Podcasts about Saffron Walden

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2024 54:21

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 Paul Marden, CEO of Rubber Cheese.Fill in the Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.Competition ends on 3rd July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references:Lego House in BillundSutton Hoo (National Trust)Sutton Hoo at the British MuseumThe Dig on NetflixSutton Hoo mask on Lego IdeasThe Dig: Lego version of Sutton Hoo treasure 'amazing' (BBC News)Events at The Hold IpswitchAndrew Webb is a LEGO enthusiast who uses bricks in outreach programmes for teams and organisations as diverse at Arm, Pinset Mason, The National Trust, English Heritage, and the Scouts. During the UK's second Lockdown in early 2021, He made the 1500 year old Sutton Hoo Helmet out of LEGO bricks and submitted it to LEGO Ideas. The build achieved international media coverage, and has since been donated to the National Trust. Andrew continues to help attractions and institutions with LEGO programmes. By day, he works as a global head of content marketing for a B2B tech company. Find out more at http://teambuildingwithbricks.com Transcription: Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with Mister attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. Today I'm talking to Andrew Webb. By day, Andrew is a content marketer for a tech firm, but in his spare time helps attractions to use Lego as a tool to attract and engage diverse audiences and enable them to interpret history and culture. We're going to talk about what it means to be an building, a model of anglo saxon helmet, and the 24 skills that are used when building with Lego. Paul Marden: So welcome to the podcast. Andrew Webb: Thank you. Paul Marden: On Skip the Queue, we always start with some icebreaker questions that you know nothing about. So let's launch into a couple of those. Book and a pool or museums and galleries for your city break. Andrew Webb: Museum and galleries.Paul Marden: Yeah. I'd expect nothing less given what we're about to talk about. This is one from one of my colleagues, actually, who is really good at icebreakers whenever we do a team building eventually. So he said, “Would you rather have it and lose it or never have it at all?”Andrew Webb: Oh, gosh, I'll have it and lose it for sure. Paul Marden: Yeah, gotta be. That one's from miles. Say thank you, Myles. That was a cracker. Andrew Webb: Do you remember the word there was a great one. Would you rather eat ten donuts or raw onion? Paul Marden: Oh, ten donuts, hand down. I could easily do that. Andrew Webb: I'd get onion. I'd get onion. Every time I would take an onion over ten donuts. I'd be sick after ten donuts. Paul Marden: Oh, no, I reckon I could take that. No problem. Andrew Webb: Okay. Paul Marden: Okay. So we're going to talk a little bit about your adventures in Lego over the last few years. So why don't we kick off and talk a little bit about your original interest in Lego? Because I know it goes back not a long way, because that would be rude. But it goes back to a few years ago, doesn't it? Andrew Webb: It does. I mean, like most people growing up in what we might loosely term the west, I had like, I was a kid, you know, I think most of us grew up with it like that. And then like, you know, growing up in that first age of plastics with Heman, Transformers, Lego, Star wars, all of that sort of stuff. Paul Marden: You're just describing my childhood. Andrew Webb: It's funny because that was. It was all sort of ephemeral, right? I mean, the idea was that the reason why that boom happened, just to dwell on why they're going plastic things. Before that, toys were made out of either tin or wood. So, you know, they were very labour intensive produce there's certainly injection moulding comes along and we could just have anything coupled with the tv shows and the films and all this sort of stuff. So we all grew up in this sort of first age of disposable plastic, and then it all just gets passed down as kids grow up. It gets given away, gets put in the loft and forgotten about. There's a moment when a return of the Jedi bedspread doesn't look cool anymore, right? You hit about 13, 14 and you're like, “Mom, I really want some regular stuff there.”Andrew Webb: So like everybody, you know, I gave it all away, sold it and whatever, but I kept onto my lego and then fast forward, you know, I become a parent and Lego starts to come back into my life. So I'm sort of at a stage where I'm working for a travel startup and I get a press release to go to the Lego House, which if no one has heard about it, where have you been? But also it is a fantastic home of the brick, which Lego built in, opened in 2016. And it is a phenomenal temple to Lego. Not in terms of like a Legoland style approach with rides and things like that, but it's all about the brick and activities that you can do in a brick. Andrew Webb: There is great pools and huge pits of Lego to play with there, as well as displays and all this sort of stuff. They've actually got a Lego duplo waterfall.Paul Marden: Really? Andrew Webb: Oh, I mean, it's a fantastic attraction. And the way they've done it is just incredible. So they blend a lot of digital things. So if you make a small fish and insert it into this thing, it appears in the tank and swims around and this sort of stuff and the way you can imprint your designs on things. I should just quickly tell you about the cafeteria there as well, just really quickly. So the cafeteria at the Lego House, everyone gets a little bag of Lego and then whatever you build and insert into this sort of iPad sort of slots type thing, and that's what you're. Andrew Webb: So a pink brick might be salmon, a yellow brick might be chicken, whatever, and you put it all in and it recognises it all and then it comes down a giant conveyor belt in a Lego. Giant Lego box and is handed to you by robots. I mean, mind blowing stuff. This is not like with a tray at the National Trust place or somewhere like that for us to come. It is a technological marvel. Absolutely fascinating. So, of course, on the day went, it was a press preview, so there was no canteen workers, so there was no food in the box when me and my daughter, so went without that data, was a bit disappointed. Andrew Webb: But that started that whole reappreciation of Lego, both as a toy to play with my daughter, but also as a way of using Lego in different ways. And that manifests itself in lots of different things. So currently, now, you know, fast forward a little bit. I use Lego for team building exercises, for workshops, for problem solving with organisations, and also just for having fun with adult groups as well as kids. And I think one of the biggest things we've seen since this kind of started around 2000s with the sort of adults reading Harry Potter, do you remember that was like, why are you reading this children's book type of thing? Paul Marden: Yeah. Andrew Webb: And then all the prequel Star wars films came out and Lego made sets about both those two things. And it kind of. I mean, Bionicle saved the company, as only AFOL will know, but it started that whole merchandising thing and adding Lego into that firmament of IP. Right. And we fast forward now, and it's Marvel and Star wars and everything. Paul Marden: You just said AFOL. I know what an AFOL is, but many of our listeners may not know what AFOL is.Andrew Webb: Just to go for acronyms here. So an AFOL is an Adult Fan of Lego. And we've seen actually Lego in the past five years, even earlier. I mean, Lego always had an adult element to it. And one of the original founders used to use it for designing his own house. And there was a whole architectural system called Molodux. So it's always had that element to it. But just recently we've seen, you know, almost retro sets. So we see the Lego Atari 2600 video game system from 1976, which, yeah. Paul Marden: An original NES wasn't there. Andrew Webb: Exactly. NES that's come out. I've got a Lego Optimus prime back here for transformers, you know, all that kind of stuff. So with what's been really interesting is this kidault or whatever, however, call it. And I think that's really fascinating, because if we think about Lego as a toy, we are rapidly approaching the age where we might have three generations of people that have grown up with Lego. Lego first came around in the very late ‘60s, early '70s. And so it's not inconceivable that you might have three generations that had Lego as a child, especially if you grew up in Denmark. A little bit different when it would come to the rest of Europe as they expanded out. So I get to this point, and I'm getting into Lego and doing all this sort of stuff. Andrew Webb: And then, of course, COVID happens and then lockdown happens and we all think the world's going to end and no one knows. Everyone's looking for hobbies, aren't they? They say you were either hunk, drunk or chunk after lockdown. You either got fit, got fat or got alcoholic. So try to avoid those three things. And, you know, everyone's looking for stuff to do, so you have so much banana bread you can bake. And so I stupidly, with my daughter's help, decided to make the Lego Sutton Hoo helmet, the 1500 year old Sutton Hoo helmet found at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, now in the British Museum. Out of Lego, as you do. Paul Marden: I mean, just exactly. Just as you do. So just a slight segue. I was at the National Attractions Marketing Conference yesterday and there were two people presenting who both talked about their experiences of wacky things that they did during lockdown. There was one person that opened a theatre in her back garden and had various different stars just randomly turn up in her backyard up in North Yorkshire. And you choose to build a Lego Sutton Hoo helmet.Andrew Webb: Lockdown, there will be a time, I think, as we look back, tragic though it was, and, you know, a lot of people died, but it was that moment when society sort of shuffled around a bit and people sort of thought, “Well, if I don't do it now, why not?” People were launching bakeries in their kitchens and serving their community and like. And that element of it. And so people have that. The good side of that, I suppose, is that people did find new outlets of creativity. And Joe Wick's yoga class is in their front row walking groups, you know, all this sort of stuff and beating beaten horsemans and learning to play the violin and dust and stuff. Suddenly we all had to find hobbies because we're all just in. Andrew Webb: No one was going to restaurants, no one's going to bars, no one's going to gigs, nightclubs, theatres. We like to make entertainment at home. It was like the middle ages. So I decided to build the Lego Sutton Hoo helmet, as you do. And so I start this in lockdown, and then, like, I get wind that Netflix is making a film called The Dig. And The Dig is all about, I think it's Lily James and Ray Fiennes in it, and it's all those other people. And it's all about when they found theSutton Hoo helmet. And the guy who found it was called Basil Brown, and he was asked by Edith Pretty, who owned the land, to excavate these humps in the ground that were on her estate. Paul Marden: Okay, so she owns this big estate, in Suffolk, right? And, so she can clearly see there's burial mounds in the back garden, but doesn't know what's in them. Doesn't have any clue that there's treasure locked up inside this. Andrew Webb: I'm not even sure she knew there were anglo saxon burial maps since it was. Paul Marden: They were just lumps of ground in the garden. Andrew Webb: Yeah. I mean, she may have had inkling and other stuff I've turned up over the years and whatever. And some of them were robbed sort of georgian times around then. So some people knew what they were and they were somewhere excavated and gold was taken to fund the polynomial wars and whatnot. But she asked Basil Branson, he was like an amateur archaeologist, right? And so he was just like this local guy would cycle over and do. And the film goes into all that, and the film kind of portrays it as working class. Basil Brown should know his place against the sort of British Museum who are sort of the baddies in this film who think they know what. And of course, this is all set against the backdrop of war. So they escalated it all, then they had to rebury it. Andrew Webb: And then it was used as a tank training ground, so lots of tanks rolled over it. So it's a miracle anything was ever found. But when he did find the Sutton Hoo, who told me and a bunch of other things, clasp brooches, shields, weapons and whatever, when he did find it, so people think it kind of popped out the ground as a helmet, but it didn't. And if you look at the photos, it came out the ground in hundreds of pieces. Paul Marden: Oh, really? So you look at this reconstructed mask that's now in the British Museum, and you think, “Oh, so they just found that in one piece,” lifted out as if it was a Lego hat, you know, for a minifig. In one piece? No, not at all. Andrew Webb: It was actually more like a big parlour Lego in the fact that it was just in hundreds of thousands of pieces. And so there was the first guy to have a go at it was an elderly architect at the British Museum who was, I think, blind in one eye. And he had a go at putting it all together. And he used an armature and clay and pins and whatever, put it all together and said, “Yes, I think it was this.” And then actually it wasn't. He got it all wrong. Lots of different pieces after some more research, and then it falls to this. Nigel Williams is another sub architect, and he was famous for. Andrew Webb: There was a famous Portland vase that was broken in a museum by someone pushing it over as a sort of what you might call, like a just stop oil type of protest now, I can't remember what the call was, but someone smashed an exhibit. And he had painstakingly pieced all this together. He was a total dapper dude. Three piece suit, Chelsea boots, proper swinging sixties, and he had to go and put it all together. His version is the one that's in the British Museum, but he was a massive jigsaw fan. And if you think about Lego, what it is a 3d jigsaw. You get a bunch of pieces and you have to make. Make it into a 3d sculpture. So that was one reason, the dig was the other reason. Andrew Webb: The third reason was that the relationship between East Anglia and essentially Denmark and Billand and Anglo Saxon and Jutland and all that area, I'm talking like Vikings and Anglo Saxons and invasions and all this kind of stuff against the native British, there is essentially a relationship between East Anglia, a trade relationship and a conquest relationship between them. So I built this thing and I frantically put it together and I'm late nights and just losing my marbles trying to get this thing to work. Because Lego is not designed to make, like, spherical shapes, necessarily. It's quite blocky. Right. Everyone knows this. It's the square. Paul Marden: Really easy to make a car, really easy to make a house. A spaceship. Andrew Webb: Houses. Brilliant. Yeah. Square stuff is fantastic. But baking, not only a sort of a semicircle, but a hemisphere, which is what essentially a helmet is. Is even harder because you have to get the Lego to bend in two directions. And so a lot of work went into that just to get the actual face piece came together quite easy. And there was once I had the scale of the pieces under the eyes that formed that sort of thing, and then I could build the nose and face. Ideally, it was going to be so that I could put it on my head. I've actually got a massive head. So in the end, I had to realign that and sort of make it into this sort of child sized head. Paul Marden: But it's a wearable thing, right? Andrew Webb: It is. It is wearable. I mean, at one point, it was probably more fragile than the one in the British Museum because it just kept dropping to pieces. So there's a lot of sub plates that are holding together the outer plate. So it's actually sort of. So just quick Lego terminology here. So bricks, obviously are bricks. The flat things with bubbles on are called plates and then the smoother ones are called tiles. Okay. And used a combination of these to create. There's also a technique called SNOT, which stands for Studs Not On Top. We love acronyms in the Lego community. Right? Paul Marden: Completely.Andrew Webb: So if you say, “Oh, man, I'm an AFOL covered in SNOT,” people know what you want to know what you mean. So after a night in the tiles, I got covered. Yeah. Andrew Webb: Anyway, so I make the helmet, I make the thing, and then, you know, I get a lot of support from the National Trust, specifically East of England National Trust and Sutton, who site itself because it's there. It's their crown jewels. The British Museum, not so much, because they was like, we've got a billion exhibits here. No, it's just one of them. When you've got the Tippecar moon and the Rosetta stone, it kind of pales into significant. But actually, they were helpful. And one of the curators there, who was on Twitter, who sent me a link to some 3d photos, because if you. If you google it's all pictures at the front. That's fantastic. But what does the back look like? Paul Marden: Oh, right, okay. Andrew Webb: So actually, buried deep in the British Museum's website, in their research department, under a filing cabinet, in the back of a server somewhere, are some quite technical photographic images of it, turning every sort of 30 degrees so that. That it's documented as to what it looks. Because you got to remember that everything on the helmet is symbolic of various different things. There is symbols that mean there's a guy on a horse who's sort of fighting and all this sort of stuff. And it all has quite a lot of meaning. I can occur from different parts of history as well. So there's some sort of roman influencing things there and symbols. And so this whole thing is designed to be not only a battle helmet, but it is also because, remember, crowns haven't been invented yet. Crowns are a later mediaeval sort of invention. Andrew Webb: So this is both a symbol of authority, headwear, like a crown, but also a weapon or a piece of defensive armour and equipment. So it has several functions in its life. So it's quite a complex piece of equipment, that this symbol of authority. So I make all this and then I also submit it to a thing called Lego Ideas. So Lego Ideas is a fantastic programme where anybody in the world, members of the public, can submit Lego Ideas, right? And they go onto a website. There's certain criteria, they have to meet a certain checklist, but then the rest of the public can vote for them. So, I mean, if Taylor Swift just stuck together a load of blocks and said, “Vote for this,” she probably hit the 10,000 threshold instantly. Andrew Webb: But I'm not sure Lego would necessarily take that forward as a build. So there is a judging panel that. But actually, some of the most recent really fantastic sets have come out of Lego Ideas. Members of the public, and they're designing things that the Lego designers wouldn't have thought of themselves. So I think that's been kind of interesting. Sadly, Paul, we didn't make the 10,000 threshold. We did a lot of media coverage. By then, lockdown was over and were sort of getting back to our lives and all this sort of stuff. And my daughter was entering her dark ages. And so it sat in my studio for another sort of year and a half and I thought, “What am I going to do with this?” And so in the end, I thought, “Well, you know what? It's gathering dust here. I'm fed up with it, dustin it.”Andrew Webb: And so I actually approached Josh Ward at the National Trust at Sutton Hoo, who has been a fantastic advocate for Lego and for this particular project, and I have to thank him immensely for that. And they got some money and some funding to build a cabinet and also to house it. So I donated it to National Trust and it is now on display there as part of their firmament of interpretational trail. Paul Marden: That must feel pretty good fow you. Andrew Webb: Yeah, it is quite good looking in there and watching kids go, “Wow.” Because Lego is one of those things instantly recognisable for kids. But certain hill as a site is quite complex for children to contextualise because essentially it's several mounds in the ground. And the helmet itself is at the British Museum. Right. They've got a replica built by the royal armouries. There were several of those. They've got those. They have loads of dress up, they have great explainers and videos and they do a lot of work to show the size and shape and things as a cast iron sculpture, to represent the boat, to show just how big it was when it was pulled up from the sea, because he's buried in a boat. So do a lot of that work, sort of that sort of work as well. Andrew Webb: But having this extra funding in the. They opened up Edith's pretty's house now, and having this room where we've got some other things as well, like crayons and paper and other tools and drawings and colouring in and Lego and big chest of Lego just helps, particularly smaller children who, by the time they've walked from the car park around the site, and it has probably flagged it a little bit. And so just providing that little support for them, it's been a fantastic way to contextualise and another way to interpret that. And I think more and more venues could look into that. When you think, well, how else can we add stuff, particularly for children to help tell the story of this place? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We went to. It was half term last week and went to the City Museum in Winchester. So they've got some mediaeval, they've got some Roman finds there, and there was lots of fun, but they had. It was full of lots of ways for kids to engage, so there was trails to go around, there was colouring in, make your own mediaeval shield. And all of these things are ways that, you know, my ten year old could engage with it because there's only so many glass cabinets of stuff dug up from the ground that she actually wants to look at. Andrew Webb: I mean, I love. I love pit rivers, right, in Oxford, my favourite museum. Paul Marden: It's crazy, isn't it? I love it. Andrew Webb: But basically, he just went around the world nicking stuff. Right, but as a collection of objects, It's fantastic. Paul Marden: It's deeply unnerving. Andrew Webb: Sorry, sorry if any pit rivers curators are listening there, nick, and stuff about it, but, it is my favourite museum because it's just for kids. It's probably really kind of like, how do you tell that story? I also think there was an article in the garden recently that, you know, the cost of living crisis as well. Parents are looking for value solutions now and so I think it wasn't Peppa Pig World, it was Paddington World. And a family ticket is 170 pounds. That is a huge dent in the family finances for a 70 minutes experience. If you are watching the pennies, if you can afford that and save up for it, whatever. And I know these things are, you know, memory making and all that sort of stuff, and I've been to Harry Potter with my daughter. Andrew Webb: That is not cheap, but it's a fantastic day out because once you're in, you spend the whole day there. If you take a packed lunch, you can save a lot of money on that, on the thing. But I suppose what I'm saying is that, you know, our museums and galleries, particularly traditionally, the what you might call free spaces, public spaces, are facing unprecedented demand in terms of parents looking for cost effective value days out, as well as funding being cut from central government and that sort of. So they have to do a huge amount with less and less for a bigger audience. And that is a strain on any institution and things like that. Other examples of places that get this. Andrew Webb: So obviously with the Sutton Hoo helmet, the hold in Ipswich, which is Suffolk Council's kind of flagship museum in the county town of Ipswich, but instead of calling it, you know, the Museum of Suffolk, they've called it The Hold, which is a reference to the fact it's on, I think it's either because it's on the shore or it's doing sheep, I'm not sure anyway. But a fantastic space, contemporary modern space had a Lego exhibition a few years ago, borrowed my helmet, had some Lego exhibition stuff to do. And the good thing about that is when these teams have to do quite a lot of comms marketing and, you know, that has a cost as well, but often you see different demographics than perhaps would normally go to a stones and bones museum, if you know what I mean. Right. Andrew Webb: You'll see that it makes it more accessible to the community and to different people who don't like going and looking at the Magna Carta or whatever. For some kids, a day at the British Library is fantastic. Look at all these old books for more, maybe more boisterous children. That's probably not a really great idea. So I think galleries can take a leaf out of this and think, or museums or any institution really can take a leap out of this and think, “How can we do more for less? And what tools can we have that perhaps we haven't considered before, like Lego, as a way to open up our interpretation and our offering?” So this could work in Museum of Docklands, for example. This could work in the royal armouries. Andrew Webb: There's lots of places where if you looking to improve your children's offering that some form of lego, I mean, it ends up all over the floor, it ends up being taken away. Sometimes you've got to watch out for things like that. But that's why I always recommend, like, just the basic blocks and plates, not minifigures and stuff like that, because, you know, they just end up in kids' pockets and trousers. But I do think it is a fantastic tool for developing that interpretation piece. Paul Marden: So I run a coding club using Lego. Okay. So I work with years four, five and six, typically. And we normally start off by the end of two terms, we will be building robotics, programming things, doing amazing things. But we start at the very beginning with just open up a box, and it is amazing what a bunch of seven, eight and nine year olds can do with a two by four red brick just given bricks. Yeah. And they will build amazing things. Yeah. And they will tell you amazing stories. And you also see real diversity in the behaviours of children, because some children, in that free play context, they do not have the skills to do that. And I had one girl recently who hasn't played with Lego, and free play just blew her mind, and she was in tears because she couldn't embrace the creativity of it.Paul Marden: But then the following week, when we were following instructions, she was great at building from a set of instructions, You can do that from a limited palette and give them a mission. Sutton Hoo, build a, I don't know, a sword, build a shield, build something to interpret what you have seen. You're in the transport museum. Build, build. How did you get to the museum this morning? Give them something to do and then let them go. And half an hour later, you will be amazed by what they will have built. Andrew Webb: I actually did something this at the National Archives down in Kew, where they had a kids exhibition. Well, an exhibition in the summer about wacky inventions, because obviously the National Archives holds the patents for all these things, and they've got things like Victorian top hats with umbrellas in, and, you know, all this kind of crazy Heath Robinson style stuff that, you know, forks with four sets of tines, so you can eat four times as much. It just bonkers. Really interesting things. The curators had gone through and found this wacky world, sort of. What's his name? The guy that illustrates Roald Dahl. They got illustrations and all that. Paul Marden: Quentin Blake. Andrew Webb: Yeah, Quentin Blake, yeah. So they had this Quentin Blake sort of stuff, and, like, there was activities. And I came down for some special stuff because they had the first Lego brick patent in the UK. When it was first launched in the UK, 1963, I think it was. That's when they filed the patent. Paul Marden: And I bet. So that patent would be exactly the same as a two by four brick, now, won't it? Andrew Webb: The patent was for a one by four brick. Isometrically dawn. Just three diets. Just three views with what? It was a construction toy. And then the page. Sorry. And the address was just Railway Station Billund. There wasn't like, just all the mail just went to the railway station in Billund just addressed for attention of Lego. And it's only like. I mean, it's not even a sheet of A4, It's a piece like this. And after it is something like a lamp that won't blow out on a thing, and before it's like some special kind of horse comb, but it's kind of this bonkers catalogue of just these things. But again, it was about, “Right. We did some work. The curators and interpreters looked, you know, had kids analyse the painting to think, what could it be? And look at the dates and structure. Look at that.” Andrew Webb: And then I came out and, like, did some Lego. So we did things like, who can build the longest bridge? Who can build the tallest tower out of a single colour? Those sorts of exercises. But then also the free play was build your own wacky invention. And kids are building automatically dog washers, where the dog ran on a thing and it scrubbed its back. And one kid built something that was like a thing for removing getting pips out of apples. It was just like this sort of like this crazy little tool. They like some sort of problem that he had. Andrew Webb: And I think what this also speaks to is developing those stem skills in children and adults and building that engineering, because I've also ran Lego workshops with explorers who I used to, I thought were between Cubs and scouts, but are actually after scouts. So I did this in my local town, here in Saffron Walden, and was like, “Oh, my God, these kids are like, 15, 16. They're not going to want to play Lego. Some of them are in my daughter's year at school, so. Hello, Amy.” And it was really interesting because we did a series of challenges with them. So the egg drop challenge, can you protect an egg and drop it from the floor? And can you build this and work together? Another good one is looker, runner, builder. Andrew Webb: So you give everybody two sets of the same bricks, and one person is the looker, one person is the runner, one person is the builder. So the looker can't touch, but he can tell the runner. The runner can't look at the model, he can only tell the builder, and the builder can't speak back. And so this is a really useful exercise. And I've done this with teams where, because this is exactly what businesses see, engineering will build a product. Sales or their marketing are like, what the hell is, you know, or whatever it might be. Paul Marden: It's that. It's that classic cartoon of a Swing, yeah. Andrew Webb: Yeah. So it's that, you know, this is what the brief said. Engineering interpreter does this. Marketing saw it. So it's a great tool for things like that. Especially when you put people like the C Suite or CEO's or leaders at the end, because all they're getting is the information and it. It's there and it's how to build communications. Because in life, the fluctuations reverse. A CEO says, “Let's do this.” And by the time it's cascaded down to engineering, who don't get a say, it's not at all what he imagined so, or they imagined so, it's. It's an interesting case of using tools like that. So I did that with these kids and it was fascinating because they're 14, 15, 16.Andrew Webb: A group of three girls won two out of the three challenges and probably could have won a third one if I felt that I couldn't award it to them again because it would just look weird. And they were smashing the looker runner builder thing. They were working together as a team, they were concentrating, they were solving problems, they were being creative, they took some time to prototype, they refined and iterated their design. They were doing all this sort of work. And it's brilliant because 15 year old girls don't often take engineering related STEM subjects at GCSE. Certainly, probably don't take them at a level and more than enough. And I think that I once interviewed Eben Upton, who invented Raspberry Pi, and he said, “We think about the eighties as this sort of like golden age of computing, but actually it was terrible. It was terrible for diversity, it was terrible for inclusion.“Andrew Webb: And he said, “Like growing up, there was one other kid in his town that had a computer, you know, so there was no sort of way to sort of getting other people involved and make this accessible.” And part of the reason now computers have got smaller. Some of the work I did at Pytop was like trying to make technology more accessible and seeing it not just video games and things like that, but actually I can use this in a fashion show, or I can make music, or I can use this to power some lights to do a theatre production, and trying to bring the, I guess, the creative arts into technology. And that's when we start to see the interest application of technology. Andrew Webb: And Lego plays a part in that, in the fact that it is a tool, a rapid prototyping tool that everybody is familiar with. And it is also, you know, clean, safe. There's no, you don't need blow torches and saws and those sorts of things to kind of prototype anything. You don't even need a pair of scissors, you know, it's completely tool free, unless you're using that little mini separator to get your bricks apart. And so I think that just circle back on, like, how the Science Museum or what's the one down there? Isabel Kingdom Brunel Museum and things like that. I can see those guys could be and should be thinking about, “How could we have a Lego programme?“Andrew Webb: You don't have to have a permanent deployment like they've got at Sutton Hoo although that is great because they've got the mast there as the head piece of it. But certainly a programme of events or summer camps or summer events, because I did this with English Heritage at Kenilworth Castle as well. They were having, like, a big Lego build and the public were invited in 15-minute shifts into a big marquee and everyone got given a tile. And the idea was to build the gardens because the gardens at Kenilworth Castle were laid out to impress Elizabeth the first. And so everybody got there was like bunches of stuff and regular bricks, also flowers and this sort of stuff. And it was like, “Come on, we've got to build something to impress a queen.” Andrew Webb: He said to kids, like, “Yeah, you've got to impress. Bling it up, like, dial it to ten.” And were just getting these enormous, like, avatar sized trees with just incredible bits hanging off it. And like, “There she has a teapot because she might want a cup of tea.” And you're like, “Brilliant, excellent. Of course she does.” And so I think that. And then they moved through. Some of the Legos were selected to be displayed and things like that. So there's different ways you can do it. You can either do it as like. And I'm a big fan of the drop in sessions because kids and parents can just naturally build it into their day rather than the pre built. My child was. We were rubbish at, like, organising things. Andrew Webb: People like, “Oh, great. Half term, it's a chocolate thing, sold out ". And you're like, yeah, because there's 30 spaces for three and a half thousand kids who want to do it. Whereas if it's like a walkthrough or a. In groups phase through and then the activity, small kids kind of conk out after about 20 minutes, half an hour anyway. You get much more people through and much more people get to enjoy the experience rather than the 30 organised people who got up early and booked. So that's my other top tip to any institution, because it's heavily weather dependent as well. Sun comes out, everyone piles pass into the nearest sort of stately home, national attraction. All of those places can definitely benefit English Heritage. Did a really big push this half term, just gone on Lego at several events. Andrew Webb: We had one here at Audley End, there was one at Kenilworth that I was at. There's been pairs of the ones all around the country, because again, you just need a marquee, which most venues have access to because they use them for other things or some sort of space in case it rains. And you just see someone like me and a whole massive tub of Lego and you're off to the races. Paul Marden: Exactly. So we were talking about this at the conference yesterday about ways in which. So for many attractions, people turning up is a literal flip of a coin. Is the weather good or is the weather bad? What can you do to adapt your attraction to be able to deal with when it's bad? And then what can you do to bring people when you have made that adaptation? So, you know, you've now got a marquee and you have a Lego exhibit that you can put into there. So it's just dumping a pile of Lego and a bunch of well trained volunteers or visitor experienced people who can facilitate that, police it, little Johnny sticking minifigs in his pocket. Paul Marden: And then you turn on your Google Adwords and show that you've got this, you know, bad weather reason to go to a stately home that my daughter would turn her nose up to all of a sudden, “Okay, we're going to go and do that. We're going to go and have afternoon tea and you're going to go and play with some Lego and see some animals, maybe.” Yeah, what can you do to attract that extra audience and adapt to the bad weather and service different sorts of people? Andrew Webb: I think that comes down to a bear in mind. I convert some of my Lego lens rather than a venue lens. But I think speaking as a parent and someone who does this is you need a reason to go back to somewhere that you already know. Okay, so you go to Stonehenge, you go and look at the stones, you go, “Wow.” You look at the visitor centre and then it's ticked off. I mean, you see busloads of tourists. Stonehenge is at Cambridge, maybe, or Oxford people, when people do England, Lambeth, Heathrow, London Crown Jewels, Tower Bridge, West End, day trip out on a coach to Stonehenge, maybe to Cambridge, and that's it, off to Paris. Right? So parents like British people like that too. Like why go to Stonehenge four times a year? Or why