVENER - $60! Scrivener won't tell you how to write—it simply provides everything you need to start writing and keep writing. It is by far my personal favorite writing app! https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener-affiliate.html?fpr=angela46 BECOME A PROOFREADER/EDITOR! Guaranteed work as a proofreader/editor, if you pass the exam with an 80% or higher!!: https://give.knowadays.com/6DcL9W ------------------------------------ Links discussed in show: https://www.amazon.com/Then-You-Apply-Ice-Stories/dp/1948598752?ref_=ast_author_dp https://www.amazon.com/At-Seams-Pamela-Gwyn-Kripke/dp/1948598647/ref=sr_1_1?crid=AABM7KF0HDJX&keywords=pamela+gwyn+kripke&qid=1698754402&s=books&sprefix=pamela+gwyn+kripke%2Cstripbooks%2C76&sr=1-1 https://pamelagwynkripke.com/ If you are interested in being a guest on my episode, you may fill out the form on my website: http://authorsalcove.com/be-a-guest You can also follow me on: Facebook: http://facebook.com/authorsalcove Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorsalcovepodcast/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnes-wolfe-20bb47288/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2EQYPBl1LtZh08qCdIRHTy?si=aa56d7a9565a49fa YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWVCbL470bDCgeg23kziYAg (Possible Affiliate Links Above)
Today our guests are Kate Nichols, and Jill Gleason, School Counselor & Intervention Director at Beaver Valley Elementary in Brush, Colorado. We talk to Kate and Jill about ways that they integrate their current PBIS system at Beaver Valley Elementary with curriculum like CharacterStrong. They share about the PBIS matrix that they use for their school and share how they are combining it with the traits “Be Well”, “Be Strong”, and “Be Kind” from the PurposeFull People curriculum along with other elements like morning meetings. Kate and Jill also talk about how they intentionally take the time to pre-correct expectations are as they interact in the different spaces of the school and how this can work for students of any age. Learn More About CharacterStrong: Access FREE MTSS Curriculum Samples Attend our next live product preview Visit the CharacterStrong Website Bio: Hi! We are Kate Nichols and Jill Gleason. Combined we have worked in education for forty years, with thirty-four of those years at our current school, Beaver Valley Elementary. Kate has taught 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, Intervention and is currently the school counselor. Jill was a third grade teacher for twenty years, has been an interventionist, and is currently the intervention director.
In this episode, we get to know Kate Nichols, who is our first social worker on Comedicine and we are so happy to have her! Kate is a licensed clinical social worker and stand up comedian. She has performed internationally, including 4 years at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival and for the US Army as part of the USO, opening for Chris Gethard, in addition to her regular local appearances in the NY and NJ comedy scene. In addition to her stand-up, she's half of comedy duo “Belleville Broads”, who perform as animal-print loving, exaggerated versions of everyone's favorite over-the-top Aunts from New Jersey! Aunt Angela even joins up for a quick hello on this episode! Kate loves blending the worlds of comedy and mental health, as two sources for the human pursuit of making meaning out of our experiences to find greater connection to each other. She has an insightful and positive perspective on her profession, comedy, mental health and life in general. I promise you will feel great after listening to this episode. Instagram: @heykatenicholsTherapy practice: @cyclebreakerstherapy@gmail.com Website: www.cyclebreakerstherapy.comLaughing Together IG: https://www.instagram.com/laughingtogetherofficial/Thanks for listening to Comedicine! Send is a text to let us know what you think!Instagram @comedicine_comedyComedicine FacebookYour host, Dr Sarah BostonDr Sarah Boston is a veterinary surgical oncologist (cancer surgeon for dogs and cats), cancer survivor (ironic, right?), bestselling author, actor and stand up comedian. She is a 2023 graduate of the Humber College Comedy Performance and Writing Program. She is the 2023 recipient of the Tim Sims Encouragement Fund Award, which recognizes and supports promising comedic performers in the early stages of their career She is also the recipient of the Award for Academic Excellence from Humber College because she is a nerd in all aspects of her life. Instagram @drsarahboston www.Drsarahboston.com Representation Book Musical Genius Mark Edwards Producer Heather McPherson Twisted Spur Media
What if your dependence on alcohol not only jeopardised your health but also strained your most treasured relationships? This week, we have the privilege of speaking with Kate Nichols, an inspiring alcohol recovery coach who shares her heartfelt journey from university drinking habits to a life of sobriety. Kate's candidness about hiding her drinking and its emotional toll on her family will resonate deeply with anyone who has faced similar struggles.As Kate recounts the pivotal moment that led her to confront her addiction—Father's Day 2021, amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic—she illuminates the transformative power of sobriety. We explore how embracing an alcohol-free lifestyle has brought clarity, improved relationships, and a newfound sense of purpose. Kate's reflections on shifting from nighttime socialising to early morning adventures are both uplifting and thought-provoking, offering a roadmap for those seeking change.Throughout our conversation, Kate emphasises the importance of support systems like podcasts, books, and sober communities. She offers hope and practical advice for navigating social situations without alcohol, underscoring the benefits of mental clarity and healthier relationships. Don't miss this empowering episode that highlights the profound impact of taking responsibility for one's actions and embracing a sober lifestyle.Kate's website: www.freedomaffect.com Instagram: kate_sobrietyandfitness MEGMegan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.auInstagram: @glassfulfilledUnwined Bookclub: https://www.alcoholfreedom.com.au/unwinedbookclubSober Socialising workshop: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/confident-and-cozy-alcohol-free-socialising-for-winter-tickets-934198341387?aff=oddtdtcreator BELLAIsabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.auInstagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabellaFree 5-Day DO I HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM? Clarify and focus series: https://resources.isabellaferguson.com.au/doIhaveadrinkingproblemwithisabellafergusonAlcohol Freedom Small Group Challenge - Register here: https://resources.isabellaferguson.com.au/alcoholfreedomchallengeThe Alcohol Revolution 6-Week Program (Online or Podcast): ...
This week on This Changes Everything, Sarah welcomes Kate Nichols, LCSW to the show. Kate is a unique blend of psychotherapist and stand up comedian who uses her dual expertise to shed light on the power of vulnerability and authenticity. With years of experience in both the mental health field and the comedy circuit, Kate brings a fresh and insightful perspective on how embracing vulnerability can transform lives. She and Sarah talk about occupying unique spaces in the worlds of mental health and entertainment and then dive into a big conversation about vulnerability: why it's so important, why we're so afraid to do it, and what we stand to gain if we can let ourselves embrace our vulnerable side. Listen to more podcasts like this: https://wavepodcastnetwork.com/ This Changes Everything Voicemail: Record your question by calling (313) 338-8828 Kate's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heykatenichols/ Cycle Breakers Therapy: https://www.cyclebreakerstherapy.com/about-kate-nichols Cycle Breakers Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cyclebreakerstherapy/ Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/TCE Get results you can run your fingers through! For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners ten dollars off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code CHANGES. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code TCE at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod
Calling from a bathroom on a cruise ship, this caller recounts the series of events that led to her taking someone else's kids on vacation. It's a real lesson on making the best of a tough situation. Tickets for Laughing Together with Chris Gethard: A Comedy Benefit Supporting Mental Health Resources in Our Schools with Joe Pera, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Kenice Mobley, and Kate Nichols! Tickets for Beautiful/Anonymous at Treefort Music Fest Follow Beautiful/Anonymous on Instagram @beautifulanonymouspod Sign up for Beautiful/Anonymous+ to get access to exclusive content including 5 Random Questions with this week's caller. Leave us a voicemail at (973) 306-4676
We all know Valentine's Day is bogus, but that doesn't mean it isn't a bummer to spend it alone. This week's caller talks with Geth about dating as a queer man in the digital age and how past trauma makes things even more complicated. They also talk about making art, making connections, and why more people should go to the movies alone. Step into the New Year with Vessi. Visit vessi.com/beautiful for 15% off your first purchase! Enjoy free shipping to CA, US, AU, JP, TW, KR, SGP Get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus get FREE shipping. Text BEAUTIFUL to 64000. Tickets for Laughing Together with Chris Gethard: A Comedy Benefit Supporting Mental Health Resources in Our Schools with Joe Pera, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Kenice Mobley, and Kate Nichols! Tickets for Beautiful/Anonymous at Treefort Music Fest Follow Beautiful/Anonymous on Instagram @beautifulanonymouspod Sign up for Beautiful/Anonymous+ to get access to exclusive content including 5 Random Questions with this week's caller. Leave us a voicemail at (973) 306-4676
A puzzle enthusiast calls to talk with Gethard about running her family's kite store. She breaks down the various fart-themed products she keeps behind the counter, tells Geth about the niche world of kite-flying, and describes how her store acts as a surprisingly good barometer for the country's current political climate. Start the year off right with The Good Habit by going to TryFum.com/BEAUTIFUL and getting the Journey pack today. Füm is giving listeners of the show 10% off with the code “BEAUTIFUL” to help make starting The Good Habit that much easier. Get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus get FREE shipping. Text BEAUTIFUL to 64000. Read Geth's new book, Dad at Peace, for free on Everand. Tickets for Laughing Together with Chris Gethard: A Comedy Benefit Supporting Mental Health Resources in Our Schools with Joe Pera, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Kenice Mobley, and Kate Nichols! Tickets for Beautiful/Anonymous at Treefort Music Fest Follow Beautiful/Anonymous on Instagram @beautifulanonymouspod Sign up for Beautiful/Anonymous+ to get access to exclusive content including 5 Random Questions with this week's caller. Leave us a voicemail at (973) 306-4676
This week, Gethard talks with someone whose youth was affected by the “troubled teen industry.” He and Geth talk about that experience, what it means to be a “troubled teen,” and how that time shaped his adult life. Also? Way more talk about chickens than you might expect. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com/BEAUTIFUL to get $80 off of your first month and show your support for the show. Read Geth's new book, Dad at Peace, for free on Everand. Tickets for Laughing Together with Chris Gethard: A Comedy Benefit Supporting Mental Health Resources in Our Schools with Joe Pera, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Kenice Mobley, and Kate Nichols! Tickets for Beautiful/Anonymous at Treefort Music Fest Follow Beautiful/Anonymous on Instagram @beautifulanonymouspod Sign up for Beautiful/Anonymous+ to get access to exclusive content including 5 Random Questions with this week's caller. Leave us a voicemail at (973) 306-4676
In Episode 63 of the Write the Damn Book Already podcast, I had the opportunity to chat with Pamela Gwyn Kripke, a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, Slate, Salon, and Parenting. Pamela's novel, At the Seams (Open Books, April 2023), details the journey of precocious eight-year-old Kate Nichols, whose understanding of her world is shattered when she learns of an uncle who died inexplicably in the hospital just days after his birth. Interview Highlights: How to turning a real-life event into the premise for a novel (plus when---and why---the fiction component took over) Pamela's unique writing process when it comes to “layering in” detail (that doesn't work for most people!) Thoughts on why experiences stick with us well enough that we can write about them in great detail decades later (even though we can't remember what we have for breakfast that morning) Pamela's publishing journey, and why she ended up choosing a traditional small press Her fun, diverse approach to book marketing The differences between journalistic writing and book writing (all you journalists/freelance writers will love this part of the conversation)ABOUT PAMELAPamela Gwyn Kripke is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Huffington Post, Slate, Salon, Medium, New York Magazine, Parenting, Redbook, Elle, D Magazine, Creators Syndicate, Gannett Newspapers and McClatchy. Her debut novel, At the Seams (Open Books, 2023), received the Arch Street Press First Chapter Award and was excerpted in Embarkand West Trade Review. Pamela's fiction and creative nonfiction have been published in Folio, The Concrete Desert Review, The Barcelona Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Book of Matches, The MacGuffin, Meet Me At 19th, The Woven Tale Press, Underwired, Doubleback Review and Round Table Literary Journal. She holds degrees from Brown University and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and was selected to attend the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop for Summer 2022. Pamela has taught journalism at DePaul University and Columbia College in Chicago and has held various magazine editorships in New York and Dallas. A New Yorker, she currently lives outside Philadelphia.CONNECT WITH PAMELAwebsite: https://pamelagwynkripke.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamelagwynkripke/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.kripkeWHAT PAMELA'S READING NOWThe Ways We Get By by Joe Dornich MENTIONED RESOURCES & LINKSHow to Start a Podcast workshop (or replay iThanks so much for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review!To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written, published, and launched, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.Download the Rubber Cheese 2022 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the first digital benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.Show references: https://vacevents.com/THURSDAY 5TH OCTOBER – QEII CONFERENCE CENTRE, WESTMINSTERhttps://vacevents.com/committee/ Bernard Donoghue OBECEO & Director, ALVA, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Mayor of London's Culture Ambassador. Co-Chair, London Tourism Recovery Board.https://www.alva.org.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-donoghue-obe-0aa9b97/ Bernard has been the Director of ALVA, the UK's Association for Leading Visitor Attractions, since 2011 following a career in advocacy, communications, and lobbying, latterly at a senior level in the tourism and heritage sector. In 2017, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appointed Bernard to be the Mayor's Ambassador for Cultural Tourism and a member of the Mayor's Cultural Leadership Board. Bernard is Co-Chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. He is also Chairman of LIFT, London International Festival of Theatre; Chairman of the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continually operating theatre in the English-speaking world, and also of the People's History Museum, the Museum of Democracy. He has been a member of the UK Government's Tourism Industry Council since 2016. Bernard was named by Blooloop in 2020 as one of the world's 50 most influential people in museums, and in July 2021 won the public vote for the COVID Special Recognition Award from the UK Museums and Heritage Awards for his service to, and leadership of the museums and heritage sector in the UK during the pandemic. Ken Robinson CBE FTS - Founder of VAChttps://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-robinson-cbe-fts-bb811312/Ken is an independent adviser who speaks and writes on tourism topics. As a "tourism enthusiast" he aims to be a pragmatic pioneer of new initiatives, strategies and solutions to optimise the economic, cultural and social benefits of tourism. Ken's Consultancy companies completed over 1500 assignments, mostly in the UK but also several hundred international projects, beginning over 50 years ago, before the days of mass tourism. He was a founding member of the Tourism Society and supported the formation of the Tourism Alliance, both of which organisations he has served as a board member and Chair, as he has on several other Tourism bodies. Specialising initially in visitor attractions, Ken initiated and subsequently chaired the National Visitor Attractions Conference, VAC, and has been on its Committee ever since. In addition to many clients in the public, private and third sectors, he has advised the UN's International Trade Centre, on national and regional Tourism strategy development. His current focus is to move the industry's thinking from marketing to the critical need to manage future tourism for the benefit of host communities, and to optimise tourist's experiences. Ken was appointed CBE for services to Tourism in 1997, and an Honorary Doctorate in 2014. Paul KellyChief Executive, BALPPA, Chair of VAC https://www.balppa.org/https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-kelly-2714a922/Having been with BALPPA for 11 years and working with VAC for that amount of time as well, Paul started his career in the attractions sector at Thorpe Park in the 80's and then moved on to the London Eye for its opening around the millennium. He has always been involved with visitor attractions. Several more years working within Merlin followed both in the UK and abroad, mainly on business development. Being a BALPPA member for 30 years means, being Chair of the organising committee at VAC keeps Paul in touch with all aspects of the attractions industry. Liz Terry MBEManaging Director, Leisure Media Grouphttps://www.linkedin.com/in/elizterry/ Janet Uttley Head of Business Transformation for VisitEnglandhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/janetuttley/ Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Season 5 kicks off today with not one, not two, but three excellent guests.On today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to Bernard Donoghue, Paul Kelly and Ken Robinson, founders of the Visitor Attractions Conference. You also know Bernard as, Director of ALVA and Paul as CEO of BALPPA.VAC celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and I'm finding out where the idea for the event spanned from, how it's changed and developed over the years. And we take a look ahead to what 2024 has in store for the attraction sector.Unfortunately, fellow Founder; Liz Terry, the Managing Director of Leisure Media Group, and also Janet Uttley, Head of Business Transformation for VisitEngland, were unable to join us on this episode. But stay tuned for lots of insight and to find out how you can get your ticket for the VAC conference this year.Kelly Molson: If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Bernard, Ken, Paul, it is a treat to have you all on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me. I think this is the first time I've had three guests as well, so this could be interesting. Bernard Donoghue: And three men as well. I mean, it's like a really bad testosterone banana rama, isn't it? Really. Kelly Molson: I'm just a little flower in the middle of you thorns today. Yes, it's a real shame. So, unfortunately, Janet Uttley and Liz Terry couldn't make it along to join us today, which is a shame. But I'm sure that they will get lots of mentions as we talk through some of the things that we're going to chat about today. But first, as ever, I want to start with a little icebreaker. I'm going to ask you all the same thing because I'm intrigued as to whether you ended up doing what you thought you might. So, Ken, I'm going to start with you first. When you were at school, what did you think that you'd grow up and be when you were older? Ken Robinson: I didn't know. Kelly Molson: Had no clue at all? Ken Robinson: No, I didn't have a clue. I was lucky to have a good education. I didn't work at school. And then I got into a job, which was I was very successful at it and it was very boring. So I left. And when I discovered tourism and visitor attractions, it took me over. I didn't decide to do it. It told me that was it. Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. It's like a calling. Ken Robinson: At the time it was, I was actually sitting in a turret room which had been vacated by Lord Montague. His desk used to face in and I liked that because I didn't have to look at the faces of the visitors going past who might complain, because in those days, buli was very expensive. And then one day I thought to myself, these people are investing their hard earned money and leisure time in making a decision to come here and it's our job to make sure they have a good time. And I turned my desk round and I looked at them all day long and the moment I turned my desk round, everything changed. Kelly Molson: I love that, because you could see the whites of their eyes and how they were engaging with the venue as they turned up. Ken Robinson: Well, it's just such a failure, isn't it? If you've got somebody who makes a choice and spends their time and money, a family decision for many people, and it should be a highlight. And if it isn't, whose fault is it? It's probably the fault of the visitor attraction, given that the person has chosen to go there in not communicating well enough with them about what they've got and what they would find interesting. Kelly Molson: This is such a brilliant story and that wasn't where I was expecting this to go either, Ken. I love it. Paul, what about you, Paul?Paul Kelly: Yeah, I mean, when I was at school, I was interested in sports and that was it, really, and luckily, that dragged me through the various places I went to. But what I was going to end up doing sports. I think once you get into sports quite seriously, you realise fairly quickly that actually you're not going to make it, so you have to find something else. So, laterally, I decided that business was a good idea. So I started doing business studies up in North Wales and for some reason were doing a sandwich course in those days, I think it was called that. One of those, I got placed at Thorpe Park. I don't know why particularly, so there's a group of six of us went down to Thorpe Park to work there and I actually started working on the rides.Paul Kelly: I'm not sure what it had to do with business at the time, but I'm glad somebody thought it did. And I couldn't believe that was a job that you could do, you could be paid for, because I came from the north at that point and there wasn't an awful lot going on in the 80s and actually be paid. Everyone enjoyed themselves, fantastic atmosphere, parties every night. I'm sure it's still like that. And it was just amazing. And from that moment on, regardless of what happened after that, including other colleges, other bits and pieces, effectively, I never left. Kelly Molson: It's always going to be in that sector. Paul Kelly: Yes. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Great. Bernard, same to you. Bernard Donoghue: Well, this may come as a surprise, but my grandfather was in the Irish Guards, my father was in the Grenadier Guards, my brother was in the Royal Marines, and I had a very large collection of action men. I genuinely thought I would probably end up in the army. And actually, I got an offer after university to go into the Household Cavalry. I don't think I've ever told anyone this before. Anyway, it just clearly I didn't pursue the application. It wasn't for me at all. Got really into politics. So I started working in the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and then I've just been in sort of lobbying, campaigning, political world ever since. But I still miss the uniforms. Can't deny it. Kelly Molson: I think we'd like to see you in that uniform, Bernard, if I'm not going to lie. So from the lobbying aspect, which is obviously a really big part of the role that you currently have, how did the attractions bit kind of slot into those? Where did the two join up? Bernard Donoghue: It's a really odd coincidence. I was trustee of a charity that Diana, Princess of Wales, was a patron of, and I was working full time for a charity that she was a patron of. So when she divorced Prince of Wales, now the King, she reduced her patronages down from 187 to six. And I happened to be involved with six of them. I went to work for her as a deputy private secretary, press secretary. But of course, the moment she died, which was August 31st, I had no job. Suddenly I was unemployed. And I got contacted by a woman who Ken will certainly know, probably Paul will, too, by Sue Garland, who used to be Deputy Chief Executive of VisitBritain, who'd heard me speak at something and said, "Well, we're just about to create this post of government affairs liaison. Would you be interested to working on the role while working on what you do next?”Bernard Donoghue: And that was in August 1997. And here I am still. Ken Robinson: But also, can I add something to that? Because I was lucky enough to be sitting in the room on many occasions when Bernard would give his briefing at meetings that were held by VisitBritain. And it was always a highlight of the day because Bernard, in those days, never pulled his punches. I'm not saying he does now, but he would just explain to everybody in the room what was going on with all of the political parties, which we never understood, and explain what we ought to be doing in order to best put our case. So it was really no shock when he turned up at ALVA, because I would say this if he wasn't here, he was the star of the show there, and that expertise that he showed has blossomed in the job that he's doing now. Kelly Molson: This is lovely, isn't it? Aren't you all nice? Bernard Donoghue: This is love in.. Kelly Molson: Probably why you all work together, right? You will get on so well. Right, back to you, Ken. Unpopular opinion, please. Ken Robinson: Most visitor attractions do not deliver full value for money to most of their visitors. Kelly Molson: Okay, Paul and Bernard, do you agree with this? Will our listeners agree with this? Is this an unpopular opinion?Paul Kelly: Did you use the word most, Ken? Ken Robinson: I did. Paul Kelly: I'll go for some, not most. Bernard Donoghue: Yeah, I'll go for some as well. One of my favourite programmes is Yes, Minister. And whenever you'd hear something off the wall, bonkers, they would say, that's a very brave opinion, Minister. That's a very brave opinion, Ken.Ken Robinson: Now's not the time to justify it. I'll do that on another occasion. Kelly Molson: Yeah, we will invite you back and we can do that one on one, Ken. Paul, what about you? Unpopular opinion? Paul Kelly: Well, I'm guessing that anybody that's worked in a theme park will probably have the same opinion I have. So I worked at Thorpe Park, which was 450 acres, two thirds of which was water. And at the end of the day, when you were walking out, and in those days, that could be 9, 10 o'clock at night, it was beautiful. On a late summer's evening, calm waters, walking through a park which had just been cleaned and tidied and ready for the next day. It was fantastic. And we all had the same opinion once were down the pub discussing the day. It's just a shame we have to let people into theme parks because it's the absolutely beautiful place without them there. So sometimes people let the parks down. Kelly Molson: That's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah. And you don't want to let them in to see the beautiful bit either, do you? Because then there'd be people there. It wouldn't be serene. Paul Kelly: No, I mean, those evenings, if there was still time, we'd go windsurfing on the lakes, cable water ski around the back. And it was just a shame that all these people came in every day and messed it all up. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure that most people who've worked in theme parks aren't going to disagree with you on that one, Paul. Good one. Bernard, what about yours? Bernard Donoghue: Even though I chair a theatre and I know how important the revenue is, I'm not a fan of selling drinks and food to people in theatres because they just make a noise. I can't bear it. I mean, it depends. I mean, it depends if it's a panto or something like that. Completely fine. Ken Robinson: Oh, no, it's not. Bernard Donoghue: It kind of allies to what Paul was saying as well, which was I don't know whether it's an unpopular opinion. I think it's probably a popular opinion. But visitor behaviour, whether it's in a theatre, a museum, an art gallery or wherever, has completely deteriorated post lockdown. Some people's behaviour is getting worse and it's very difficult to know what to do about it. Kelly Molson: Yes, agree. I don't think that's going to be very unpopular at all, actually, considering some of the things that we've seen recently. Thank you all for sharing. Okay, let's get back to the serious bit. The Visitor Attractions Conference. It's 20 years old this year. If you are listening and you're not familiar with it, one, why the hell not? And two, you need to grab a ticket today. It's the leading networking and learning event for visitor attractions across the UK. And I first visited in October 2019 and it was the first sector specific conference that I had been to. We'd been working in the sector for probably about three or four years, had never really at that point kind of gone all out on our like, "This is what we're going to niche and this is what we're going to specialise in."Kelly Molson: So I was kind of doing a bit of a fact finding mission really, and I came along and it absolutely blew me away. I think it was one of the friendliest conferences I've ever been to. I think you'd created an environment where everybody was really welcome, no stupid questions. Everyone from speakers to guests where kind of felt like they were all on the same level, really happy to answer questions that you had, really happy to talk to you. And I think that was for me. I came away from that event, I went back to my team and said, "This is where we should be. This is the event for us, this is where we should be attending, these are the people that we should be speaking to." And I've absolutely loved every minute of that. Kelly Molson: I mean, the next one I went to was a virtual one. So it was very different to the 2019 event, but still excellently organised. So firstly, thank you for making that happen. But where did the idea for the VAC come from in the first place? How did this come about? Ken Robinson: So we have to remember that the world was very different over 20 years ago. Really, really very different. Not just a question of internet or pre COVID and all those things and pre Olympics, but just very different. And attractions in those days thought and acted and communicated in their sectoral associations. Historic houses talked to historic houses, curators of museums talked to curators, bishops talked to priests, zoologists talked to botanists, but they didn't talk across the sectors. There were two exceptions to that. One was that in Visit England or English Tourist Board, there'd always been a committee there which was across the sectors, but the other one was ALVA. Now, when ALVA was formed, it was a 1 million visitors plus club for attractions, with 1 million plus visitors a year. Ken Robinson: Subsequently, groups of attractions, particularly English Heritage, National Trust, were involved originally associates, but it was a 1 million plus club and that's only 1% of the attractions in the United Kingdom had over 1 million. And it was very London centric. And ALVA had a five objectives, four of which were about government. And the interesting thing was that I was very good friends all through this time with Lord Lee, who know a very big part of the early success, pre Bernard of ALVA. I said to John Lee, “Look John, could you not change your name to ALVA and be involved with all the visitor attractions because they badly need something which glues everybody together and we need to get across this away from this sectoral stuff.” Ken Robinson: And everybody was talking about historic houses, talk about the house museums, talking about the continents of the museum but they weren't talking about visitors. They weren't talking about how you communicated with the visitors or what they were motivated by or how you could better manage things for visitors, give them better they weren't doing that. So John agreed with this and I've got the original papers here. I looked them out that I was asked first of all by ALVA in December of 2001 to write a paper on the future of ALVA which is headed: ALVA in the Future Representing All Visitor Attractions. Then after that the conversation went on and we realised that if were going to have some kind of overall event we couldn't do it without the National Tourist Board, we couldn't do it without Visit Britain, Visit England. We needed their input.Ken Robinson: We needed them to talk to DCMS and make sure it would happen. And also we wanted to do this not on a commercial basis but being by the industry, for the industry, run by the industry, not for profit. And that was a problem because we wanted to do it in the QE II Centre because we wanted to be in the centre of everything and that was going to cost an extraordinary sum of money and there wasn't that much money that could in that first year come originally from VisitEngland. So the partners in this, the partners being ALVA, BALPPA, Paul's organisation, Leisure Media the wonderful Liz Terry and her magazine which has forever been behind this event for no recompense whatever and myself put up 5000 pounds each security in order that the thing would happen. Ken Robinson: You said, "We'll stand the risk, let's do it.". So in 2004 I wrote the briefing of the first conference and I found from a 2003 the government asked for a list of topics that would be discussed in order they could work out whether or not they might like it and it's still here. What I like about it is it would do quite well for this year's conference. All those topics are still relevant. So that's where it came from. That's where it came from. We wanted it to have at the time the lowest possible attendance fee to get the highest number of people there. We wanted to involve everybody. Ken Robinson: And the cast list for that 2004 event, my goodness me, absolutely fantastic cast list in terms of the people we had for an initial event and you can imagine when it was announced and everybody was behind it ALVA was behind it. BALPPA, I should have mentioned that Colin Dawson, Paul's predecessor was an absolute stalwart of the conference in the early years he stood by know, when times were tough and that's where it came from. Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal. It was really putting your money where your mouth is, isn't it? By all of you actually personally investing in this thing to bring it to life. You don't hear many things happening in that way anymore, do you? It's all about getting investment and asking other people to make the commitment to it and take the risk. Ken Robinson: Well, we have a company now, I should say. We have a company called VAC Events, and we are all equal. The four of us are equal shareholders, that's to say, Bernard and ALVA, BALPPA and Paul, Liz and myself, for no benefit. Martin does it for us, but we are the people that carry the can, if you like, and I don't think we've ever had anything out of it apart from a nice lunch at Christmas, but apart from that, it's a great feeling of doing something. When you say everybody is very friendly and talks to one another. That's why they're all in the same business. Bishop, curator, zoologist person running a heritage railway, they're all in the same business. Kelly Molson: Obviously, the first event was a success. You've been on and you've done many, what, 20, 20 events since that first one. How have you seen it kind of change and develop over the years? So what did that first conference look like compared to what this year's will look like? And how have you kind of evolved it over that time to keep it relevant to your audience? Paul Kelly: Well, I think so. My involvement directly has been the last ten years, so I'm halfway through chairing for this one, but I was actually there at the early ones because I worked at that time. I was working at the London Eye, just across the river, and I was good friends with Colin Dawson at the time. I'd worked with him at Thorpe Park and he for some people, may well remember Colin as entertaining Princess Diana on a log flume in 92, 3 and 4. Paul Kelly: And I was there. It's hard to tell, but I was actually there. I'm not in any of the photos in Paris Match and all of those places. I have a couple of myself here. I didn't get anything signed by Princess Diana and sent over to you know, bitterness takes a while to and I've joked with Colin over this many years. Colin was there, but if you look closely behind the scenes, you'll find I was there too, but so I was great friends with Colin over many years and still am. He was obviously contacting everyone he knew about this conference. He was working for BALPPA at the time. I was working for the Two Swords Group, had the operational contract for the London Eye. Paul Kelly: So I went to the first one and I suppose my impressions of the first one was for somebody who hasn't been there before, the QE II is extremely impressive as a conference center. I don't go to many that look like that around the UK. Most of them normally the ones I go to are in attractions, they're slightly different so it was hugely impressive both on its location and what was across the road and how things went and I was a little bit starstruck I suppose, for the first one. Now I get the opportunity to sit on the stage and look out at everybody and have a slightly different view on it all, but still think it's an extremely impressive environment to do that. Paul Kelly: And I think the biggest change for me, and I think we may cover a little bit later, is how we've broken up the afternoons into separate segments and sections where people can go along to a smaller, informal group discussing a topic that they particularly want. And I think the thing I also like about that is the amount of people who want to go to more than one of them that are on at the same time and are almost complaining there's too many things to go to, which I think is hilarious, which means it's really good. And hopefully that means that next time they'll really think about which one do I want to go to, obviously I want to go to more than one, but I'm going to pick my best one. Paul Kelly: So I think for me, that's probably the biggest change over time. But what doesn't change for me is the team that we have putting these things together, which we're actually relatively slick at. Everyone gets the chance to put their opinions and I'm glad we don't record those meetings and it works out really well. And I think as a team, it's amazing how long we've stuck at it and stuck together. Kelly Molson: I'd love to be on a little fly on the wall for those meetings. Have you ever had a fallout about something? Bernard Donoghue: Yes, we're frequently violent. It's a visitor experience in its own right, I think. Kelly Molson: I'll pay for it. Bernard Donoghue: We reflect the madness that some of our visitors demonstrate on site so in that case I think we're rooted in the industry. The first one that I went to was in 2011, so I just joined ALVA at that point. And the first one I spoke, it was in 2012 and I've been doing the same kind of slot ever since. I do a kind of State of the Nation in the morning because ALVA obviously gets loads of data and information and we publish all of our visitor figures and all the rest of it, and actually we collect and commission much more data now than we ever used to. So I share all of that in the kind of Donoghue half hour copyright. Bernard Donoghue: What's lovely I mean, Paul's absolutely right is that over the last twelve years I think we've seen a real move from people desperately wanting to speak about their successes to being really open about what hasn't worked, which of course is far more interesting and useful. So there's been a really lovely shift from people saying, "No, I don't have to do the propaganda stuff.” Actually, I'm going to tell you what it was like, why it was a disaster and what we learned from it. And that's so useful. So you do get this real honesty coming from the speakers who know that's what they find useful too. So why not share it? I think the other one is I do a presentation about, is there core behaviours of successful visitor attractions regardless of type?Bernard Donoghue: And there are there's about ten of them, but one of them is the ability to foster creative partnerships with unusual suspects. So the presentations that are most fascinating for me is where a visitor attraction, it doesn't matter whether it's a cathedral or whether it's a museum or gallery or theme park, have teamed up with someone that you wouldn't expect them to team up with to tell the story of their people and places and collections in a new, innovating, exciting way. And those are fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So I love those. There's much more of that. Kelly Molson: Fantastic. Well, on that note, I want to know from each of you who has been the most inspiring speaker that you've had at the conference over the past 20 years. Ken, let us start with you. Who do you think would be on your list for that? Ken Robinson: I had a look through the programs going back to 2004 and came up with the following names which surprised me, actually. I think originally our first most inspiring speaker was Simon Jenkins, the columnist of the Times, who had very strong views, which didn't necessarily agree with what government and others were doing. He did give a very inspiring presentation and then there are some people who perhaps we would expect less. The most single most surprising speaker was somebody called Tristram Mayhew, who titles himself as the Chief Gorilla of Go Ape and in a room full of suits and quite smart dresses and trouser suits, Go Ape shambled onto the stage in a car key shirt and proceeded to explain how he'd done things differently. And frankly, it was riveting. We had a chap called Tony Berry from the National Trust who gave presentations. Ken Robinson: His first one was just stunnning, you know, in the days when HR was less popular, Tony Berry would tell you why you should be interested and he was absolutely amazing. And Sue Wilkinson, incidentally, of the National Trust, who was the person responsible really for dragging the Trust from its sort of old form to its new marketing orientated thinking about its supporters future success? She was terrific. And the other person I would mention another Tony, I don't know whether or Tony's there's Tony Butler from the Museum of East Anglian Life, who again, when Bernard was talking about people talking about doing things differently and it inspires you. Some of those examples are very interesting, but not easy to copy. Ken Robinson: In other attractions, we always look for things that do go across the piece, so anybody can learn from the lessons within the example that we're talking about. And incidentally, we do have arguments in meetings, it's about whether particular speakers and particular topics are the way of doing things. And generally speaking, when we all have a good go at it comes out better than it did when anybody said, “Well, I know what the right answer is. No, you don't. Let's all talk about it. So that works.” So you get these people that actually inspire and they light up the room, not because of clever graphics and not because of a forceful way, but they light up the room because of the originality of their ideas. Now, I'll come to my number one. Ken Robinson: I'm sorry about this, because he's sitting on my screen down there, and that's young Bernard, who since he joined our there you go. That's the top half that works. You should see the bottom half doesn't work. He's just had pins put in it. Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners here, Bernard is given a little muscle strong arm salute on screen here. Ken Robinson: Bernard combines the latest immediate knowledge of talking to people across the industry with an absolutely amazing gift of the gab, with a power of communication. And he's unstoppable. And we wouldn't have stood him for all these years if he wasn't. So of all the years and all the speakers, the consistent best is Bernard. But we have had other people, often surprising, who take know, you don't expect it, you think you're going to listen to ordinary session, all of a sudden it takes fire. Kelly Molson: Bernard, what have you got to say to that? Bernard Donoghue: What I say to Ken is there are packets of cash going from London to the south coast with immediate effect. Delighted. Thank you very much. It's really lovely, actually. I've tried to change things every year to do partly political, but also partly about good practice and who's doing what and who's interesting. I'll tell you what, one of my favourite speakers, and it was in a conversation, one of the things that we've introduced is a sort of conversation with slot, which works really well, actually, because a bit like this, you're off script, you respond to people. Liz chaired a conversation last year, so were in Birmingham last year and it was all about HR issues and of course, it know, coming out of COVID and cost of living crisis and recruitment challenges and all of those kind of stuff. Bernard Donoghue: And Tina Lewis is the director of people at the National Trust. National Trust, getting great repertoire here. She came out with an idea that they're doing at the National Trust and I've implemented it in the three organisations that I chair and it's made the biggest difference. So the National Trust, they will pay the rent deposit for your flat if you need them to. So if you're going through a cost of living crisis and you can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. You can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. That was such a transformational thing to hear. You could almost hear the gasp in the room of people going, "Oh, my God. Yeah, if we can, let's do that." Bernard Donoghue: And I've now introduced it. As I say in the organisations that I chair, not many people have taken it up, but the fact that we've said it has made such a difference to people. I mean, as it is at the Trust, actually, there's been a relatively small number of people at the Trust who've taken it up, but the very policy decision, the very communication of it, just spoke volumes about an organisation that cares about its staff, and particularly those staff who are on really limited budgets. So there's been loads and loads of speakers over the course of the last few years, but that for me was a nugget which has changed people's lives and has been implementable. Kelly Molson: I think that's the key to that part, isn't it, is that it's an incredible thing that they've done, but the fact that it can be implemented someone has listened to that talk. They can take that away, take it to their board, take it to whoever needs to okay that, and they can put that into action like that straight away. That's the power of a really good initiative and a good speaker to be able to deliver that as well. Paul, what about you? Please don't say Bernard. I think he's had enough praise today. Bernard Donoghue: No, keep going. Kelly Molson: No. Paul Kelly: You're OK, Bernard? We'll leave that one where it is, shall we? If we can squeeze Bernard into the room next. Right, so one special mention I wanted to give, actually, which is one of the years not too long ago, we invited Simon Calder to speak, the travel journalist, and I have to say I wasn't convinced, because clearly he's not working in one of our attractions and doesn't necessarily know the industry pretty well. But I have to say, he was hugely entertaining, had done his homework, was hugely knowledgeable, and so he was absolutely excellent. But I think the most important thing for me is that he left us and he said to me, “Enjoyed it so much, I'll come back later.” And I said, “Yes, of course you will.”Paul Kelly: So he went away and he came back at the end of the day to talk to all the people that he'd seen early in the day, because he loved the atmosphere and he wasn't required to do that. And he came along. And for that I have to put a special mention in one for myself to actually listen to the others when they say, “This will be good”, and secondly for him, for actually doing a bit and actually coming back later. And he was a fabulous addition and outside of our industry. So my inside the industry one is somebody I ended up working with because I was with the Two Swords group and then they were bought by Merlin with Nick Varney and his Merry Men. Paul Kelly: So Nick and his team had obviously been in the industry a very long time at this point, dipped in and out of theme parks and attractions. But Nick didn't actually do many talks. You wouldn't actually hear him speak about too much. I'd heard him speak over in the IAAPA trade show held in Orlando every November, and he was absolutely brilliant. And then Ken managed to get him to speak at VAC one year. And again, he was absolutely excellent. And this fits in nicely because now that he's retired from Merlin, he's speaking again this year. So I think that will be really interesting because he's absolutely excellent. Ken Robinson: And by the way, guys, just to show you that we know what we're doing here, this is 2004, okay? And it says here the recipe for success. Nick Varney chief executive, will talk about the components for commercial success. And that's before. So we've got him first and look what happened. Kelly Molson: I'm really looking forward to that interview, actually, and I think it would be really interesting to see how he differs now. He's kind of outside of the sector, and I think that the format that you've got him in. So that's the interview with Liz, isn't it? On stage? I think that's going to be a really great format as well. I've seen that work really well in the past where she's interviewed people and it just feels really comfortable and really conversational. I think that brings out the best of people. Bernard Donoghue: Kelly, do you want to know who's been of most variable quality? Kelly Molson: Oh, yes. Bernard Donoghue: Tourism Minister. I mean, without doubt. I mean, we've been going 20 years now, therefore we've had 20 tourism ministers, had one a year, like Christmas cards. And some of them have completely got the industry completely understood. It delivered a barnstorming speech, and then the next year you'll get the annual Tourism Minister pop up and they'll read something flat, banal, uninteresting. And we're so torched by the experience that we don't invite the one next on the year. So we're always banging on about this. Tourism is very good at job creation. In fact, we've created 20 Tourism Minister jobs in years, but they are of variable quality. Ken Robinson: The best we ever had, Bernard, I think, by far, was John Penrose, when he had completed his review of the industry and got very clear views, which he put to government. Unfortunately, government didn't do it, as they usually don't, but he was good and people liked him and gave him a high rating. I think the next best was probably Margaret Hodge, who was very good and spoke from the heart. But as you say, when we look at every year, we look at a rating of every speaker and the meeting after the event, we go through those ratings and decide, those that got good ratings, why did they get it? Was it intrinsic to their character, their nature, their topic? Was there something special? And those who didn't, why was that? Was it our fault? Ken Robinson: Did we not brief them properly? Or was it never going to be any better? Ken Robinson: And that way we managed to manage the conference. So know the attraction sector. We sometimes forget that over half of all visits to visitor attractions in the UK are free of charge. We forget that the majority of visitor attractions are medium and small businesses. We forget that there are charitable and commercial attractions. We must be able to bring this whole sector together and move our thinking forward in the way that Bernard has just explained in terms of what he does with ALVA. And the other thing that Bernard mentioned was ALVA's research now. Ken Robinson: 20 years ago, you had to wait until the annual book came out from Thames Tower and then eventually from the centre of luck look to page 16 and there would be numbers, but very little interpretation of what those numbers meant. Now, Bernard is behind much of the work that is done now with ALVA. But the key to it is it's not just numbers, it's interpretation. And because of the communication skills, when ALVA put out a message, it is interpreted. It says why it was a successful year or what was mitigating against that. And that's so important in trying to move our case forward. Kelly Molson: But it's important in improving the content that you give your audience at the conferences as well, right? If something isn't working and you've got a process of evaluating why that hasn't worked and how you improve on it for the next one. Let's just focus on why should people attend VAC this year? What is in it for them? What's on the agenda? What have they got to look forward to and how can we get them to book a ticket? Bernard Donoghue: I'll happily go first and go quite niche, actually. One of the things that I do now outside of ALVA, or because of ALVA is that I co chair the advisory board for VisitLondon. So essentially chair the London tourist board. And I do that with Kate Nichols of UK hospitality. And we created the London Tourism Recovery Group during COVID So my suggestion would be Sadiq Khan. So we've managed to get the Mayor of London to come along and speak at this anniversary conference. And it's not just because he's the Mayor of London and it's the 20th anniversary, but it's because he's the first ever Mayor of London that hazard one of his four political priorities, culture and tourism. That's number one. Bernard Donoghue: Number two is that he put his money where his mouth was and he funded the Let's Do London Recovery campaign, which was both domestic and international with the industry. We delivered it with London and partners, but he put up the lump sum behind it. And third, he completely gets that tourism and heritage and culture is both where you grow jobs and we're very good at it, but it's also where you grow people. It's where you grow people in terms of their cultural literacy or their sense of community or their independence or their sense of history. And therefore knowing where you come from enables you to be a better future citizen, if you like. Bernard Donoghue: So my quick blast would be we've got him doing a welcome, but also saying why visitor attractions and tourism are so important to him and to the economy and the politics of London. So that's not to be missed. Kelly Molson: That is a big