Podcasts about national memorial arboretum

After a chilly January in the UK, the days are starting to lengthen and there's signs of life as bulbs are pushing through the soil. DIG IT's Peter Brown and Chris Day discuss news, events and gardening tasks for the gardening month ahead.What's onSaturday 1st February Buckingham Garden Centre's Grow & Grow Day, 10am-4pm. Saturday 1st February to Sunday 2nd March: Peruvian Orchid Spectacular at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London. The Plant Fair Roadshows are back in full swing with the first event of the year on Sunday 2nd February at Hole Park, Rolvenden, Kent, on Sunday 2nd February.Running until 13th April: Soil - The World at Our Feet Exhibition at the Embankment Galleries, South Wing, Somerset House in London.Saturday 15th February – Sunday 23rd February: Exhibited during Eco-Week at Hever Castle & Gardens, Earth Photo will be featuring work by some of the best photographers from around the world.Thursday 20th February: Monty Don in conversation with Sophie Raworth online or in person at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington, London, SW7 2AR. 7pm. 20th - 22nd February: Shepton Snowdrop Festival, Somerset. Free event.Discover snowdrops across the UK. NewsBritain's oldest RHS Garden is calling for compensation from the Government as it faces a ‘catastrophic' £11m loss - thanks to roadworks.Home to 100-year-old specimens, the 60-acre Coton Orchard, the largest traditional orchard in Cambridgeshire and 8th largest in the country is at risk of becoming a new bus lane. Two plant collections - Amelanchier and Witch hazel National collections have been accredited at National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.Monty Don's new British Gardens series airs on the BBC.Sarah Dyke MP's Horticultural Peat (Prohibition of Sale) Bill has been pushed back to a later date. Kew Gardens and partner scientists have identified more than 170 new species in 2024New Year's Honours for garden industry figures including Gill Hodgson founder of Flowers From the Farm and Alan Titchmarsh, CBEScotland consults on its peat-free future.Latest Thompson & Morgan survey suggests garden expenditure is set to increase in 2025.More crystal ball gazing from the RHS with its gardening predictions.Eden Project appoints 'horticultural showman' Peter Jones.Kew build two advanced glasshouses to help in major restoration projects.David Domoney becomes new brand ambassador for Keder Greenhouses.Guiness World Records searches for world's oldest glasshouse.Forest England biodiversity study reveals DNA secrets.Butterflies heading north says NatureScot.RSPB suspends sale of flat bird feeders.Suttons given the Royal Warrant of Approval.Plants mentioned: Broad bean The Sutton, New Fothergill's Oh Sow Simple range, Seed Potatoes, Pea Meteor, Sweet Peas, Carnivorous plants (Venus flytraps), Carrot Amsterdam Forcing, Asparagus crowns, root-wrapped roses, celebration roses, strawberry runners and raspberry canes can be established now, Lilies, Dahlias, Begonia corms and Hosta. Hardwood cuttings Buddleja, Dogwoods, Forsythia, Philadelphus (Mock Orange), Roses and Salix (Willows).Products mentioned: Westland New Horizon Compost, Melcourt SylvaGrow Composts, horticultural fleece, Haxnicks jackets, raised beds and water butts. Dig It Top 5: Our Top selling Fothergills flower seeds of last year. No5 ‘RHS Flowers for Insects Mix', No4 Sunflower ‘Giant Single', No3 Sweet Pea ‘Old Spice Mixed', 2nd place Poppy ‘Victoria Cross' and at No1 ‘RHS Flowers for Wildlife Bright Mix'.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for supply the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this month's DIG IT Peter Brown discusses the latest news in the world of gardening, what's on's and as the winter kicks in, Chris and Peter look at those gardening tasks to keep your garden looking its best this month and beyond.Places to visit:Winter Flowers Week at the Garden Museum, LondonNational Memorial Arboretum mile long light trailAlnwick Castle lights showCambridge University Botanic Garden Light showKew Gardens Lights ShowPlants Mentioned:The Welsh Bramley - Gabalfa Apple, RosePerfumy Silueta Rose bred by Kordes Rosen wins several categories in Rochfords International Rose TrialsThe Woodland Trust Highlights the plight of our Native trees and encourages planting more.Collections of Hamamelis, Amelanchier and Eucalyptus held at the National Memorial Arboretum and Ventnor Botanic Gardens gain National Plant Collection status.Skippinish Oak wins the Woodland Trusts tree of the year competitionLace Bug pest spotted in LondonGarden Organic searches for comfreyA new Palm Tahina Spectablis arrives at the Eden project60 000 snowdrops planted at the National Trust property Montacute House in SomersetJane Steward champions the medlar and tries to raise its profile In the news:Cruser SB Neonicotinoid Thiamethoxam has been licensed for use on Sugar Beet in the UK despite being banned in the EU.British Horticulture will have to bear increased costs on imports due to the Common User ChargeInverary Castle wins Prestigious Gardens AwardHaig Hall in Wigan undergoes restorationBath wins prestigious RHS Britian in Bloom award for the second time, Wrexham won a Gold award for the City and Forres in Scotland also won the town award.Defra's latest Data indicates a fall in Bird speciesGreen Allotments offer a chance to win an Allotment site to try and help increase the number of allotments in the UKThe National Gardens Scheme announce gardens to visit in the New YearGreenfingers charity has a new president who takes over from Sue AllenAllett mowers announce the 2024 winner for the Creative Stripes competition We announce our support of Ripple Africa again this festive period. Our special thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for supplying the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can I stop my dog from digging holes in my garden? What conditions do walnut trees grow best in? If you could lose one pest from your garden, what would it be? Peter Gibbs and a team of experts are in Staffordshire, to solve the gardening conundrums of the audience. Returning to the National Memorial Arboretum with Peter are grow-your-own legend Bob Flowerdew, pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood and garden designer Bunny Guinness.Later in the programme, is your garden on an gradient? Garden designer Matthew Wilson provides tricks and tips on the best way to effectively garden on an incline.Producer: Dan Cocker
 Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod
 Executive Producer: Carly MaileA Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

Do the panel have any idea of who or what has stolen our apples? When is the best time to plant my Prunus Incisa? How do I successfully grow fennel?Peter Gibbs and his team of gardening experts visit The National Memorial Arboretum, to solve the gardening queries of the audience. On the panel this week are grow-your-own legend Bob Flowerdew, pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood and garden designer Bunny Guinness.Later in the programme, Bunny discusses planting for remembrance with the National Memorial Arboretum's head of estates Andy Ansell, as they explore 150 acres of reflective spaces.Producer: Dan Cocker Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod Executive Producer: Carly MaileA Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

This week's guests are James Cairncross and Angela Lewis from the Midlands Parks Forum which has its annual conference on the 17th of October at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Highlights include keynote speaker Dr. William Bird, a GP who contributed to a select committee report on access to green space who will speak on health benefits of physical activity and green spaces."Other speakers include people from MHCLG, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Heritage Lottery Fund, and also some experience from out in the real world, such as Islington Borough Council" Angela explains and she outlines workshops also to be run at the event.James addresses the "perennial problem" of parks budget cuts. "Despite there being quite a clear return on any investment in parks, local authority officers are still struggling to protect what they've got, let alone improve the funding for green spaces."Our chair of trustees Liz Stuffins attended the previous Government's DEFRA inquiry into urban parks, and they found that both the quality and the quantity of urban parks are in quite serious decline.This exacerbates the skills shortages suffered by the parks sector but The Midlands Park Forum aims to help overcome this by offering learning events, the conference and webinars "focused on the skills and competencies in a framework that aligns with the Landscape Institute's framework on competencies identifying over 60 skills in six categories, which we've identified as being important for a good park manager. And it's not just about cutting grass. This is people skills, environmental stewardship, income and finance, future visioning and planning, and all the competencies that go with being a professional."The lack and loss of expertise in the sector combined with budget cuts means some parks "are already losing their green flag awards because the authorities can just no longer attain the quality that's needed to keep those award...some councils now can't even afford the cost of the application, let alone the quality".With a new Government installed, James acknowledges parks will have to "join the queue" when asking for more state funding but top of his list of asks is "a national urban parks strategy and it needs to be integrated into public health because the benefits of that are both obvious." Close behind is a wish that the Green Jobs Task Force be expanded to include the green spaces sector.They discuss best practice in the sector and for Angela it means "local spaces that can become the hub of the local community and making sure that people do look at different collaborations locally, whether that's with local charities providing physical activity and exercise or local charities that provide volunteers to look after the green spaces and just making sure that all those things are considered in terms of local people having that space that they've got within 15 minutes of home".For the future, the Forum wants to "continue to deliver quality service to members" including CPD offerings, via learning events and knowledge sharing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris catches up with Dr Mark Knight to talk about an exciting discovery at The National Memorial Arboretum. A short film telling the story of the project will be soon available for viewing.

The founder of Ride to the Wall (RTTW) joins the HOG-POD to tell us a little bit about himself, his connection to Harley-Davidson and how, as the founder, the Ride to The Wall is now an annual motorcycle event that touches the lives of tens of thousands of people.From the humble beginnings of just a handful of bikes, the ride To The Wall has grown year on year in both size, popularity and importance to tens of thousands of people known as 'Wallers'.  They join together to remember the  of the lives and sacrifices of the men and women that have been lost their lives in service of our country at the National Memorial Arboretum, the Wall.Ride to the Wall received the Queens Award for Voluntary Service, recognising the effort of both Martin, and the now 300 strong team of volunteers which make this event possible each year.Now 16 years strong, Ride To The Wall has, in Martin's words, 'remained pure', with no commercial or corporate element involved.  On purely the donations and purchases of RTTW merchandise by the growing family of Wallers, the Charity remains dedicated to it's core values.You can find out more about this amazing charity through the links below and you can also join them in 2023 and become part of this unique family.Link to the National Memorial Arboretumhttps://www.thenma.org.uk/Links to the Ride To The Wall Websitehttps://www.rttw.orghttps://www.rttw.org/scroll_of_remembrance.phphttps://www.rttw.org/rttw_code_of_conduct.phphttps://www.rttw.org/clubs_attending.phphttps://www.rttw.org/start_locations.phpYou can also instantly donate to the Charity and be part of the £1m+ raised for the upkeep of the ArboretumText RTTW08 £5 to 70070 @nationalmemorialarboretuma1749 #ridetothewall #rttw #harleydavidson #charity #armedforces #britisharmy #royalnavy #royalairforce

This time we're sharing how we're getting on with our RHS School Gardening Awards, going for a windy walk in the woods, getting excited about chemical reactions and reviewing the coding activity book we were gifted. Eden's also sharing about her backstage trip to the Wolverhampton Grand theatre, and our family trip to the National Memorial Arboretum.