go to any venue when you're familiar with it? Andrew Webb: It's always about offering something new and something different. Audley End up near where I live, I think, is English Heritage. All through July, every Sunday, they're just doing music. So there's a string quartet or someone with a harp or maybe someone with a guitar or whatever. And you've got a book, but it's. It's not like there's 30 places and it's a bonfight. It's just like, “Oh, wow, they've done something different.” They do a really great thing. Like, they do victorian falconry, for example. So they get someone in who talks about how Victorians use falconry for hunting as a sport, but also for the kitchen table, and they're flying falcons around and doing the whole bit of meat on a string and all this sort of stuff. And everyone, like, “They do a world war two one.”Andrew Webb: I mean, the editorial calendar for any venue's got to look like, “Go and make Christmas food. January, we're closed to kind of dust and clean everything. Valentine's Day, chocolate make you put. It's daffodils”, it's whatever it might be. And then you just build that. Build that programme in and you need. This is why I think that venues now, again, I'll just come back to that. You talk about AdWords, but that, again, is more spend. It's like, how'd you build that mail list? How do you drop into the local Facebook groups and Mumsnet and all that kind of stuff? You know, that's where you can do it organically rather than. Because people don't sit in front of Google necessarily, or think, like, what should we do? Paul Marden: You sit on the sofa on a Thursday night trying to figure out what on earth are we going to do this weekend? Yeah, so you're completely right. The mum's net, the content marketing, is hugely important, isn't it? Andrew Webb: Which is my job. But also it's kind of like how can institutions become part of that? When I say community, if you think about most people travel a thin hour to go somewhere. I mean, people go further afield, you know, but. But basically it's like, what? My mom turns, like, a tea and a pee. So you've got to go somewhere. You've got to have a cup of tea, visit the loos. It's all about tea. It's all about canteens and loos, basically. You could have a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage site. And it's like, how good's the caf? And are the toilets clean? Yeah, that's what people remember. Gar went hens at dawn. I was awed by the majestic. But that Looney D cleaning, you know, it's not good. It's all that people come home with. Andrew Webb: So, you know, institutions go into place that they are trying to offer different things. Like late nights. We've talked about that. How can we use this space after hours? Because if you think about it, if your institution's open 10 till 6, most people are at work five days a week, you're gonna have students and pensioners who are gonna be not great spenders, either of those two groups. So, late nights, I went to a great one in the National Gallery when the James Bond film. I was kind of sitting royale or whatever. He's still on the top of the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square, and they've got the national dining rooms there and they had Vesper Martini, everyone got a cocktail. Andrew Webb: And then went to look at the fighting Temeraire, which is the bit where he's standing with Q, the new Q, who voices Paddington, whose name escapes me and gives him, like, a gun and a radio, but they're like the fighting Temeraire by Turner is this little thing. And so, you know, you've got to make hay out of that, right? You've got to sort of, like, do a late night, various ones. And so all it was a few cocktails in the cafe next door and are taught by the curator and stuff like that. But 30 people just looking for an experience. And so if venues are clever, of course, the dark side of this is when you get Willy Wonka world up in Scotland. Andrew Webb: Or interestingly, some of the Lego events that have been happening at NEC have caused a massive online backslash in the community for just being exceptionally bad value for money. And so you read about these things that people have said, “Come and visit Santa's grotto, and it's just a muddy field with a tree in it,” so you've got to be careful. But I think those events, those sort of fly by night kind of institutions, don't really work. But how galleries can leverage the creativity of what they're doing? Whether they are come and paint in our, you know, our local gallery, come and have an art class, come and do that. People are looking for stuff to do that is value for money. That isn't always drink lead, you know, it's not always cocktail making or things like that. Andrew Webb: And that comes with a whole heap of other things and dietary requirements for cookery courses and just clean up and the mess and all that kind of stuff. So I think that, yeah, canning organisations, the ones that can really think about that, and I'm happy to help organisations who want to think about this, especially through the life of Lego. They will be the ones that will start to add and build out and develop their. What you might term this whole sector needs a name. The kind of extracurricular offering, we might say, above and beyond their collection and then their traditional interpretation and if they're. Paul Marden: Thinking of doing this. So there's a good why. Yeah, the why is you can reach diverse audiences, helps people with interpretation. Andrew Webb: Quite cheap. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. It's a cheap way of extending your offering and diversifying what you do. You can bring in event elements to this, but how do they do it? Apart from engaging with somebody like you? And I'm going to guess there's not many people like you. So that's going to be a tricky thing for some people to do. But if they were starting from scratch, how would they go about doing this? You said earlier, “Don't go mad with buying the bricks and spending a fortune on.”Andrew Webb: There are people like me that can do all this as well as myself. I think that the first thing is plan it. Plan what you need to do. You can't throw this stuff together. You might be looking at. Already the hold have been contacting me for a late night they're doing in September. They contacted me April. Paul Marden: Okay. Andrew Webb: Because if you're a creator, you're planning exhibitions, you are thinking on that long term cycle. Paul Marden: Yeah, completely. Andrew Webb: And so what you need to do is bake this in as part of that curational process or part of the interpretation of things at the start, rather than like, “Right, we're doing exhibit on Peter Rabbit, let's chuck in a load of fluffy bunnies or whatever.” You know, it's got to be. You've got to think about it and have it contextualised. I think the best things are. What success looks like is, first of all, you need a space. Now you can hire a marquee that comes with a cost. If you're a venue and you've got your own or you've got a hall or a stables or interpretational room or something like that, often spaces, specifically bigger ones, will have classroom spaces for school groups anyway. So that's often that can be where you can host these sorts of events. Kids are very familiar. Andrew Webb: The chairs are all small wall colour, you know, etc. Industrial strength carpet in case stuff gets built. So locations like where you're going to stage this? Paul Marden: Yeah. Andrew Webb: Secondly, I think you need to think about, what do we want people to do? What is the experience? What is the narrative piece? Because you can't just say, here's a big part of Lego. Kids will just build cars and houses, right? You know, they need context. You know, if you give a kid a sheet of paper, you could draw anything. They're like, well, what? And so you need to give them a mission almost. They need a task, I think. Also think about, as I said before, keeping the tasks around 20 minutes, because actually adding the time running out jeopardy element is quite fun for kids because they'll go, “Well, I've only got five minutes left.” And often that's when it all falls apart and then they have to iterate the design. Andrew Webb: So think about that kind of moving people through in 15 to 20 minutes cycles. We had kids at Kenilworth, that would go out the exit and just walk back around and come in the front like that. Like four or five times. One boy came in, he was loving it. So think about that. Think about how you're going to move people through the space. Think about what you need to envisage it. So the Kenilworth, for example, there was me hosting it from dawn toward dusk. We had another builder there who was helping take break it all down and put them against the model that we built. There were two members of staff who were letting people through, so just monitoring it from an entry exit point of view, walkie talkies, in case people had issues and things like that. Andrew Webb: And think about when you're going to do it. Okay, so half term is a good one. It's a good thing to do. We saw a lot of this at Kenilworth, but I've seen other places as well, particularly half terms and things like that. You often see grandparents caring for grandchildren, right? Because parents are at work and grandparents can only walk around the site so much before they want to sit down. So sometimes have it, like, think about where they can. And when I was at Kenilworth, grandparents came in with their two grandkids, and the kids started playing and I was like, you could join in, too. Oh, no, I don't want it. You know, they were almost like, “I can't do this. It's like, come on, get in, get in. Come on, grandma. Come on. I'll show you how it works. “Andrew Webb: By the end of that session, they were memory making. I then took their photo with their phones, they'd have this sort of grandparent. But, you know, you always say it like, my grandfather taught me to fish. Like Sean Connery says in the hunt for red October. This sort of moment where sort of, it's a Hollywood trope that grandfather knowledge is sort of passed on type of thing. Right. And so you can see that where you could have this, almost either the reverse of that, of kids showing grandparents, but also they're all having this event outside of the parental unit. So it's a new type of experience. It adds value, it gets people to play with their grandkids. Paul Marden: Priceless. Andrew Webb: So I think that's kind of an interesting way. So think about when, think about where and think about what will be my three sort of tips for any institution looking to put this together. Paul Marden: You gave one the other day which I thought was priceless, which was, don't give them wheels. Andrew Webb: Oh, yes. Paul Marden: Don't include the wheels. Andrew Webb: Take the wheels out of any sets, unless you are the Transport Museum or the, you know, a car based museum, because kids will do wings as well. I'd probably suggest taking those out because kids have just built cars. Some kids have just built cars, you know, even if you give them a mission. Unless that is the mission. The other thing that I would think that venues could do as well as sort of all day events, because it's quite a time drain, you know, on staff and this sort of stuff, but it is a value. The other thing you can think about is one off evening events for adults. Yes, I've done this. I did this at my local add them shops. Bricks, beers and bubbles challenges supercompass teams. Think of it like a pub quiz with brick is the answer. Andrew Webb: So build me a thing that does that kind of thing. Teams all get together, you can race them, you can see who goes the furthest. You can do all this stuff. And the hold is what I'm doing at the hold in September. I did it at the hold a couple of years ago. And what was interesting was that we had quite diverse groups of adults. We had just couples who were clearly AFOLs and were like, “Yeah, I'm going to go to that.” We had a group of friends. One of them had just come back from years travelling and they didn't want to go sort of straight to the pub and just interrogate him about his travelling, whatever. Andrew Webb: They kind of like, “Well, we wanted something to do where we could have a beer and have a chat, but were doing something else whilst we're doing that.” And that's the joy of Lego. Your hands are doing the work and you're almost like the back of your brain is doing the work and you're like, “Oh, yeah, yeah. Before you kick them.” And the concentration levels are there and then you can kind of get into that state of flow. And so they were just having this lovely chat, had a beer, talking about stuff, but also memory making in terms of when he came back from his travelling. So I think that's really important. Andrew Webb: Did you know that this is your brain, right? And then your brain on Lego, there are 24 discrete skills that are happening in your brain. So Lego research this, things like fine motor skills, cognitive sort of thinking about things, future planning, my favourite emotional regulation that is not going, “Oh, my God, it's not working. And smashing all to pieces.” So I've seen this as well with children, is that when you give them a Lego, if you gave them jelly and a football, they'll all just. They're a high energy kind of things, right? And that's fine, great outdoors, kids want to burn off energy. Here's a load of balls. Go crazy, right? Or ball pits, trampolines, bouncy castles, those sorts of things. When you get on Lego, what actually happens is it's very hard to be anarchic, to use a wrong word, but a word. It's very hard to be anarchic with Lego because you can't really do it. Andrew Webb: And so you can get a group of kids together and they'll almost self invigilate. And at one point, I ran it at a local toy shop and the parents are all hanging about and like, “I've never seen them so quiet.” They were just in the state of flow. And so, I think, you know, again, back to the. Back to the explorers and the scouts, that was one of the best sessions that those kids had done as teenagers because the reason was they were given permission to play with Lego. They still had the muscle memory from when they were smaller children. They were solving. They weren't just being told to play with Lego, they were actually solving engineering challenges. How can you design a bridge that will take this weight? How can you protect an egg? How can you think about this? Andrew Webb: And so you need to think about the challenge and the what. You need to think about that, the where and you think about the when, as I said, and get those right. You can have a very exceptional visitor experience for not a huge amount of effort. It's not highly costly, it's not highly technical, it's just a bit of elbow grease and a bit of forward thinking in terms of what we might need. And I think that parents appreciate just that minute away where they can. It's almost like a 20 minute babysitter, right, where they can just go, “Don't touch that.” You know, you're walking around a stately home, “Don't sit there, don't touch. Mind the lady.” All that kind of no data that parents give out institutions, they can just take a breather and check their phones and whatever. Paul Marden: And the kids are just having an amazing time. Andrew Webb: Yeah. And the kids are happy. And at the end of the day, as a parent, we all do our best and you just want, you know, them to be playing with something screen free, getting along and learning something. And, you know, that is the win. That is the ultimate takeout. You can layer on your own institution in context and rev up the visitor experience, bring in new visitors, attract a more diverse group of people that perhaps wouldn't normally come to a Regency Rococo style villa or whatever it might be, then that's all to the better, because, you know, you can start to use this in your planning and you can do what Suntton Hoo did? And go, right, well, we've done this and it's really worked. Andrew Webb: And then I can apply for funding for it and I can expand and I can make it permanent and then I can sort of say, well, this now becomes a tool and a string and arbo for our educational. It doesn't have to be split between visitor attractions and development. It can, you know, you can split it between several parts of the institution and use it in different ways, use it for educational purposes as well as visitor experience. So the world's your oyster with a bit of thinking. Paul Marden: With a bit of Lego and a bit of thinking. Andrew Webb: Bit of Lego, yeah. A few bricks and a couple of tricks and you're off to the races. Paul Marden: Andrew, this has been brilliant. Thank you ever so much. Andrew Webb: You're welcome. Paul Marden: I've got one more question for you before we finish. Now, you bottled this earlier on when I said we always have a book recommendation from our guests. And in spite of having the fullest bookshelf I've seen in quite a long time, you've bottled it on a book. But you did offer me a favourite movie. And so what would be your movie recommendation of choice? Andrew Webb: My go to movie would probably be Withnail and I, Richard E. Grant's first film. Every line has came down from God on a tablet. I mean, it is just. Yeah. Richard Griffiths as Uncle Monty, Paul McGann. It's just one of my favourite films and, you know, cult classic that no one's really. Well, people have heard of it now, but again, they even make stuff out with Alan Eyright. So you can go and watch a screening of it at the farm at Crow Crag up in Penrith, you know, and everyone dresses up and everyone comes with Mister blathering sets tea and I come on holiday by mistake and Jessie says, Danny. Andrew Webb: And, you know, fortunately, for better or for worse, I know these are tough times, but people try and find the fun in things. They try and at the end of the day, everyone's looking for a good time, whether we're children or an adult. You want something to just have a laugh and take you away for a moment. And if films and culture but also experiences can do that, then that's all for the good. Paul Marden: Well, look, this is going to be a challenge, but listeners, if you would like a copy of Andrew's film recommendation, then when we release the show message on X, if you can retweet that and say, “Give me Andrew's movie”, then the first person that does that, somehow I will get the movie to you. It might be on VHS, it might be on DVD, but somehow we will get you a movie. Andrew Webb: I found a CD the other day from a bar I used to go to in Clapham in the noughties and late ‘90s. I said to my mate, look, I'm great, put it on. And I went, “I can't.” I haven't got a CD player anymore. I had to go dig through a box somewhere in the study to find a portable CD player that plugged into my computer that could. By the end of it, we're just laugh. Forget it. Paul Marden: Andrew, this has been wonderful. Thank you ever so much. Andrew Webb: You're welcome. Cheers. Paul Marden: 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, SkiptheQueue.fm. The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! Help the entire sector:Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsFill in your data now (opens in new tab)