draw. Absolutely a big draw. Paul, you mentioned earlier about the variety in splitting up that second session, that second part of the day with the seminars and the smaller talks that you do as well. That for me, as an attendee, is really valuable because you can kind of pick and choose what's relevant to you and go along and see lots of different talks. What do you think is the draw for people to come to the conference this year for you? Paul Kelly: Well, I was just jotting down, thinking about it's a little bit. An extension of what Ken was talking about is that it's the variety of what we do in one place is greater than anywhere else. And all the conferences I do because of the nature of what we do each end of the spectrum. So we've got talks about people who run charities to people who run hugely commercial operations. We've got people doing talks on which are free to get into those who are quite expensive, but focus on value for money. And you've got those that are indoor, those that are outdoor. When I spent my time business development at Merlin, they were always focused on a balanced portfolio. And a balanced portfolio meant making sure that right across your business, you have every aspect covered. Paul Kelly: So everything balances indoor, outdoor, UK, Europe, USA, whatever it is. And I think with our conference, that's what we try and do, we try and balance all of those types of different types of operations so that everything is covered, not to the point where it's too thin and you don't learn anything. And that's the key to it, is that we go into the depth. And the depth, I think, is greater now because we do those breakout sessions and we've got time to do in fact, we double up for those three different areas just for that afternoon. So I think those are the things, if anyone asks me why they should come, it's about the variety.Kelly Molson: Regardless of size of your attraction as well. And actually, from my perspective as a supplier to the industry, it's just as valuable to come along and learn and understand what's going on in the sector. You don't have to be an attraction to come along and take part and be educated about what's happening in the sector. What about you, Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I think that those of us who have stood on the stage at the QE II Centre and looked at the people who have come can see that there aren't any slumbering faces out there. There are people making notes, people nudging the person next to them, people looking round when we ask a question. We now have a sort of red and green card system for, do you agree? Don't you agree? Which we sometimes use, which is very interesting, engaging the mood of the room. And I think that the thing about VAC is don't be lazy if we're going to come to VAC. Don't be lazy. If you're coming to VAC, l And jot down what questions you might like to ask those people or what you'd like to learn from that session. Write it down, don't think you can remember it at the time. Ken Robinson: Bring it on a note with you when you come and then you will find, and we all know this, that the networking that happens at the end of the day and in the breaks at VAC it's like a family wedding in a way. I mean, everybody wants to talk to everybody else and it's so valuable. I think everybody who goes away from VAC should have a good few things that day, which they say, “I wouldn't have thought of that if I hadn't been there”, or even, “I disagree with that”, but it's made me realise what my true opinion about that is equally valuable. But don't be a lazy attendee. Come and participate, come and enjoy, come and learn, come and take back benefit to everybody that works with you. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that thing about not being scared to ask questions is really valid as well, Ken, because this happened to me, actually. I went to one of the seminar sessions, and this is back in 2019 and was really inspired by one of the speakers about it was Julez Osbek, who was at Continuum Attractions at the time, and she talked about marketing segmentation, but had a completely different perspective on it in terms of not doing it demographically, just talking about age brackets and things like that. And it was really interesting. I didn't get a chance to ask a question during the seminar, but I found her afterwards and she was very approachable, very happy to answer my question. And then I stalked her on Twitter and got her to come on to the podcast afterwards to talk about it. Kelly Molson: But that's for me, what VAC is about. It's the openness that people are really willing to share. So don't be afraid to go and find the speaker that you've been inspired by and go and ask them the question afterwards, because everyone's really happy to talk about their topic and they're really happy to help people. That's my little key takeaway from it anyway. Right, so it's going to be on Thursday, the 5th October. This podcast episode is launching on the 20th September, so you haven't got long to go and get your tickets, so make sure you do. It is the 5th October, the QE II Conference Centre in Westminster. The website address is vacevents.com. That's Vacevents.com and you can get your ticket there. All of this information will be in the show notes, so don't worry if you didn't get time to scribble that down. Kelly Molson: While I've got you all, though, because you all are in the sector and you've got lots of insights to share. I want to know from each of you what you think that attractions should be focusing on and what 2024 might look like for the sector. Paul, what about you? Start with you. Paul Kelly: So I've been chatting to some of our operators. We have some very large operators around the UK asking them how it's going? And unsurprisingly, you could have said the same question 20 years ago, what's our biggest challenge? It's the weather. It's not actually the cost of living crisis, it's not COVID you can put plans together for those things and you can work on it, but the weather always is a little bit of a challenge. So this summer inverted commerce has been quite hard to focus on what we can deliver when the days have been half decent. Actually, we've done quite well, we always do relatively well, certainly in our sector, I'm sure the others will agree, in a recession. Paul Kelly: So the key seems to be, and I'm going to put it out, I haven't quite found the right words for it, but I'll develop this once I've spoken to a few more. What every attraction for me has to have is an opportunity for people to downgrade what they did slightly. What they're doing is they're ringing it up and saying, "Can't afford to do this, have you got something that's almost like that?" But whether it's a slightly different experience, less time, one day less so whatever the packages are that people are offering, there has to be one rung lower than it was before to still encourage people to come along because they're not able to reach the same heights at the moment that they did previously. But they still want to have that family experience that day out, create those memories. Paul Kelly: All of those things are still relevant. And if you don't have that opportunity, then they'll either go elsewhere or they won't go. So, again, it's managing. So I'm not talking about huge discounts, I'm talking about being relatively clever in what you package and what you put together to make sure they still attend and they still get what they perceive to be value for money. But unless you have that option then I think they won't come. Kelly Molson: Really great advice, Paul. Thank you. Bernard, what about you? Bernard Donoghue: Like Paul, actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. Actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. So it comes back to Paul's point about kind of ensuring yourself against the excesses of the weather and making sure that you're still particularly a family attractive visitor attractions that'd be one. Second is cost of living crisis, certainly for the average customer, but also the energy costs for visitor attractions too. Bernard Donoghue: Just crazy amounts of money that visitor attractions are now paying i If you're a zoo or an aquarium you can't turn down the temperature of your botanics you're a living reef. So we're going to have to find some way out of that. And that means that actually for many organisations it's going to be as financially challenging over the next twelve months as it has been over the last two. And then I think the third, and this is a continual for me and Kelly, you and I have talked about it before, but it forms the last session of the day at the VAC conference which is diversity and inclusivity. And my feeling is that every visitor attraction should be critically honest about who comes, who doesn't, why they don't come and what are you going to do about it?Bernard Donoghue: And in particular those organisations who in receipt are government money or public money or who had COVID loans from the UK taxpayer. If their visitors don't look like the community in which they're housed, they have a moral question at the heart of their business. That's it. If you want to take public money you need to have an audience that looks like the diversity of the public. And that's a challenge. I get that, I completely get that. But I think that making sure that we are as accessible in every conceivable way, economically, physically. Accessible to people and that they see their stories and themselves reflected in their collections and people and staff and volunteers and board members, I think that's the biggest challenge of the sector as it is indeed to many other sectors. Bernard Donoghue: But I think we're doing some amazing things and we need to shout about it and we need to share and we need to learn from each other. Kelly Molson: Absolutely agree. And that session is going to be a really great session. That's one not to miss. Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I would say two things. First of all, as far as our visitors are concerned, I think there is a bigger polarisation now than there ever has been between those who have money and can still afford to do things and are not much impacted by the current circumstances, despite everything. And those who haven't and those who haven't have got to find ways of saving money, getting more for their money. There are so many things they can do that are free and alternatives that charged attractions find it difficult. I think we have to remember that the biggest number of attractions in the United Kingdom are heritage based attractions and they weren't purpose built like many of Paul's members, the attractions are purpose built for entertainment. But heritage attractions have got a bigger responsibility or museums housed in historic buildings. Ken Robinson: And all the time they're having to cut their costs and finding life difficult. Money isn't going into maintaining that National Heritage. And that's a real big long term challenge, one that government can't ignore. So government has a vested interest in the health of our businesses because the more healthy they are, the less will fall back on the state eventually. One last thing, I would like to mention Martin Evans and the tourism business. Ken Robinson: For the last I don't know how many years, Martin has been the person who has put together this event for us. He has to do the heavy lifting. He is backed up by our conference organisers, who are also very efficient. And the other person that I wouldn't like to miss from this, because if she could have been here today, you would have got a different flavour, is the wonderful Liz Terry and the support that her organisation. That's Liz's Organisation, her hard work in Leisure Media Group. She publishes Attractions Management magazine. Ken Robinson: She has never asked for anything from this conference and she gives it great support, without which we wouldn't have made 20 years, as I said earlier. And also a big shout and a screen for Liz. Kelly Molson: That is lovely. Thank you. I'm sure Liz will very much appreciate that. We won't forget her. Don't worry, she'll be on the credits for this podcast. I always ask our guests to leave us with a book recommendation for our listeners. So a book that you've loved, a book that you've enjoyed as part of your career growth can be absolutely anything. So, Paul, what would you like to share with us today? Paul Kelly: Oh, I tell you what, books are a bit highbrow for me. Yes, Bernard agrees with that. So I'm from the north, so I used to travel a lot when I was working North America. Commuting a little bit. So I did read a little bit then, but I very quickly swapped over to podcasts things that I download. I watch Silent Witness from the 90's, early 2000s repeatedly. I like Meet Marry Murder, which is one of the cable channels, so I'm quite simple. So I don't really have a book recommendation. I think when I have time to read, I will look forward to reading what somebody else recommends. Kelly Molson: Well, I will take Silent Witness as a recommendation because I love Silent Witness, Paul. Oh, so good. Never miss an episode, ever. So, OK, they go I mean, I can't give it away as a prize, but go and check out Silent Witness if you haven't. Bernard, what's yours? Bernard Donoghue: Well, I've been on this before and I remember my recommendation and it sounds really facile, but it was absolutely true, was Ladybird Books when I was a kid, and then that's how I got into history and heritage and storytelling and absolutely loved them. And I've still got loads of them, which is a bit sad, actually. I'm currently confined to home with a broken ankle. So I've been going through my big Bernard book of books, of all the ones that I haven't got around to reading, and the one that I've enjoyed most and has really surprised me is Lucy Worsley's biography of Agatha Christie. Absolutely fascinating. I thought I knew her. I thought I knew all about her. I know all of her characters, I've watched every conceivable film and TV program, but what a fascinating woman. Bernard Donoghue: So that's the one that I've loved this summer. Kelly Molson: Great recommendation. Yeah. I wondered what were going to get from you, actually, because you've had a lot of time on your hands to go through that book pile. Bernard Donoghue: It was either going to be Agatha Christie or the Argos catalogue. Honestly, it could have gone. Kelly Molson: It's not Christmas yet. You only do the Argos catalogue at Christmas. Ken, over to you for our last recommendation. Ken Robinson: Well, the best book quite hard to get hold of now, but I can supply copies is Action For Attractions, the National Policy Document, written in 2000. But if you want something other than that, then I have just finished reading a book which everyone else read years ago called Sapiens, which is about this thick, that's to say two and a half inches thick. For those of you listening. It's by somebody, I've just had to look him up because I couldn't have remembered it, by Yuval Noah Harari. And it's entitled A Brief History of Humankind. And what's so interesting about it is it goes through segments explaining the great moves that have happened to us humans since we appeared on this Earth. Ken Robinson: And I found the whole thing fascinating to read in one go what took me a long time, particularly the last bit, which talks about how commerce has changed the world and what we're all doing, and that's, after all, what we're doing at VAC. We are engaged in the kind of commerce that is to entertain, amuse and give enjoyment to our visitors, and at the same time keep the heritage of the country going and keep an awful lot of people employed, so I recommend Sapiens. Kelly Molson: Ken, that's a great book. It took me a really long time to read as well, but it is an absolutely fascinating book. I would totally back up your recommendation there. Have you read the next one as well, Homodeus? Ken Robinson: No one a year is enough for me. Kelly Molson: Well, I've got a toddler, so reading doesn't come easy for me right now. But Homodus is next on my list to read because that's the next one on from Sapiens and it's supposed to be a really good read as well. Right, listeners as ever, if you want to win a copy of Ken and Bernard's book, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want the Vax books and you will be put into a prize drawer to win them. And also, do go and watch Silent Witness, Paul's recommendation, because it is blooming brilliant. I love it. Thank you all so much for coming on to join me today. I've really appreciated it. It's been a fascinating kind of deep dive into the Visitor Attractions Conference. I genuinely love this conference. It is one absolutely not to be missed. Kelly Molson: I mean, there might be a speaker called Kelly at this one. This is so I'll be there. Come and see me too. But no, thank you. It's been wonderful. As I said, we will put all of the info in the show notes. We'll put all of the connections to Paul, Ken and Bernard too. So if you've got any follow up questions that you want to ask them, I'm sure they'd be really happy to help. But it's vapevents.com. Go and grab your ticket now. Thank you, guys. Ken Robinson: And I have to tell you, Kelly, we are going to spend our time at our next committee meeting thinking of impossible questions for you for when you're speaking at VAC.Kelly Molson: Oh, God. Do it. I love impossible questions. Put me on the spot, Ken. I'll enjoy it. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