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.ukhospitality.org.uk/https://twitter.com/UKHospKatehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-nicholls-093b0514/ Kate Nicholls is CEO of UKHospitality, the powerful voice representing the broad hospitality sector, having previously worked as CEO and Strategic Affairs Director of the ALMR.In July 2019, Kate was appointed Chair of the Tourism Alliance, the membership organisation for the tourism industry comprising of leading trade associations/trade bodies within the sector. Kate is also Chair of Mayor of London's Night Time Commission and is also a member of the Events Industry Board, London Food Board, Tourism Industry Council, Cultural Cities Enquiry, London & Partners Members Group and the Advisory Board for the Institute for Industrial Strategy.After gaining a degree in English and a post-graduate diploma in competition law, Kate worked as a researcher in the House of Commons and European Parliament before joining Whitbread as Government Relations Manager, starting her career in hospitality in 1993. Kate was Director at one of the largest independent public affairs companies, working with a number of hospitality, retail and leisure accounts before establishing her own strategic communications consultancy in 2000. She is a graduate of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and Kings College London.A highly motivated Board-level adviser with a proven track record in devising and delivering strategic public policy and communication campaigns. Over 25 years experience working in a variety of government, corporate, agency and freelance roles. 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 Kate Nicholls, CEO of UKHospitality and the Co-chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. Kate answers your burning questions on how to attract and maintain talent in the current challenging climate. If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Kate, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I know how incredibly busy you are, so I'm very grateful.Kate Nicholls: Thank you. It's great to be with you. I don't think I've had any time in the last two years really where it hasn't been incredibly busy, so it's good to take some time out and have a chance to have a chat. So thank you for having me.Kelly Molson: You are very welcome. You are very welcome. I'm glad I could give you that time. Right, Kate, icebreaker questions, because this is where we start all of our podcast interviews. I want to know what is at the top of your bucket list?Kate Nicholls: Ooh, well, for the last two summers we'd been planning ... My eldest was just about to go to University when COVID hit, and for the last two summers we'd been planning to go to Costa Rica as a sort of last big family holiday. And of course that's been canceled for the last two years. So top of my bucket list at the moment is to go on holiday with my two daughters, ideally Costa Rica, but actually I'd settle for anywhere at the moment. I haven't really had a proper break. But yeah, Costa Rica.Kelly Molson: Costa Rica, definitely. Yeah. I hear you. I feel like anywhere with some sun right now would probably do you the world a good, Kate.Kate Nicholls: Exactly.Kelly Molson: Okay. If you could bring back any fashion trend, what would it be?Kate Nicholls: Well, to be fair, they've never gone away from my wardrobe, but I would really like to bring back the wrap dress. They were such a good staple for anybody who worked in the '80s and '90s and the early '00s. Quite like to bring them back as a major fashion trend.Kelly Molson: Yeah, good. Can't go wrong with a wrap dress, can you? Boots, wrap dress, cardie, done.Kate Nicholls: You can't. Very forgiving, pair with boots or heels or flats or trainers, and you can just adjust it according to how you're feeling during the week.Kelly Molson: It's the perfect work-to-evening outfit. They're perfect.Kate Nicholls: Exactly.Kelly Molson: Okay, Kate, and this might be a little bit like asking you what your favourite child is, but I want to know what your favourite restaurant is?Kate Nicholls: Oh, that's the difficult one because it changes so much depending on how I'm feeling and the time of day and what I'm doing. But during the lockdown, my local Korean cafe has been my go-to place for getting a quick fix, some comfort food, and they've kept me going throughout lockdown. I'm a big fan of street food.Kelly Molson: Oh yeah, love street food. We have a really big street food community in Cambridge, actually, and it's just amazing, isn't it? Like being able to try all those different cuisines in one place? Fantastic.Kate Nicholls: It is. It is. And I think I've got kind of a butterfly brain, so being able to go try lots of little things, lots of little samples and eat that kind of stuff is great. But the other thing we did do over the summer, my daughter and I, we went and celebrated the new three Michelin star female chefs that we had in London that were awarded. So again, I go from street food to high-end.Kelly Molson: Love it. Absolutely love it. Okay, Kate, it's unpopular opinion time. I ask everybody that comes on the podcast to share an unpopular opinion with us. It can be humorous, can be serious, whatever it needs to have to be your unpopular opinion.Kate Nicholls: Well, I did think long and hard about this one because there are so many unpopular opinions I think I could have. But if I'm sort of talking about the biggest one that would sort of divide a lot of people, cats are better than dogs. I'm really not a dog person.Kelly Molson: Oh, okay.Kate Nicholls: That's going to be controversial and split.Kelly Molson: It's very controversial. And I'm not going to lie, I've got two dogs, so I am a dog person. But Kate, my dogs are a nightmare at the moment. We've had a flea situation this year. I've got a very noisy little dachshund who is absolutely filthy. The weather is disgusting. You have to go out with them all the time. Cats are sounding more and more appealing to me by the day.Kate Nicholls: Cats are sort of neat, clean, undemanding. They're not as problematic as dogs. I always think dogs, you feel as though you've got another kid in the house. I mean, my unpopular opinion is based on the fact that I did have a nasty encounter with a dog when I was little, so I am quite scared of them. But yeah, dogs are not as good as cats.Kelly Molson: All right. Well, let's see what our listeners think. I'm not going to lie because it's the time of year I'm swaying towards a swaying cat, Kate. Yeah. You might have changed my opinion there. Nice. Listen, thank you again for coming on the podcast. I really do appreciate it. I mean, I'd be super gobsmacked if anybody that's listening to this podcast episode doesn't know who you are, but just give us a little brief overview of what your role is at the moment, just to explain how critical it has been over the past couple of years.Kate Nicholls: Yeah. So I'm currently Chief Executive at UKHospitality. That's the national trade body that represents hospitality operators and businesses and employers. And so we have 700 member companies. Between them, they operate just over 100,000 outlets across the UK, from a single-site pub, coffee shop, cafe, restaurant, park bar, hotel, holiday accommodation, right the way through to the national chains.Kate Nicholls: Our role as the trade body is to be the voice and face of the industry to promote the sector as a great place to grow, work, and invest, to engage with the government, to make sure we've got the most supportive regulatory and tax environment within which businesses can thrive and survive. And then to provide insight, advice, and guidance to our members on the way in which they can operate to be compliant and to help their businesses grow.Kate Nicholls: And so normally that's quite a broad-based role, but it was really front and centre as soon as COVID hit because clearly, we've got inbound tourism. We've got hotels that were hit first. City centre restaurants, pubs, and bars started to feel the effects of COVID back in February. And really since February ... I mean my first meeting on COVID with the government was the 28th of January last year.Kate Nicholls: And since then, it's been pretty full-on making sure that in real-time we can present the views, concerns, impact of COVID on our business sector and try and make sure that we get the support needed to sustain those businesses, to maintain the employment, to protect jobs within the industry when we've been so hard hit by COVID.Kate Nicholls: So really a big role with government, meeting government ministers and officials two, three, four times a week at the height of the crisis, and also being on the media to try and explain what the impact is of what appeared to be relatively small scale changes, what big impact that can have on business viability and really spelling it out to make sure that people understand what that means potentially longer term in terms of viable businesses, the economy, employment in the UK.Kelly Molson: And, as I said, you have been the spokesperson for the sector throughout the pandemic. And I have to say, Kate, you were in my top five Twitter accounts that I followed continuously throughout. So I had Kate's, I had Bernard Donoghue, I had ALVA, ASVA and Blooloop. And that was my top five to find out what the hell was going on in the sectors that we worked in. So thank you so much for sharing and for doing that role.Kelly Molson: So what I want to talk about today is about attracting and retaining talent within the attractions and hospitality sectors. But I guess, from a ... I don't run an attraction. I work with them. I'm an associate in that sector. So I guess I want to ask a couple of questions about the general public and what we can do right now.Kelly Molson: So we have a situation in our local town. I live in a town called Saffron Walden just outside Cambridge, a beautiful town, a market town, lots of lovely pubs. One of my favourite pubs, which is one of a chain, has had to close for a good couple of months now. And essentially, it closed because some of its other restaurants were so overwhelmed and so busy but so short-staffed that they had to redistribute staff from our pub to their pubs.Kelly Molson: And I guess that's happening in a lot of different places as well. So if we're unable to book a table because a venue is short-staffed, what can we, as the general public, do right now to support the sector?Kate Nicholls: Well, I think it does highlight a challenge that the industry has got. It's more acute in certain parts of the country, but up until Omicron hit and we were all going back eating and drinking out more regularly, the industry as a whole just did not have sufficient labour to be able to operate at full strength. So a quarter of our businesses in the same situation as the one you just describe saying that they were having to restrict hours, cut covers, not open for certain days of the week, turn away bookings simply because they didn't have the staff.Kate Nicholls: So I think as the general public, what we can do with those businesses is try and be a bit more creative in supporting them. Is there a different time that we can book? Because everybody tries to book dinner or lunch at the same time. Can we spread it out a little bit throughout the day? Can we look at going for early suppers or late suppers or brunches or afternoons? If we can't, then can we help them in other ways if they're still doing takeaway, if they're still doing delivery, we can support our businesses in that way. Or booking ahead in advance and making sure that we take out gift cards and those kinds of creative solutions some of our businesses have done where you can get cash through the tills and book two or three meals in advance.Kate Nicholls: So that's a main bit of support. The second thing is that if you do have a booking and your plans change and you can't make it, let them know, and let them know in sufficient time. Because we still are getting quite a lot of no-shows that people make these bookings, something changes. Plans always change, we do know that, but people aren't letting them know. And particularly at the moment when you've got larger scale bookings for Christmas, people will have bought that food in well in advance and will start cooking it well in advance, so you do need to let them know the day before or at least a good couple of hours before if you can't make your booking, and then they can pass it onto somebody on a waiting list.Kelly Molson: That actually leads to another question is how is the sector feeling right now? So with Omicron, with the Christmas rush, what's the general mood like in the hospitality sector at the moment? Are we seeing a lot of people booking, cancelling reservations that they have for large groups of people? Is it quieter than it should be?Kate Nicholls: Quieter than it would be at a normal Christmas. So even before we had Omicron, we knew that we weren't having the same level of bookings as we were seeing Christmas 2019 and previously, so trade is down. We have seen cancellations. They're running at about 10% at the moment, and we have seen a downturn in footfall over the last week. Not just for those bookings and corporate events, Christmas parties, Christmas socials, but just a more general decline in walk-in bookings and walk-in activity. So we are seeing revenues down over the course of the last week, 15, 20%, and that's as a result of the uncertainty.Kate Nicholls: There's a high degree of nervousness within the industry and a great degree of fear at the moment because we've all been in this situation before. Sadly, this time last year, people will have invested heavily to be able to open and operate at Christmas, and unless you get that Christmas trade-in, it can be very damaging to the businesses. They rely on having a good December in order to get them through the quieter months of January to March. And without that good December, there are many businesses that will undoubtedly go to the wall. What should be a very optimistic and hopeful time has, in the space of a week, turned to be very uncertain and very concerning.Kelly Molson: Okay. So look, some great advice there from Kate. If we can look at when you're booking, changing times, if you can look at supporting your local restaurants by booking gift vouchers, for example, or if they are doing takeaway, please do do that and let's try and get them through this really difficult period that we're seeing.Kelly Molson: Now Kate, as I said, I want to talk about attracting and retaining talent in the visitor attraction sector. I don't run an attraction. So what I did, and what I thought was a good idea, is to ask some of the past guests that have been on to ask me to ask you questions. And I've had some fantastic questions in from many of the different guests that we've had on. So let me just ask you a few of the things that have come in. Gordon Morrison, the CEO of ASVA, and Adam Goymour, park director at ROARR! Dinosaur Adventure, actually had really, really similar questions. So let me read out what Gordon wrote over because he puts it far more eloquently than I ever could.Kelly Molson: So Gordon said, "Staff are the beating heart of every tourism business and can undoubtedly make the visitor experience memorable both positively and negatively. As we face up to what is quite possibly the most difficult recruitment and retention environment in the tourism industry has ever seen, is it right that we should continue to rely on our people so heavily to deliver outstanding experiences? And if so, how do we ensure that our businesses are attractive, and how do we keep that top talent in the industry?"Kate Nicholls: I think this is the number one issue that all operators are grappling with at the moment as we come out and we've got a very tight labour market and we've got a real battle just to get staff in, nevermind the battle for talent that we had going into COVID. So we were already facing those challenges. I do think what we need to do is to use COVID as a reset moment and look again at our ways of working, style of working, what we're expecting of people. This gives us an opportunity to revise terms and conditions and to look again at hours of work in the sector to make sure that we are being as flexible as we possibly can and we are being as responsive as we possibly can to what new recruits are telling us.Kate Nicholls: Because we've got lots of new, younger people coming into the industry, many have had no experience before and are questioning, quite rightly, some of the ways that we do things. So particularly in food and beverages and things like that, less so in attractions, but you do get some antisocial hours. You do get double shifts. And people have different ways of paying people. And I think the labour scheduling and the flexibility that we can provide should be a positive rather than it being something that holds us back.Kate Nicholls: So I do think we can look again at making sure that we are as attractive as we possibly can be and that we've got our best foot forward. I think secondly, what we need to be doing as an industry is to look after the sector's employer brand. Individual business is very good at doing this, promoting themselves as a career of choice, but we want to get across the fact that we're a career and we have a great plethora of opportunities available to people if they come and work within our businesses.Kate Nicholls: Because we're an industry largely of small and independent businesses, we don't have the size and scale, but I think we can look again at the sector branding to be able to make sure we put the best foot forward, that we describe how important it is as a career, how meritocratic it is. Because there's no sector likes ours that provides young people with such opportunity where you can come in with limited experience, limited qualifications and skills. We will upskill you very rapidly and you can move into management within about two years. There's no other sector that will give you that level of responsibility and authority at such a young age and at such a low level within the business, and the pay and salary that goes alongside it.Kate Nicholls: So I think there's more we can do around that in terms of communicating career of choice. And also communicating that even if you only want to come with us for a short time, we will equip you with common transferrable skills that other employers will find valuable; business, finance, people management, leadership, conflict management. You get that by working in hospitality businesses and visitor economy businesses, again, at a very low entry-level, and these are soft skills, people skills that are valuable at all levels.Kate Nicholls: And then the final element is about making sure that we do invest in our people, that we do train them to provide continuing professional development and we invest in leadership and management as people go through. We're very good at taking people at entry-level and doing the immediate skills and training they need to be able to function. We need to look at how we can continue to invest in those people. That's what young people particularly are looking for from careers and employers now.Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting what you said about the soft skills as well, because I think that one of the best starts that I ever had to my working career was working in hospitality and in retail because it gave me so much experience of understanding how to talk to people, how to communicate with people. And from that customer service perspective as well. I think it gave me such a good grounding in my career, and all of those skills I learnt then, I've taken through into what I do now in terms of sales and an account management role.Kate Nicholls: Absolutely. And if you think about some of the young people who've been most affected by COVID and had their schooling disrupted, their social lives disrupted for a couple of years, those are the skills that they are lacking. When teachers are talking about young people coming back into school, it's time management. It's personnel skills. It's social skills. It's communication. That's what they get from us.