covid-19 christmas god ceo spotify netflix live history europe google hollywood kids uk education marketing england british parents marvel sales mind creativity mom plan santa dive vote lockdown east scotland portland taylor swift harry potter competition sun museum cheers engineering oxford cd lego james bond dvd stem fill cambridge ipads denmark b2b vikings skip ip crafting square industrial swing victorian vhs transformers brilliant customer service tourism chicago cubs arm c suite mister willy wonka west end nes museums winchester bricks he man return of the jedi roald dahl stonehenge user experience scouts paddington gar crowns queue attractions suffolk raspberry pi ipswich national gallery british museum bling heathrow airport national archives google adwords anglo saxons nec adwords victorians east anglia a4 magna carta legoland national trust gcse peter rabbit snot british library building the future richard e grant lily james north yorkshire penrith science museum trafalgar square clapham unesco world heritage kew experience economy lambeth world heritage sites withnail paul mcgann docklands english heritage bionicle tower bridge jutland kenilworth mumsnet josh ward sutton hoo city museum billund lego ideas historical sites tourism marketing quentin blake richard griffiths lego house nigel williams afol eben upton temeraire saffron walden uncle monty andrew webb lego atari kenilworth castle

Episode 189 - Tri-Wiz Warmaster Melee 2

uk melee warmaster saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 28, 2024 53:05

In this episode Paul and Barry discuss the event in Saffron Walden, UK on 16th March 2024.

Craig Smedley - Danny Way Hype, Fights, Knockouts & Three Balls | Brain Drain Show #25

BrainDrain Skateboarding show with Toby Batchelor and Forde Brookfield

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2024 97:02

Brain Drain Episode 25 with Toby Batchelor & Forde Brookfield

Series 3 Episode 5: Essex

The Three Ravens Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2024 58:21

This week Eleanor and Martin are off to Essex, a county where Boudica famously engaged in some impromptu remodeling...After a chat about Plough Monday and associated silliness, they then sharpen their three Saxon daggers and rampage through the history and folklore of Essex - from the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, Old King Cole, and the sacking of Colchester to the ghosts of Borley Rectory, the Saffron Walden basilisk, a whole pack of Shucks, and much more besides. Then it's time for the main event: Eleanor's telling of "Three Knots."The Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...With Bonus Episodes released on Thursdays (Magic and Medicines about folk remedies and arcane spells, Three Ravens Bestiary about cryptids and mythical creatures, Dying Arts about endangered heritage crafts, and Something Wicked about folkloric true crime from across history) plus a range of exclusive content on Patreon, audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcast Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

england acast released folklore essex series 3 medicines saxon colchester something wicked boudica borley rectory shucks saffron walden three ravens

Interview #42 | Beyond the Prison Bars: A Conversation with Ex-Governor Vanessa Frake-Harris MBE

British Murders Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2023 62:51

I welcome Vanessa Frake-Harris MBE to the show in this interview episode to discuss her book, 'The Governor: My Life Inside Britain's Most Notorious Prisons.'Having worked for 16 years in a high-security women's prison dealing with the likes of Rosemary West and Myra Hindley, Vanessa Frake-Harris thought she'd seen it all. That was until she was transferred to the notorious Wormwood Scrubs.Thrust into a 'man's world', her no-nonsense approach and fearless attitude saw her swiftly rise through the ranks. From dealing with celebrity criminals and busting drug rings to recruiting informers and being subject to violent attacks, her hard-hitting but often humorous memoir reveals all about life behind bars in unflinching detail.Vanessa was awarded an MBE for her work for the prison service in 2012. She retired early from the prison service, after 26 years, while the Government funding was still in place and things were going well in her job as she wanted to go out on a high.More recently, in a complete career change, she baked cakes at Angela Reed's Cafe in Saffron Walden and volunteers at Wood Green Animal Sanctuary.Vanessa's book was released on April 15, 2021, and is available to purchase here:The Governor: My Life Inside Britain's Most Notorious Prisons | HarperCollins Publishers UK***This interview was recorded on July 12, 2023.For all things British Murders, please visit my website:https://www.britishmurders.com/Intro music:David John Brady - 'Throw Down the Gauntlet'https://linktr.ee/davidjohnbradymusic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

conversations government prison harris governor acast cafe bars gauntlet mbe thrust myra hindley rosemary west saffron walden frake angela reed

Interview #42 | Beyond the Prison Bars: A Conversation with Ex-Governor Vanessa Frake-Harris MBE

British Murders Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2023 65:21

I welcome Vanessa Frake-Harris MBE to the show in this interview episode to discuss her book, 'The Governor: My Life Inside Britain's Most Notorious Prisons.' Having worked for 16 years in a high-security women's prison dealing with the likes of Rosemary West and Myra Hindley, Vanessa Frake-Harris thought she'd seen it all. That was until she was transferred to the notorious Wormwood Scrubs. Thrust into a 'man's world', her no-nonsense approach and fearless attitude saw her swiftly rise through the ranks. From dealing with celebrity criminals and busting drug rings to recruiting informers and being subject to violent attacks, her hard-hitting but often humorous memoir reveals all about life behind bars in unflinching detail. Vanessa was awarded an MBE for her work for the prison service in 2012. She retired early from the prison service, after 26 years, while the Government funding was still in place and things were going well in her job as she wanted to go out on a high. More recently, in a complete career change, she baked cakes at Angela Reed's Cafe in Saffron Walden and volunteers at Wood Green Animal Sanctuary. Vanessa's book was released on April 15, 2021, and is available to purchase here: The Governor: My Life Inside Britain's Most Notorious Prisons | HarperCollins Publishers UK ***This interview was recorded on July 12, 2023. For all things British Murders, please visit my website: https://www.britishmurders.com/ Intro music: David John Brady - 'Throw Down the Gauntlet' https://linktr.ee/davidjohnbradymusic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

conversations government prison harris governor cafe bars gauntlet mbe thrust myra hindley rosemary west saffron walden frake angela reed

September '23 in the Garden

Dig It - Discussions on Gardening Topics

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 1, 2023 51:29

After a soggy July and mixed fortunes weather wise in August, Peter Brown and Chris Day look forward to the prospect of an Indian summer in this month's Dig It. A pick of the best events, news, and garden trade stories, plus those essential gardening tasks for the month ahead.What's on1st- 30th September Garden Organic are promoting 30 thrifty biodiversity projects, one for each day of the month through Organic September and across their social medial channels #ThriftyThirty1st - 3rd September BBC Gardeners' World Autumn Fair, Audley End House and Garden, Saffron Walden.5th - 10th September RHS Wisley Flower Show, Surrey.16th - 17th September Cactus at the Castle event at Lullingstone Castle & The World Garden in Kent. 17th September Rare Autumn Plant Fair at Borde Hill Garden, Haywards Heath.22 - 24th September Malvern Plant and Garden Fair, Three Counties Showground, Malvern, Worcestershire.30th September / 1st October Apple Weekend at Buckingham Garden Centre, 10am-4pm.It's time to celebrate the Apple at Buckingham Garden Centre's popular Apple Weekend event featuring RHS apple expert Gerry Edwards, The Mid Shires Orchard group, plus Chris Collins, Garden Organic's Head of Organic Horticulture, and former BBC Blue Peter Gardener. Dig It Top Five Sellers - Perennials (in 1-litre pots) 1. Lavender ‘Hidcote,' 2. Lupinus ‘Gallery Mixed', 3. Delphinium ‘Black Knight', 4. Penstemon ‘Pensham Wedding Day' and 5. Leucanthemum ‘Snow Lady'.NewsSweetpea species offers future food potential.Blenheim Palace gardens to get major revamp.The National Garden Scheme launches five new community-based projects.Growers told to be vigilant as Colorado beetles are spotted in the south of England.Squire's Garden Centre electrifies its fleet.Blue Diamond buys four nursery sites.Pitcher plants can go peat-free says RHS.London's Garden Museum to expand gardens into public realm.Home and garden chain Wilko files for administration putting 12,000 jobs at risk.CEO Dave Carey leaves Mr Fothergill's.Calls to use native grasses rather than ryegrass in our lawns.Quarter of Brits think artificial grass should be banned. Plants and products mentioned Amaryllis, autumn flowering bulbs Colchicums, Crocus and Cyclamen hederifolium. Prepared hyacinths. Cerinthes, Ammi, Scabiosa and Cornflowers. Dahlias, Heuchera, ornamental grasses, hardy Pansies, and Violas. Propagate Fuchsia, Salvias, Rosemary Prune cropped Raspberry canes. Houseplant Tradescantia. Maxicrop Original Seaweed Extract, Aftercut Autumn Lawn Food, lawn seed, pea netting to cover ponds before leaf fall and garden vax for leaf shedding for composting.Our special thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for providing the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Girls Getting Together

Where Are You Going?

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 29, 2023 10:13

Late evening wisdom from women heading home after a night out with friends in Saffron Walden.---We're actively seeking brand partners and sponsors for this podcast and would love to talk to you. Please email us at whereareyougoing@loftusmedia.co.uk---Where Are You Going? is a unique storytelling podcast in which Catherine Carr interrupts people as they go about their everyday lives and asks simply: “Where are you going?” The conversations that follow are always unpredictable: sometimes funny, sometimes heart-breaking, silly, romantic or occasionally downright ‘stop-you-in-your-tracks' surprising.Be transported to places around the world and into the lives of others: You just never know what story is coming next… Presented by Catherine Carr Music by Edwin PearsonProduced by the team at Loftus Media Follow whereareyougoing on InstagramCheck out our site: whereareyougoing.co.uk Send us an email: whereareyougoing@loftusmedia.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

girls acast where are you going getting together saffron walden catherine carr

Countryside fashion

Where Are You Going?