We have three films for you, on this week's @EchoChamberFP https://www.instagram.com/echochamberfp/ Things get wound back to the end of last year for our first couple of flicks. Both from 20th Century Studios, but vastly different, ones a period piece capper, the other a fresh new horror, mystery. Then we close the show with a charming joint from Duplass Brothers Productions & Shout! Studios! Today we have: Amsterdam Watch Review: Here. https://youtu.be/FLZvplPu0b4 Alice Tully Hall: 18th September 2022 Theatrical Release Date: 7th October 2022 Digital Release Date: 7th December 2022 Director: David O. Russell Cast: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldaña, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Timothy Olyphant, Andrea Riseborough, Taylor Swift, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alessandro Nivola, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro Running Time: 134 min Cert: 18 Trailer: Here. https://youtu.be/GLs2xxM0e78 Watch via Disney+: Here. https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/amsterdam/1by5u2QHdBWA Website: Here. https://www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/amsterdam Instagram: @amsterdammovie https://www.instagram.com/amsterdammovie/ ------------ Barbarian Watch Review: Here. https://youtu.be/wntllE9CbwU San Diego Comic-Con: 22nd July 2022 Theatrical Release Date: 9th September 2022 Digital Release Date: 14th December 2022 Director: Zach Cregger Cast: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis, Richard Brake, Kurt Braunohler, Jaymes Butler, Sophie Sörensen, J.R. Esposito, Kate Nichols, Kate Bosworth, Brooke Dillman, Sara Paxton, Will Greenberg, Derek Morse, Trevor Van Uden, Devina Vassileva, Kalina Stancheva Running Time: 102 min Cert: 18 Trailer: Here. https://youtu.be/Dr89pmKrqkI Watch via Disney+: Here. https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/barbarian/242aUmLGGIxR Website: Here. https://www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/barbarian Facebook: Here. https://www.facebook.com/BarbarianMovie ------------ Language Lessons Watch Review: Here. https://youtu.be/cbmiCTM1sDo 71st Berlin International Film Festival: 1st March 2021 Theatrical Release Date: 10th September 2021 Digital Release Date: 24th December 2022 Director: Natalie Morales Cast: Natalie Morales, Mark Duplass, Desean Terry, Christine Quesada Running Time: 91 min Cert: 15 Trailer: Here. https://youtu.be/ASszGUvPxmI Rent or Buy via AppleTV+: Here. https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/language-lessons/umc.cmc.25svnrpimgmravmtwq9odcugk Rent or Buy via iTunes: Here. https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/language-lessons/id1575982862 Rent or Buy via Prime Video: Here. https://www.amazon.com/Language-Lessons-Mark-Duplass/dp/B09JSVJC51 Rent or Buy via Prime Video UK: Here. https://arcus-www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B0B1MDCL4C/ref=atv_hm_hom_1_c_Rml3qK_16_1 Website: Here. https://www.languagelessonsfilm.com/synopsis/ ------------ *(Music) 'Clash' by Dave and Stormzy - 2021 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/eftv/message
On today's episode I talk about my new project and the road that led me there (in lots of detail!) In Fall of 2022 I decided to start my own production company (a long time coming) and create a recurring standup comedy show/energy circle event (also a long time coming) that combines self-care with laughter as a form of healing. Join me as I talk to the 3 comedians who will perform at our first show on January 7, 2023! We talk about how comedy heals, why they do what they do, and how it feels to kill! Madelein Smith (@madeleinsmith) is a touring comedian based in NYC. She has traveled internationally performing at colleges, clubs, and cruise ships. She is also a regular at many NYC clubs. Her debut album, Belle of the Ball, rose to #1 on the ITunes Comedy Charts. She has been featured on Amazon Prime and Comedy Central, and currently has a network pilot in development. She co-hosts the podcast Cheers for Queers with Sarah Garner, where they interview amazing queer performers and talk about being little weirdos. Kate Nichols (@HeyKateNichols) is a stand up comedian, improviser, writer and storyteller who's bounced around New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey all her life. She performs at venues all over the tri-state and the US and has performed internationally at clubs in Canada, Switzerland, and the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival 3 years in a row. Kate also appeared on A&E's series “Bae or Bail”. She's half of comedy duo “Belleville Broads” with improv partner Angelique Londino. The pair perform as animal-print loving, exaggerated versions of everyone's favorite over-the-top Aunts from New Jersey and Long Island and they've hosted shows for notable comics such as America's Got Talent finalist Gina Brillon. Kate has also appeared on numerous podcasts including Period Piece, Nice Guys and Hello Thoughts. You can also find her @cyclebreakerstherapy Kendra Dawsey (@bossy_dawsey) is a stand-up comedian and writer based in NYC. Their razor-sharp wit and engaging delivery has earned spots opening for Eddie Pepitone, Jenny Yang and Michelle Buteau, and they've featured as the Comic-in-Residence at the renowned Comedy Studio. They've been on Kevin Hart's “Lyft Comics” on the LOL Network and had their work featured in Revolutionary Spaces' online talk show, “Tea Party Tonight!” They've also got a weekly Twitch show, “Left Night with Kendra Dawsey.” Dawsey's comedy combines abrasive criticism, raunchy set-ups and whimsical punchlines – something for everybody in the audience. Get your tickets now! https://sacredcomedy.eventbrite.com/ Follow at IG @sacredcomedy https://www.instagram.com/sacredcomedy/ Hathor Communications: https://www.hathorcommunications.co/ This episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LFpMWfV3EDk Please help a sister out and review, rate and subscribe! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-self-consciousness-podcast/id1584654195 Yes! I'm still doing sessions: https://www.jenniferwai.com/ Music: Phiescope by Muziq Next to Normal by Lucius --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/selfconsciousnesspodcast/message
On today's episode I talk about my new project and the road that led me there (in lots of detail!) In Fall of 2022 I decided to start my own production company (a long time coming) and create a recurring standup comedy show/energy circle event (also a long time coming) that combines self-care with laughter as a form of healing. Join me as I talk to the 3 comedians who will perform at our first show on January 7, 2023! We talk about how comedy heals, why they do what they do, and how it feels to kill! Madelein Smith (@madeleinsmith) is a touring comedian based in NYC. She has traveled internationally performing at colleges, clubs, and cruise ships. She is also a regular at many NYC clubs. Her debut album, Belle of the Ball, rose to #1 on the ITunes Comedy Charts. She has been featured on Amazon Prime and Comedy Central, and currently has a network pilot in development. She co-hosts the podcast Cheers for Queers with Sarah Garner, where they interview amazing queer performers and talk about being little weirdos. Kate Nichols (@HeyKateNichols) is a stand up comedian, improviser, writer and storyteller who's bounced around New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey all her life. She performs at venues all over the tri-state and the US and has performed internationally at clubs in Canada, Switzerland, and the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival 3 years in a row. Kate also appeared on A&E's series “Bae or Bail”. She's half of comedy duo “Belleville Broads” with improv partner Angelique Londino. The pair perform as animal-print loving, exaggerated versions of everyone's favorite over-the-top Aunts from New Jersey and Long Island and they've hosted shows for notable comics such as America's Got Talent finalist Gina Brillon. Kate has also appeared on numerous podcasts including Period Piece, Nice Guys and Hello Thoughts. You can also find her @cyclebreakerstherapy Kendra Dawsey (@bossy_dawsey) is a stand-up comedian and writer based in NYC. Their razor-sharp wit and engaging delivery has earned spots opening for Eddie Pepitone, Jenny Yang and Michelle Buteau, and they've featured as the Comic-in-Residence at the renowned Comedy Studio. They've been on Kevin Hart's “Lyft Comics” on the LOL Network and had their work featured in Revolutionary Spaces' online talk show, “Tea Party Tonight!” They've also got a weekly Twitch show, “Left Night with Kendra Dawsey.” Dawsey's comedy combines abrasive criticism, raunchy set-ups and whimsical punchlines – something for everybody in the audience. Get your tickets now! https://sacredcomedy.eventbrite.com/ Follow at IG @sacredcomedy https://www.instagram.com/sacredcomedy/ Hathor Communications: https://www.hathorcommunications.co/ This episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LFpMWfV3EDk Please help a sister out and review, rate and subscribe! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-self-consciousness-podcast/id1584654195 Yes! I'm still doing sessions: https://www.jenniferwai.com/ Music: Phiescope by Muziq Next to Normal by Lucius --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/selfconsciousnesspodcast/message
After navigating a global pandemic for well over two years, what's your new normal? In a new podcast series – “Back and Better Than Ever” – learn from incredible women coming together to discuss what “returning” means to them. In this episode, Kate Nichols, Founder of Go Jane, Go, a global community of 1,000+ women who travel for business, joins Shannon Jackson, Business Development Leader at Avis Budget Group Produced by GBTA WINiT's Return to the Office & Return to the Road Committee, the “Back and Better Than Ever” podcast series explores unique views and voices from guests that have various ties to business travel. Hear the shared experiences that all business travelers have likely endured in some capacity – while gaining insight on how to continue to prevail together.
This is Love Hurts. Kate Nichols is a therapist and comedian living in New Jersey. When she was 24, all Kate wanted was her own car. Her mom agreed to help her find one, and Kate shares the ups and downs of that process and how it encapsulated the dynamic between her and her mom. Our theme song is EmoTown by Mikki Hommel. Follow Love Hurts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts! Support Love Hurts by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/love-hurts Find out more at https://love-hurts.pinecast.co
After two years virtual, SXSW EDU 2022 was back in person in Austin earlier this month! It was an amazing four days of amazing conversations. By far, one of the most inspiring ones for me was the one I had on the Cognizant Foundation podcast stage with three women whose career paths have been changed by tech training programs that opened the doors for them in an industry that hasn't always been the most welcoming to women. Simply put: These women are amazing. These programs are amazing. In this episode – which we recorded live in front of an enthusiastic audience – you'll meet: Kate Nichols – a 32-year-old former teacher who packed up her bags in Austin and moved to Seattle to learn software programming at Ada Developers Academy. She got a paid internship at Zulily as part of the training. She loves education still and has been able to combine that love with her new career at Hello World.Sage Lee – a 26-year-old former retail food worker who went from stocking shelves to an intensive seven-month intensive software programming class in Denver's Turing School. Today, after a paid apprenticeship at Handshake, she's an associate junior programmer at the company. By the way, she went from barely making $40,000 to making more than $90,000 a year – that's a big jump from her salary at the grocery store.Maria Contreras – an Austin high school senior who started learning to code at 15 in a free Code2College afterschool program that landed her a paid internship at Indeed. We learned on stage that the now-18-year-old is headed to Rice University with a full scholarship to major in computer programming. What these young women have in common is their desire to move into an in-demand career, and that they were able to find free, or almost free, training programs geared toward young people who don't have the financial resources to do it on their own. We talk about how they did it, and how you can do it too! You can listen here – and I encourage you to listen all the way to the end – or you can download and listen from wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to Kristen Titus, Hannah Lee, and Kyle Gunnels and all the Cognizant Foundation team for inviting us to record the podcast on their stage! WorkingNation was a media partner with SXSW EDU for the fourth year in a row. Check out our interviews for our WorkingNation Overheard series for a flavor of the other conversations we had in Austin this year. Episode 224: Expanding Opportunities in Tech at SXSW EDUHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNationProducer: Larry BuhlExecutive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa PanzerTheme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0Download the transcript for this podcast here.You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcastIf you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.Competition ends April 29th 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/https://www.rzss.org.uk/support/https://www.highlandwildlifepark.org.uk/we-are-open https://twitter.com/Lisa_Robshawhttps://twitter.com/EdinburghZoohttps://twitter.com/HighlandWPark David Field, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) CEO, returned to RZSS in 2020 having been a section moderator at Edinburgh Zoo early in his career. David's previous roles include chief executive of the Zoological Society of East Anglia, zoological director of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), curator of ZSL Whipsnade Zoo and assistant director of Dublin Zoo. An honorary professor of the Royal Veterinary College, David has served as chairman of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquaria (BIAZA) and is the current president of the Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers. Lisa Robshaw is a visitor attraction marketing specialist with 20 years' experience of working in the tourism and hospitality industry after studying International Tourism at the University of Lincoln. She joined the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) in August 2019 after a brief stint agency side. Prior to this she has worked for Historic Environment Scotland, Continuum Attractions and British Tourist Authority (Now Visit Britain).As Head of Marketing and Sales at RZSS, Lisa leads the teams responsible for the wildlife conservation charity's marketing, sales activity, membership, adoptions, events and experiences . No day is ever the same and what she enjoys most is sharing the amazing experiences Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park have to offer and telling people about the important work RZSS does to protect threatened species in Scotland and around the world . When she's not working, Lisa can usually be found chasing after her young family and planning visits to the south coast of England from where she originally hails! Transcription:Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with David Field, CEO, and Lisa Robshaw, Head of Marketing and Sales, at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. We discuss the zoo's experiences over the pandemic, highs, lows, and why you really can't furlough a penguin. If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Lisa and David, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm really looking forward to speaking to you both.Lisa Robshaw: Yeah, looking forward to speaking to you. It should be good fun.Kelly Molson: Well, let's see how we get on with the icebreaker questions, and see how much fun it is going to be.David Field: Yeah. I'm dreading this.Kelly Molson: I've been quite kind to you both, actually, I feel because we've got two of you today and we've got a lot to cram in. So what is the worst food you've ever eaten and why isn't it peas?Lisa Robshaw: Oh my God. I think it was snails for me. And it was when I was 12, in France. So that probably doesn't help. So we're talking like 1990, giving away my age now. And we're in this awful school canteen on this French exchange trip, we were forced to eat these snails. We weren't rude to our hosts. I don't actually think they were cooked particularly well because I think some of us were ill afterwards.Kelly Molson: Oh gosh.Lisa Robshaw: The texture, the smell, the whole experience.David Field: Yeah. I adore snails and I adore peas. I'm not sure your listeners would particularly want to hear about my adventures when we've been out on ... doing field work in Indonesia, some of the things that we had out there. But we did have to eat animals which were hunted and caught, and we ate. And they were kind of animals, which suffice to say, had a very strong aroma about them. So you're in the jungles, you're surviving, and it was not nice. But it was the aroma of their scent glands which permeated the meat.Kelly Molson: Oh Gosh. Yeah. I'm getting a really lovely ... a lovely image of that, David. Thank you.David Field: It makes celebrity in the jungle thing a walk in the park.Kelly Molson: You were the real celeb. Get me out of here.David Field: I really wanted to get out of there.Kelly Molson: Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. Okay. To both of you, if you could have an extra hour of free time every day, how would you use that free time?David Field: I would do more moth hunting. I like trapping moths and counting moths. And I never get a chance in a morning to do that. So that's what I would do, every single day if I could.Kelly Molson: Moth hunting, can we just elaborate on this? So this is a hobby of yours?David Field: Yeah. Yeah. You just hunt ... and butterflies. It's amazing. It's the best thing in the world. And you just ... every night you set at this light trap and moths are attracted to it at night. And then you get in there in the morning, first thing in the morning, and you've got all these hundreds of different species of moths, and it's just the most beautiful thing. They are the most gorgeous thing that we never think about that just roam our gardens. And I'd do that every day if I could.Kelly Molson: Oh wow. I honestly have never heard anyone have that as a hobby before. That's something completely new for me. How lovely.David Field: Yeah. Try it.Kelly Molson: This is why I ask these questions. You never know what you're going to get. What about your unpopular opinions?Lisa Robshaw: Harry Potter books should not be read by adults. They are a children's book.Kelly Molson: Oh. I mean, no one can see my face because this is a podcast. So if you're not watching the video it's ... Gosh.Lisa Robshaw: But I don't know what it is. I remember when Harry Potter came out. Again, I'm aging myself here. I was at university and I didn't understand why people were going mental. And then I think right about the time of ... in the middle of it all, they re-released the same book with a different cover to appeal to adults. And I was like, that is wrong. You're ripping people off. It's a children's book. That's what I talk about. No, no, no.Kelly Molson: I am quite shocked by that. I love the Harry Potter books.Lisa Robshaw: I'm sure they're great. I've tried reading them. I just ... they're not for me.Kelly Molson: What about the films? Fan? Not bothered?Lisa Robshaw: I kind of class those as a sort of Boxing Day, fall asleep in front of it after a few glasses of red wine type of film. Anything that keeps the kids' kids quiet for two and a half hours. You know what I mean? It's that kind of thing. But