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Completely, completely agree. Mark Ellis, who's the interim lead at the National Memorial Arboretum, actually has asked a question that picks up on some of your earlier points there. He says that, "One of the outcomes of the industry-wide staffing shortage is that staff are able to negotiate a better work-life balance, which is a really good thing. Ultimately that is going to lead to better conditions throughout the industry, hopefully, more job satisfaction, higher standards and a better customer experience." Mark asks, "Do you think that we will see the appearance of some widely-accepted examples of best practice?" So things like how businesses will manage seasonal contracts or flexible hours or unsociable hours like you mentioned?Kate Nicholls: Yes. I think we will start to see that evolving as we go further forward and as we come out of this. I think that's what I mean by a COVID reset moment, that we can look again at the ways that we've done things to be able to offer that kind of attractive proposition to people. So moving away from some of the zero-hours contracts, moving away from some of the seasonal changes where people don't have that much certainty, and towards one that is focused on what the applicant is looking for and wanting and the flexibility that they're needing, and presenting it in a way which is appealing to them.Kate Nicholls: I think we will, if we work carefully at it, I think there's a great opportunity for us across the entire sector to pick up some of those really good case studies and examples and promote them and push them out around the sector so that we have a positive employability story to tell.Kelly Molson: That is great. Now, I'm going to pick up on that a little bit later on because we've had a really good question about that very topic. Let me ask you about the supply chain, though, and again, this is another question from Mark at the National Memorial Arboretum. So the supply chain at the moment is disrupted. Food costs are increasing. We all need to find a more sustainable way to feed humanity. What can we do as an industry, and this is the attractions industry, to help the public recognise that hospitality outlets that source locally, use seasonal ingredients, increase their plant-based options, that they are the best place to respond to these pressures? But at the same time, costs are going to rise through dual pressure of food and wage increases.Kate Nicholls: Well, I think this is going to be a collective challenge for all of us because it's inevitable that with the cost pressures that we've got that are building across the sector, and not just our sector but across the economy, prices are going to have to go up to consumers irrespective of what we're talking about in terms of local sourcing, et cetera, and the positive efforts we've got. So I think as an industry we're going to have to work to be able to communicate to consumers clearly why we are having to put prices up post-pandemic, and it is going to be a struggle and a challenge and there's going to be that juggling act which there always is around pricing decisions about how far you can push prices onto consumers before you turn off demand.Kate Nicholls: But with VAT alone going up, there is going to have to be a price increase that we are going to have to pass on. So I think that's one challenge that we need to look at separately. I think the advantage is it's going to be across the economy as a whole and we're not going to be doing it in isolation. So I think customers are going to get more used to hearing about prices and hearing about costs coming through.Kate Nicholls: And then I think, you're right, there is a real opportunity there for turning that conversation around and explaining about how local sourcing is more beneficial, meets the broader sustainability issues that consumers are increasingly concerned about. Not just consumers, potential employees. So sustainability and environmental and social governance issues are coming higher up the agenda when we're talking about recruitment and putting ourselves out as an attractive proposition.Kate Nicholls: People are looking for authentic stories about local sourcing, local supply chain, carbon net zero, limiting waste, all of those kind of positive issues that we can turn to our advantage. But I do think customers understand it doesn't come cost-free. So I think they are two sides of the same coin. I don't think we should be apologetic about the fact that we need to be able to invest in good quality produce in order to deliver a more sustainable food supply chain.Kelly Molson: Do you think those conversations are slightly easier to have now as well, since the pandemic? Because I think what we did see when attractions were able to open up and hospitality were able to open up is that we saw a huge increase in demand for things that were local. We wanted to understand more about our local environment. We wanted to be able to support our local independents. So do you think that's going to be an easier conversation to have now that we're in that mindset already?Kate Nicholls: I think so. I think COVID provides us with that opportunity. Certainly one of the strong trends, and it sees no sign of abating as we come out of COVID, localism and hyperlocalism was a trend we saw during lockdown when, inevitably if you can't travel, you explore in your neighborhood. But even as we reopened, people were exploring in their locality before they've got confident enough to go further across the country or into city centres. And clearly you're moving away from global travel for two years. Again, those are trends that become sticky with consumers and consumers are interested in hearing and exploring it more.Kate Nicholls: So I think neighbourhood is going to stick with us for a lot longer. Certainly as well in terms of the different ways in which we work, I don't think it's going to be as polarised as in the office or at home, but I do think you're going to be working remotely and people are going to be looking at neighbourhood and local options to be able to facilitate that. So I do think that that frees up the conversation to be had more generally about how we are making a more sustainable, more robust, more resilient supply chain by looking locally. But equally, that doesn't come cost-free.Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Let's talk about opening hours. So Mark had a really good question around that. So he says, "Over the last few months, as venues have reopened, we've seen many places change their opening hours, and that's to enable them to offer fair shifts for their staff in response to business needs." He actually says some are open fewer days each week, and some are closing earlier. The micropub and brewpub and taphouse that he tends to frequent, he does put in brackets here, "On an all too infrequent basis though. Nights out are a rare treat. But they're all offering a brilliant experience with great staff during their opening hours. Does Kate think that the public will learn to understand that not opening all hours is a new thing to be embraced, or do you think that pressure to increase the venues to go back to 11:00 to 11:00 will be the norm?"Kate Nicholls: I think it's probably too early to say yet with consumers and consumer habits and trends because I don't think people are going out in the same way that they were yet. What we have seen after this reopening, post the 19th of July, that there is an expectation from consumers to go back to normal and they're not very forgiving of those who aren't. So I think consumers during COVID have got used to having things when they want it, at the time that they want it, and rapidly, and they don't take kindly to things not being available for them.Kate Nicholls: So I suspect it will be more challenging to have that on a longer-term basis if that's a longer way of working. What we do know, however, is that what consumers really don't like is uncertainty. So if they can guarantee that you are always open for these particular days, these particular hours, they will understand that more readily than they turn up at your door and you're not open today because you can't get the staff. That's the bit that seems to create the disconnect.Kate Nicholls: And what we don't have yet is a loyal customer base back. So if they can't get it from you, they will go and find it somewhere else is what we're seeing very rapidly. So I don't think it means that everybody has to go back to 11:00 to 11:00, seven days a week and full service, but you do need to get back to some consistency and some standardisation for customers. And certainly what we're finding in the restaurant side, for example, are quite a lot of businesses in city centres are closing Monday and Tuesday, and that causes a degree of confusion for consumers when they're back out.Kate Nicholls: Now, having said that, our customer habits are going to change a little bit again over Christmas if we do have restrictions brought back in due to Omicron and therefore customers again will be adapting to changes and the ways that they're doing things and changes in the ways of working. But I do think that will depend on where you are located. If you are located in a city centre and people are not visiting the city centre as regularly, you need to have that certainty about when you are available and open that matches and meets with them. If you are in a local neighbourhood and a local area and you're part of the community, I think there will be increasing pressure back being available when the customers want you.Kelly Molson: Earlier in this question you mentioned that it's too early to tell because we're not seeing the demand, we're not seeing people going out as frequently as they were. It's a difficult question, but how long do you think that we need to leave it until we do start to see some data around that?Kate Nicholls: Again, I think that's difficult to be able to work out because of the uncertainties of new variants and changes in restrictions. We haven't had a clear consistent period where we've been able to trade normally. Had we not had Omicron coming along, I think we would have got a better feel for it. After Christmas, we would have been able to look back at five, six months where we could see what customers were doing, how confident they were, and could try and see trading was doing without the blips that were caused by supply chain shortages, delivery shortages, pingdemics, labour shortages across our industry. I suspect that it's going to be until the middle of next year before you can really start to plan with any certainty around what's stuck, what's a long-term trend and what's something that you're nudging consumer behaviour around.Kelly Molson: Thank you. You mentioned earlier about sharing best practices and we've had a great question from Hannah Monteverde who's the Park Manager at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. So Hannah says, "It's not always feasible to be able to offer an increased salary or market-leading benefits." She'd be really interested to know of any examples of curveball ideas that have attracted staff recently. Do you have any case studies or examples of attractions that you feel have really bucked the trend for recruitment particularly well?Kate Nicholls: I think the ones that are doing interesting stuff around flexible hours, hours when you want it, more frequent pay. One of the things that we found across our sector was that people were getting paid after four weeks, six weeks in some cases when they were a new starter, compared to some of the newer startup companies and labour scheduling companies and temporary recruitment from Amazon where they were getting paid within the week. So as soon as they did a shift, they were getting paid.Kate Nicholls: And actually that was something that people found was really attractive, that as soon as they'd done their job, they were getting their pay almost immediately, so a return almost back to weekly pay packets was quite an interesting one. It's not necessarily creative or curveball, but it's just listening to what people were saying that was a frustration for them that they wanted to be able to have.Kate Nicholls: Food, uniforms, selling those kinds of benefits, the walking to work for anybody who's in a local attraction or provision of transport for those people who were off the beaten track and people relying upon cars, et cetera. Those are things that have been used quite creatively. And then flexible labour scheduling, giving people the ability to tell the employer when they were available to work and how many hours they had rather than getting that rota coming down on a fixed basis saying, "This is when we rota-ed you and you have to go away and work out somebody else to swap with if it coincides with your yoga class or your student lesson or a GP's appointment."Kate Nicholls: So I think putting more power in the hands of the employees and giving them the ability to be able to ask for what they want, when they want, hours and pay, those are the two creative ones I've seen most frequently.Kelly Molson: That's fascinating. I mean, the crux of it is flexibility, ultimate flexibility as the employee. That is such a simple change to be paid weekly, so that instant gratification, "I've done a really good job. I've been paid for it." What a simple change to be able to make that could make such a big difference.Kate Nicholls: Yeah. And there's technology that enables you to do it now. So on the labour scheduling front in terms of, "I'm available for these hours and I'd like some work." Stint provides the opportunity and there's labour scheduling that provides the opportunity to do that, to just log on and say, "I can do four hours," rather than, "I can do a full day." And that sometimes is better. And equally, there's technology that allows you to drawdown. So if the business still wants to keep a monthly salary payroll, you can draw down earlier ahead of your salary, so you just get it a bit more when you've been doing your work. Particularly relevant for young people coming into the sector.Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully retaining them for a little bit longer, because that is the challenge with the sector is that it has always been seen as a bit of a stopgap, hasn't it? And ideally, we want to-Kate Nicholls: It has, and in some respects, we shouldn't be apologetic for that because it is a good first job. It's a good first base. Transferrable skills that we talked about before. We obviously want to keep and capture those people who want to use it as a career. But equally, given the labour shortages we're facing, if we can keep those people with us for longer who are just looking at it as a stopgap, that's all to the good as well. And that's about making sure we invest in them and make sure that they're supported as they come into the company.Kate Nicholls: Because at the moment, churn is so high across the sector as a whole. People come in, find that the work's too busy, too demanding, not for them, and they go away again. So let's just support them, nurture them and try and help to make sure that they have as good an experience as they can while they're with us.Kelly Molson: Definitely. Final question for you from our attractions audience. And again, this is from Hannah. So Hannah asks, "Do we have any realistic idea of timescales in terms of the forecast for recovery?" And this is specifically around the recruitment challenges that we're having at the moment. She asks, "Is this something that we have to adapt and change to live within the long term, or is it something that we could potentially predict will slowly improve and recover back to a pre-Brexit and pre-COVID-19 scenario?"Kate Nicholls: Gosh. There are two factors to that, particularly if we're talking about labour markets. So the government-commissioned independent research to look at when domestic tourism for fallen revenues would recover to pre-pandemic levels, and I suppose that's the best indicator of when do you think demand is going to get up there? When do you think your money is going to come back? And the independent forecast suggested that domestic tourism revenues would recover by the end of 2023 and international, that's not until 2024.Kate Nicholls: Now the government has said it will work with the industry to try and bring that forward a year, but that still looks as though you're going to have most of 2022 where you are operating suboptimally, that you're not operating at full demand. And I think in terms of labour shortages and challenges, again, likely to be temporary but let's not forget that pre-COVID, we had a 5% vacancy rate. Post-COVID, it's 10%. So it was a tight labour market before we went into the COVID crisis.Kate Nicholls: How temporary is temporary? I think you're going to be living with cost price inflation and the disruption to the supply chain for at least six months of 2022 and I think the labour issues are going to be with us probably for a year or two. If nothing else changes, our biggest challenge for getting people back into work is twofold. One is we've got a hiatus in the talent pipeline where we haven't been able to train our own. Our apprentices haven't been able to go through people and vocational training, haven't been able to go through catering colleges, et cetera. Haven't been able to go through because people have been disrupted in education.Kate Nicholls: And the same goes at the higher levels for hospitality degrees, but also curator jobs and those kinds of occupational training skilled jobs in the sector. So you've got a two-year talent hiatus, talent pipeline hiatus, and you've got COVID travel restrictions that are preventing people from moving globally. And you can only see what's happened with Omicron to see that that's going to be with us probably for at least another year. So you are going to have a global disrupted labour market and you're going to have global disrupted supply chains for at least another year.Kelly Molson: Gosh. Another year of this.Kate Nicholls: Sorry.Kelly Molson: Weren't we saying this last year? We were nearly-Kate Nicholls: I don't mean that we're going to be having another year of COVID restrictions or the challenges that we've got, but I think the global supply chain, the global economy is still going to be in quite an uncertain state for the whole of 2022. And people certainly won't be moving around the globe as freely as they have been pre-pandemic. We're not going to get back to that sort of free movement. It's nothing to do with Brexit, but just that movement of people isn't going to be happening to the same degree, hence you've got a delay in domestic and international recovery. You've got a delay in international recovery.Kate Nicholls: The people who've moved abroad during COVID or people who would normally be coming into the UK to look for work or those with settled status who might be returning, they're not moving around because of COVID and they're not moving around because of the problems of international travel.Kelly Molson: Kate, thank you. Thank you so much for answering the questions today. It's been incredible to have you on. I'd like to end the podcast the way that I always end the podcast which is to ask you about a book that you could recommend to our listeners. It might be something that you love. It might be something that's helped your career in some way or helped shape your career in some way. What would you recommend for us today?Kate Nicholls: I am a voracious reader, so I usually have three or four books on the go at any one time. But I'm definitely a fiction reader. I've got two books. One that was really ... is a business book that I found really quite useful when I first was made chief executive about six, seven years ago. And that was Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, which I would definitely recommend for any female leaders in the industry to look at. It talks about some of the different ways that people experience things at work and certainly helped me to think about how I wanted to support the next generation of women coming up and making sure that we had more female representation on boards.Kate Nicholls: And then my absolute favourite book, which is my go-to book at any time that I just want a little bit of escapism and a really good story is Wuthering Heights. However bad you're feeling, there's always something entertaining and enjoyable in getting lost in somebody else's story and that's my recommended read.Kelly Molson: Fantastic recommendations. I actually do remember on Twitter you tweeting photos of your book pile, your COVID book pile. They were huge.Kate Nicholls: Yeah. Because everybody knows I'm a reader and I read an awful lot, at Christmas I get big ... And that's what everybody buys me as a gift. So I always get quite a lot of books at Christmas, and last Christmas I got 20. And as we went into lockdown, of January, I thought, "Right, can I complete my reading pile before we come out of lockdown?" Actually, I had to go and buy another 30 books. By the time we came out of lockdown on the 19th of July, I had read 56 books.Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness, 56 ... Well, I guess books are a much better option than getting socks for Christmas, right?Kate Nicholls: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yes, I do have big piles. I still have piles of books all over the house that I'm still reading. But yeah, I usually have ... I finish three books a week.Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Well, listen, so if you want to win a copy of Kate's books, you know what to do. Go over to this podcast announcement on Twitter, retweet the announcement with the words I want Kate's books, and you might well be in with a chance of winning them. Kate, thank you once again for coming on the podcast today. Very, very grateful that you've been able to spare us some time to come on and chat, and I very much hope that you get that well-deserved rest and holiday to Costa Rica sometime very soon.Kate Nicholls: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.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.