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2023 7:51

Stories from strangers hanging around the town hall in Saffron Walden on a warm August evening.----We're actively seeking brand partners and sponsors for this podcast and would love to talk to you. Please email us at whereareyougoing@loftusmedia.co.uk---Where Are You Going? is shortlisted for the Listener's Choice Award in this year's British Podcast Awards. If you're enjoying these episodes and have 30secs to spare please consider voting for us:

stories fashion acast choice awards countryside british podcast awards where are you going saffron walden catherine carr

That 6+++ Show | Episode 26: A Beginner's Guide to playing in Events

That 6+++ Show

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2023 74:21

Tom is joined by Chris, Aarron and special guest Lewis as they discuss running events, their first ever events, and give general advice on things to think about if you are entering your first event soon. Lewis says: You can check out all Saffron Slam events here at www.elmominiatures.com/events We're running our first GT on 13th/14th May in an amazing venue, our first Sigmar event on 3rd/4th June and have an RTT and Teams Tournament booked in later this year. We've got some huge plans for our future events with the 6++ team and we are working really hard to make the Saffron events the most welcoming and inclusive in 40K. This hobby is for everyone, and we'd love to host you here in Saffron Walden. You can find regular updates for our events on Facebook & Instagram at Elmo Miniatures, and on our Facebook Group: Elmo Miniatures Events. Come and check out what we're all about, and feel free to drop us a message if you're thinking about coming to your first event but would like some reassurance beforehand, we're always happy to help!

guide playing events beginners gt 40k saffron rtt sigmar aarron saffron walden

Yotam Ottolenghi's Roasted Aubergine with Saffron Yoghurt

One Dish

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2022 24:16

In the One Dish Christmas special, chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi cooks Andi Oliver one of his favourite festive feasting dishes - a stunning platter of roasted aubergine drizzled with sunshine yellow saffron-infused yoghurt and jewel-like pomegranate seeds. It's technically a side dish, yes. But that doesn't mean it can't be a stand-alone thing of beauty. How does it fit in alongside the traditional Christmas bird with all the trimmings that his husband and kids adore, or a more vegetable-focused New Year's Eve spread for friends and family? Yotam reveals all. Andi and Yotam discuss how they approach catering their family Christmases and what the spice trade has to do with the Essex town of Saffron Walden, and Yotam reveals a game-changing tip for getting that perfect, melt-in-the-mouth texture and those caramelised edges when roasting aubergine. Also, Kimberley Wilson explores the unexpected benefits of a Yuletide banquet - find out why attending the office Christmas lunch might actually be good for society as a whole. Food Scientist: Kimberley Wilson Food Historian: Neil Buttery Producer: Lucy Dearlove ExecutiveProducer: Hannah Marshall Sound Design: Charlie Brandon-King Assistant Producer: Bukky Fadipe Commissioning Producer: Lynda Davies A Storyglass production for BBC Radio 4

christmas new year bbc radio essex roasted christmases yuletide saffron yoghurt aubergine yotam ottolenghi yotam kimberley wilson andi oliver saffron walden

The importance of building a great social community and process behind rebranding a 70 year old attraction

god spotify tiktok halloween friends social media uk marketing pr design hotels md actor mine seo hang honestly birmingham launching vikings attraction skip crm customer service tourism ingredients northern content creation worked ultimate guide social media marketing rebranding community engagement vinci merlin theme parks nemesis staples user experience oblivion cta christmases queue krispy kreme gunther vips dan brown brand manager da vinci code jamie oliver legoland marmite drayton tank engine experience economy social engagement oakwood media marketing social media channels alton towers thomas the tank engine social community thorpe park port aventura so thomas tourism marketing vitruvian man minute meals leeds trinity university saffron walden northern ballet kelly molson