I just don't ... I mean, this is ironic that I've been to a Castle and done the broomstick riding three times and my kids, and it's a brilliant experience. But like grown adults losing their minds over it, I just don't get it.Kelly Molson: Oh my God. Well, David, I don't know, can you top that for an unpopular opinion? I'm not sure.David Field: Well first off, who's Harry Potter?Kelly Molson: What are you doing to me, David?David Field: So perhaps this segues a little bit into talking about the visitor attractions and that type of stuff, but mobile phones should be banned at visitor attractions because it's about family time.Kelly Molson: Oh, that's a bit serious.David Field: I really do think they should be banned from visitor attractions.Kelly Molson: I can see where you're going with that. Yeah. Like being present, not on your phones, not looking for the opportunity to be on your phone, but just being present with your family. I get that.David Field: Yeah. Yeah.Kelly Molson: Oh, this is ... isn't it really interesting though. But from the perspective of being a CEO of an attraction, wouldn't you want people to be engaged with the stuff that you have there so that they share that on social media, so that then drives more people to come?David Field: They can do that when they go home. They can do that on their way there. They can do that every time. When they're in, and particularly when they're in the zoo, we want them to be engaged with nature, we want them to be there in front of them, not encasing them in some sort of cloak of electronic gadgetry, putting these barriers between them and nature and putting the barriers between them and their family. Live in the moment, not on your phone.Kelly Molson: Oh, what a great quote. Okay. Listeners, I really ... well, I want to hear what you've got to say about both of those unpopular opinions. Thank you for sharing. Okay. I was going to ask you what you do in your roles. But I think from your job titles, it's probably pretty obvious to people, especially the people that are listening to this. So I thought I'd actually ask you if each of you could tell me what your favourite thing is about the zoo or the wildlife park?Lisa Robshaw: It's like choosing a favourite child, isn't it?Kelly Molson: I've only got one, so it's really easy.Lisa Robshaw: Yeah. Highland Wildlife Park. For me, it's the expanse and the fresh air. I mean, I'm a city girl. I'm originally from Portsmouth. I've lived in New York and all this kind of thing, and I've lived in Edinburgh for 20 years now, but ... or 15 years. But when you get up to Highland Wildlife Park in the beautiful Cairngorms and it's just the fresh air and the space, and even when the park's busy, it's almost still silent. Do you know what I mean? It's just this sort of really relaxing place. When I get the chance not to be sitting in meetings all day, as is the danger sometimes when you're on the kind of hamster wheel of working and that kind of thing. So I love getting up there and just spending time and relaxing and enjoying the surroundings.Kelly Molson: Great answer.Lisa Robshaw: That's my professional point of view. I mean, the animals are amazing, and asking me to pick my favourite animal is always a difficult one. Red panda, but ... penguin. Now see, that's the problem. But yeah, that's mine.Kelly Molson: I love it. David, what about yours?David Field: So, as part of my job ... and I've been knocking around this zoo world since I was 12 years old. So for me, it really is about the animals and the beauty and that connection with the animals. And as part of my job now, I insist that I have a couple of hours ... an hour or so in the day that I go pottering around the zoo. And zoo directors need to potter around their zoo. Because every day, every different hour of the day, every season, there is something different going on. There's a different animal, doing something different, something exciting. And my favourite animal changes each day. But I go out and because the zoo and the wildlife park are so different, every single time you go around, that's what makes them so amazing and beautiful and inspiring and glorious, and why I've been doing this for 30 odd years.Kelly Molson: Oh, perfect answer. I love that you're just pottering around, just having a little walk around your zoo, just checking out the animals. It's really nice. I'd like to do that. There you go. And I'd like to spend my hour pottering around the zoo if I got my extra hour. Thank you both. So the title of this podcast episode is You can't furlough a penguin. Experiences from the last 19 months at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.Kelly Molson: Now, I was at the Visitor Attractions Conference a little while ago, back in October and you can't furlough a penguin was something that I heard Bernard Donoghue say while he was given one of his very fantastic talks, as always. And I thought, that's a great podcast title. I'm going to use that when I get Lisa to come on this podcast.Kelly Molson: I want you to take us back to kind of Feb., March time 2020, when coronavirus was something very new and nobody in the UK had ever heard the word furlough before. I can very vividly remember what it was like for me with a team of seven thinking, gosh, we've got to pack up, we've got to work from home. Is anyone actually going to buy anything from us for the next ... I've got no idea what's going to happen. I can only imagine what was going through your heads, having a team of people that you were both thinking about and thousands of animals that you have to care for, that you're responsible for. What was that even like?David Field: Well, I think every day you are looking back on that time and hindsight's an amazing thing, to look back on how you handled it, how many hours you spent lying, awake thinking about it. But then, in some respects, we were no different to others. And everybody was facing a crisis in so many different ways. And this has been one of the most important sort of most significant kind of social impacts in our lives. Hopefully we'll never get anything like this. My parents, my grandparents had world wars and stuff like that to deal with. We just had to deal with a bit of a pandemic, which quite frankly, we should all have been prepared for. It was coming. And the next one will come.David Field: For me, it was very odd because just February, March, I was leaving my previous job, ready to come up to Edinburgh to start a new job. So I was having to sort of resolve the issues in one zoo and leave it in a good enough state, ready to come to Edinburgh, where my board, etc. at the time were already trying to deal with the organization that at the time, we didn't have a CEO in place then, did we? You just had to react. You just had to understand that you had so little information that you had to be incredibly dynamic and react to situations.David Field: And the crucial nature, before anything else, was just securing money, was securing funding, just so that you could make sure that you could stay open. And the difference in dealing with governments in the UK as compared to governments in Scotland, were miles apart. And so that was the crux. And you were so focused into that, that other things did disappear. Once you could get the money, once you could get the bank loans, once you got that, then you could start some sort of planning. So that was the crux. It was money, money, money all the way, just so you could stay open. Now, as good charities, we all had some reserves, but we just didn't know what the endpoint was going to be. And so securing funding was the be all and end all.Kelly Molson: And I guess, so David, were you ... I mean, you talked a little bit there about the challenges dealing with English government, Scottish government. What were the differences? What was difficult about that process?David Field: Access, getting people to listen to you. Now look, we know the governments had so much on the plate that wanting to listen to the zoo director down the road was probably fairly low down the list. But it was trying to get the message across that you couldn't, not so much furlough a penguin, but you couldn't furlough a penguin keeper. And just trying to get those individual messages through. But being able to get that through to Scottish government made life so much easier, having people that would listen made so much easier for you. To be fair, DEFRA were excellent, but it was trying to get to the ministers. The civil servants, hats off to them, amazing. But try and get through to ministers who actually make the decisions, was nigh on impossible.Kelly Molson: Yeah, I can completely imagine. And Lisa, so where did this leave you? Because I guess you then have to think of different ways to drive donations. You have to think about how you're engaging with the audience who aren't able to come to your venues. You've got to engage with them on social media, online, and virtually in some way. How did you even ... how did you start that process and where did some of the ideas ... and what did you do? Where did they come from?Lisa Robshaw: I mean, for me, it was a massive learning curve. I'm a visitor attraction marketer by trade. I'm not a fundraiser. And it's obviously a different discipline. Although we're talking to the same people, we're having to talk to them in a slightly different way. So I mean, back to that week in March, it was a sense of disbelief of what was going on. All of a sudden, I had to put a different hat on and I was learning a new trade almost from our sort of development team, and all that kind of thing. We put a lot of people on furlough, which meant we all had to wear different hats and support people in a different way. I suddenly became a web developer and yeah, I'm a digital marketeer, I'm not a web developer.Kelly Molson: You want a job because it's really hard to find web developers right now.Lisa Robshaw: I don't think anyone would want to employ me, to be honest. I gave that part of my career up as soon as I could. But very quickly, it was long hours, long days, adapting our messaging. Because to be fair, Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park, visitor attractions first, almost kind of ... in terms of individual giving, it was such a small part of our charitable income at that stage that we just had to completely do a 360. So in terms of fundraising, it was really just making sure that our development team were well supported in making sure our messages got out, and working with the comms teams to make sure the messaging was appropriate, emotional enough to elicit that donation.Lisa Robshaw: And then it was working with kind of our discovery and learning team, I think there was only one after we'd furloughed everybody, on how are we going to engage with people virtually? So obviously we were looking at the great work that other zoos were doing. Chester, for example, with their Friday kind of online videos and Facebook lives and all this kind of thing. Almost, okay, what can we do, which is really Edinburgh or Highland Wildlife Park-esque? You know? And all this kind of thing.Lisa Robshaw: And one of the light bulb moments, I think in think in lockdown two, when we were all getting really quite professional at lockdowns, professional lockdowners, all this kind of thing, was thinking about how we can do virtual birthday parties and take that experience into people's homes, and do something different to what other people were doing. That's what we wanted to do. And that's how we honed our kind of skills, I guess, and how we developed, and how we all evolved during the two lockdowns. It was incredible.Lisa Robshaw: But the outpouring of support from people we had. I mean, I was very much the same as David, how ... and other attractions, not just zoos, but other attractions, how are we going to keep the money coming in while we're closed? How am I going to sell a membership to somebody when the zoo's closed and they not having the experience? It's things like making sure the membership didn't start until we reopened, so people felt, we'll get them the money at that point, but their membership wasn't starting. They were getting the added value when we opened. And our membership, the support we had from our members and our new members was just incredible during lockdown. It really was. And that just ... yeah, it was a massive learning curve.David Field: I mean, that support Lisa, that you talked about, was huge, was overwhelming. It was remarkable. And certainly Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park, certainly the zoo, hadn't had that level of support previously. The level of support that we received from the community was incredible. But I think that came because the authenticity of our message. We were very, very transparent with what was going on. We spoke to everybody and anybody, whether they wanted to do a podcast, whether they wanted to do a newspaper piece, whether they wanted to talk to us on the phone. We spoke to anybody. And it was the honest truth of what we were putting out there, that we didn't know what was happening day to day. We didn't know about the future of some of these animals. There was questions about our pandas. There was questions about our penguins. But we went out there and talked. We opened our hearts, we opened our zoos to information and messages, and the response that we got was incredible.David Field: Do you know, I think Edinburgh fell in love with its zoo again. They began to value what they might just miss. And it was about the ... I truly believe it was the authenticity of our message and what people saw and heard from our zookeepers, from our conservation teams. And that work with the D and L team, the Discovery and Learning team, was incredible, because they didn't just put material online. They made it just a zoo visit online. They made it so interactive. They made it one on one. It was remarkable. It was just so exciting.Kelly Molson: I love what you said there about Edinburgh realises what they could potentially miss if the zoo wasn't ... if it didn't exist anymore. Have you seen, since the zoo has reopened, that you are getting a lot more kind of people ... a lot more local visitors? Have you seen that that's kind of increased, that people ... they are really loving Edinburgh Zoo again?David Field: I think so. I mean, Lisa might ... you might be able to give a bit more of the kind of stats and facts of it all. I look at it from a more emotive sense and you do just get that level of feeling that people believe in what we're doing and they're really supporting what we are doing. But I think one of the most remarkable things for me was when we did reopen and you saw people coming back into the zoo for the first time. And it was also a time when the families were probably meeting each other for the first time again, because we were one of the few places that were open, one of the few places where people could meet. And suddenly the emotion of people meeting in a place like the zoo, it was remarkable. And we tend to forget the social value of our visitor attractions for quality family time. And that period of just as we were starting to reopen, just emphasized it perfectly of how important the zoo was as a family place, a place for real quality time.Lisa Robshaw: Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. And the amount of people that were coming back that were saying, "I haven't been for years, and I'd forgotten how wonderful it was or it is." You still get that in the school playground, anecdotally, the mums going, "Oh my God, I can't believe you work at Edinburgh Zoo. You've done so much amazing work during lockdown. The kids have loved the films and all this kind of stuff." And you just go, wow, that social value is an absolute, really good point. And yeah, anecdotal evidence is that everyone did fall in love with the zoo again. It's incredible.Kelly Molson: And they're coming back in droves to show you that love now as well.Lisa Robshaw: Absolutely, yeah. Our visitor numbers this year have been amazing, better than ... I think summer 2020 was better than summer 2019. But we have to make ... or '21, sorry, was better than 2019. But we have to remember 2019's a pretty bad summer weather wise as well. But I do ... so couple the bad weather with this new affection and the fact that people haven't been able to go anywhere else, I mean, it's ... yeah. We're reaping the reward and the challenge is going to be keeping the momentum going into next year when we've got so more competition.Kelly Molson: Yeah.David Field: Absolutely. We've got to seriously up our game for the ... when the period sort of as we were reopening and lockdowns were being lifted, so people just wanted to get out and be local, there was a benefit there. People started to see, as Lisa said, actually this is a pretty, pretty great place. Look at all this exciting stuff that's going on. But now we've got to just keep going and maintaining that excitement and that wonderful visitor attraction element, which drives our charity mission, is essential. So it's challenging going forward.Kelly Molson: It is. And actually one of the questions I was going to ask you is about how you kept your team motivated through the pandemic. Because, like you said earlier, it's not just, you can't furlough a penguin, it's you can't furlough the penguin keeper. So you had a lot of people that were still coming into work during the pandemic because there was a need for them. They had to be there. But I guess an extra question to that is how do you now keep your team motivated to keep that excitement and keep that enthusiasm going, to keep drawing the people in again? So two different questions, or same question, but for two different situations there.David Field: Yeah. I think there's ... it's a really, really tough time for the staff. They're absolutely shattered. Staff such as the ... say the keeping staff, and I mean ... were coming through during the pandemic to work. So they weren't getting time off particularly. And even now our other teams, which are so crucial to making the place work and be great place to visit, there's so much going on that people can't take their ... are struggling to take their holidays because of the momentum that's going on. So people are tired.David Field: And then with the challenges that we are getting there with trying to recruit new people, where there is nobody to recruit, it is putting pressure on people. But it's humbling to work for a team like team RZSS, because they just step up and go above and beyond constantly. And it's the belief in what we do. It's the love of the animals. It's the love of the institution, that people step up to such an extent. And it's remarkable. But they are tired. And we would like to recruit more staff so that they could actually recover.Kelly