Leicester was hit hard by the pandemic with long lockdowns and many families affected. At Watermead Country Park close to the city they have chosen to remember those who lost their lives, the essential workers and everyone who has played their part in these hard times. Trees have been planted along a new memorial walk in this park, which was once a huge quarry. Roo Peake helped to crowdfund for the walk in memory of her friend and fellow charity member at Leicestershire Masaya Link, Michael Gerard. Helen Mark meets her, along with the Head of County Parks Richard Hunt and Head Ranger Dale Osborne, to discover more about how this park on the edge of the city is constantly adapting as it grows from reclaimed industrial land to a thriving habitat for wildlife and sanctuary for people nearby. Helen then travels to the National Memorial Arboretum in the National Forest to find out about the beginnings of a national Covid memorial which will use trees and water to heal the scars left by industry and help the whole country find a place to remember. Produced by Helen Lennard

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 August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references:www.thenma.org.ukwww.twitter.com/mj_elliswww.linkedin.com/in/markjellishttps://thenma.org.uk/about-us/news/arboretum-app-launchhttps://thenma.org.uk/visit-us/what's-here/the-memorials/memorial-woodland  Mark Ellis is the Head of Visitor Experience at the National Memorial Arboretum, in Staffordshire, the UK's year-round centre of remembrance. He is responsible for the overall visitor experience, including commercial operations and overseeing the 150-acre site's diverse events programme; frequently over 250 Remembrance Events each year. In the five years since he joined the Arboretum team, he has helped deliver a wide range of new events, activities and commercial opportunities including an immersive World War 1 Trench installation, Summer Proms, an Illuminated Arboretum light trail, and a range of activities to help visitors learn more about the stories behind the memorials.In 2018, the Arboretum opened Aspects, a state-of-the-art events and conference facility. Mark was the client lead from initial concept through to completion and was proud to be part of the team that delivered the project on time and to budget. Aspects complements the award-winning Remembrance Centre at the entrance to the site and has provided a fitting venue for high-profile remembrance events as well as creating a new income stream through corporate hire.Mark has operated across the charity, public and private sectors in several senior roles, consistently demonstrating his ability to deliver great visitor experiences and commercial success in a way that supports the core objectives of an organisation.Outside of work Mark is an experienced Scout leader and enjoys the opportunities that this provides to take part in a range of outdoor activities and adventures. He has worked on international scout camps in the UK and overseas and believes that no food is finer than that cooked on a stick over the embers of a real fire. 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. These chats are fun, informative, and, hopefully, always interesting.In todays episode I speak with Mark Ellis, Head of Visitor Experience at The National Memorial Arboretum.We discuss their brand new augmented reality experience, tips for other attractions thinking about investing in new technology, and the Memorial Woodland being created in partnership with The National Forest to commemorate all the lives lost during the pandemic.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels, by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Good morning, Mark. It is absolutely lovely to speak to you for the first time today. I feel like we've chatted a lot on Twitter, but this is our first...Mark Ellis: I know, Kelly, it feels like your voice is very familiar, and likewise feels like we've chatted a lot. It's a delight to be here, thanks for asking.Kelly Molson: You are very welcome. Before we start, I would like to say a very public thank you to you, Mark, because I think that you are one of our most engaged listeners, and that really means a lot to us. I think every episode that we've put out you always go to a lot of effort to tweet about it and say what you liked about it. And, you tag people in on our Twitter account who you think that might be really interested in listening to it, and I'm really, really grateful to that. So, thank you.Mark Ellis: Thanks, Kelly. Maybe I'm just a frustrated marketeer at heart. Kelly Molson: Maybe. But, I'm going to take it that you're a Skip the Queue podcast supporter.Mark Ellis: I am. It's a fabulous podcast. It's helped and inspired us a lot because it's over the last 12 months. I only retweet and tag because it's so brilliant, so thank you.Kelly Molson: That is lovely to hear, thank you. But, that doesn't mean that you don't get away with answering some of my...Mark Ellis: [crosstalk 00:01:53].Kelly Molson: ... quite mean icebreaker questions, unfortunately. Let's go in. When you hit the dance floor, what is your signature move?Mark Ellis: I'm the worlds best dad dancer. I move my hips left and right, left foot forward, right foot forward, a bit of funny stuff going on with your arms. And then, if you get some electro-funk going on, the arms are pumping up in the air as well. Kelly Molson: Electro-funk, I'm going to remember that.Mark Ellis: Yeah, late night at a festival in a field with a few pints of cider, no one dances better.Kelly Molson: I feel like we're going to need a demo of this when we're all allowed to meet properly in real life. We need to see this, Mark. Mark Ellis: We'll do it. Kelly Molson: Okay, if you were in a zombie apocalypse, which...Kelly Molson:... Considering what's been thrown at us the last year and a half, that could happen, who would you want on your team?Mark Ellis: I'd have The Doctor. Obviously. No problem too bad, no villain he can't defeat with a bit of wit, and panache, and charm. He, or her, whichever incarnation of The Doctor it happens to be. I started with Tom Baker, love David Tennant, love Matt Smith, Jodie Whittaker's taken it to new and brilliant places. So, I'd have The Doctor, every time.Kelly Molson: It's a really good choice. Good. What is the strangest gift that you have ever received?Mark Ellis: Bootlaces. Kelly Molson: Someone bought you bootlaces?Mark Ellis: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Was that a birthday present?Mark Ellis: That was a Christmas present. That was the year when I bought my lovely, fantastic, gorgeous wife some diamond earrings, and she bought me some bootlaces. Kelly Molson: Wow.Mark Ellis: This was probably 15 or 20 years ago. She did tell me that she was busy making me something, I have no idea what, and I'm still waiting. So, the bootlaces are a classic.Kelly Molson: Okay. So, she bought you something to unwrap with the premise that there was something else coming.Mark Ellis: To be very fair, just before Christmas I broke a pair of bootlaces and my boots were held on with a knotted bit of string. So, it was practical and thoughtful, and considerate, and practical so it was a very good gift.Kelly Molson: This is what us women do, always thinking ahead, we knew that was going to happen. Mark, what is your unpopular opinion?Mark Ellis: Before that, Kelly, I've got an icebreaker for you, because I like to turn the tables. Your podcast is brilliant, and you have that uncanny knack of making it feel like it's just a chat between you, your guest, and a listener, and that pulls everybody in. So, if you could have coffee and a chat with one broadcaster, dead or alive, who would it be?Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh, I was not expecting to be tested this morning. Nobody's done this to me yet. Mark Ellis: I'm so sorry.Kelly Molson: Who would be the broadcaster I would sit down and speak to? There's quite a few that I can think of, but I'm going to go current, because I really love this person. I'm going to say Greg James, from the BBC Breakfast show. I know that I have stolen his unpopular opinion segment, which hopefully he won't find out about at any point. Or, maybe he will and he'll appreciate that I'm inspired by him. I just think he's great. I just think he's really fun. What he's done with that Breakfast show, he's completely transformed it. He's also a local lad. He's from Bishop's Stortford originally. I'm from Waltham Abbey, which is not too far, but we live in Saffron Walden now, and the office is in Sawbridgeworth. I feel like we would be friends because we're from the same kind of area, do you know what I mean?Mark Ellis: Excellent.Kelly Molson: We could sit down, have a pint, we should definitely be buddies, Greg, if you're listening.Mark Ellis: Brilliant, great choice. Well done, and sorry about that. I'll behave myself as a guest now.Kelly Molson: Too right as well, Mark. So you should. Mark Ellis: So, unpopular opinion. I thought long and hard about this, and didn't know whether to go with the incredibly trite, or something a bit more meaningful. And actually, somebody said something to me over the weekend that just sparked me going with this one. Which is, when people go with the customer service advice of, "Treat other people like you like to be treated yourself." Which, really winds me up. Because, do you know what? Why don't we treat other people like they want to be treated? So, if I treat everybody like I treat myself, then I'm going to disappoint an awful lot of people. My case in point would be, if I was running a restaurant, which I do as part of my job, I don't eat fish, I don't like fish, I've never liked fish. So, if I treat everyone like I want to treat myself, there'd be no fish on the menu, our incredibly popular Fish Friday would be a bit of a disappointment. So, don't treat people like you want to be treated yourself. Find out how they want to be treated and go with that.Kelly Molson: I love that. I've actually never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Let's see what our listeners think. If you don't think that's an unpopular opinion, Tweet us.Mark Ellis: We'll have a Tweet war about it.Kelly Molson: Yeah, let's have a Tweet war about it. Thank you for sharing those, Mark, that's great.Mark Ellis: No problem. Kelly Molson: I'm going to ask a little bit about your background because it's quite interesting. You've been at Twycross Zoo, and English Heritage, and now you're at the National Memorial Arboretum. Can you tell us how you got to there, how you ended up there?Mark Ellis: There are two versions of this story. One, it was a bunch of random factors that ended up with where I am. Or, I can post-justify and describe a thought out plan all the way through. The truth is, when I was a little boy I wanted to drive one of those cranes with a ball and chain on that demolishes buildings. Never got that chance. So, ended up on a retail career path in high street retail, which was great. Worked for a company called Rohan for many years doing travel and outdoor clothing, absolutely loved it, really high service standards, really quality product, that was great, and really learnt some great customer service skills on that journey. Mark Ellis: Moved on from that. Tales of redundancy and all the rest of it that many people's careers involve. And, ended up moving to Twycross Zoo, as you say. Initially as Head of Retail, taking those [inaudible 00:08:07] high street retail experiences into the visitor attraction area. Twycross Zoo's not far from where I grew up, I've known it for many, many years. It's a place that's special in my heart. So, really, really enjoyed joining the team there. And, pretty quickly, realized that maybe the Guest Services Team could do with the benefit of some additional thinking. So, ended up running the Visitor Service department as well. That's really where I made the hop over from pure retail into visitor attractions. Had a great time there. Zoos are just fantastic places to work. You've got thousands of animals doing the hard job of keeping visitors happy, you're just making sure there's a great experience wrapped around that. Mark Ellis: Ended up moving on from there. Again, the financial crash of 2008, and restructuring, and all the rest of it. So, a bit of a hard hit on that one. And then, worked for PDSA, the pet vet charity, for a while. Which, really enabled me to put completer-finisher on my CV. Which, had been possibly missing up to that point. I'm sure some of my colleagues will smile at the thought that I needed to prove I was a completer-finisher, as I do tend to get slightly distracted by new and shiny things. Kelly Molson: Were you an ideas person?Mark Ellis: Yeah, very much so. A broad overview is the way I like to think of it. Managed a couple of projects for PDSA, and EPOS roll-outs, and reporting things. So, it's really detailed and good work with some brilliant people there.Mark Ellis: Then, got the chance... English Heritage had been through a period of not recruiting, they'd restructured what they were doing. And, I was in the first tranche of people they went out and recruited a new group in. Some really brilliant people at English Heritage, made some lifelong friends while I was working there. Met some of your previous guests, Paul Griffiths, for instance. We shared about three months together at English Heritage. I started just as he was going. And, really did enjoy that. Looked after an area from Peveril Castle, Castleton up in the Peak District, all the way across Norfolk, Suffolk, the East Midlands. So, a huge area, with everything from 5000-year-old flint mines, Grime's Graves in Thetford Forest, through to late-19th century windmills. So, really was the full breadth of English history. Thoroughly enjoyed that, and was settled to keep developing career there.Mark Ellis: And then, the opportunity at National Memorial Arboretum came up, they were looking for a Head of Commercial Operations at the time. I have to say, it took me about half a second to decide whether it was a jump I wanted to make. Again, Arboretum, 20 years anniversary this year of our official opening, so a relatively young site. And so, going from needle flint mines to an arboretum that's only 20 years old was quite a change. But, joined the team here, and working with, again, brilliant people, hopefully making a real impact on the way people remember and enjoy outdoor spaces, and think about the past.Kelly Molson: Great journey. I love that. I find it quite fascinating, listening to how people get to where they are, because it's always kind of a bit squiggly, and I quite like that. There's always a little bit of a twist and turn, it's never a straight line. Mark Ellis: I'm always slightly jealous, the people that say they thought about what they wanted to do when they were at school and they followed a progression and done it, in some ways, I think, "Well done you." But, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up, other than drive that crane with a ball and chain on it. We'll see what the future brings.Kelly Molson: I wanted to be a dancer. Mark Ellis: Well, there you go.Kelly Molson: I wanted to be a dancer on the West End stage. When I was younger I was really into tap dancing, and modern, and acrobatics and stuff like that. And, I thought, "That's what I'll do. I'll be on the West End stage and I'll be a tap dancer." But then, you start to get a bit older and you're like, "I'm a bit of an average tap dancer, and I'm 5'2, it's probably never going to happen." Mark Ellis: When we get together to do this big group dance, you're really going to show me up with my dad dancing, aren't you?Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. Do you know what? The last time I put on a pair of tap shoes I was about 21. I decided to go back and do it as a fitness thing and it was really fun. I could make a lot of noise with the Blakey's on the bottoms of my shoes right now, but I don't know if I could pull off any tap moves. Let's see when it happens. Kelly Molson: If our listeners have never been to the NMA, tell us a little bit about what it is and what we can expect to find there?Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. It's something that never comes over that well in the telling. It's a site that people have to come and really experience to appreciate. So, that's a very open invitation to all your listeners from around the globe to head over to Staffordshire and come and find us. Entry is free, so we're here ready to welcome you. What you'd find is 150 acres of relatively young woodland. 150 acres, to put it into context, if you're doing your Couch to 5K, then the 5K is about around the perimeter of the site. So, it's a nice, large site. Young Arboretum, an arboretum being a scientific collection of trees. So, we've got around 25,000 trees on-site, every indigenous species in the UK is here. And, we've got examples of trees from around the world as well.Mark Ellis: Dotted throughout the trees you'll find, it's now around 400 memorials to people that have served, and sacrificed, and have been lost on behalf of those of us that are still here. About 75% of the memorials are Armed Forces related, and around 25% are civilian organisations, that includes police, fire, ambulance. We've got things like the WI, Salvation Army, Scouting. So, we cover a very broad spectrum. The military ones cover specific campaigns, cover specific regiments and associations. And, we're also very proud to be the home of the Armed Forces Memorial, which is the national memorial to all of our Armed Forces who have served and sacrificed. And, that has carved onto the walls the names of the 16,000 members of Armed Forces that have lost their lives in active service or through acts of terrorism since the end of the Second World War. So, a very, very special place, and very poignant.Mark Ellis: It's easy for that to sound like it's a slightly sombre place, and certainly, it is a place where people do come and reflect and remember because the final part of remembrance is generally happy memories. We think about those that we've lost, and always brings a smile to the face to remember the good times. And, that's very much what the arboretum is. It's a living memorial. It's a growing memorial. It's ever-developing. It's ever-changing. And, when people leave the site, they often use words like uplifting, and life-affirming, and joyous. Mark Ellis: We have around 250 volunteers, and they really do bring the arboretum to life, all about storytelling. Without the stories, it's just memorials in woodland, and it's the stories behind those memorials that really do tug at the heart, and make people smile, and make people laugh, and make people cry, and other things that are so important. Our volunteers do a great job of telling those stories, and it's always done with a smile and a twinkle in the eye, and remembering some great times in amongst some amazing stories of heroism, and service, and sacrifice. Mark Ellis: So, it's a very special place. We try to operate in the best possible way. We've got a couple of award-winning buildings on-site, our Remembrance Center, our Visitor Center with a large restaurant, a shop, our dedicated classrooms is very special. We've got our Chapel of Peace and Reconciliation, which was the first building on-site where we're the only place in the country that holds the Act of Remembrance on a daily basis. The building I'm talking to you from at the moment is our Events and Conference building, which opened in Autumn 2018. Which, is a state of the art, bespoke conference and events facility as well. Where we can host events for those that are carrying out remembrance activities, but also opens up corporate hire activities, and those important come streams as well.Kelly Molson: I have to say, if we do a live Skip the Queue conference, that is where it will be held, Mark, isn't it? We've already had that mini discussion.Mark Ellis: Brilliant, absolutely, the offer's there. And, the coffee's great.Kelly Molson: I have to say, it comes across what you were talking about in terms of it being a place of remembrance, but also a place of celebration, that comes across really well on your website. I haven't actually had the opportunity to visit the centre yet. It is something that we've had this conversation about, about doing a little bit of a group visit, haven't we? With some of the other Skip the Queue podcast guests, which I'm sure we'll arrange for later on in the year. But, it really does come across. It's a beautiful, beautiful venue. And, it does come across as somewhere really, really special. And, I think that that's important to get that message across, that it is very much about remembrance, but also very much about celebration as well. For me, it doesn't have a sombre feel to it, the way that you present it and the way that you talk about it. And, I think that helps to draw more people to come to it, right?Mark Ellis: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right, Kelly, and thanks for the feedback from an expert on the website. In the words of our Founder, back in the mid-90s, we were always designed to be a place that commemorates lives lost and celebrates lives lived. It's getting that balance right. And, of course, a lot of that is very personal and depends on each individual on where they are in their particular journey. The feedback we get suggests that we generally get that balance pretty much right, and we're really pleased to be able to provide that for people.Kelly Molson: Let's go back to what you were talking about, about stories, because I think that ties in really well with something that I'd like to talk to you about today. You've recently launched a brand new app experience, and I love the name of this, very clever. It's called The ARboretum. Hello? Good use of pun there. It's an augmented reality experience, and it takes families on a journey to learn about everyday heroes. This sounds fabulous. Going back to our first season of the podcast, we had Alex Book on, from Arcade, who is an augmented reality, virtual reality specialist organisation. And, they talked a lot about how your guests... No, you don't call them guests, call them players, because you're getting them to interact with the building and the environment that they come to. It's such an interesting concept. I just love what you've done with this because it is a really fun interactive way of sharing those stories about the heroes that are part of that place that you're at. How did this come about? Where did the idea for this start?Mark Ellis: "Need is the mother of invention", is the phrase I'm just trying to get my head around. We've always done Easter activities on-site, put some budget aside and do something to attract people in. Those are often built around a trail. A lot of our memorials have animals on them, so we'll do an opportunity for children to go around, find the animals, put together an anagram, and come back and grab their little chocolate treat from the welcome desk, always very popular. What works really well with that, is getting families to interact with the memorials as part of the activity. And, that's very much what drives a lot of what we do, is trying to make sure there's authenticity in there, and it gives people an opportunity to learn more about the site.Mark Ellis: So, at the start of this year, of course, in January we'd just gone into that extra lockdown, and it was a pretty bleak time, wasn't it?Kelly Molson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mark Ellis: And, we were talking about what we were going to do at Easter, when we had no idea what sort of numbers we'd be able to attract on-site. But, we still wanted something that would enable people to engage. And, our Head of Participation and Learning, a chap called Chris Ansell, who is a genius, came up with a brilliant idea of actually taking that budget, and instead of spending it on a physical manifestation on-site, which perhaps we wouldn't be able to get people on-site to involve, said, "Let's go digital." And, went away and came up with the idea of augmented reality. I can't remember who first came up with the ARboretum idea.Kelly Molson: Very clever.Mark Ellis: As you say, it was an inspired piece of naming. And, it does very much the same thing. There are three characters in the app, Blu, Kit, and Sam. They are 13 to 15 probably, so they're pitched for slightly younger kids. It's that aspirational age of the 9, 10, 11-year-olds really want to be the 13, 14, 15-year-olds. We've given them a little bit of a backstory. So, Blu is probably connected to somebody that served in the Armed Forces, doesn't necessarily articulate that, but she's really interested in memorialization and the site from that aspect. We've got Kit, they are a very eco-centred person, they like to be out in the woods. They're probably more interested in the bugs, and the birds, and all the rest of it. And, you have to work quite hard to get their loyalty and their friendship. But, once you've got that they're going to be incredibly loyal and friendly towards you. And then, we've got Sam, and he's the get in there and do it, action-first, think later. He happens to have a prosthetic leg, but that doesn't stop him getting stuck in and doing things. Probably, if there's something going a bit wrong and a bit right, it's probably Sam that's in the middle of that.Mark Ellis: So, we created these characters. And then, we've created eight locations around the site where there's a visual thing that you scan with your phone. And, one, or two, or three of the characters pop up and they get you to do an activity. Some of those are centred around the woodland. There's one where there's wellbeing, it encourages you to do some forest bathing and listening to the sounds around you. There's some that's very much based on reflections at memorials. So, in our poppy glade, you're read out a poem about loss and memorialisation. And, you think about and talk to the rest of your group about what that means to you. And then, some are very physical. On The Beat, which is an area dedicated to the police. You do a beep test, so you do shuttle runs, you've got a minute, in times, and you can see how many shuttles runs you can do. There's hide and seek, there's some puzzle solving. So, there's a real mixture, something for everybody. And, of course, something that ties into the things that each of the three characters likes. You can take photos through the app, and then tag those and upload them onto social media as well. So, it really is a good way of getting people to move around the site, take them to some areas where perhaps people don't normally find things and interact. You can come back and do them again.Mark Ellis: And, the really good thing is, we launched this at Easter, so normally that budget that we spend on Easter Activities... We'll do peak activity of the Easter Weekend, and then a little bit more of the two weeks in school holidays. And, we have the added complication, we're right on the border of four counties here, and they all have different school holidays. So, the Easter holiday actually spans three weeks of time. I'm sure we're not the only people with that complication. With this, we took that money and we've run the app from Easter, and we'll finish it at the end of June, just after Armed Forces Day, which is a big weekend for us. So, it's covered a three month period. And, it's in the bag, we can always bring it back out and run it again in the future. And also, we have the three characters who, you never know, might feature in activities and on-site interpretation in the future. My aspiration is we'll have models of them that appear in the shop at some time.Kelly Molson: I love that. I love that there's that longevity to this thing that you've created. I had no idea about how difficult that would be to plan your activities around all those different Easter holidays as well. But also, it feels like it's something that could just run, and run, and run. You've put a window on it that it's going to end in... Did you say June it's going to come to an end?Mark Ellis: Yeah, end of June. Kelly Molson: But, that's something that, potentially, people would engage with all year round, depending on when they come to the site. It's lovely that you've been able to invest so well in something that you can bring back, and you can bring back year on year and maybe tweak and stuff.Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. One of the really nice things as well, I think the characters are very authentic. As I said, they've all got that backstory, they've got very different personalities, I think they're all relatable in different ways. And, we actually got a young person to design them. We wrote a design brief, and a young person got hold of that and she produced some characters which we had a look at, and thought, "Do you know what? She's pretty much nailed that." So then, worked with the app developer and designers, and they came back to her on several occasions and used her designs going forward. That's a bit of a Skip the Queue exclusive.Kelly Molson: Ooh.Mark Ellis: I'm really proud because I know that young person particularly well. It was my daughter that actually did those initial designs. It's really great. And, something that really excites me, is each of the characters has some form of a particular characteristic within their story. And, it's such a non-issue for... My daughter's 13, 14 next week, and it's such a non-issue. You want people of a different ethnic background, or you want somebody that's got a disability, or you want someone that's non-binary, "Yeah, fine, this is what they're going to look like." And, that's the real hope for the future, isn't it? It is that, hopefully, as we pass onto future generations... And, part of what we do here is passing on the baton of remembrance to future generations, so we're very engaged with working with young people. Is hopefully, that acceptance of things that older generations have had to work hard to understand.Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. I think what's really interesting is that you've actually engaged with someone of that age to say, "What would you want to see? How would you want these characters to be?" Because that's something that I think potentially a lot of organisations don't necessarily do. We're all guilty of it. We design a website and we're testing it, but we're not potentially the user who should be testing it. So, you need to think broadly about who your audience is and how you engage with them from the start of a project like this.Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a proud dad, and it was purely chance. Working at home, I just said to her, "Look at this brief, what do you think?" But, it was the next stages that really were the eyeopener for me. When the initial designs came back we showed them to her, and it was just the little things. Particularly it was Blu, the girl character that was designed first, and Harriet, my daughter, was, "The eyes are just a little bit too big, and the lips are just a bit too full." And effectively, it wasn't childlike enough. It was a slightly more Disneyfied aspirational image that perhaps isn't healthiest for us to be pursuing. It was subtle. It was a great design, we just signed it off and it would have been fine. But, getting a younger person just to shape that final design, I think really has given it that added layer of authenticity, and we're very proud of what we've ended up with.Kelly Molson: You should be. I think it's fantastic. Mark Ellis: But, the real see was Chris' idea to come up with it in the first place, and to make the app work so well, and tie it into the authenticity of the memorial. That's what makes it a really special thing. Kelly Molson: Completely. I've got a list of questions here that I wanted to ask you, why an app? Why augmented reality? But, you've answered them so perfectly, in the sense that you had these challenges, and actually, this digital application that you've developed solved those challenges. It solved the issue of the various different Easter holidays that you've got. You've now got something that's got longevity to it. You've got something that people are really engaging with. Kelly Molson: To ask you about what the objectives were to start with, my assumption is that it was about engaging people with the different aspects of what the arboretum means to people, those stories behind it. And, like you say, getting them to explore areas that they might not necessarily always go to. If they're coming back time after time they might have their favourite places. What do you think that the impact or the results of that have been so far? Is it a bit too early to tell? Or can you see?Mark Ellis: We've had some really positive feedback. We've had some really good download numbers, so it's reached a large number of people. Not enough, because like everybody else, we've not got enough people on our sites at the moment, with static constraints in place. And it's strange, is judging things not necessarily on the straight metrics that you use in the old world, of actually, "What does good look like now?" We've had some really good feedback. We've seen people looking at some memorials in a bit more detail. We've had people. Dwell time is up on-site. People just saying, "It's been great, the kids have loved it. It's given us something to do." We don't charge for it, it's a free app and a free to enter the site. It's got that educational twist to it as well as being fun. I think it's ticked a lot of boxes. But, actually just seeing kids run up and down seeing how many shuttles runs they can do in a minute is great to see.Kelly Molson: I'm definitely going to test that out when I come. Because it might be a little bit later on in the year, can we just reactivate it for that day when we come because I want to do the shuttle runs?Mark Ellis: Yeah, of course, we can, for you, Kelly, absolutely. There is a rather sad picture kicking around somewhere that Chris took of me doing the shuttle runs in the rain when we were testing it. Dedication to the cause.Kelly Molson: I think we need to see that on Twitter. We need to see that on Twitter, Mark. Mark Ellis: I'll see if I can drag it out.Kelly Molson: If there's no photos then it didn't happen.Mark Ellis: Fair point. Kelly Molson: What tips could you offer, if there is any organisations that are thinking about investing in this technology, for whatever challenges they have that they want to overcome? What would be a few tips that you could give them about how you would approach that process?Mark Ellis: I think it's knowing what you want to get out of it first. We started with an idea that we could do, augmented reality, but then the next thing was sitting down and saying, "Who's it for? What are the characters? What are the backstories? What's authenticity? Which memorials?" So actually, we knew what we wanted to do with it before we went and engaged with something to deliver it. And, that meant that it was a very specific project scope when we went out to tender with it, we knew exactly what we wanted to get out of it. Which, probably stopped mission creep and somebody saying, "You could do this that and the other." And, it meant that when it came back the quality of the digital experience is really, really good, but we weren't chasing Pixar quality output from it. We knew it was delivering what we wanted. Mark Ellis: Probably not as expensive as perhaps people think. So, with that tight scope, it didn't cost much more than we'd normally spend on our Easter activities, with that added benefit of a bit of longevity in there. So yes, it does cost money, but it certainly wasn't a bank breaker. And, having a limited budget, when you go out to tender, gives people the opportunity to scope what they're going to give you against that. Mark Ellis: So, I think authentic, know what you want, and explore the financial possibilities. It might be more within reach than perhaps people think it is.Kelly Molson: That's really interesting. Mark Ellis: All this technology is becoming more accessible all the time, isn't it? So, there are opportunities out there. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it absolutely is. I think you're right, it's about scoping what you want and giving people the opportunity to say, "We can do this much of it for that budget", or, "We can do this much for that budget." It's kind of like a starting point, isn't it?Mark Ellis: Yeah.Kelly Molson: It's good that you said about don't be scared by new technology, because I think that there is still an element of overwhelm about. People don't understand how much digital costs, and there's still a lot of education that we could do around that, definitely from a web perspective. AR isn't anything that we do ourselves, but I think that it sounds quite frightening, doesn't it? It sounds like it's going to be a very big, expensive project. Where actually, what you've just described, seems quite manageable. Mark Ellis: This is where I shamelessly introduce other products into the conversation. It supports what we move onto, which we've just launched this week which will now run to the Autumn, which is our escape challenge. And again, this is Chris' idea, he really is a genius. Kelly Molson: You want to hold onto this Chris, he sounds great.Mark Ellis: Absolutely. He should come on and be a guest for you some time, Kelly. He's much better than me. But, Escape challenge. And again, this was necessity being the mother of invention, I said it right that time. Last year we wanted something to bring people onto site, experiences, escape rooms, massive growth. So, actually taking the escape room concept and delivering it as an outdoor environment. So again, a series of memorials that you walk around with your puzzle book, there are clues at memorials, there are clues in your puzzle book. This is a paid-for one, so we charge people to do this. Two levels, one pretty tricky, but a family will probably work their way through it. The other one, pretty challenging. It's probably people that enjoy the odd cryptic crossword clue and those types of things. Takes two to three hours, eight clues. This year's based around everyday heroes and people that have worked in the emergency service, so it's based around the work the police do. We're dedicating the new UK Police Memorial on-site this year, which is a spectacular memorial worth coming to see. So, it's based around that. There's a gang planning a bank heist, and you're going to try and head them off at the pass, and solve the clues, and solve the crime. Mark Ellis: So, again, a real opportunity to learn more about memorials. You're looking for some really fine details of the memorials there, and some of the symbolism, and some of the stories. Perhaps, again, you've walked past it a dozen times and never noticed that, so it just gets people to look. And, that covers the RNLI, the Police, Fire Service, the Ambulance Service. So, a lot of the civilian organisations come through on this year's escape challenge. Kelly Molson: I love that.Mark Ellis: Available live now. It will be here when you come up, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Oh good. I'll do the easy one, obviously. I won't be doing that difficult one. Mark Ellis: We put a package together for corporate groups that want to come and do team building events here. There's a corporate package built around that escape challenge as well, which is a great way to get execs to come and scratch their heads as well.Kelly Molson: That's a really lovely idea as well actually, because you've mentioned quite a few times that the arboretum is free to visit, and actually a lot of these things that you're offering, they're free to do as well. So, the challenge for you is you need to drive revenue. You can't be based solely on donations. Charitable donations, difficult at the best of times to get from people. So, I think it's lovely that you're now starting to look at this, what you can offer people, and bringing different groups of people in to build that revenue base. It's really great.Mark Ellis: Yeah. generally works very well. Summer Proms is a good one as well in August. Tickets go on sale this week, so look out for that.Kelly Molson: He's getting all the plugs in. There's something else that I want to talk to you about as well. Thank you for sharing all of that.Mark Ellis: You're welcome.Kelly Molson: I think that will be really useful for any organisation that is thinking about going through that process. Kelly Molson: You've just announced something which I think is super, super wonderful, and I'd love to hear a bit more about it. It's just been announced that in partnership with The National Forest, you're going to be creating a memorial woodland. Which, is a new woodland to commemorate all of the lives that have been lost during the pandemic. How amazing. Mark Ellis: It's a privilege to be involved in a project like this. The last 12 months or so, of course, have been tough on absolutely everybody, and it's a tragedy that's still unfolding. It is difficult. And, there is a time when people want to come together and remember and reflect. The memorial woodland is very much designed for everyone that's lost their lives as a result of COVID. That includes the people that have missed diagnosis, haven't had treatment, have had their mental health irreparably damaged by it. So, it's not just the people that tragically lost their lives because of Coronavirus. The number of civilians that lost their lives through Coronavirus is now twice the number of civilians that lost their lives in the UK in World War 2. It's massive.Mark Ellis: We're very fortunate. We're in The National Forest, which is across this part of the midlands, a project that's been running for 30 or so years to reforest this area. In this area, we had a lot of clay pits, mining, those kinds of things. They're all being turned into country parks now. It's a lovely part of the midlands. We've got a long-lasting relationship with The National Forest Company. They'd been asked about what they might want to do for memorialisation. And, right back at the very start of Coronavirus, people were contacting us and saying, "What can you do? What will you do? What can be done?" Mark Ellis: Fortunately, at around the time, Tarmac, who are our neighbours, they're quarrying the land around us. And, the land we're on used to be their quarry and we had it off them in the mid-1990s on a 999-year lease on a peppercorn rent. There are 25 acres that sit right next to our site that they finished working with, it's been inert for a decade or so, it's scrubland, and silk washing lakes. So, they've now very kindly gifted that over to us as well, likewise, on a 980-year lease on a peppercorn rent, which has been fabulous of them. So, that's given us 25 acres where we can create the memorial woodland. And, our aspiration is very much to make it a living memorial, something that becomes very special. Mark Ellis: There will be memorial woodlands all over the country, and absolutely there should be. And, what we want to do is to create something here that is memorable, is special, is living, is developing. There are so many stories that have come out of the last 12 months, the experience of all the key workers, the experience of the NHS people, the experience of those in care homes, the experience of children who've missed going round to friend's houses and play and have missed the rites of passage of end of year school plays. So, so many different stories, and try and bring those together in a living memorial. Somewhere too, I've said it before, I'll say it again, commemorate lives lost and celebrate lives lived. And, create something that really works in a very special way. Mark Ellis: We want it to include reflection areas, multi-faith or people of no faith can come and reflect as well. And actually, Westminster Abbey are supporting us as well. We will be holding service there in the Autumn to dedicate trees that represent all the different faiths from around the commonwealth. So, there will be a service there that will dedicate those, and those will be some of the very first trees that will be planted in the new woodland. So, it's a wonderful opportunity. We're working very hard to make sure that it's suitable and fitting for everybody.Kelly Molson: I think that you could not have picked a more perfect location for it as well. It's really interesting, the things that we've talked about today sum up exactly what the arboretum stands for. We've talked about these really fun engaging ways to look at the stories that you have there and celebrate the land and the people. And then, we have this wonderful memorial wood that's going to be developed to really commemorate everything that's happened in the past 15, 16 months. It's fabulous.Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. That woodland will be very poignant and very special, but we also want it to be a place of joy and hope as well. And, hope, and looking forward, and rebirth, and regrowth. President Biden said in his inaugural speech about healing and remembrance going together, and that's what we want to do. I'm very hopeful that in the future will be a woodland where, as well as the opportunity to reflect and remember, there'll be the opportunity to enjoy and have fun, and play, and celebrate as well.Kelly Molson: Sounds perfect. When does the work start? What're the timeframes?Mark Ellis: The work started a wee while ago. Kelly Molson: It's in progress already, great.Mark Ellis: Absolutely. We signed the lease on the land within the last couple of weeks, so we're surveying the land at the moment, and seeing what's there and what we need to do. We're hoping to, with The National Forest Company, start a public engagement piece this Autumn to really get to understand what people want from it and what people's hopes and aspirations would be for space. And then, probably start the work at the backend of 2022, with a view to having visitor's feet on the ground sometime in 2023. So, in arboreal terms, quite a short timescale. Hopefully from this Autumn, we'll be able to talk about people. And, there is an area on our website dedicated to it, so if people want to know more or want the opportunity to get involved, pop to the National Memorial Arboretum website. There's a Contact Us form, specifically for the memorial woodland on there as well. We'll be absolutely delighted to have conversations with people. And, even just going out and public talking about it, that's already opened up some really great conversations with lots of different groups that perhaps we normally wouldn't get a chance to speak to. So, it's already beginning to develop its own opportunities and create interesting conversations for us.Kelly Molson: I love that. Mark, you've done my work for me, because what I was going to say is what we do is put all of the links to all of these things that we've talked about today into the show notes. So, we'll have links to that specific page where you can get involved and find out a little bit more about what's happening there.Mark Ellis: Fabulous. Kelly Molson: And, we'll put links to Mark himself, so you can find him on Twitter, and you find him on LinkedIn. And, everything, again, that we've talked about today, you'll be able to find in the show notes.Kelly Molson: Mark, we always end the podcast by asking our guest to share a book. It can be a book that's helped shape your career in some way, or a book that you just love. So, what have you got for us today?Mark Ellis: I know, Kelly, it upsets you when people go with more than one book, doesn't it? Because, it breaks your marketing budget. So, I've got 43 recommendations for you. The first 41 of which, are books that I love, it's the Terry Pratchett Discworld series. Kelly Molson: Okay, that's fine.Mark Ellis: Don't put those on your list, that really would break the bank. But, I love the Discworld books. I love the slanted way he looks at the world. There are not many management meetings where I probably don't quote Granny Weatherwax, or Sam Vimes, or somebody at some point, so love those. The other 42 and 43, one is Tom Peters, The Brand You 50, which is a small book that Tom Peters has done. It's been out for quite a while now, might have been the late 90s. But effectively, it's saying think about yourself as a brand. It's got 50 tips in there for how you build your own personal brand. And, I found that very useful, having switched jobs a few times, of actually saying, "These are my core values. This is what I hold dear to me. That's what you get from Mark Ellis." It helps when you're looking at new opportunities of saying, "Is the cultural fit going to be right? I know what I want out of a role." And, making sure the interview is a two-way process, and it's going to tick the boxes for me. So, that's one.Mark Ellis: The other one, which perhaps will be the one that you might want to put on your, "I want Mark's book". It's a book called Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill. Paco Underhill is an American. He's done a whole bunch of research on customer's behaviour, particularly in retail. I first came across this book in my retail years, but it absolutely carries through into visitor attractions. He talks an awful lot about signage placement and product placement. And, if a gondola in a shop is just six inches too far out, then when you bend over to pick things off the bottom people are going to brush past your backside as you're shopping. So, actually observing that and moving it six inches might increase sales of that gondola massively. He talks about signage and being shown a sign for an airport somewhere in a boardroom and saying, "That's no good", and taking it out and standing in the middle of busy concourse, and leaning it up against a wall and saying, "Now can we see if that sign works?" So, it's a great book for that. Mark Ellis: I have to say, the prose style irritates me greatly. So, Paco, if you're listening, sorry about that. It's done in a very narrative way, and it's probably slightly condescending in places, and it's a really quick read. I first read it probably 25 years ago, and I refer back to it on a pretty regular basis, in terms of those core messages. So, Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill would be my recommendation.Kelly Molson: Let's give that one away then, Mark, because that sounds really relevant. So, as ever, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Mark's book", then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. Good choice with the Discworld as well, I have to say, good choice. My great-auntie Doris, who my extremely naughty Dachshund is named after, she was a huge Terry Pratchett fan. I grew up with those books and reading them with her, and they bring back some really lovely, lovely memories when you talk about them. So, thank you for putting that in my head today. Mark Ellis: No worries.Kelly Molson: Also weirdly, my dad got... I don't know why I'm sharing this with you today, but my dad was mistaken for Terry Pratchett one night. We took him and my mum out for drinks, and the barmaid came over and said, "You're him, aren't you? You're Terry Pratchett." And, dad was like, "I think he's dead." Mark Ellis: That's awesomely cool though. Kelly Molson: "It's not me." He does look a little bit like him, I have to say. Mark Ellis: You see, that could be a plot from one of the stories, couldn't it?Kelly Molson: Could be, yeah. My dad reincarnated as Terry Pratchett, that's quite odd. It's because he's a hat wearer and he's got a beard. Mark Ellis: There you go, that's all it takes.Kelly Molson: Anyway, don't know why that came out, but thank you for putting that in my head as well. Mark, it's been so lovely to chat with you today, I've really enjoyed it. I think there are some wonderful things that are happening at your attraction, and I cannot wait to come and see it and meet you in real life. Mark Ellis: Thanks for having me, Kelly. As I've said before, you're welcome up here any time at all, look forward to seeing you.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.