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2022 44:49

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/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://www.draytonmanor.co.uk/https://twitter.com/DraytonManorhttps://www.instagram.com/draytonmanor/https://www.tiktok.com/@drayton_manor Danielle Nicholls - Senior Content Executive at Drayton Manor ResortWhen I graduated from Leeds Trinity University with a degree in Media & Marketing and a multitude of marketing placements in 2017, I was set on combining my two passions - storytelling and theme parks.After a year in a marketing communications role with a tour operator, I was lucky enough to secure a role in the Drayton Manor marketing team.Here at Drayton, I'm responsible for creating engaging visual and written content for all marketing channels - including web, PR, email, in park signage and of course, social media.My main focus over the last 4 and a half years has been to build an engaged social community across all our channels – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube.I'm forever grateful to work in such a fantastic industry, filled with incredible energy and enthusiasm.https://www.linkedin.com/in/nichollsdanielle/Twitter @dnicholls_Instagram @_daniellenicholls Ross Ballinger - Design & Brand Manager at Drayton Manor Resort (Inc. Hotel, Zoo & Europe's only Thomas Land) Brand protector and innovator... I played a senior role in a busy agency studio team for nearly 9 years. I joined fresh from leaving university with a sort after London placement under my belt.I now produce fresh, engaging, and dynamic design creative for digital advertising, marketing campaigns, theme park attractions, working closely alongside a talented Marketing team. All to promote Drayton Manor Resort in the most effective and exciting method possible.I can guarantee expertise and a wealth of experience, the final outcome of the design process is not the end of my creative input, you can be assured that maintaining brand continuity and freshly injected excitement remains my priority.Spend time with me and you'll understand why I wanted to be an Actor, but you'll be glad I didn't as my energy provides office enthusiasm and endless creative steer.www.linkedin.com/in/ross-ballingerwww.behance.net/rossballinger(Portfolio)Instagram @rossballingerTwitter @rossballingerTikTok @rossballinger Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in, or working with, visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with two great team members from Drayton Manor, Danielle Nicholls, Senior Content Executive, and Ross Ballinger, the Design and Brand Manager. We discuss the complex rebranding process. And how building a great social media community can mean your fans having your back when it comes to big change. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Woohoo, I've got Danielle and Ross from Drayton Manor on the podcast today. Hello.Danielle Nicholls: Hi.Ross Ballinger: Hello there. Very excited to be here.Kelly Molson: I love how excited you are. I'm just talking, listeners, Danielle and Ross are literally the most pumped guests I've ever had on the podcast.Ross Ballinger: That's it, we'd better live up to that now.Danielle Nicholls: I know, right?Kelly Molson: They've got a snazzy Drayton Manor background behind them, which is looking fierce. But as ever, we're going to start with our icebreaker questions. Imagine that you're just down your pub with your mates. This is how I need you to feel with the icebreaker questions.Ross Ballinger: Okay. Get a few beers in.Kelly Molson: Ready?Ross Ballinger: Yeah.Kelly Molson: What are you most likely to buy when you exit through the gift shop?Danielle Nicholls: Pin badge, I reckon. Yeah, I've got a little pin badge collection.Kelly Molson: I like this. Ross?Ross Ballinger: Yeah, I'm very similar. I'm fridge magnet.Kelly Molson: You can't go wrong with a fridge magnet.Ross Ballinger: No. And we've got a secondary fridge, under the stairs, which where we keep the beers. And that's where all the fridge magnets go, at the end, if we've been to an attraction.Danielle Nicholls: I love it.Kelly Molson: Is that because your house is beautiful and your partner does not want them on her fridge and you have to hide them?Ross Ballinger: Exactly. Exactly that. The wife does not want them on the normal fridge. They're hidden behind the door.Kelly Molson: Oh, I like her style.Ross Ballinger: But I've got to get a fridge magnet.Kelly Molson: Pin badges, fridge magnets, excellent choices. Mine would be a rubber. Have I told you about my rubber collection?Danielle Nicholls: That's interesting, no.Ross Ballinger: So you collect branded rubbers?Kelly Molson: Right. Well, I used to when I was a kid. I'm going to show you them. I've got them on the desk next to me.Danielle Nicholls: Oh my God, please do.Kelly Molson: I'm sorry, listeners. For the people that are listening, this is rubbish. But if you're watching the YouTube video, hello. Welcome to my rubber collection.Danielle Nicholls: Amazing.Kelly Molson: So they still smell. Again, this is not podcast material, but they smell absolutely incredible.Ross Ballinger: Smell really good.Danielle Nicholls: Oh my God, I love it.Kelly Molson: This is an '80s collection of novelty rubbers.Danielle Nicholls: What's your oldest rubber in there, which have you had the longest?Kelly Molson: So there's one in there from the planetarium, the London Planetarium.Ross Ballinger: Doesn't exist anymore. There you go, that's memorabilia.Kelly Molson: Look at my Thorpe Park one, that's my Thorpe Park one.Danielle Nicholls: Oh my gosh, that is a throwback.Ross Ballinger: Oh, that's a good one.Kelly Molson: This is an old one as well. Anyway-Ross Ballinger: Everyone still does rubbers, so we fit in there with you.Kelly Molson: Because I can collect them.Ross Ballinger: Pin badge, magnet, rubber.Danielle Nicholls: We stick together.Ross Ballinger: That's a perfect combo.Kelly Molson: It's like the perfect triangle. We're the perfect gift shop triangle. Okay, all right, next one. If you had to live in a sitcom for the rest of your life, which sitcom would you choose and why?Ross Ballinger: Oh, mine's easy.Danielle Nicholls: I feel like we're going to be the same.Ross Ballinger: Yeah.Danielle Nicholls: Friends.Ross Ballinger: Friends, yeah.Kelly Molson: Aww. Who would you be, if you had to be one of the characters?Danielle Nicholls: I'm like a perfect mix between Phoebe, Rachel, and Monica, I think.Kelly Molson: Nice, okay. Again, another little triangle.Danielle Nicholls: Maybe more towards Phoebe, I'm a bit more hippie, I guess.Kelly Molson: Ross, what about you?Ross Ballinger: I love all the guys. I love for all the guys. Because I just love Chandler because he's so funny. But then Ross is funny as well, when he doesn't try to be funny. But Ross is just such a good actor. And you don't realise, until you watch it 17,000 times, actually how good of an actor he was. I think I'd have to-Danielle Nicholls: Can you be a Gunther?Ross Ballinger: No, no. I think I just have to sway towards Chandler. Just because he was known for being comedic and stupid.Kelly Molson: And now you feel like that's your life role?Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would go and live Chandler's life any day.Kelly Molson: Okay, I love this. All right, good, good answers. It's what I thought you were going to say. This is what I thought.Ross Ballinger: Did you?Kelly Molson: Yeah, I thought it was going to be Friends. All right. If you had to pick one item to win a lifetime supply of, what would you pick?Danielle Nicholls: That is so hard.Ross Ballinger: I know. Probably whiskey, lifetime supply of whiskey, just coming out the tap.Kelly Molson: It's a good choice.Danielle Nicholls: I genuinely don't know. That's really, really hard.Ross Ballinger: It's got to be food or drink, surely.Danielle Nicholls: It's got to be crisps or something like that. You can't beat a crisps and dip combo.Kelly Molson: Yeah. What about a crisp sandwich? How do we feel about crisp sandwiches?Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah, yeah.Danielle Nicholls: Oo, I'm not sure about that one.Kelly Molson: What?Danielle Nicholls: I'm not sure.Ross Ballinger: Come one, you're Northern. You can put anything in a sandwich.Danielle Nicholls: I would put crisps inside a cheese sandwich or something like that. But I wouldn't just have the crisps.Kelly Molson: See, I would do it either. I'm happy to have a filling sandwich with crisps in it. Or just a plain crisp sandwich.Ross Ballinger: I'd do either.Kelly Molson: What I really love about you two is how well you get on. And we're going to talk a little bit about this in the podcast today about your roles and what you do at Drayton Manor. But you look like-Ross Ballinger: Is it that evident?Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's that evident. But even from your social media channels... You guys feature quite heavily across Drayton Manor's social media channels. And, honestly, it just looks like you have the best time ever. And I want to hear more about it. But, firstly, I need your unpopular opinions. What have you prepared for us?Ross Ballinger: Okay, do you want to go first?Danielle Nicholls: As Ross alluded, I'm very, very Northern, I think. My accent a little bit, but more like how I am. So mine is, it's not a bap, it's not a bread roll, it's not a cob, it's a muffin.Kelly Molson: What?Danielle Nicholls: A muffin. That's mine.Ross Ballinger: It's a cob, it's a cob.Danielle Nicholls: No, it's a muffin.Ross Ballinger: Cob. You call it a cob.Danielle Nicholls: A muffin.Kelly Molson: No, it's a bun. What's wrong with you all?Ross Ballinger: Do you say bun? A muffin's a cake.Danielle Nicholls: I say batch as well. My partner calls it a batch, which is crazy to me. But muffin, we'll go muffin.Kelly Molson: Okay. For now, we'll accept muffin. Ross?Danielle Nicholls: Moving on.Ross Ballinger: Mine is, I just think soap operas are crap, honestly. I was going to swear, but I can't stand soap operas. And I know there's a lot of people out there that love them. But I just can't, I can't watch them. I just think they're so depressing. And if they're on, if I accidentally get home and the channel's on where it's on, I get anxious. And I have to find the remote as soon as I can to turn it off. What a waste of your life. What a waste of time, honestly. Hours and hours. And you add that up over a week and a year, think what else you could be doing. Honestly, if I turn one on now by accident, it's the same actors that are in it 20, 30 years ago. And I think, "What have they done with their life as well? They've just been in a soap opera for 30 years."Kelly Molson: These are excellent unpopular opinions. Listeners, please let me know if you agree or disagree. Thank you for preparing those for us today. I appreciate it.Ross Ballinger: No problem.Kelly Molson: Right, you guys work together. Tell me a little bit about your roles and what you do there?Ross Ballinger: So my title is design and brand manager. So I'm technically like lead designer for the resort. And the brand guardian. I look after the brand guidelines. So yeah, I'll produce, with me and my little team, everything that goes out graphically or visually across all the channels, website, printed media. So yeah.Danielle Nicholls: You definitely underplayed yourself there.Ross Ballinger: Did I?Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. You do so much. You say your little team, you and one other person. You smash everything, literally everything.Ross Ballinger: Aw, thanks, Danielle.Kelly Molson: That's a lot of work for you and your team.Ross Ballinger: It is, because if you think, in the industry, I can imagine people on a parallel with us would have bigger teams, bigger resource. Because basically Drayton Manor is a massive entity. It's not just a theme park, it's a hotel as well. It's a zoo. Then we have Thomas Land, which could be considered as a separate entity. So they're what I consider as four blue chip clients. And then we operate as a little agency within the resort that looks after all those. But then, you've got the resort's departments as well, which could be clusters of clients. So you've got catering, retail, they're the big ones I can think off my head. But they all have their graphical requirements as well, design requirements. So yeah, it's a massive entity and we look after it all.Kelly Molson: And how many... Did you say there's two of you?Ross Ballinger: There's two of us, yeah.Kelly Molson: That's mad. That is mad. So I really resonate with this because I, obviously, come from an agency background. I set up my agency nearly 20 years ago. I feel ancient. But what you're doing is you are essentially a mini agency with loads of clients and two of you. It's crazy. So I can imagine it's quite stressful, but also lots of fun because you get to work on a lot of variety.Ross Ballinger: Yeah. Oh, very varied. Yeah, every day is different. And that is not just a cliche that you can just say. Literally, every day is so different. Because it's an exciting company as well, where there's new things happening all the time, constantly evolving strategies, or new things come in and go in. So yeah, it's very varied.Kelly Molson: Danielle, what's your role? Because the two of you do work quite closely together as well, don't you?Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. Yeah, we do. So my role is, the title is senior content executive. So I primarily look after the social media channels, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Creating the content, taking the pictures, work with video agents. Sometimes creating a video in-house as well. And all of the community engagement that goes alongside that as well. Whilst also writing any copy, creating the content for the website, and any signage requirements. Literally anything that you see that has text on it, normally, me and Ross have worked together to create that. And with social, it's both paid and organic social media. So all of the adverts you see, alongside all of the organic stuff you see on our feeds. I also help out with PR as well. So we have a PR agency that we work with, but we liaise alongside them. And now, we're getting more into the traditional media as well. So the pair leaflets and out of home magazines, articles. Yeah, little bit of everything now that it's-Kelly Molson: That's mad. I love that you were just glossing over elements of your job that I'm like, "That's a whole person's job there." And we do the social community building and we do this bit and this bit. Wow, yeah, there's a lot. I just think that goes to show, even... We talk to attractions of all kinds of shapes and sizes on this podcast. And I think it just goes to show that even with an attraction that is a big attraction, and it's perceived to be a very big attraction, actually you're working with really small teams here. And there's a lot on each person's shoulder and a lot of responsibility. And I think it's really important that we highlight that, that you're doing a lot there.Ross Ballinger: But the extended team is really good as well. We've got really good team members. So the rapport across the whole team is very tight.Danielle Nicholls: In terms of the marketing side, I report into a digital marketing manager. And she is insane, she's amazing at what she does. And then, alongside me, we also have a digital marketing exec. And how it splits out is, he looks after all of the technical side, so SEO, CRM, that kind of thing. And I look after the creative content. And then we both report in to the digital manager.Kelly Molson: It sounds like-Danielle Nicholls: It's a little team but-Kelly Molson: It sounds like such fun roles as well. Genuinely, they sound really cool. Because I know, Danielle, you are a bit of a theme park... I'm going to say nerd. But you're theme park nut, right? You love theme parks.Danielle Nicholls: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.Kelly Molson: And I'm guessing, Ross, to work in a theme park, you've got to love a theme park.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, absolutely.Kelly Molson: Did you absolutely tailor your careers to make this happen? Was this always your ultimate goals? Like, "I want to work in an attraction."Ross Ballinger: Yes and no, kind of. So I studied to be a graphic designer, went to university for three years. And then I worked as a digital artist while I was at uni. And then I went straight into a local agency, after getting quite a sought after placement in London. And then I worked for an agency for nearly nine years. So I learnt my craft there, really. Worked my way up from a junior, up to a senior creative. And I ended up looking after all the top clients there as well. But almost nine years was enough. I knew I wanted to go in-house because it was at that time, there was a bit of a boom of companies and clients getting in-house designers. Because they knew how cost effective it would be to have your graphic designer in-house. So I started looking about, and I wanted a fun industry. There was no way I was going to go and work for a boiler company. I don't want to bad mouth any other companies out there but something engineering or-Danielle Nicholls: More typically fun.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, I wanted to go full on fun. And I used to come to Drayton as a kid as well so I knew Drayton Manor.Kelly Molson: That's nice to have that connection, isn't it? You know the brand, you've lived it.Ross Ballinger: I've got pictures of me around the park when I'm seven or eight with my mum and dad. So I have that nostalgic connection. And I was a big to a big Thomas fan as well when I was a kid growing up. So Thomas the Tank Engine, I had the wallpaper, had the bedspreads, loved the episodes. So when I knew that the big blue engine was here as well, it was like-Danielle Nicholls: Big boss Thomas.Ross Ballinger: Big boss, yeah, Thomas is your boss, any day. Yeah. So I was a fan of attractions anyway. Who's not a fan of going out on days out? And so it worked.Kelly Molson: Exactly, cool. But, Danielle, you went out and made that happen, didn't you? This was your focus.Danielle Nicholls: It was, yeah. I think, maybe not so much early on, I guess this is different, but from the age of about 13, 14, I knew I wanted to work in marketing. But I wanted to do marketing for a dance company at the time. So I did a couple of placements at some dance companies, Northern Ballet, Phoenix Dance Theatre, places like that. And that was the dream up until about 17, I want to say, when I was at college. I knew that I wanted theme parks. So I went and did a media and marketing degree. And as soon as I got to my second year, I was like, "Right, that's it. I need to find a theme park. I need to get experience. I need to connect with as many people as I can on LinkedIn." And it was my focus.Kelly Molson: That's interesting. Hang on, let me just... Because that isn't a typical 17-year-old's path, is it? They wouldn't necessarily go, "I know that I want to work in this industry, therefore, I need to connect with people that can help me make that happen." That's a really good piece of advice.Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. And I was literally on it, messaging people. I think I messaged, at the time, the PR manager for Legoland. And was like, "Hello, anything you can help me with." I was really a bit brutal. But yeah, then I went to uni, and did everything I could whilst I was there to try and get the connections still. I applied for a couple of grad schemes with some other groups and, sadly, didn't make it through to those. So as a bit of a bridge between finishing uni and starting Drayton, I went to work for a tour operator, who sold overseas UK holidays, but also sold theatre, attraction tickets, theme parks. So it was a bit of a gap between the two.And I worked there for a year, and then the job at Drayton came up. And at the time, I was living in York, working for this tour operator. And I was like, "I've got to go for it." It was a marketing officer job, so a little bit different to what I do now. But I had to. So I drove two and a bit hours up, in my little... I had a little C1 at the time.Ross Ballinger: But I feel that we both came in at Drayton in our respective roles as entry level, really. Because I had just started as a graphic designer. I took a pay cut to come here because I really wanted to start here. It was never about anything like that. So I wanted to work at Drayton. So that proves that I wanted to work. And our roles have both escalated over the seasons that we've been here.Danielle Nicholls: Because I did move so far, and away from my family and stuff, it was a big jump. I had three weeks to find a house and somewhere to live as well, which was fun. But I managed to do it and, honestly, I don't regret it. I don't look back at all. It's probably the best thing I've ever done.Ross Ballinger: If you want it, you make it happen, don't you?Kelly Molson: Yeah, totally. And I think it really says a lot about the Drayton Manor brand that you've done that as well. There is a real... It's clear with both of you, how much you love it. And it's amazing that you've... Ross, you've taken a pay cut. You've changed where you live to come and work and be part of what's happening there. So I think that's a real testimony to the brand itself. And that's a couple of things that we really want to focus on for this conversation today. So I'm going to start with the focus on you, Danielle, if that's okay?Danielle Nicholls: Okay, yeah, that's fine.Kelly Molson: Because I think what you mentioned really briefly, when you went, "Oh yeah and we do this kind of thing as well," is what you said around the social community side. So you have built the social community and I want you to explain how you've been able to do that and what that's looked like. So tell us a little bit about that element of your role.Danielle Nicholls: So I've been here just over four years now. And in that time, we've been through so much change but, also, social has changed so much. So when I first started I was looking at social but it was more, "Let's just post and leave it," kind of thing. And see how it is engaged with, see how it works. But, over time, I've tried to hone it so it's more about a social community, rather than we're just talking at them. It's more we're talking with them and we're engaging with them. Like I say, we've grown into different channels. So we were really just focusing on Facebook. We had a little bit of Twitter, and a little bit of Instagram, but it was primarily Facebook. Whereas now, we've brought in more LinkedIn stuff and TikTok as well, which has really helped. I think in terms of building the social community though, there's so many different to-dos that you can stick to. But, for me, it's more about seeing what works for your brand. Because it doesn't always fit the same, it's not just one formula that fits all.Kelly Molson: And I guess, like you said, about bringing in different social channels, you need to work out where your audience is. I guess where you're getting the most engagement as well. And then, you are a small team, how do you then divide up where you spend your time? You've got to spend it in the areas that you're going to get that engagement. So you might then end up dropping certain channels, or not being as... I don't know, not putting as much effort into those ones, just because it's just not where you get the engagement.Danielle Nicholls: I think in terms of the different channels, they all have a different audience, if that makes sense. So Facebook is very family orientated. You get the grandparents, the mums on there. Whereas, Twitter is theme park fans and slightly younger, it's very conversational. TikTok is younger, but the demographics on there are shifting slightly to be everyone at the moment. Because it's where all the trends are and things, there's a big range. Our audience on there is 13 to maybe 35, 40 upwards. So it is very varied. Instagram is a mix between Twitter and Facebook. So you do get the families and the mums on there, but then you get the theme park fans that just want to see pictures of roller coasters. And with the introduction of reels as well, that's trying to tackle TikTok, so that's really important. And LinkedIn is corporate.But we do have a team, like I say, we have a digital manager as well, but she's so busy with all the other things that she's got to look after. So the social, like creating the content and community engagement, just sits with me. So I have a big plan of all the different channels and the different days. And because I know the Drayton brand inside and out, I know what works now. So we tend to post every other day on Facebook, every day on Twitter. And we try to do every weekday on TikTok. Instagram, very similar to Facebook. But there's not really one that I'd prioritise, necessarily. At first, it was TikTok, at the start of this year, because obviously that was where it was taking off. But now, it's just about tailoring the message across, and trying to keep active on all of them.Kelly Molson: Do you have to really tailor what you put out on each of the channels as well? So you don't do, "This is going to go out across all of our socials." You have to really think about how those... Because I guess there's subtle nuances about how people react to certain things on different channels, and how they might communicate back with you.Danielle Nicholls: I think, from what I've been doing this season in particular, is Twitter's been very conversational. So I've not necessarily been worried about always having an image on there, or always having a piece of media on there. Just some text normally works, so long as it's engaging and people feel like they want to respond to it. Whether there's a CTA on there, or it's just something that's humorous, then that tends to work quite well.Kelly Molson: It's no mean feat. That is an awful lot of work that goes into that. And I think it's really interesting to hear about the tailoring as well. And how you're going to get different reactions, from different people, on different social media platforms.Danielle Nicholls: We tend to get, particularly on Facebook, in the comments, they're always really interesting to read. They're so different to Twitter. Because Facebook, sometimes you get some complaints in there. But because our community is so strong now, we get other people responding for us, which is a good... It's amazing, I love it.Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal.Danielle Nicholls: Sometimes you've got to moderate it because they might give an answer that's not necessarily right. But yeah, a lot of the time they'll be sticking up for us. Or they'll be responding to the questions for us, which is interesting.Kelly Molson: That's really impressive, and I didn't know that that happened. Is that part of, because you've put so much work into building your community, they're now backing you to other people?Danielle Nicholls: Exactly, yeah.Kelly Molson: Wow.Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. They've become our brand guardians without us making them, if that makes sense. Because they're so loyal to the brand, they just want to do all their best for us.Kelly Molson: How does that happen? Is that a time thing? Is it purely because you've spent so much time investing in those relationships that that happens now? Nobody's ever told me this before, that that happens.Danielle Nicholls: I think it's that but, also, like you say, Drayton is such a strong brand. And particularly since I've been here, we've just gone from strength to strength. So I think that helps as well. We also use user generated content. So particularly at the end of a big campaign, so Halloween, we'll say, "Share your pictures with us and we'll share them on our feeds." And that really gives them a sense of belonging as part of the community. Because they'll be scrolling down their Facebook or Instagram or wherever, and they'll see a picture of maybe their little one. Or they'll see themselves and, yeah, they love it.Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that the whole user generated content is brilliant, because it allows people to see themselves at the place as well, doesn't it?Danielle Nicholls: Yeah.Kelly Molson: So from a sales perspective, I think if people can look at something and go, "Oh, well, that family looks just like mine." Or, "That person looks just like me." Or, "They've got this thing, just like I have." Then they're more inclined to maybe buy a ticket to come and see it as well. So it works two ways.Danielle Nicholls: It's about recognising the top fans as well. So I know Facebook has the top fan badge. And, on Twitter, we've got a closed community group which anyone can join. That's just called Drayton Manor Top Fans. And we, every so often, give them a little bit of information early before we give it to everybody else. Or little things like that, that make them feel special.Kelly Molson: So they feel like VIPs.Danielle Nicholls: So it keeps them interactive. Yes, exactly.Kelly Molson: They've got their own mini community. They feel like VIPs because they get to know stuff early. That's brilliant. Again, I've never heard any other attraction talk about doing stuff like that. Do you think that would be... I always ask about top tips, and what you would recommend other people to do that are building communities. Do you think that would be one of your top tips, is really invest in them?Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. And also, respond in a personal manner, rather than it being very corporate. Include your tone of voice, wherever you can, and make sure your tone of voice is dead on point, according to your brand guidelines. But also, be bold and brave. We always say that, don't we?Ross Ballinger: Bold and brave, yeah.Danielle Nicholls: If you sway away from your brand guidelines slightly, in order to respond, particularly on Twitter, it works really well. Then don't worry too much about that. It's okay, so long as it's in keeping with your values then it's okay.Ross Ballinger: And it's evident out there as well with all the other big companies. And it becomes a news story, doesn't it, when you get supermarkets battling on Twitter. And it's exposure and engagement at the same time.Kelly Molson: And people love that.Danielle Nicholls: That's another really important thing.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, people love it. It's a comedy show.Danielle Nicholls: Yeah, engaging with other brands helps.Kelly Molson: Yeah, they want to know about the people behind the brands, don't they? And if they realise that your brand face, actually there's a human behind it who's got a sense of humour, I think that goes a really long way.Danielle Nicholls: That's what we try and do.Kelly Molson: You do it perfectly, because I love your Twitter chat. You've got a great Twitter chat. We've talked loads about brand today, and that leads me on to what I want to talk to you about, Ross, which is the Drayton Manor brand itself. Because I think, I might have got this wrong, but it's a 70 year old brand. So Drayton Manor's about 70 years old.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, 1950 was when it first came about, yeah. The Bryan family started it in the 1950s. So George Bryan Sr., had this vision to create an inland pleasure resort for the local community. And I guess, in short story, it escalated from there.Danielle Nicholls: We've got a book all about it in the shops.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we owe a lot to the Bryan family, really, for escalating such a tiny little brainchild into a massive attraction that we are today. So yeah, I can remember thinking that we needed to rebrand years ago though, when I first started. Because I think it's just one of those that was a little bit... I don't want to say anything bad about it but obviously it needed to change. It was a little bit outdated.Danielle Nicholls: It was a bit archaic, wasn't it?Ross Ballinger: Yeah, it was a bit archaic. It stood the test of time and it did a good job.Kelly Molson: So how long had the existing brand been in place, before you got your mitts on it?Ross Ballinger: I think the last logo that we had in the brand was probably in place for about 20 years. I think it's early 2000s, the last logo.Danielle Nicholls: There was always slight variations, wasn't there?Ross Ballinger: Yeah, there was always a few modifications on it.Kelly Molson: But I can imagine that things had changed quite dramatically over those 20 years as well. So you talk about the need for a rebrand, it was really needed.Ross Ballinger: Absolutely.Kelly Molson: What I always think's quite interesting is how long some of these things take. Because I think that people don't fully understand how long a rebrand can actually take you. So can you remember when those conversations first started?Ross Ballinger: Since I started, it's always been a project that was a pinnacle project that we always wanted to try and get on to. But just in terms of budgets and time, we never got around to it. Obviously, it came to the point, I think it was November 2021, when we first sat down and said, "Now is the time to do it." Because, obviously, we were bought out by a big company, Looping Group, and it was the perfect opportunity to do it. It's obviously a new era so it made perfect sense.Kelly Molson: So when did you launch it? So November, you sat down and went, "Right, November '21, we're going to do this." When did it actually launch?Ross Ballinger: Literally-Danielle Nicholls: Two minutes later.Ross Ballinger: Six months.Kelly Molson: Six months?Ross Ballinger: Six months, yeah. We put a brand team together, firstly. And, honestly, because we're such a small in-house team, we knew that we needed some help. So we got agency help, and we got local agencies to pitch in their best processes. So they were the experts in doing it, and they knew what protocols and procedures to go through. And we chose a really talented local agency in Birmingham. Yeah, started the project in '21, and launched it six months later.Kelly Molson: Wow, that's a phenomenal amount of work in six months.Ross Ballinger: Yeah. In, I don't know, design industry terms and the size of the business, that's no time at all, really.Kelly Molson: No, it's not. I honestly thought you were going to say we started talking about this three years ago and it took two years. It was a two year process.Ross Ballinger: The best thing was, is that we were doing that, alongside launching our brand new Vikings area. So we've got three new rides launch. We're launching a new website at the same time.Danielle Nicholls: We had a new booking system.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, a new ticketing system. As well as the regular day to day work and seasonal campaigns to market. It was literally like all Christmases come at once.Danielle Nicholls: It was. Everything we'd wanted for so long, they just went, "There you go."Ross Ballinger: All at the same time.Kelly Molson: You can have it all, but you need to do it in this amount of time. Wow. That is such a lot to all be happening at the same time. But I'm not going to lie, this happens at attractions. Suddenly, they just spring into action. We have just worked with a client with exactly the same. They did a rebrand, new website, booking system, all at the same time. And you're like, "Ah, the world is on fire. What's happening?"Danielle Nicholls: It was great though.Ross Ballinger: It was good though. We collaborated for most of it. The agency were a bit of a rock, really. And they did a lot of the legwork in terms of the brand personality, putting together the guidelines, creating the initial design concepts. But I did sit alongside them and collaborate with them. It would've just been a too big a task solely, on my own, internally, which it wouldn't have been possible. But I'd like to think I had a lot of input, inspirational design ideas along the way, that probably helped chisel the final outcome and the look of the brand that we've got now.Danielle Nicholls: Just logos in itself, you had sheets and sheets of-Ross Ballinger: Sheets and sheets of logos, yeah, logo concepts and variations. But I know I wanted something that was super flexible in terms of composition and layout. Because I know what I'd created before, it was archaic, but it was flexible. It would work on all different platforms. And then the typeface that we chose for the final logo was one of my early typefaces that I pitched in. And the swirl, that was one of my babies, that was one of my original concepts. So I always wanted to push that.Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. But that's what makes for a good agency client relationship is that you do collaborate. That's how it should be. And they obviously nailed it. And I know that you would've had so many stakeholders involved in this process as well. So I can imagine how big a challenge that was to actually come to a final, "This is what it's going to be like," and everyone be happy.Ross Ballinger: It was a challenge, but only because we had a lot of passionate stakeholders that wanted valued input. And they had strong views, which was very fair.Kelly Molson: So the bit that ties these two stories together, the things that we've talked about today, is that... I think you alluded to the fact, Ross. That when the brand launched, it's a big change for people. The way that you've talked about the brand is incredibly passionate. I can imagine that local people, people that come to visit every week, every month, they are so... The brand is in their heart. So a big change like this can be quite uncomfortable for people. And when the brand launched, there was a little bit of-Ross Ballinger: Yeah, there was a bit of uncertainty, yeah, and a bit of shock. Yeah, they've had a logo installed in their brain for 20 years. But when we wanted to launch the rebrand, it wasn't just about a logo. We did focus on the logo probably, in hindsight, more than we should have.Danielle Nicholls: I think that's maybe a bit of a learning curve, particularly on social. The asset that we used was the old logo going into the new logo, which we thought was great. But then when we put it out, we were like, "Actually, maybe we should have focused more on..." Like you say, brand personality and visions and values, rather than just the logo.Ross Ballinger: Because the end user hasn't really seen the six months of graft that's gone into creating that. And we did portray it in five seconds.Kelly Molson: So they just get the, "Hey, this is new, you should love it." But they haven't understood about the process of why you've done certain things, and the decisions that have been made.Danielle Nicholls: Exactly, yeah. We had a blog which explained it all perfectly, but you had to click through to the blog. People didn't necessarily do that. They just saw the logo and keyboard-Ross Ballinger: But I like the journey we went through because the people that didn't actually really like it in the beginning and really just sacked it off straight away, they're the people that have warmed to it now. And seen it in execution, and how adaptable it is, and how we can get our messages across. And the fact that they love it now, and I love that, that we've turned them round.Danielle Nicholls: Because the main thing we were trying to do, really, is come away from fun family memories, and turn it to fun for everyone. That was the main message that we wanted to portray, particularly on the social channels, and in brand in general. But I think going forward we're definitely going to achieve that.Kelly Molson: But it's quite interesting because I think what you talked about earlier, Danielle, your social community, they would've played a big part in this when you launched it. So I guess it would've been harder if you hadn't already built those relationships and nurtured that community. Launching something like this, would've been 1,000 times more difficult than actually... All right, there was a bit of a bump in the road, but it wasn't the end of the world. And people, like you say, are now warming to it and loving it. Would that have happened if you hadn't put all that work into the social community aspect?Danielle Nicholls: Possibly not. I think, like I said earlier, there was a lot of people, they had our backs. So there was people like, "This is..." Being very negative. But people were responding saying, "Look, they have to move forward, they've been through this, that and the other. They have to move forward. See the positives," which was good.Ross Ballinger: I think as well, probably because we've got such a good social community, they felt comfortable with saying what they thought about it and being honest.Danielle Nicholls: Which helps because we did run focus groups beforehand, as part of the rebrand process, with suppliers, annual pass holders, staff members, literally with so many people. But until it's out there, you're not necessarily going to get that big, full, wider picture. So it did help us with how we were going to move forward with the rebrand as well, looking at their feedback.Kelly Molson: So you actually took some of their... So obviously from the focus groups, you would've taken on board some of the input that you got from those. When it launched, was there anything that you took on board from the feedback that you were getting at that point? That you could look to, not necessarily change, but I guess look at the ways that you implement it in a different way?Danielle Nicholls: I think the main thing was, like we said, the logo situation. Because everyone was so focused on the logo, we knew that, moving forwards, as we were going to explore the brand even more, we had to make sure it was about the imagery and the personality. And including the shop line there and things like that, rather than... I think that learning curve definitely came from the feedback.Kelly Molson: Brilliant. It is such a huge project to go through a rebrand. And I think there's always that anxious moment when you unveil it to people and they go... It could be a bit Marmite. But I think the way that it's been managed, that's the important part of this story, really. And that comes back to, again, it all fits together about how the two of you work together as well. And I think that's quite an important aspect to take away from this podcast episode as well. It's about, it's a team, this is a team thing that happens here. And it's not just about one person. So the brand has launched and then, suddenly, it's all on Danielle's shoulders to deal with all the stuff that's coming back. It's, this is a team thing.Ross Ballinger: Well, no, it cascaded all the way through the company, didn't it?Danielle Nicholls: Yeah.Ross Ballinger: People would be like... Even engineers, and everyone, and HR, they were like... They felt the same... It was almost a little bit of disappointment that the reaction wasn't amazing. But then, everybody felt it.Danielle Nicholls: But we all came together and-Ross Ballinger: Yeah.Danielle Nicholls: Our director of people bought us a box of Krispy Kremes in the office that day. And was like, "There you go, guys. Are you all okay?" And we were like, "Yeah, it's all good."Ross Ballinger: But there's obviously horror stories of brands doing this and reverting back. But we knew that we'd got something that was amazing that we were going to stick to. And once we knew we could roll it out, that it was going to flourish. So we're just glad that we stuck to our guns and just... We had the negativity at the beginning and, now, people love it.Danielle Nicholls: Like you say, we have people coming up to us, just telling me it's good. Saying, "I wasn't sure at first? But now we love it."Kelly Molson: Ah, see, and that's what you want. You want it to be loved by everybody that sees it now. That's brilliant. You just reminded me of something that I saw a few weeks ago. Have you seen the video when Staples changed their logo, they put out?Danielle Nicholls: Yes.Ross Ballinger: Yes, yes.Kelly Molson: That's just like, as you were talking about it, I was going, "Oh my God, I watched that last week." And it's so crazy.Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. And they're all like, "Whoopa." It's amazing.Kelly Molson: "Wow, look at us." And I just didn't think it was amazing either. But I just felt really sorry for the whole team being forced to clap it and, "Yay, a logo." Oh dear, if that's what they thought brand was-Ross Ballinger: I loved it. I just think that's how you should do it, even if it is a bit cringey.Danielle Nicholls: I thought it was hilarious.Ross Ballinger: What they've done is open up the stapler in the logo, and put it on the side. But sometimes that probably would've cost them an arm and a leg just to do that as well.Danielle Nicholls: So much time.Kelly Molson: There's a massive buildup to that happening as well. And I was a bit like, "Wow, that's a massive anticlimax."Danielle Nicholls: A big press conference for it.Ross Ballinger: I just loved everything about it, honestly.Kelly Molson: The next rebrand, that's what you'll be doing, Ross. You'll get everyone in the attraction, you'll launch it on a big screen. I think what you've done, and what you've achieved, is phenomenal. Thank you for coming on the podcast and talking to me about it today. I really appreciate it. As ever, we always ask our guests if they've got a book that they love that they'd like to share with our audience. So you can pick one each.Danielle Nicholls: I think for me... And going back to me being a theme park nerd, this ties in very well. John Wardley, who is-Ross Ballinger: No.Danielle Nicholls: I know, right. John Wardley, who is a big theme park, mainly rollercoaster, designer. He's done work for Merlin, PortAventura, Oakwood, so many. He was really, really big. He worked on things like Nemesis, Oblivion, Katanga Canyon at Alton Towers, was Megafobia at Oakwood. He had an autobiography called Creating Your Nemesis, which basically spanned through his life of how we got into the theme park industry and where we went through. And it's very story based and anecdotal, but it was really inspiring. And helped me create the courage to knock on doors and do that kind of thing.Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Great book. Great book choice.Ross Ballinger: That's a really good response to the question. See, I'm a designer so I don't really read. I can read, but I just don't read. I'm very visual, as you can imagine. So I'm just not a fan of reading. I prefer to just scroll through Instagram and TikTok. But I have read books in the past. I remember one book, I think it's probably the only book I have read, was The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I think it's Dan Brown. But that's only because I was interested in Leonardo da Vinci, who was obviously a scientist or an... He was a bit of an artist and an architect. So I was more interested in his theories, and his Vitruvian Man, I think it is. So I was more interested in his works, really. But other than that, I do own every book by Jamie Oliver, so if a cookbook works.Kelly Molson: I don't know if you should be sharing that.Ross Ballinger: So yeah, I love Jamie Oliver. 5 Ingredients, 30 Minute Meals, brilliant.Kelly Molson: Jamie Oliver gets a bad rap and I don't really know why because he seems like a nice guy.Danielle Nicholls: Are we going back to unpopular opinion?Kelly Molson: Well, I think we should. But also a little story in that. I live in Saffron Walden, Jamie Oliver lives five minutes around the corner.Ross Ballinger: He's down the road.Kelly Molson: He goes to the market in my town every Saturday, and goes and buys his-Ross Ballinger: Oh, I'd love to meet him.Danielle Nicholls: You'd be there for a selfie.Kelly Molson: Ross, join the queue. I'd love to meet him. I've lived here since 2019. I've never seen him once. All my friends have seen him. And now, it's a thing with them. They're like, "Have you seen him yet? Have you seen him?" No. And I feel like, I'm not a Jamie Oliver stalker. I'm not going to go and harass him. I just would like to live in the town and be like, "Oh yeah, I saw him this morning." I've never seen him. My mum has been messaging me once, and she's been in the cafe in Saffron Walden, and been like, "I think Jamie Oliver's on the table next to me. I'm not sure if it's him though. I don't know if it's a fat version of Jamie Oliver, or if it's actually... Oh no, it is Jamie. It's Jamie Oliver."Ross Ballinger: Oh no. I can understand why people don't like him. But he just sploshes his olive oil everywhere, sploshes it around. But he has got that passion for cooking, which is what I resonate with. So he loves what he does, he's so-Danielle Nicholls: You can't knock his passion.Ross Ballinger: You can't knock his passion. So I'm in tune with that.Kelly Molson: All right. Listeners, well, I think that we should scrap Ross's book choice, and I think we should go with the Jamie Oliver book. So if you head over to Twitter, and you retweet this Twitter announcement with, "I want Ross and Danielle's books," then you might be in with a chance of winning Danielle's book and a Jamie Oliver cookbook. Does that sound fair?Ross Ballinger: Yeah, that'd be ace.Kelly Molson: I feel like you were more passionate about that.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah, yeah.Kelly Molson: All right, let's do that then. Thank you. It was lovely to have you both on. I've really, really enjoyed it.Ross Ballinger: Thank you.Danielle Nicholls: Thank you.Kelly Molson: And also thank you for the lovely little tour that I got of the new Vikings area at Drayton Manor, when you hosted the UK Theme Park Awards earlier this year.Danielle Nicholls: I'm glad you liked it.Ross Ballinger: Yeah, we did, yeah.Kelly Molson: It was awesome.Danielle Nicholls: It was amazing.Ross Ballinger: I think that's where you spotted us.Danielle Nicholls: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Well, look, I'm not going to lie, you guys were sitting behind me and you were extremely loud. And I thought, "They'll make great podcast guests."Danielle Nicholls: We were whooping everyone.Ross Ballinger: We had so much energy that day though. I was knackered by the end of the day.Kelly Molson: I loved it. No, you hosted it perfectly. It was a brilliant event. But the new area is fantastic, so definitely go on, book your ticket.Ross Ballinger: We're very proud of it.Kelly Molson: And go on and see that while you can. So thanks for coming on, guys.Ross Ballinger: Thank you.Danielle Nicholls: Thank 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; rubber cheese.com/podcast.