Molson: We have Kate Nichols on from Hospitality UK, speaking with her next week about the recruitment challenge. So if you do have any questions that you'd like to pose to her, feel free to send them in, because I know that this is widespread right now. And if I'm honest, it's not just the attractions industry. We're struggling ourselves. Like I said, no joke society, if you have got web development skills hit me up. It is a huge challenge right now. And like you said, people are really, really tired. So there's still a long way to go to get everyone motivated and to keep everyone going. I really hear you on that.Kelly Molson: Lisa, I want to talk a little bit about what you said earlier about the birthday parties and some of the things that you did in terms of engaging with your audience while you couldn't open the zoo. Will you still carry on some of those things? And if so, are there any new things in development or anything that's coming up that you're quite excited about that you'd like to share with us?Lisa Robshaw: Yeah. I mean, the demand for the virtual birthday parties has obviously waned now. And actually they'll always be secondary to trying get these groups of kids into the zoo so they can actually, like David say, get close to nature and sort of be around the animals. That's our number one reason for being really, in terms of engagement. But that was great, to see the reactions and all that kind of thing. Not only because we tested it on my own six year old who had a second lockdown birthday, but also just the demand, and people by that point were wanting something different for their kids. That was great.Lisa Robshaw: I mean, one of the things I loved were the amount of companies that came out and actually wanted to work with us, and companies that traditionally the zoo have worked for ... worked with kind of on a sort of cursory ticket selling level. So hotels, for example. We had so many hotels that wanted to come and work with us in a completely different way. So one hotel wanted to do a giraffe themed bedroom, and a certain portion of percentage of the room rate would come to the hotel ... to the zoo. So I mean, I'm under no illusion, a lot of that was for PR and unusual ideas. But never before have we had hotels being that actively courting us.Lisa Robshaw: The big one is the Waldorf Astoria, the five star Waldorf Astoria Hotel, more sort of known as the Cally here in Edinburgh. And they did a zoo themed afternoon tea. Five pounds from every afternoon tea that they sold came to the zoo with an option to top up it to another five pound donation. And I think it was three and a half months that was for sale with, just as we were coming out of lockdown. So you could get home delivery or you could get the whole Waldorf Astoria experience. And they raised eight and a half thousand pounds.Kelly Molson: Wow.Lisa Robshaw: So you work out how many they sold. And that was a partnership we would never have had the opportunity to do had lockdown and COVID and the pandemic not happened. So that was fantastic. So moving forward, I'm really looking forward to working with loads of other different companies, in the next couple of ... next year or so. We've started that initiative with our art trail that we're doing next year, called Giraffe About Town. So this is one of the Wild In Art trails. You might remember things like Cow Parade. Here in Scotland we have the Oor Wullie Bucket trail, but they're popular all around the country. I think there's been Elmer Elephants in Luton, that were involved with. All this kind of thing.Lisa Robshaw: So we're going to have our own herd of 40 sponsored eight foot giraffes around the city of Edinburgh next summer. And at the moment we're going out and talking to companies about sponsoring those giraffes. And what ... this is a complete unknown of a project for me. I've never been involved in something like this to this scale before. But what is really heartening is that a variety of companies that are coming out and actually wanting to support their zoo, from big house builders to a company, a sort of a one man band who does synthesizer things for electric guitars and bands. It's just so random, but it's so amazing to see the outpouring of support that's happening.Lisa Robshaw: And also the public are really excited about ... Every time we talk about Giraffe About Town, there's people making arrangements to come to the city and have a weekend break so they can find all the giraffes. That's kind of our way of giving back to the city as well. So that's a really exciting initiative. Alongside the day job, it's quite hard work, but it's going to be so exciting. And the whole process is a whole new thing for me, from talking to sponsors, to people who create concrete plinths and these things to sit on and then looking at venues for auctions at the end to raise money for our wildlife conservation projects around the world. So yeah, that's a really exciting initiative and that would never ... we would never have taken that type of project on if it wasn't for the pandemic and have the confidence to do it.Kelly Molson: That's amazing, isn't it? That that's something so fabulous that has actually come out of something so horrendous.Lisa Robshaw: I'm going to have a lot of gray hair by the end of it. It's great that I am already. But already. I get quite emotional thinking about what the end result's going to be, and from people ... sort of companies actually getting a lot of extra PR and marketing value out of working with us, to people having a great time around Edinburgh and exploring parts of the city they've never explored, trying to tick off all their giraffes, to the impact they're going to make at auction with real money for charity. It's quite exciting.Kelly Molson: It feels like people want to take ownership of an experience in some way. They want to be part of it, not just come to visit. They want to be part of that for a longer period. Do you know what I mean? Like you come and visit the zoo and then you might adopt an animal, but actually being part of the walking trail, that's really kind of embedding yourself into that experience. Something that Gordon and I discussed actually, when we had it on, was the desire for more personalised experiences, that people want to do things that are not just the norm now. They want something that's really kind of tailored to them. Have you seen an increase in demand for your zoo experiences this year?Lisa Robshaw: Yeah. Massive. Massive demand, to the point where we're getting so booked up in advance. It's great, but you almost get to a situation where we can't fulfill some of them. So we're having to manage that really carefully to make sure that we don't lose the sale, but we're also managing people's expectations. But people want that experience. And if nothing else, the pandemic sort of reignited that passion. People don't just want a tangible kind of gift. It's this thing where ... that experience that people really want, which is ... we are just made for that kind of experience.David Field: I think that is really interesting with the need for personalised experience, but deeper and more emotive experiences. And I think that's a way ... not everybody who comes to the zoo can possibly have a personalised experience. We don't have enough animals. There's not enough time in the day. For all different reasons. I'm very lucky. I get that kind of contact with animals constantly. And people need that in their lives. They cry out for this contact with nature, and it makes people better.David Field: And somehow we got to deliver within the zoo more and more of these emotional experiences. We've got to get people to not just look at an animal from a distance, but when they go into the giraffe house now at the zoo, they don't just see animals. They're really, really close. They can smell them, they can hear them, they can almost taste them. That sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? But it's a full multisensory experience. It's a deeper meaning, which is why the zoo experience means so much more than something you just see on screen. It has to be ... we've got to make the hairs on people's necks sort of stand up, get them really emoting, get those emotions running about animals. Then people care about animals more and want to hear our messages about how we can do more to protect them or conserve them. So emotion is huge for us.Kelly Molson: And is that part of how you kind of inspire people to help you now? Because I guess the zoo ... we're heading into winter, so you're going to have less people visiting. I wanted to ask what the kind of shape of the zoo is as you head into winter this year. But I see that you've got the Help the Animals that you Love campaign still running. Is that something that you run all year through? Are you going to be doing a big kind of driver of that to kind of help get through the winter? Like where are you at?David Field: I mean, I think there's a couple of questions there. I mean, in terms of ... we will do various fundraising activities at different times. And there's a recent appeal gone out just for more of our general work. When there's some specific project, we might do other appeals. But I think where we are really trying to get to is that ... and we touched on it before, is that long term relationship with the zoo. And I said, the zoo is different, whether it's winter, summer, spring, autumn morning, noon, evening, it's always something different. So we want people to be able to experience that and really pushing our membership, pushing that long term relationship with the zoo. And really there's a cradle to grave relationship that you can have with the zoo. And that's what we want to achieve because it's more than just a visit.Kelly Molson: Yeah, it is. This is something that I saw Bristol Zoo has just said, that it's going to open its grounds to the public for free after it moves to a new home next year. Circling back to what you said earlier about the zoo being at the heart of the community and people falling back in love with Edinburgh Zoo, do you have any more initiatives to kind of connect with that local community aside from the walking trail that we've just discussed, which I think is an absolutely wonderful way of connecting with the local community? Have you thought about anything long term for the zoo where you get more of the community engaged with it?David Field: Well, I would say kind of watch this space, because we will be launching next year, a major part of our future strategy is about community and it's about using the unique resources of the zoo and the power of animals to do good, to actually build improved wellbeing in individuals and also in the communities where we work, helping to strengthen the communities where we work. That's really powerful for us. When Edinburgh Zoo first opened back in the early 1900s, it was designed by the social architect, Patrick Geddes, so it was a place where communities could come and walk and commune with nature outside of all the industrial areas and built up areas of Edinburgh. And we still appeal to that. That idea appeals to us, so that it is a place of sanctuary. It is a place where people can come.David Field: And we are undertaking a range of initiatives that we can link with the community. We already do that in many ways. We work with different community groups, both in Edinburgh and up at the Highland Wildlife Park. And we want to look at all of those barriers that are cultural, social health wise, which stops people getting to the zoo. We need to work with that. We need to work with local businesses, with local council, with Scottish government, in order that we can become the most inclusive and accessible visitor attraction, not just in Scotland, but in the UK and beyond.Lisa Robshaw: It's probably worth talking about Highland, Wildlife Park as well, the developments that will start next year for the Scotland's Wildlife Discovery Center. We've got HLF funding for some massive new developments at Highland Wildlife Park, which are just around that sort of engaging with the community, the people that would normally be able to have those experiences, getting close to nature and that kind of thing, and really telling the story of sort of Scotland's wildlife heritage as well. And no better place to do that than in the Cairngorms. So we're really excited about that project and that's going to be an absolute game changer for Highland Wildlife Park.Kelly Molson: Oh, can you share a little bit more about what makes it game changing? Or is this top secret information for the time being?David Field: No, not at all. I mean, there's been quite a lot of information out there about it already. And the Scottish Wildlife Discovery Center is ... it's a transformational project, both for the park and for the society because it will be ... in reality, it's a network of hubs that takes you on an expedition across the Highland Wildlife Park. But this expedition exposes you to the people, the place, and the animals of the Cairngorms. It brings the beauty of the Cairngorms and all the knowledge and information that we need the people that will come and visit.David Field: But we will have ... there's a large discovery centre where you can find all this information. There will be hubs, which overlook our wildcat breeding program project, and our peat restoration project. Then there's a wonderful new accessible learning hub, which will be open for the community as well so that we can bring people to the park that would never have dreamed of coming to the park before or wouldn't have been able to come to the park. But they'll be able to come for different events, community outreach. But it is designed so that we can celebrate the Cairngorms and the people, the place, and the animals therein.Lisa Robshaw: What he said.Kelly Molson: What David said. Do you know what's lovely? Is you speak ... there's a real sense of positivity in this interview. Whenever you both speak, there's a real kind of uplift and a real kind of sense of excitement about what's coming next. So it's been really lovely to hear that come through from you both.David Field: Oh, fantastic. Thank you. I mean, we work with animals. It's amazing. You're having a bad day, go and sit with the penguins.Kelly Molson: That is not dreadful, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, the closest I get is to picking up a dog if I'm having a bit of a bad day, but a penguin would top it.David Field: But that is ... it's so important to us. And it's not a trite statement, but we know that people just visiting a zoo, your stress levels just go down. We know that. We know that again, it's that quality social time. It's memories. It's access to nature. All of this is important for us from so many aspects. And the power of animals to do good is just ... it's beyond. They're amazing.Kelly Molson: Couldn't have said that any better myself, David. I totally agree with you. Thank you both for coming on the podcast today. I always like to end our interviews by asking if you have a book that you would recommend to our listeners. So it could be something that's helped you in your career. It could be something that you just ... you absolutely love. It's definitely not going to be Harry Potter. We know that. Hopefully Geoff is not listening to this, our past-Lisa Robshaw: I'm to going to get an invite to the Warner Brothers Studio at any time soon, am I?Kelly Molson: No, it's not happening, Lisa. But yes, I would like to ask you both if you've got a book that you'd like to recommend?Lisa Robshaw: I'll let David go first.David Field: Well, I love my books. Absolutely love my books. The Zoo Quest Expeditions by Attenborough were an inspiration to me. But more recently, it's The Invention of Nature: The adventures of Alexander van Humboldt. Amazing book by Andrea Wulf. Alexander von Humboldt, one of the greatest naturalists, a real kind of polymath that was there. He invented ecology. He saw climate change before anybody else. And it's so beautifully written and a real inspiration in terms of what he achieved. He's one of my scientific heroes.Kelly Molson: Fabulous. That's very topical. All right, that's David's one. Lisa, what about you?Lisa Robshaw: I'm now regretting asking David to go first. Mine is ... I'm not sure I'm allowed to swear on this podcast.Kelly Molson: You can.Lisa Robshaw: The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck.Kelly Molson: Excellent book.Lisa Robshaw: It was given to me, the actual book was given to me by a friend, God, probably about six or seven years ago when I was having a bit of a hard time. And David ... it'll probably make David smile, and my boss, Ben, but I give myself a really hard time over things sometimes. I just want things to be perfect all the time. It's quite topical at the moment. And actually, I just ... sometimes when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, I just go into this book and it reminds me that I can't control certain things. I just need to give a fuck about the things I can control and let go of the things I can't. I recommend it to so many friends that have found it useful as well. I know Ben, my boss, would probably want it to be like a bit of a marketing book that I'm recommending or something like that, I thought I really let him down with this. This is well worth a read.Kelly Molson: Lisa, I have read that book. It is an excellent book. So basically what we are recommending is grab a copy of that book, head to the zoo, go and sit by the penguins, life will be sweet.David Field: Perfect.Kelly Molson: All right, well, listen, listeners, as ever, you can have the chance to win copies of those books. So if you would like to win a copy of Lisa's book and David's book, then head over to this episode announcement and retweet it with the words, "I want David and Lisa's book," and we will put you ... books even, and we will put you in the draw to win a copy of each of them. Thank you very much. I really like those suggestions and I really am very grateful for you both coming on and sharing your experiences today with the listeners for the podcast. So thank you.David Field: You're more than welcome, Kelly.Lisa Robshaw: Thanks, Kelly.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. if you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
This week Lauren and Bri have a ✨one of a kind✨ guest, our first male on the show, Neal Reddy. Such a great interview and amazing conversation. He comes with big host energy
This episode we’re talking about paint with the brilliant Kate Nichols, who tells us about how paint figures in her current project, a global history of Victorian art. We chat about what paint is and what it is made from, alongside some broader contexts such as portability, gender, messiness, animal-human relations, and global trade.