CyprusScene review with the news of an invitation to the Cyprus Emergency Memorial Service at National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire...Click below to see photos This episode is also available as a blog post: https://cyprusscene.com/2021/06/18/invitation-to-the-cyprus-emergency-memorial-service-at-the-nma/ CyprusScene Podcasts can be found on the following apps Anchor, Google Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, PocketCasts, Breaker, Castbox, Apple Itunes

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 August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.Show references:www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehengewww.linkedin.com/in/james-rodliff-89224055 James RodliffJames is currently the Operations Manager at Stonehenge, Europe’s most famous prehistoric monument and one of the UK's busiest visitor attractions. He is responsible for overseeing the day to day running of the large site, leading the operations, admissions, volunteering and education teams in delivering a world class visitor experience. He is also involved with English Heritage's brand and training groups. At the end of 2020 James was one of eight individuals chosen as the UK’s ‘unsung heritage champions’, a Heritage Lottery Fund initiative honouring remarkable individuals who have worked tirelessly to keep the UK’s heritage accessible during the pandemic and beyond.Growing up in Cornwall James held a number of roles in tourism and heritage before going to Cardiff where he completed his post-graduate studies in Archaeology. He then spent two years at Lloyds Banking Group where he thrived in training and improving customer service. In 2012 James landed a dream role working for the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth; here he commenced a seven year journey through the installation, launch, relaunch, and rebranding of the multi-award winning Mary Rose Museum.  James loves the great outdoors and, when not at work, can often be found hiking, biking, or jogging the length and breadth of the country (Covid travel rules allowing), often visiting attractions and heritage sites en-route. 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. These chats are fun, informative, and hopefully always interesting. In today's episode I speak with James Rodliff, Operations Manager at Stonehenge, part of English Heritage. We discuss the challenges and positives to come from a changing audience this year. From international to domestic, and how Stonehenge will maintain a blend of physical and virtual events for the future.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Right James, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today. I'm super-excited to have you on. I feel like we've spoken a lot on social media, but we've never properly had a chat, so this is going to be fun.James Rodliff: I'm really excited. Thanks for inviting me on. I'm a big fan, so I've made it. I've made it onto Skip the Queue, this is amazing.Kelly Molson: I love this. This is like the highlight of my day that people are excited about coming on here. Thank you. Right, well as you know, if you are a big fan, we always start with our icebreaker question. So let's get going. I would like to know what is the greatest, either TV show or film from your childhood?James Rodliff: Ah, lots of options. I'm going to have to go to Goonies, straight up. The Goonies. It just ticks every box, it's amazing. For me, I was really interested in the history and the maps, I'm a nerd, but them finding this treasure. I was also really worried that the treasure got destroyed at the end, you know? I'm the same when I watch Indiana Jones, I love Indiana Jones, but at the same time I'm panicking when they're destroying the temples or this precious or archaeology's being lost. But yeah, no The Goonies is just fantastic.Kelly Molson: Great, great choice. I am a child of the '80s, and those films are a comfort to me. Whenever I'm a bit under the weather, and I have a little diva day, it's always an '80s film that goes on. Something that you've watched a billion times that's just really comforting. That is definitely one for me. Next question, would you rather give up social media, or eat the same dinner for the rest of your life?James Rodliff: That is mean. I love social media. A lot of my friends live all around the world, and it's part of the way how we all work nowadays, and stay in touch with each other. I don't know if you can tell from my physique, I love my food. I could not eat the same ... There are some things I could eat a lot, but I couldn't eat the same meal over and over again. I would ditch the social media, and probably be a healthier person, probably, for it, in the long run. But yes, I would have to go for that.Kelly Molson: What's your favourite meal? If you had to eat the same meal every night, what would it be?James Rodliff: That's so hard, maybe a glorious green Thai curry would probably be the absolute top for me. Yeah, absolutely adore Thai food. I was lucky enough to go out there a few years ago, and the place was amazing, the people were amazing, but the food, oh my god, the food.Kelly Molson: Yeah, lovely. That is a really good choice. It would get a bit boring if it was the same every day though, wouldn't it?James Rodliff: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Kelly Molson: You just, repetitive.James Rodliff: Lose the magic.Kelly Molson: Okay, I might have had a little bit of help with the next question.James Rodliff: Uh-oh.Kelly Molson: You'll probably know who when I ask you. What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you at an airport?James Rodliff: Oh no. Yeah, I might know who would be behind this one. So calamity seems to follow me, Kelly, around my life. On one particular time ... So this was the young Paul Griffiths, no doubt, that's helped you here. Where were we going? We were coming back from Norway, I think. We got some funding to go out, we were putting together some work when we worked at the Mary Rose together. We were flying up to Norway, and for some reason when I went through the scanny machine thingy that scans ... They do like the heat temperature and the metal detector, for some reason, can't tell you why, but my lower regions glowed a glorious, radiant orange.James Rodliff: They pulled me in to get proper strip searched by these big Norwegian chaps. Yeah, it was quite the experience. Then, after it was all done and I put my clothes back on and was walking away, realized I'd left my iPad. I had to go back and speak to them again, and say, "I'm so sorry."Kelly Molson: Oh, the horror.James Rodliff: I know, I think they thought I was coming back to get their number, or something. Yeah, that was a moment.Kelly Molson: Wow, that is unexpected, isn't it? You're really not expecting that to happen.James Rodliff: Yeah, thanks Paul for that. Yeah.Kelly Molson: Thank you, Paul. I'm so glad that I asked you. Okay, thank you for answering all those. What's your unpopular opinion?James Rodliff: So this is going to lose me a lot of fans straight off the bat. I think people are going to turn off straight away, but I don't really like Abba. Like I really don't like Abba. I know. I know, right? So everyone's got a band or an artist that they just don't get on with, that's kind of just ... Yeah. For me, it's Abba, and this has landed me in all sorts of bother throughout my life. One time when we were, again, in Scandinavia, in Sweden, and we worked with the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. Beautiful museum with a ship. A little bit newer, but more intact than the Mary Rose, an absolutely gorgeous museum. We were being hosted out there whilst we worked, again, on some projects.James Rodliff: They said, "Ah, the Abba Museum's just opened down the road, we should take you." I had to explain that I didn't really like Abba. Honestly, explain to Swedish people you don't like Abba. Their faces. They just couldn't comprehend it. They just could not understand it. But we went anyway. It must have been ... Yes, it was the trip that we took some of our volunteers from the Mary Rose with us. We all went into the Abba Museum, and it's a fabulous museum, they've done an amazing job, but the subject matter was ... I just really, really don't like it. So that was interesting. But fabulous attraction if you're ever in Stockholm you should go and see it, whether you're an Abba fan or not.Kelly Molson: I feel like you're trying to dig yourself out of a big hole there, James. I would just like to state that the views of our guests do not reflect the views of our podcast. [inaudible 00:06:35] tune in. Thank you. I feel like we're going to get some tweets about that.James Rodliff: I'm going to get some hate mail about that.Kelly Molson: Maybe.James Rodliff: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Right, let's get into having a chat about you and Stonehenge because this is exciting. I just want to say that we are recording this, so it's the 5th of March today, which is a day that parents all around the country will be rejoicing, because it is the end of homeschooling, hopefully, for now. Let's keep our fingers crossed.James Rodliff: Hopefully.Kelly Molson: But it is also St Piran's Day.James Rodliff: It is St Piran's Day, yeah.Kelly Molson: It's the national day of Cornwall. We just had a lovely chat about this off air, but I think this is really special for you, isn't it, because this is where you're from?James Rodliff: Absolutely. Yeah, so I was born and raised in Cornwall, and kind of strong Cornish identity. Well, everyone, I think, who was born and grows up there, has it? It's a very special place, and it has very much its own character and history and legends and stories. Actually growing up there had a massive impact on me because it's a very, very touristy economic environment down there anyway. So that was always a big part of living down there, but also surrounded by these amazing standing stones, and ruins and hill forts on windswept moors. There's just this kind of sense of magic and mystery down there.James Rodliff: There's lots of these kinds of special high days and holidays, usually involving food, a fair few drinks, and a bit of dancing, and all sorts of good times. But yeah, that had a really big impact on me growing up. This huge sense of storytelling in Cornwall as well. My friend's laughing because I don't seem to be able to answer a question in a short way, there's always a story, a rambling story to my answers. But I think that's partly growing up in Cornwall, and just the way we explain things and weave things. I think that's had a really big impact on my later career as well.Kelly Molson: Yeah, well this segue ways really nicely into what your background is, and how you got to where you are now. Because you mentioned growing up in Cornwall you were really kind of part of that tourist economy, and experiences that were happening there. Was that the start of it? You always knew that you would kind of work within that industry?James Rodliff: I think so. I mean it's just what I did. It was a few jobs a few decades back now working in busy pub kitchens, or working in summer retail environments. That's what all of us, all my friends did the same. Working on the beaches in shops, or whatever. Or I was working in the caravan park during one summer. That's just what the economy was. Alongside this, like I said, being surrounded by kind of the history and the legends and the stories as well. They kind of fueled a bit of a dual passion in me, I suppose. Which was the facilitation of these stories, and the history and the heritage to people, to explain what these things are, and what they mean.James Rodliff: So that, yeah, I think did have a really big impact on me. Yeah, Cornwall is absolutely chocka with attractions. Lots of people go down there because the place is beautiful, and they want to get a sense of the food, the culture, the history. And lots and lots of different attractions have popped up, as well, to facilitate them, and help them part with their cash as well. Some of these attractions, amazing. A couple, slightly more questionable, but all, in their own ways, amazing, well worth a visit.Kelly Molson: You're now at Stonehenge, but I know that you worked at the Mary Rose previously, with Paul, who was very kind to help me out with some of those questions. Paul has been a previous guest on the podcast as well. But I think you started, was it banking that you actually started your career in?James Rodliff: Yeah.Kelly Molson: That's quite a big change.James Rodliff: It is a bit, yeah. So I decided to study archaeology through to the postgraduate level. I loved finding out more and more and more of these stories beneath our feet, and I just couldn't get enough of it. Graduated with my masters, I worked actually as an archaeologist in the field for a while on a few different digs, as well as balancing various other jobs, whatever came up. Then graduated with my masters, and kind of hoped to swan into a brilliant job in heritage or archaeology, and obviously, that's not necessarily the way the world worked. But an amazing opportunity came up and I went to work for Lloyds Bank. Which was right after the credit crunch, and right coming up to the PPI scandal. It was quite a time to work for banks.James Rodliff: I got involved with kind of customer complaint handling and how you should treat your customers, and how to retain business, and how to help put things right when things do go wrong. That was really, really useful for me. So having that kind of history heritage side, and then being thrown into quite a corporate environment, but one that was in a bit of a crisis, really, and having to find a way out of that was actually really useful. So I did that for a few years. Worked hard, got all the experience I possibly could, but I really ... My heart had to get back into heritage. I knew I had to make a step back.James Rodliff: So started looking around, and a job popped up down in Portsmouth on the south coast, at the Mary Rose, where they were just getting ready to set up the new museum, and it was to join the conservation team to help install the objects. So they were looking for people with experience who had handled objects, and could work on projects. So I applied, it was a pay cut. It was a short contract. It was a massive gamble. My dad was very unsure about it. I was like, "What do you think?" He was like, "I don't know." But we decided to go for it. Moved down to Portsmouth, and yeah, the project was amazing.James Rodliff: I spent a year being able to help install this incredible collection. There's 19,000 objects in the Mary Rose collection, and the museum itself, if anyone hasn't yet gone, must go. It is absolutely phenomenal. They've done such a good job there. 30 years in the planning and it really shows, it is beautiful. So that was amazing.James Rodliff: Then joined the operations team once the installation had done. Worked in different roles. Front of house manager, visitor operations manager. Then I worked as part of the marketing team for a little while. Kind of did everything. Was there for seven years. Which I think in your late 20s early 30s is a long time to be anywhere. Yeah, so I started thinking there are people that do work at the Mary Rose for their entire career, and you can understand why. It is a stunning project. But I knew it was probably getting time for me to move onto a new challenge.James Rodliff: I did really want a challenge as well, something to really sink my teeth into. So I was kind of keeping an eye out, and this job popped up at Stonehenge, where they were looking for an operations manager. You know, you hear of my history there, that just kind of ticked a lot of boxes for me. So again, up sticks, moved up to Salisbury, and joined Stonehenge June 1st, 2019. So straight into the summer, straight into my first Summer Solstice. The Solstice is also my birthday, so that was a nice treat to have 10,000 people celebrating on my birthday.Kelly Molson: How wonderful they all just turned up just for you.James Rodliff: I know, it's fabulous, but that was really lovely. The first summer was a whirlwind. You know, we had dealt with some really busy times at the Mary Rose, but Stonehenge and sites like that, they're a different scale. Everything is just scaled up massively. The visitors come from all around the world, it's just the most incredible place. It was a steep learning curve, but we had our busiest ever summer day during that first summer. The winter was fabulous and we had our busiest winter day as well that year. We were just starting to put in some quite ambitious plans around looking at the admissions process and kind of moving it from what it is, which is a stunning product into making sure that it's a world-class visitor attraction as well. Then of course COVID hit, didn't it?Kelly Molson: Gosh, I mean you had a really big start to your career there, didn't you?James Rodliff: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Straight in into a Summer Solstice-James Rodliff: Straight in.Kelly Molson: ... and then hey, smashed in the face with a pandemic.James Rodliff: Absolutely. I've spent now more time at Stonehenge under the kind of pandemic situation than I did beforehand, which is really strange. So yeah, I feel like a bit of a kind of wartime operations manager, in a way, you know? But it is fabulous, and it means that I've been able to part of this quite dynamic time, which is really interesting.Kelly Molson: In at the deep end with both feet.James Rodliff: Absolutely. Absolutely.Kelly Molson: Couldn't have planned that more perfectly, right? If you can get through last year, you can get through anything, James.James Rodliff: I hope so, yeah.Kelly Molson: So what worked well last year for Stonehenge? Because a huge change, I guess you were closed for a certain amount of time, but then outdoor attractions were allowed to then start to reopen and stuff. What went well, what didn't go well?James Rodliff: Yeah, so I mean it was ... What a year it was, right? I mean for everyone in the sector it was incredibly tough. What worked well? So we actually received some of the best feedback we have received in recent times during last year. Which is, I think, outstanding. That kind of came about because we really took, well not a step back, we took a lot of steps back to look at the entire visitor journey. It's cliché, visitor journey, but really, really did kind of think about every single touchpoint with our visitors, with our members, with our supporting staff, volunteers, how we could make it work. When were coming to reopen the site and not just our site, but there's ... Well, English Heritage looks after 400 sites, 130 sites with staff. How are we going to reopen the portfolio and make it work?James Rodliff: So we looked at what people expectations would be around COVID, and what their priorities would be once we could reopen, and what they would actually want to get from the site. So we took that, we took, like I said, every single step of the journey, every touchpoint, and we just worked our way through it. Everyone kind of honed in on this single mission to make this the best that it could be in the circumstances. Also to kind of mitigate against any times, if we did have to step back and say there's a bit of the experience there that you're not going to be able to access in the same way, what could we do otherwise then?James Rodliff: So that worked really, really well, and that process all the way through, pre-booking, booking, admissions, arrival, the whole day. We looked at what we had. We've got, as you said, we're an outdoor attraction, we've got outdoor space. What did people want after being locked in for so long? They wanted to get outdoors, and spread out, and breathe, and a bit of normality. So we started looking at what could we do a bit different. So let's tell people to come and bring a picnic, have a picnic in the monument field. What a lovely thing to do and Stonehenge right there.James Rodliff: Come and walk the landscape, instead of ... We have our shuttle buses. Now if people are in a bit more of a hurry, or they don't fancy the walk, or whatever, we have the buses, and we kept them going as well, especially for those who couldn't or didn't want to walk. But if you can walk, walk. Spread-out, enjoy yourselves. People came, they spent the day, and they really, really had a great time. Alongside that, we had lots of projects working on how we could better engage with people at home, different formats that we could use, tying in with education platforms, and all the other needs that people had as well.James Rodliff: It worked. It really worked. What was amazing is that all this planning, all this kind of forethought into the operations, people noticed. You look on TripAdvisor and people were noticing the operations and they're commenting on the ... People don't normally do that, you know? "They really thought about where to put the barriers, and how people stand." People just don't normally say that. So that was outstanding, and it really felt good.James Rodliff: The other thing that worked really well was our staff. They have just been outstanding. Absolutely outstanding, and I just can't thank them enough. All the way through this process they've been practical and intuitive and supportive, and they've just wanted to make it work. They love the place. They really, really love the place, and you can see that in how they approach everything. The feedback from visitors, alongside the operational stuff, has been about the staff. "I arrived, I was warmly greeted. I was made to feel safe and secure. Like they've really thought about everything." That was really, really magic as well.James Rodliff: Another thing is our VIP experience. We have stone circle experiences where we can host a smaller number of people outside of the normal opening times, where you can actually go inside, up close to the stones. Normally this is often quite heavily in demand from international audiences, and larger tour companies. But we were able to offer this out to a domestic market. So if you can't go on holiday, why not come inside the Stonehenge stone circle? That was amazing. The feedback from that from domestic audience was fantastic. Really, really impressive.James Rodliff: I also am a big fan of our hand sanitiser. I think it smells delightful, but it smells a bit like tequila. Was it you or Carly when-Kelly Molson: Oh.James Rodliff: Is it you? Okay.Kelly Molson: Carly loves tequila, but me, I can't even think about it.James Rodliff: Carly would have a lovely old time, but you'd have to bring your own. But no, slight tequila whiff at night, that I think is lovely as well. But not the entire ... That coming together, we were just chuffed to bits to see, in the face of all this adversity, that actually we delivered something that we were really proud of.Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? The more people that I speak to in the sector, the more this comes through, is that the things that were really important to visitors that were coming is that they were welcomed. It still felt like a really lovely, warm experience for them, aside from the fact that there were extra security processes in place, and barriers and things. It still felt like a great time for them to come. It's the team that makes that. It's the front-of-house team, it's the people that care about the place, that care about the people's experience that makes that happen.Kelly Molson: Did you find that, because you mentioned about people kind of like walking to the stones and people bringing picnics and things. Did you find that people stayed longer, and had a kind of a longer experience there then they normally would?James Rodliff: Definitely, yeah.Kelly Molson: So in a way, less people actually better experience for the people that did come.James Rodliff: Yeah, absolutely. We encouraged it really, because although we had our caps and we were trying to get that balance right of safety limits in terms of ... Because obviously we have got space, but there are ... Our facilities, they are big, but they still need to be very mindful in terms of the number of people coming through in the hour slots. So we were very, very cautious about that. But yeah, we encouraged it. Come, spend the day, bring a picnic. Really have a wonderful day. I think the domestic audiences if they're going out they're not necessarily doing like you do on holiday, you're quite happy to do two or three things in a day, quick, go, take your photos, off you go again.James Rodliff: If you're going somewhere domestically and you're going to be parting with your hard-earned cash, then you want to get the most out of it. So that was fabulous. Actually, some of the things we tweaked helped facilitate that. So as we said, the picnics in the monument field. The landscape walks. We have these beautiful replica neolithic houses on the site, which have been made by our volunteers, absolutely gorgeous. They're basically experimental archaeology, based on houses that were excavated nearby on the landscape. They're phenomenally interesting, and some of them actually have all kind of neolithic replica artefacts in, and a volunteer will sit in there, and they can light a fire, and you can come in and hear about it, and it's just incredible.James Rodliff: Couldn't do that in COVID. So what we did we brought that outside into the middle of the village. Actually made it kind of more approachable and accessible in some ways. That was a huge success, and people were sitting there, and really engaging. So that really helped. Actually some of these things we put in, we thought this is, in some ways, arguably better. So I think there's some real lessons there for us to take away as well.Kelly Molson: So that's interesting because this brings me to what this year looks like. So obviously you've got ... You mentioned you'd have quite a predominantly international audience, and 2021, let's face it, we have no idea when people are going to be flying in from anywhere. So your audience goes back to predominantly domestic. What challenges does that throw up for you? Do you carry on doing the things that you did last year? Or are there more things that you've got to adapt and change for this year?James Rodliff: Well you know, it's undeniably going to be a massive challenge. The last year has been a huge challenge for our sector, us as a charity we rely on ticket income, as so many other organisations do. Not having that international audience is undeniably going to have a big impact on that. We've had to delay things like some of our conservation projects and maintenance projects because we just don't have the ticket income coming in. That will be a further symptom of not having necessarily as many international guests coming in.James Rodliff: Yeah, the majority of our visitors each year are international. So what are we going to do about that? So we know what worked last year, and we took a lot of lessons from that. I think we are well prepared to do a comparable, if not better offer, from the things that we learnt last year for our domestic audiences, which is exciting. We have got infrastructure onsite that is dedicated to coach groups and international audiences that isn't going to be used by them, so how can we better use that to help spread people out, and make it a more comfortable and better experience for them as well.James Rodliff: But you're right, we have to think about car parks, and what happens if the car park starts to fill up because people aren't coming on coaches. The changes in dwell time, and what that will do. The other parts of our offer, our catering and retail, is that as relevant when you're looking after this big domestic audience, as it was in this international one?James Rodliff: But it does give us some real positives as well. The stay-cation market should be strong. In fact, some of the English Heritage sites had one of their best-ever years last year, because especially in the west, people were looking around, thinking okay, we can't go to Magaluf, we can't go to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, we've got this amazing castle three miles away, we've never been there. Let's go and have a day. What a lovely thing.James Rodliff: You know, some of our sites had an amazing year last year, and I think they will again, have a strong year as well. But other sites will have more challenges. Ones that are more indoors will struggle. Those who rely heavily on international tourism, like us, will have those issues. But it's going to push us to be more inventive in problem-solving. Come up with new ways of making sure the offer really is good. It's things like our special, our stone circle experience tours, things like that, again, I think we've got a great season with that lined up, and a whole new audience to really speak to there as well.Kelly Molson: It's amazing, isn't it? You're talking through about how there's so many things to think about when you're in an operation. You mentioned about the car park in there, if lots of people aren't coming on one coach, and then loads of people are coming in all individual cars, then that changes that completely. It blows my mind to think about how you even start to plan all of this out. You mentioned the catering, so does your catering offer then have to change to if people are going to come for the day, and they're going to stay for longer, is your catering offering hampers, so they can have the picnic?Kelly Molson: Then that shifts in that sense. Whereas, if they're coming on a tour bus, that might have been they're just going to grab a quick sandwich or a scone or something to eat while they're looking at stuff, and then they're off again. There's so much to think about. How do you even start to plan this? It's such an epic task.James Rodliff: It is, and you know, talking about catering, are people coming for two meals now? And what does that look like? Think about all those different things. Certain retail products, are they going to be right for the different audiences? Yeah, I mean luckily we've got just an amazing team. I've got some amazing, amazing colleagues, and so we've been putting a lot of thought into this. You know, finally, it's what a week it's been. We got our dates last week, which obviously kind of paves forward a bit of a roadmap for the coming weeks, months and hoping to get open asap in a safe way.James Rodliff: But it also means that right now there are some deadlines, we really need to get planning. But also we didn't necessarily know what we were opening into. So when we do open, I won't be able to open our exhibition at first, you know, indoor interpretation spaces. So that's going to be a challenge. So how do we offset that and make sure that is as good as it can be? What is quite