Andrew Pierce talks to Kate Nichols, Chief Executive of UK Hospitality on plans to abandon the tier system (and what it could mean for Britain's hard-hit pubs and restaurants), and speaks to the Mail's Jan Moir on the spectacle of 'influencers' stranded in Dubai. Plus, Celebrity Bake Off returns with a truly glittering line-up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A talk with Kate Nichols. We take a walk through her life. She touches on all things, from her childhood, to performing, from growing pains, to loss, to juggling comedy and her career. She is extraordinary!
A very different style of episode this week. Rather than a detailed conversation with one awesome human of hospitality we have 9 great humans, most of whom have been previous guests. And we have just one topic of conversation. Why they are supporting the campaign for a Minister for Hospitality. This campaign was launched by Claire Bosi but had been sat languishing at around 38k signatures on the government petition website. To be debated in parliament 100k signatures are required. Robin Hutson, CEO of Home Grown Hotels organised a call last week with over 100 very well connected hospitality professionals, and working with some of his graduate trainees as well as some well known faces of the hospitality sector such as Tom Kerridge and Angela Hartnett, launched the ‘seat at the table’ campaign. These nine people, who between them employ tens of thousands of people, but represent an industry of millions, will give you their perspectives on why they want a better seat at the table. Whilst recognising the great work that Kate Nichols and UK Hospitality have achieved, we’d like someone on the inside, as well as the outside of government. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing their perspectives and I hope you will be motivated to visit www.seatatthetable.org.uk where you can find a link to the petition and support the other social media accounts around this campaign. Whilst the petition has now exceeded 100k we want to significantly exceed this target to give every chance of this being successful and a senior minister, rather than token gesture being appointed. 4 min 50 sec - Robin Hutson - CEO The Pig Hotel & Limewood Hotel Visit 12 min 20 sec - Simon Potts - CEO The Alchemist Visit 23 min 20 sec - Danny Pecorelli - MD Exclusive Collection Visit 30 min 20 sec - Juliane Caillouette-Noble - Acting MD of Sustainable Restaurant Association Visit 38 min 50 sec - Sally Beck - GM Royal Lancaster London Visit 47 min 10 sec - Andrew Stembridge - Executive Director Iconic Luxury Hotels Visit 56 min 20 sec - Robin Sheppard - President Bespoke Hotels Visit 1hr 5 min 20 sec - Peter Ducker - Chief Executive Institute of Hospitality Visit 1hr 5 min 25 sec - Gary Jones - Executive Head Chef - Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons Visit
We catch up with Kate Nichols to see any quarantine tips she has for us, we talk about the hatchet wielding hitchhiker named Kai, and of course Kate helps us through a mental breakdown. I say this is coming out Wednesday, but it's Friday and LIFE BALANCE IS DIFFICULT.
Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [almartintalksdata@gmail.com] and tell us why you should be next. AbstractThis week on Making Data Simple, we have a returning guest and former producer. Kate Nichols, Content Design Manager at IBM, walks us through the importance of content design and product usability. She discusses different workflow techniques and measures that allow teams to gauge effectiveness. Listen in to discover why content design is critical to product experience and ultimately, success. Connect with KateLinkedInTwitterShow Notes02:15 - Listen to our episode with Rob Thomas here. 02:26 - Listen to the intern episode here.09:37 - Check out this article on Solving problems with good content design.18:11 - Take a look at this article on The importance of design in tech & business. 26:00 - Here's an article on confessions of a content designer. Connect with the TeamProducer Liam Seston - LinkedIn.Producer Lana Cosic - LinkedIn.Producer Meighann Helene - LinkedIn. Producer Kate Brown - LinkedIn.Producer Allison Proctor - LinkedIn.Producer Mark Simmonds - LinkedIn. Producer Michael Sestak - LinkedIn.Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.
Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [almartintalksdata@gmail.com] and tell us why you should be next. AbstractThis week on Making Data Simple, we have a returning guest and former producer. Kate Nichols, Content Design Manager at IBM, walks us through the importance of content design and product usability. She discusses different workflow techniques and measures that allow teams to gauge effectiveness. Listen in to discover why content design is critical to product experience and ultimately, success. Connect with KateLinkedInTwitterShow Notes02:15 - Listen to our episode with Rob Thomas here. 02:26 - Listen to the intern episode here.09:37 - Check out this article on Solving problems with good content design.18:11 - Take a look at this article on The importance of design in tech & business. 26:00 - Here's an article on confessions of a content designer. Connect with the TeamProducer Liam Seston - LinkedIn.Producer Lana Cosic - LinkedIn.Producer Meighann Helene - LinkedIn. Producer Kate Brown - LinkedIn.Producer Allison Proctor - LinkedIn.Producer Mark Simmonds - LinkedIn. Producer Michael Sestak - LinkedIn.Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.
SUPER DUPER BOWL II! LIVE, from House of Independents in Asbury Park, NJ! Taylor & Steve are joined by comedians Angelo Gingerelli & Kate Nichols, to break down the first quarter of the Super Bowl! We are also joined by Melissa Jouben & Dan Gagliardi (WARM THINGS), and Jeff Plate from Asbury Park Brewery! The Ref for this, and each quarter of SDB2 is Mike Zapcic! This episode is brought to you by Asbury Park Brewery! Grab a Sea Dragon TODAY(if you are of legal drinking age, OF COURSE)!
Nice Guys has our first guest! It's Kate Nichols - Comedian, Therapist, Legend. Taj, Pat & Kate check in on the murderous orphan, the state of mental health (with a therapist), and most of all EACH OTHER Thank you for listening - like, subscribe and tell a friend
The authors of Machine Learning for Dummies – Judith Hurwitz, and Daniel Kirsch — are here to help you.In this episode, Judith, Daniel and Al discuss the state of machine learning today, how to use it to advance your business as well as discoveries they made while writing their book. Learn how small and large businesses alike can find insights from data to enhance relationships with customers. We’ll also share where you can get a copy of Machine Learning for Dummies at no cost.Show notes01.00 Connect with Al Martin on Twitter and LinkedIn.01.10 Connect with Kate Nichols on Twitter and LinkedIn.01.15 Connect with Fatima Sirhindi on Twitter and LinkedIn.02.00 Learn more about Hurwitz & Associates.02.10 Connect with Judith Hurwitz on Twitter, LinkedIn and find her blog here.03.20 Connect with Daniel Kirsch on Twitter and Hurwitz & Associates04.00 Read Machine Learning for Dummiesby Judith Hurwitz and Daniel Kirsch.04.40 Learn what neural nets are here.04.50 Learn more about Arthur Samuel here.05.00 Learn more about how Deep Blue beat the world chess champion.15.39 Learn more about Apache Hadoop. 17.30 Learn more about IBM Watson.26.50 Find Cognitive Computing and Big Data Analytics by Judith Hurwitz, Marcia Kaufman and Adrian Bowles.27.45 FindEverybody Lies: Big Data, New Data and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.
The authors of Machine Learning for Dummies – Judith Hurwitz, and Daniel Kirsch — are here to help you.In this episode, Judith, Daniel and Al discuss the state of machine learning today, how to use it to advance your business as well as discoveries they made while writing their book. Learn how small and large businesses alike can find insights from data to enhance relationships with customers. We’ll also share where you can get a copy of Machine Learning for Dummies at no cost.Show notes01.00 Connect with Al Martin on Twitter and LinkedIn.01.10 Connect with Kate Nichols on Twitter and LinkedIn.01.15 Connect with Fatima Sirhindi on Twitter and LinkedIn.02.00 Learn more about Hurwitz & Associates.02.10 Connect with Judith Hurwitz on Twitter, LinkedIn and find her blog here.03.20 Connect with Daniel Kirsch on Twitter and Hurwitz & Associates04.00 Read Machine Learning for Dummiesby Judith Hurwitz and Daniel Kirsch.04.40 Learn what neural nets are here.04.50 Learn more about Arthur Samuel here.05.00 Learn more about how Deep Blue beat the world chess champion.15.39 Learn more about Apache Hadoop. 17.30 Learn more about IBM Watson.26.50 Find Cognitive Computing and Big Data Analytics by Judith Hurwitz, Marcia Kaufman and Adrian Bowles.27.45 FindEverybody Lies: Big Data, New Data and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.
Bees, Pubes, Elephant trumpets... all sorts of wiedness happening here. And yet, a lesser rapper couldn't pull it off. Thats why Missy Elliot is a gift. We hear about a new YouTube Channel "Sex Parts with Kate Nichols," so long as there isn't already a "Sex Parts with Fate Pickles," out there already. For whom is Missy shaving her cha-cha (Cho-cha?) Who knows? The pube truthers demand an answer! Second great idea: a lift-and-shape thong for your ba-donk-a-donk-donk. Did Missy just assume she could speak Chinese? This song is a clasic that still holds up E-mail: DecompositionPod@gmail.com Kate Nichols on Instagram: instagram.com/ohheykatenichols Twitter: @Decomp_Pod Rate and review on iTunes/ Apple Podcasts; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decomposition-podcast/id1214062072 Decomposition LIVE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decomposition-podcast-live-tickets-63364070641
A heavily edited episode this week due to the arrival of Taylor's new daughter, Roxanne! We play a handful of favorite moments from the show! Featuring Dan Gagliardi, Kate Nichols, Angelo Gingerelli, Ryan Barry, Melissa Jouben, Ming Chen, Joe McAndrew, and us! Also, pretty sure our kids make some appearances in this one!
STEVE IS BACK BABY! We talk some sports, and are joined by the best aunts around, Aunt Angela and Aunt Gail! Always an incredible time to be joined by the best aunts a boy could have!
A SUPER DUPER BOWL! Quarter One! Comedians Kate Nichols and Angelo Gingerelli join us at House of Independents, in Asbury Park, NJ, to cover the 1st quarter of this year's big game!
Sluts, shame, sex, and everything that goes along with it. Kate Nicholls talks about owning her sexuality and reclaiming the word, while Jackie and Rosie check in with Jen about how that works with power, self-esteem, and feminism. Buckle up for a sexy ride! Check out guest Kate Nichols on IG: @katenichollzz and TW: @Kate_Nicholls Follow host Rosie Guarino on Instagram @rosiegu and host Jackie Viscusi @jackieviscusi. And you can follow our resident therapist on Instagram @letsaskjen. Disclaimer: Am I An A**hole is for entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for actual theraputic advice. Subscribe and rate the show 5 stars on iTunes!
This week the boys are joined by the lovely and wonderful, Kate Nichols, to discuss all things FANDOM. Also, we talk about crying quite a bit.
It's a confrontation or intervention with Jon to prove that there is a scene in New Jersey. Silent NJ native, Kevin Hurley, teams with Jersey comedians, Shafer Ward and Kate Nichols, to bring the issue to rest. Includes a lively discussion of what is "comedy success" defined and a great piece of advice from Chris Gethard.
Ellen Saksen and her sister Kate Nichols were prolific business travelers. They travelled frequently, often solo, and they were very, very lonely. It was difficult finding and connected with amazing people, and doing it in a safe way, while out on the road so much. This is why they sat down and created the app Amelia. It is an app to help connect busy solo women travelers to like-minded people. Meet new people while on the road, see and explore the new country you’re in, and do it all in a safe way! Key Takeaways: *When was Ellen’s first solo journey? *How did Ellen manage work plus travel? Did she have any challenges with that? *What were some of the perks of traveling for business? *It can be very easy to get lonely while traveling. How did Ellen manage it? *Being lonely while traveling is one of the reasons why Ellen created the Amelia App to help connect with other like-minded people. *Who are Ellen’s users? *What is Go Jane Go about? *The Amelia app is now live but it is still in beta. Go check it out, test it, and email Ellen any questions you might have! *Is loneliness just a problem or concern with U.S.-based travelers? *What’s next for Ellen? Does she have any solo trips planned? Mentioned in This Episode: Transformviatravel.com Transform via Travel on Facebook @GoSoloLive on Twitter Email: Jennifer@TransformviaTravel.com Patreon.com/gosololive Connect with Ellen: Amelia-app.com Gojanego.co Email: ESaksen@GoJaneGo.co Leave a Review: Did you like this episode? Please leave an honest review on iTunes with your feedback! Also, please subscribe to the Go Solo Live podcast on iTunes, to get notified when a new episode gets released. I appreciate your listening to this week’s show. And tune in next week for another great guest.
A companion to ":Color By Nano – The Art of Kate Nichols"
Is it possible to recreate the true color of a butterfly's wing? Artist Kate Nichols is exploring this question and more as she takes color to a new level—the nano level. As the first artist-in-residence at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Nichols is experimenting with nanotechnology to create an extraordinary color phenomenon known as "structural color."
Artist Kate Nichols longed to paint with the iridescent colors of butterfly wings, but no such pigments existed. So she became the first artist-in-residence at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to synthesize nanoparticles and incorporate them into her artwork.
In September 2010, GALLERY CRAWL interviewed artist Kate Nichols about her work using nanotechnology to create "structural color" for her artwork. We visited Nichols at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she is the first artist-in-residence.
Artist Kate Nichols longed to paint with the iridescent colors of butterfly wings, but no such pigments existed. So she became the first artist-in-residence at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to synthesize nanoparticles and incorporate them into her artwork.
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