exciting is that it has actually fast forwarded some other measures. So our new audio offer is going to be ready for when we reopen, which is brilliant. We've been able to crack on, our new café is going to be open for when we reopen. So there are lots of new and exciting things already in the bag, which is really good.Kelly Molson: That's great as well because I guess that kind of engages with people that have already been before, that live locally too. So there's something new for them to come and see. There's something new for them to experience. Which means you're kind of engaging with them and drawing them back. So it's not just kind of a one-time visit. I want to ask about the venue, and if you need to adapt it in any way for different audiences? Not just kind of international to domestic, but potentially less attentive audiences.Kelly Molson: So this was a question that Mark Ellis sent in from the National Memorial Arboretum. He's kind of asking around if your audience changes to maybe kind of like gen Zed, I don't really like these acronyms, they drive me mad. But a younger generation have maybe a slightly ... They're slightly less attentive. Are there new things that you're thinking about that you're going to need to implement to engage with them?James Rodliff: That's a very interesting question. Do you know what's funny? Thinking back 10 years or so, and this same question was to replace gen Zed with the word millennial and it was the same question then. As an older millennial, I was there thinking I love museums, I don't know why they're worried that I'm going to go, and I know lots of people like me that really like going to these places. You're right, segmentation is super useful, and super un-useful at the same time. So I think doing it by age groups is a slightly dangerous route to go down because lots of different age groups act in different ways.James Rodliff: I see it on site. We see people from one to 100, and some of them will be really attentive and interested, and some won't be. That doesn't necessarily depend on the age group. I think perhaps looking at are these people experience seekers? If that's what they want, if they want to come and make memories, then how do we best facilitate that? We have the benefit of having ... We've got Stonehenge. It's one of a kind, it's very authentic, it's very amazing. When you're there, you've stood in that field looking at it, you cannot help be mesmerised. That is brilliant. No amount of AR, VR, crazy different ways of technologically adding to that will be able to match the magnificence of the actual monument itself.James Rodliff: That being said, I think there are lots of different ways that we can tell stories, and that we should always be pushing ourselves to ... Just because we've done something a certain way for a long time, doesn't mean we should keep doing it that way. I think we should always be keeping an eye on whatever tools we can use in our arsenal to make that best possible experience it can be for our guests. Some of that I think is giving space to people to explore it in their own way, and not being overly prescriptive, and this is the way you should experience it. This is the only way you'll get the story is by listening to this guide, or standing at that point, or following that exact route.James Rodliff: Give people the space to do it. Now some people want to be led. They want to know, "I'm scared of missing something if I don't follow the exact route." Other people they want to just go and do it in their own way. They might want to stand in the field and catch Pokemon or something. I don't know. There are different ways that people want to enjoy that environment. I think the other thing is talking about younger generations is certainly that the young generation now, they are more into the outdoors and nature and fitness-Kelly Molson: Absolutely.James Rodliff: ... and healthy and wellbeing. I was sat on the couch in the Chelsea eating pork pies and cans of Coke as a young person. These young people they're out there, they run for fun. This is something I've discovered much later, but different things are important to them. So again, us, we have a lot of outdoor space, this is brilliant for us. But I think other places should think about that, what is important to these audiences. Not just kind of changing the offer to match them, but looking at what you already have, and matching that to the need. There are some stuff, talking about making memories, we are looking at is there some cool places we can suggest that are the ultimate selfie spots, you know?Kelly Molson: Yeah.James Rodliff: Silly things like the shot that everyone wants, that great bit that people want to share on social media with their friends. Yeah, so bits like that.Kelly Molson: But that's great. So that engages with them in something that they love to do, but also it's beneficial for the experience. They share that content, it's user-generated content, it gets shared across their social media channels, it all helps to promote. I am a big fan of museums introducing kind of Instagram-able areas because I think it's just an incredible way to be able to promote and engage with that different audience. That's what they want to do. They want to capture that perfect moment as well.Kelly Molson: I want to talk about kind of virtual stuff as well. So I know that obviously Summer Solstice you did some virtual elements around that last year. What have you got planned for this year? So what events have you got planned that might be virtual? And what might always stay virtual, or go back to physical? Is there plans to kind of keep some of those things hand-in-hand with the real-life experience?James Rodliff: It's a good point. We've been dabbling with how do we share the Solstice with not just the people that can make it to the site, but how can we do that. Like you said, the Solstice last year where we weren't able to ... Sadly weren't able to host our managed open access to the stones, we had an empty field, which is a very unusual thing on a Solstice, it's probably been a very long time since that happened. But we were able then to share that experience with the world. People from all around the world tuned in to see it. Huge audience of people. Both the Summer and the Winter Solstice.James Rodliff: People found it really quite something. Actually, the winter one I was working in the evening, so we still have a few people onsite just checking and making sure everything's okay. I worked the evening slot, but not the morning. So I woke up quite early at home thinking I hope everything's okay, and I kind of tuned into the livestream, and I was actually just lying in bed, watching the sunrise over the stones. It was so beautiful, so lovely. That has been a real success. Definitely we'd love to do some more of that to share that for people that can't get here. Especially this year, even if domestic audiences might be able to travel, international audiences might not, and so you know, we know it's a really important thing to people. So more of that, yes. More of that, absolutely.James Rodliff: We've got our skyscape camera as well. I don't know if you've seen that. Which is there's a camera up at the stones basically. Which, whenever you want to, at any time of day, you can go onto the site, and you can see what the sky is doing at Stonehenge. You can click on different filters, so you can see where the stars are moving, where the sun's moving, everything. Which is really lovely. That's here to stay, that's really lovely.James Rodliff: We've got some new projects that are kind of launching this year, which may well fuel future adventures as well. But we've got Songs of England, which is just coming out, which is an English Heritage wide project, working with amazing folk singers to bring English folk songs to the sites. The amazing sites that we have that tell England's history, which is just fabulous. That's really, really lovely. We do have other stuff, but I'm not allowed to talk about them, to come. So keep an eye on the website and our social media channels. But there are other things that we blended, right?James Rodliff: So when we talked earlier, Kelly, about if there's things on site that you are unable to experience firsthand, is there any other way of getting some of that experience? So we had our agile interpretation. I love this phrase, agile interpretation, which is kind of the brainchild of some of our very brilliant visceral experience and learning and interpretation colleagues who start producing things. Okay, so for us, our houses, I said you couldn't go inside the houses and have that experience. Okay, the volunteers are outside, and they're showing you things and engaging in that way, but how can you just close that gap between what we did have, pre-COVID, and what we've got now?James Rodliff: So we've got QR codes. It's pretty much a simple post that says, "Want to see what it's like? Scan this QR code." Then it pops up on your phone and you're in the house, and you can see the fire's going, and you're inside. Just closing that gap. That agile interpretation, it's quick, it's relatively cheap, and it just works. It doesn't have to be perfect. I think there are lots of places that could look at that and say, "It's such a shame we can't do this part of our experience." What can you do then to close that gap in? That blend of kind of digital and physical I think is going to be really important as we go forward.Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that. I love the way that you've described it as a blend, because I think that's exactly what it should be. It's exactly what people are expecting things to be now. It's really weird that even me that works in a kind of digital world, it's never been my first ... You know, I'll go and look at a website of an attraction that I want to go and visit. But I wouldn't engage with the website as much, because I knew that I was going to go to the physical place. But now, I'll go to the website and I'll look at everything that I possibly can, just to try and get that kind of sense of experience of what it's going to be like.Kelly Molson: I can remember a month or so ago you've got like a ... You can click on the stones, and it tells you what each of the stones are called, and where they came from, and information about them. I spent a good hour kind of clicking through and looking at it. You could kind of change things around. It felt quite immersive. It was quite a simple thing, but it kind of gave me a sense of yeah, I really need to be there now. It sort of built that excitement. I think that's what's important about having these virtual experiences is it builds the excitement about going. Actually that kind of anticipation, that's what you want in people. You want them to be super excited when they come.Kelly Molson: I think that the only way to really do that is to continue doing these things that are digital, that you can share with anyone and everyone around the world.James Rodliff: Yeah, you're absolutely right. We were talking earlier on about that kind of sense of welcome when you arrive. People should be excited about coming to our site still, even reopening into social distancing, or opening in social distancing, we still need to make sure that people are excited. These are magic days that we work in these environments where we're bringing people to have amazing experiences, and they should be excited to have those.Kelly Molson: I guess this question is probably something that you've probably done already, because you were able to open last year, to a certain extent. But what more can you put in place so that your front of line staff feel really safe and secure about what's happening? Because they're the first people that interact with the guests that are coming, so essentially they're kind of frontline, there's an element of risk there for them, right? How do you make them feel comfortable? Is there any more that you're going to have to think about this year, potentially, with a new kind of COVID strands?James Rodliff: Yeah, it's a great point. Yeah, you said staff are that first point of contact, so if staff do feel nervous, they do feel unsafe, or they do feel worried, that's going to come across. So that's got to be the top priority. For us, that was always at the top of our priority list was making sure the staff are safe, that they feel safe, and that they understand everything that's happening so that they are an active part of the whole process. That has been a thread that we've pulled all the way through. So what we did, for example, when we opened after the first lockdown, we've been opened and closed a few times now.James Rodliff: After the first lockdown what we did was we put all our plans into place. The few of us that weren't furloughed we'd spent a long, long time coming up with these very clever plans, we thought. When we got all the team back about a week before we opened up, and we talked them through it. I led the team around, socially distanced, led the team around the site and said, "This is what I'm planning, or this is what we're planning, and these are the elements of the site we want to tweak. This is what we're thinking. You guys are the experts, you're on the ground, you deal with this every day. You tell me, what have I forgotten? What could we do better?" There was brilliant feedback.James Rodliff: They came and they shared, and they were very happy to come up with solutions to other problems, or just highlight things that, "I don't know what the solution is here, but this is something we're going to have to watch." Then what we did, when we did go round, we tweaked and we made things better for them. Made them an active part of that process. When we did open then the first thing, as soon as we closed on that first day we all gathered around, socially distanced, and said what went really well today? What worked? What parts of these very clever plans that have taken us ages to draw up actually worked? And what didn't work? What could we do better? What could we tweak?James Rodliff: We did that every day for the first week or so. We tweaked and changed, and they really felt part of that process. They felt listened to, and they felt a lot better. It doesn't take away all the nerves. All of us working in a pandemic, just living through a pandemic, it's exhausting and it's terrifying. So you can't take away everything. But what we have done is work very hard to make sure it's the absolute best it can be.James Rodliff: We're lucky we've got some amazing people that work for English Heritage. I have to shout out to Alex Page who's our Head of Safety. The man deserves a knighthood after this year. He has been an absolute national treasure. We had to interpret a lot very quickly, and turn it into plans on the ground. Alex and his team have just been phenomenal in supporting all the site staff in being able to make that happen. Then being infinitely calm and patient with us while we asked lots and lots of questions as well. So we've been lucky there. But you know, everything from making sure that the staff rooms are safe. So we weren't able to do in-classroom learning, so we had that resource. So we took that classroom, the classroom's now a welfare room. Everyone's spread out.James Rodliff: But the priority there was the staff need, above the education, if the staff aren't safe, aren't happy, aren't okay then we can't open. But it also throws up other challenges. Your face-to-face briefings that we would like to do a lot of and get that feedback, the more you have, the more you incrementally slowly creep up that risk factor. What about all the lovely appreciations and the hand clapping, and the hugging, and the well done? Leaving parties, Kelly. We've had people that have retired during this year that have been at Stonehenge for years, and we'd normally party, we'd at least gather around and celebrate, and share. Not having that has been really tough.James Rodliff: So there's some things you can offset. So our briefings we've moved them onto the radios where we can, and try and get, again, that balance, that blend of the physical and the digital, or other means. But yeah, it has been difficult. A lot of communication, in terms of explaining why we're doing stuff as we're doing it, all the way through every week, more internal information comes out explaining, not just what's happening, but why it's happening. If you need anything, if you need any support, where to find it. If you have any questions, where to ask those as well.James Rodliff: There's been a lot of other, because everyone in our sector's been in this same position. So there's been a lot of good sector collaboration around this. I have to give Rachel a shout-out. Rachel Mackay with the Recovery Room website. She's been a good friend throughout this, and she's produced a lot of resources if people haven't found it yet, go onto the Recovery Room because there's a lot of information about supporting front of house teams there as well.Kelly Molson: Rachel has been absolutely fabulous. So Rachel was a previous guest on the podcast actually. What we will do is we'll pop the link to her website in the show notes for this show as well, because it is something, if you are planning your reopening processes now, the resource that is on that blog is pretty phenomenal, isn't it? I know she's been doing some consulting with other organisations as well. So yeah, that's really lovely to see.Kelly Molson: I think, again, that's a huge positive that's come out of this, is that sector collaboration. But also how adaptable everybody's been. The flexibility that people have had to have shown in the roles that they have. And how quickly things have changed, in terms of what you can and can't do, but also being given a week's notice that you can reopen again, and how that impacts people. It's been phenomenal. What's been really lovely to hear is how you've engaged with your team, and you've made them part of that process. It hasn't been we've made the decision, and this is how we're doing things. It's how is this going to work? This is what we think, but like you said, you're the experts, help us.Kelly Molson: I guess that is part of your culture now already, but if it isn't, how do you embed that for the rest of the year, and for future?James Rodliff: Yeah, it's really important that all of us make sure we don't lose some of this. Some of the positive legacy of COVID, if I can phrase it like that. Some of the things that have changed maybe for the better. Or ways of working that have improved, that we don't lose that, if and when they do start sliding back into the normality of some description, we don't lose some of that really positive stuff. That we make sure we do keep collaborating with our colleagues, and use our teams who are the experts on the ground, in how to look after guests, and where pinch points are, and what's the same question that they get asked 732 times a week. How we use that feedback and make things better, and quickly. Not just collate it and put it into a chart, and then sometime in a year's time we might get around to it. But be agile, and like you said, get on with things and make it happen.James Rodliff: So there are some things, like Zoom, love it or hate it, what a way it's transformed the way we work. You can now gather all your experts together at short notice onto a Zoom, be sharing slides. Everyone's kind of tech-savvy, not that people necessarily weren't tech, and to be comfortable and confident to be able to do it, and just make it happen. That's become part of the way we work now. So that will speed things up, and hopefully lower travel costs, and have all sorts of positive environmental things as well.James Rodliff: I do get a bit Zoomed out sometimes, I don't know about you, but especially if you're using it for professional, and then for socialising as well, it can get a bit much. But yeah, it's hugely facilitated this quick-acting, these quick discussions. You can go away, do work, come back, discuss it. That flexibility has been really useful. You said about the creativity from the teams in solving these problems, that's a positive thing that we need to keep moving, and keep that discussion alive as we go forward. And the agility. You said that a week's notice, well sometimes you think back, we'd have Boris on the telly on a Sunday night with things that need to be actioned Monday morning.Kelly Molson: Yes, crazy.James Rodliff: Yeah, I mean it is crazy.Kelly Molson: It's crazy.James Rodliff: Absolutely crazy. So we at Stonehenge, Stonehenge being very outdoors and very open to everything, we have really good kind of cascades and emergency comms protocols anyway. Perhaps not everyone had that, and this has highlighted actually sometimes you do need that. You know, make sure that you can be as agile, and don't lose that again. Just don't get into a position where you think, "Oh, it's okay, the pandemic's over, nothing worse could happen now, could it?" There's some lessons I've taken away as well, Kelly, around the planning elements for it, that even with our best business continuity plans, I don't think we included things as ... We didn't appreciate things such as the emotional impact of a pandemic.James Rodliff: So we had a plan for a pandemic. We had one. What would happen if we had a ... Well, we'd keep going, when people feel off sick then the managers would come ... You know, it's like picking up the rifles at the Battle of Stalingrad, someone else would pick up the mantle and you keep charging forward, and you make it the best it can be. But actually what's the emotional impact there? How would people feel about coming to work? That wasn't in our business continuity planning. So things like that are important.James Rodliff: Things around contracts that you sign based on the assumption or presumption that you'll always have X many thousand visitors coming. Why would you close for six months, or a year, or whatever? So thinking about supply chains and contracts, and that flexibility as well, I think is really important.Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. It's been utterly phenomenal, hasn't it? I think what you were saying about that emotional aspect, I don't think any of us realized quite how significant this would be on our own mental health. I think that when the pandemic started I can remember sitting back and thinking, "Whoa, okay, so I need to work out ... Okay, so what projects have I got on that I think might not be happening now?" You know, what have I got that was coming up next month that is now not going to happen? So how do I work out that? What projects are still going to continue? How do the team feel? How do I get them set up working from home? How does this all happen?Kelly Molson: It was more of kind of the logistical operation side of the physical stuff that I thought about. Then you started to sit back and go, actually people are really scared, and I'm a bit scared. I don't want to leave my house. I don't want to do these things. All right, we weren't allowed to leave our house, but you know, the emotional side was a secondary thought, and a secondary response. I guess that's something that I want to take forward, and not be that. I want to think about the emotional side before the logistics next time. I think that's really, really important. It's definitely still happening now.Kelly Molson: I really sympathise with the people that you said, you know, we had leaving parties for people, and then we never got to hug them, and we never got to say goodbye. We've had team members leave and their last kind of thing that they do is click the Zoom button to leave the meeting. It's like-James Rodliff: Yeah, it's just not the same.Kelly Molson: ... that's not how it's supposed to end.James Rodliff: No.Kelly Molson: It's sad.James Rodliff: We are planning, when we can, to have a gathering. So everyone who's not had that benefit of a proper thank you and a send-off, to get everyone back together. Which it'll be a glorious sunny day, and it's going to be marvellous, and I will have a cider or two.Kelly Molson: Definitely, and maybe a pasty as well.James Rodliff: Maybe.Kelly Molson: I need to talk to you, we're coming to the end of the podcast, and I've got two more quick questions for you. I really need to ask you about the fact that your face was superimposed onto the stones at some point last year. Tell us about that.James Rodliff: It was, yeah.Kelly Molson: What an experience.James Rodliff: It was an experience, yeah. So going back a couple of years, it's not the first time my face has been projected large onto something, and it happened at the Mary Rose because I accidentally became the face of the advertising campaign for the reopening of the museum, dressed as Henry VIII. This time I wasn't dressed in Tudor outfit, and I didn't have to wear a codpiece, so that was a relief, first of all.Kelly Molson: Can I just say that I can remember seeing those posters on the tubes before I even knew you. Then when I saw them on your Twitter I was like, "Oh yeah, those were everywhere."James Rodliff: Yeah, that was a strange time. Yeah, this was different, like I said, less costume. But this was really touching actually. It was all about saying thank you to some of the people who had managed to continue the amazing work of different charities supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. That actually people still playing the lottery, still having a massive effect because the support that they are giving to the Lottery Fund was able to keep these places going. Like our heritage sites, like our amazing charities, and like lots of cultural institutions that were looking after people who were quite marginalised, and during the pandemic, even more so.James Rodliff: It was lovely, I was in mighty company, projected onto those stones. They've never been dedicated like that before to individuals. Really I was kind of representing all the good work that the team had done, that everyone was doing on our side. Really, I feel probably I was the face of our operational teams around the whole country that were working to keep the sites going. Who have been turning up every day through the pandemic, and still traveling, still working, to look after our important places that needed looking after. So yeah, no it was unbelievable to see it. Really did bring a tear to the eye to see, it looked amazing. It was very special.Kelly Molson: Yeah, incredible thing to be part of for last year. Really incredible. One quick question, and then the final question, so Mark Ellis wants to know have you visited the National Memorial Arboretum? It's brilliant.James Rodliff: You know, it's on my list. It's on my very long list that has grown throughout the pandemic, all these wonderful places I want to go to. You know, when you scroll through places, and you're like, I must go there, I must go there. So the list is long now. So as soon as we're out of this, I'm up there Mark, I promise.Kelly Molson: Mark, it's on my list as well. We'll be there. Maybe we'll do a group outing. We could organise a Skip the Queue outing.James Rodliff: It's been lovely. That would be nice.Kelly Molson: Oh gosh, you've just given me so many ideas for ... All right, Mark, thank you for your questions, they've sparked good ideas today. We're at the end of the podcast, I always ask our guests to recommend a book. So either a book that you just really love, or a book that's kind of helped shape your career in some way. What have you got to share with us?James Rodliff: So I really had to think about this. So I don't do a lot of reading of technical books that I probably should do. One of the few that I've read that really amazing history experience was, as Paul mentioned in his actually, was about the Disney Making Magic book, which is absolutely fantastic. Heartily recommend that. My favourite book is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which of course-Kelly Molson: Great book, yes.James Rodliff: Superb, and has the words "don't panic" of course blazoned, which for this year is brilliant. But in thinking about what I'd go for this time, I've gone for something a little bit different. We did talk about how tricky this year has been, and we talked about mental health, and I myself have found periods of this year incredibly difficult. Very, very, very tough, and I have had to really slow down and think about how my ... You've put so much effort into being the superhero and trying to do the best you can in whatever ... You know, you throw your energy into something. You don't have the ability to recharge your batteries in the same way. Pandemic's taken away so much. Everything that makes us human. You're scared to go near people in the street, how awful is that?James Rodliff: So thinking about other ways you can try and recharge those batteries. So for me, I've been reading, I've been walking the dog, I've been drinking too much beer. I've been running, I've been learning to play guitar. I've been doing all sorts, and some of that's around mindfulness and meditation, and thinking about the things that I'm grateful for, and the things that do make me happy. So long answer told you, I can't give a short answer, Kelly, ever.Kelly Molson: I love this, it makes for a great guest.James Rodliff: I told you. So I'm going for Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness, as my book. Which has been-Kelly Molson: Fabulous.James Rodliff: ... an amazing read. So he wrote it in the early part of the pandemic, actually, when he was at home, locked in. He was kind of recounting stories, in his amazing way that he tells stories, about times and places and things that he ... You know, reflecting on happiness, what makes him happy. A lot of it is actually amazing stuff that we should be thinking about in terms of our attractions as we reopen and run our attractions. What people love. Nature, art, laughing, a sense of belonging, the unexpected and surprises. These lovely things that should be part of our attractions because they are places that are meant to make people happy. All of our places.James Rodliff: So yeah, Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness is my pick.Kelly Molson: That is such a perfect book. I haven't read this book, but it sounds like one for me. So as ever, if you'd like to win a copy of this book, if you head over to our Twitter account, Skip the Queue, and if you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want James's book." Then you will be in with a chance of winning your own copy of it. James, it's been such a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you so much.James Rodliff: Thank you, Kelly, I'm off for a pasty. I'll see you again.Kelly Molson: Enjoy.James Rodliff: Take care.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. 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.

October 2020    For over 8 years the podcast has been privileged to receive help and support from the modern day version of the wartime Government Code and Cypher School, GCHQ, both as an organisation and from their Departmental Historian.    Previous listeners will know that GCHQ has a new Historian and in Podcast Episode 98, we had the honour of being able to exclusively reveal his identity when we met him at the GCHQ Centenary celebrations at the National Memorial Arboretum in November 2019.    We promised then that we’d catch up with him again, and this month we’re doing just that. Podcast producer Mark Cotton sat down with Dr David Abrutat, the recently avowed Departmental Historian at GCHQ, to find out about his life, his service and what he has planned for his “dream job”.    Image: ©GCHQ   #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #GCHQ,

How has Army recruitment been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic?  Sitrep speaks to the Assistant Director of Army Recruiting. What lies behind North Korea's decision to showcase its latest missile? The RAF has welcomed the arrival of the first of the P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft to its permanent home at RAF Lossiemouth. And the campaign to honour armed forces personnel from the Caribbean with a new monument at the National Memorial Arboretum   Follow us @bfbssitrep

Army Recruitment; North Korean missiles; Submarine Hunters How has Army recruitment been affected by the Coronavirus pandemic? Sitrep speaks to the Assistant Director, Army Recruiting. What lies behind North Korea's decision to showcase its latest missile? The RAF has welcomed the arrival of the first of the P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft to its permanent home at RAF Lossiemouth. And the campaign to honour Caribbean armed forces personnel with a new monument at the National Memorial Arboretum.

How has Army recruitment been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic?  Sitrep speaks to the Assistant Director of Army Recruiting. What lies behind North Korea’s decision to showcase its latest missile? The RAF has welcomed the arrival of the first of the P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft to its permanent home at RAF Lossiemouth. And the campaign to honour armed forces personnel from the Caribbean with a new monument at the National Memorial Arboretum   Follow us @bfbssitrep

In this Episode, I spoke to Martin Dickinson Founder of  Ride To The Wall (RTTW)   Please check out our station and listen direct on  www.duggystoneradio.com  or listen on the android app here its free    Check out the Wedsite www.rttw.org  Some 10,000 motorcycles converge to the NMA (National Memorial Arboretum) on the 1st Saturday of October every year. Here is link to NMA  About Ride To The Wall - RTTW RTTW is a unique motorcycling event which gives motorcyclists an opportunity to gather together at a place of remembrance, to pay their respects to our serving and fallen service men and women and in doing so, raise funds solely for the purpose of perpetuating their memory and recognising the sacrifice made. RTTW Mission Statement That motorcyclist may gather together and ride as a group to a place of remembrance to pay their respects to our serving and fallen servicemen and women and in doing so raise funds for the National Memorial Arboretum, solely for the purpose of perpetuating their memory and recognising the sacrifice they made. RTTW Core Values RTTW is founded on the principles of Remembrance and Respect. To remember those that can no longer ride by our side. To give all motorcyclists an opportunity to pay their respects to the memory of the fallen and express our gratitude for their sacrifice. To show support for the Armed Forces currently serving both at home and abroad. To raise money for the upkeep of the venue that serves to perpetuate the memory of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.      

Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir with broadcaster Jeremy Paxman, homeless athlete Joel Hodgson, wingsuiter Geraldine Fasnacht and 14 year old record-breaking fisherman Will Sudders. JP Devlin visits the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire and Arianna Huffington shares her Inheritance Tracks.Jeremy Paxman's book Great Britain's Great War is available now.Joel Hodgson sold The Big Issue before he started working for Freshfields and training for the Commonwealth Games with Inspired by Sports.Geraldine Fasnacht is one of the world's most experienced wingsuiters.Will Sudders a 122lb, 7 foot catfish on Sunday 27th April at Oakwood Park Lake in Thetford, Norfolk.Arianna Huffington's book Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Happier Life is available now. She inherits Zorba's Dance from Zorba the Greek and passes on Alleluia from Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate.Producer: Dixi Stewart.

The schools have had to cut back because of lack of money…council jobs are in danger because of lack of money…the hospitals are having a hard time because of lack of money…etc…YET fortunes can be found for blanket coverage of the winter Olympics which I doubt many people are interested in…and 24 hour news which simply repeats 15 minutes of important news. You need a noose to watch the news in this country…unless it’s killings and illnesses and doom and gloom there is no coverage. Scrap the Olympics…have a couple of 15 minute news bulletins (like it used to be)…cancel the bankers 140% payrise… and direct the savings elsewhere…problem solved. On the subject of schools our mate has been in the news again…with actually a decent idea…at the moment if you take your kid out of school without permission you get a fine…which increases if you fail to pay up…old Govey has come up with a plan to take the fine out of the offenders benefit. Oh this has caused uproar…they had one “campaigner” shouting out “they’re MY kids and I’ll do what I want”….his fine is up to over a grand…clever bloke eh?...and some empty headed woman was on saying that she saved 1500 quid by going on holiday in term time and was moaning because she got a 240 quid fine…there really is NO hope….what these “above the law” morons don’t think about is if EVERYONE was like them there would be no education system and everyone would end up with a solid bone head like them. On the showbiz front there is a new chat show hosted by Michael McIntyre….who is,apparently,the highest paid comedian on the circuit…personally I would want paying to see him…but that’s beside the point…out of interest I started to watch the show…first guest Terry Wogan…I could only take 10 minutes….chat show hosts should pipe down and let the guests get a word in….dreadful stuff….and BIG NEWS Cheryl Cole is back on the X Factor in America…YAWN….she is a perfect example of how to make a fortune with absolutely NO talent…but I’m sure the out of work council workers will be delighted with the million she’ll get for the show. If I hear one more news item about what we should or should not eat I’ll scream…don’t eat this and don’t eat that and there’ too much sugar in this and too much salt in that…hey Mr Advisor mind your own business and get a JOB!!! I was in the Lichfield area this week and visited the National Memorial Arboretum….which is an out huge door tribute to the fallen in various wars….the place is stunning and very very moving. It is a credit to those who created this masterpiece….it was a very emotional visit but well worth it.

The schools have had to cut back because of lack of money…council jobs are in danger because of lack of money…the hospitals are having a hard time because of lack of money…etc…YET fortunes can be found for blanket coverage of the winter Olympics which I doubt many people are interested in…and 24 hour news which simply repeats 15 minutes of important news. You need a noose to watch the news in this country…unless it’s killings and illnesses and doom and gloom there is no coverage. Scrap the Olympics…have a couple of 15 minute news bulletins (like it used to be)…cancel the bankers 140% payrise… and direct the savings elsewhere…problem solved. On the subject of schools our mate has been in the news again…with actually a decent idea…at the moment if you take your kid out of school without permission you get a fine…which increases if you fail to pay up…old Govey has come up with a plan to take the fine out of the offenders benefit. Oh this has caused uproar…they had one “campaigner” shouting out “they’re MY kids and I’ll do what I want”….his fine is up to over a grand…clever bloke eh?...and some empty headed woman was on saying that she saved 1500 quid by going on holiday in term time and was moaning because she got a 240 quid fine…there really is NO hope….what these “above the law” morons don’t think about is if EVERYONE was like them there would be no education system and everyone would end up with a solid bone head like them. On the showbiz front there is a new chat show hosted by Michael McIntyre….who is,apparently,the highest paid comedian on the circuit…personally I would want paying to see him…but that’s beside the point…out of interest I started to watch the show…first guest Terry Wogan…I could only take 10 minutes….chat show hosts should pipe down and let the guests get a word in….dreadful stuff….and BIG NEWS Cheryl Cole is back on the X Factor in America…YAWN….she is a perfect example of how to make a fortune with absolutely NO talent…but I’m sure the out of work council workers will be delighted with the million she’ll get for the show. If I hear one more news item about what we should or should not eat I’ll scream…don’t eat this and don’t eat that and there’ too much sugar in this and too much salt in that…hey Mr Advisor mind your own business and get a JOB!!! I was in the Lichfield area this week and visited the National Memorial Arboretum….which is an out huge door tribute to the fallen in various wars….the place is stunning and very very moving. It is a credit to those who created this masterpiece….it was a very emotional visit but well worth it.