Fool's Gold: A History of British Saffron

Culinary Historians of Chicago

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2022 88:23

Fool's Gold: A History of British Saffron Sam Bilton Saffron has allured us with its golden hues throughout time. It was the darling of the Medieval kitchen, the saviour of the apothecary's chest and gave cloth a regal glow. Unlike many spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, saffron can be successfully grown in England. From the middle ages through to the eighteenth century there was a thriving saffron industry in this country. Some people even claimed English saffron was the best to be found in the world. So renowned was the town of Chipping Walden for saffron production that it adopted the spice's name at some point during the fifteenth century (it is now known as Saffron Walden). Despite its expense, saffron was used extensively in British cookery particularly during the medieval era. It was also valued for its medicinal properties and was said to cure everything from melancholy to the plague. However, as tastes change our ardour for saffron waned and so with it the need and desire to farm it. By the end of the nineteenth century saffron production in England had all but disappeared, although there is a current day revival. Saffron is now a spice more commonly associated with ‘exotic' dishes from distant climes. Given its lavish reputation (saffron is the most expensive spice in the world) it is no wonder that most people do not have it in their spice cupboard. Sam Bilton is a food historian, who runs the Repast Supper Club, food events with a historical theme. She is also a food and drink writer, with articles appearing in magazines and online, with English Heritage, and she works on historical recipes, recreating them for the modern day, including an eighteenth-century recipe for a Bride Cake. Sam is a member of the Guild of Food Writers Committee. Recorded via Zoom on October 1, 2022 CONNECT WITH CULINARY HISTORIANS OF CHICAGO ✔ MEMBERSHIP https://culinaryhistorians.org/membership/ ✔ EMAIL LIST http://culinaryhistorians.org/join-our-email-list/ ✔ S U B S C R I B E https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Y0-9lTi1-JYu22Bt4_-9w ✔ F A C E B O O K https://www.facebook.com/CulinaryHistoriansOfChicago ✔ PODCAST 2008 to Present https://culinaryhistorians.org/podcasts/ By Presenter https://culinaryhistorians.org/podcasts-by-presenter/ ✔ YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Y0-9lTi1-JYu22Bt4_-9w ✔ W E B S I T E https://www.CulinaryHistorians.org

history english england british zoom gold fool medieval guild saffron english heritage saffron walden

Kemi Badenoch

Profile

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2022 14:50

Since entering Parliament in 2017, the MP for Saffron Walden has rapidly risen through the ranks to a seat at the Cabinet table as Trade Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities. Kemi Badenoch surprised some in Westminster when she reached the fourth round of the Conservative leadership election this summer. Her forthright views on British colonialism and trans issues have won her admirers on the political right, but also been heavily criticised by LGBTQ campaigners. So who is Kemi Badenoch? How has her childhood in Nigeria influenced her political outlook? And how does she like to unwind? Mark Coles investigates. Researcher: Alice Struthers Producers: Ben Cooper and Matt Toulson Production Co-ordinators: Helena Warwick-Cross and Maria Ogundele Sound engineer: Graham Puddifoot Editor: Simon Watts

women british lgbtq nigeria minister conservatives parliament cabinet mp westminster kemi badenoch equalities mark coles saffron walden helena warwick cross

S01E12 Esther Manito, English/ Arabic Speaker (Essex Accent) - From Saffron Walden, England

Comedy with an Accent

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2022 47:04

Live at the Apollo star Esther Manito started performing stand up comedy only as recently as 2016 - not to forget we should probably count two years out because of the pandemic. The ex teacher has since brought two critically claimed solo shows (Crusade, #NotAllMen) to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and become the first female comedian to perform at Dubai Opera House.Describing herself as an "Essex Arab Girl Comedian", Esther is in her own words a chameleon of accents having grown up between mixed and sometimes clashing cultures and social classes. Between an Arabic-speaking Lebanese father and a Geordie mother who switched to a southern English accent at home, Esther nevertheless wears the badge of her distinct Essex accent with pride.This is the first episode to feature a distinct British regional accent. The Essex accent has an endearing nature but carries the social connotations of being thick and unsophiscated, best embodied by the all-time guilty pleasure reality TV show The Only Way is Essex.---------------------------------Follow Esther on Instagram or TwitterFollow your host Kuan-wen on Instagram or TwitterEsther's hilarious podcast with comedian Lily Phillips: Ghastly Women---------------------------------Esther started performing stand up comedy as a young mother after she just gave birth to her second child. If you are interested in how Esther balances her family life whilst switching career as a comedian, there is a great episode on the Parenting Hell Podcast by Josh Widdecombe and Rob Beckett. Also recommended is the interview by comedian Cally Beaton on her podcast Namaste Motherfxxker.----------------------------------Episode timeline00:57 Intro01:48 First British regional accent featured on this podcast03:12 A variety of Essex accents05:17 A chameleon of accents - Esther's mixed heritage10:45 What the Essex accent makes Esther feel as opposed to a Posh British accent12:43 The evolution of the modern Essex accent13:42 Quirky examples of an Essex accent19:03 Definition of a “chav”20:37 Comedy and social classes in the UK - made more complicated by misperceptions of regional accents23:10 Double standards applied to comedians with different accents on swearing25:28 Fetishisation of “working class”28:39 An outsider in her own home town31:01 Ranting on stage and a comedic voice of “tiredness” of being a mum/wife/woman34:49 Two funny arguments between Esther and her husband38:00 A hardworking comedian that balances the life as a mother with young children40:21 Discriminatory treatment of women in Kuan-wen's extended family41:54 The name “Manito” and Esther's maiden name42:50 When English polite manner only confuses Esther's Lebanese relatives46:22 Esther's social media---------------------------------Podcast intro music by @Taigenkawabe

Sarah Vine's Femail Half Hour: Kemi Badenoch

Sarah Vine's Femail Half-Hour

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2022 39:41

Sarah Vine and Co Host Imogen Edwards-Jones are joined by the MP for Saffron Walden, former Minister of State for Equalities and former Conservative Party Leadership Candidate, Kemi Badenoch. Sarah and Imogen talk with Kemi about the Leadership race, Boris Johnson, role models and the importance of courage and speaking up.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

leadership state minister vine boris johnson mp kemi half hour badenoch equalities saffron walden femail

Going Dutch on the Lavender List

London Calling

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 11, 2022 48:57

In this week's episode of London Calling, Toby and James discuss the big news of the week, namely, James's visit with his grandson. In other news, Boris Johnson has been defenestrated by the Conservative Party, which James thinks Bill Gates flew in to oversee, and a leadership election is underway. Toby is Team Kemi Badenoch (MP for Saffron Walden) – he thinks the 41 year-old anti-woke warrior... Source

bill gates boris johnson lavender conservative party london calling going dutch saffron walden

Going Dutch on the Lavender List

London Calling

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 11, 2022 48:56

In this week’s episode of London Calling, Toby and James discuss the big news of the week, namely, James’s visit with his grandson. In other news, Boris Johnson has been defenestrated by the Conservative Party, which James thinks Bill Gates flew in to oversee, and a leadership election is underway. Toby is Team Kemi Badenoch (MP for Saffron Walden) – he thinks the 41 year-old anti-woke warrior... Source

bill gates boris johnson lavender conservative party london calling going dutch saffron walden

Women with Balls: The Kemi Badenoch Edition

Spectator Radio

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2022 38:45

Kemi Badenoch is the MP for Saffron Walden and a minister in Michael Gove's Levelling Up department. On entering parliament in 2017, Kemi was quickly pegged as one of the Conservative Party's rising stars and an example of what she calls the “British Dream”, going from immigrant to parliamentarian in the space of one generation. After a career as a software engineer, she made her move into politics as a Conservative member of the London Assembly. Then beat Theresa May's own special advisor to the ballot of Saffron Walden. On the podcast, Kemi talks about her childhood in Nigeria and the golden ticket that was her UK passport, hacking Harriet Harman and how her conservative views were formed.

uk nigeria conservatives mp theresa may conservative party kemi michael gove badenoch harriet harman london assembly saffron walden women with balls

The Kemi Badenoch Edition

Women With Balls

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2022 38:45

uk nigeria conservatives mp theresa may conservative party kemi michael gove badenoch harriet harman london assembly saffron walden

49 - Kemi Badenoch

Rachel Johnson's Difficult Women

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2022 38:43

The Spectator magazine has anointed this week's Difficult Woman as not only a possible saviour of the Tory party but also a future PM. “ The current equalities and levelling-up minister Kemi Badenoch is made of the right stuff and is creating a buzz in the Tory grassroots with her fearless fightback against the leftist onslaught,” it purred. Kemi Badenoch was re-elected in 2019 as the MP for the Saffron Walden constituency. She's held several government jobs but is currently Minister of State at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister of State for Equalities. She is carving out a fearsome reputation as a woman of colour who takes a machete to the narrative of victimhood from people who say they cant succeed because of who they are and some identity characteristic - be in gender, colour, or class - is held against them by malevolent forces of white or heteronormative privilege. In this LBC podcast, Rachel Johnson's Difficult Women, Rachel speaks with women who had to be a pain in the backside to get where they are today. Women who take the word difficult as a compliment not an insult. And women who had to fight, resist, insist, or otherwise be badly behaved in order to get things done. Listen and subscribe now on Global Player, or wherever you get your podcasts.

women state communities minister housing mp spectators lbc kemi global player rachel johnson badenoch difficult women equalities saffron walden

Croissants, Cookies and Chocolate in Norfolk and Saffron Walden in Essex

The Next Delicious Thing

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2022 12:34

Find pictures and links to everything I spoke about here.The Cook for Ukraine pop up is this Saturday 2nd April from 10am until 2pm at Toklas Bakery near Temple Station in East London. See on Google maps here.The Pump Street Chocolate pop up location link is here.Delicious things discussed on this week's episode include items from:Miss Mini BreadBicicletaHill St ChocolateSIDINGDozen Brunswick EastBantuPure CocoaOne One CacaoDefinite ChocolateAll the links at thenextdeliciousthing.comPlease rate and review and tell your friends! :-)Subscribe to make sure you don't miss the extra episode on the IFE that I'm dropping this week.Stay up to date with the latest London Food:Follow @thenextdeliciousthing on Instagram.Receive the weekly list via newsletter at thenextdeliciousthing.comAbout this (mostly) London food podcast:The Next Delicious Thing is hosted, produced and edited by Jennifer Earle.This podcast sharing the best of London food is a passion project designed to help people who love food find out what's worth spending their money on and also help out the businesses that are producing delicious things, many of them are small businesses. About Jen:Jennifer Earle is the founder of London's first food tour business - Chocolate Ecstasy Tours - and a former Food Buyer and Food Developer at major UK food retailers. She walks the streets of London searching for delicious food and spends far too much time on Instagram (@jennifer.earle)I'd be so grateful if you could support the podcast and the businesses by sharing it with a friend or by giving it 5 stars on ApI'm still sending an email each week sharing the most interesting things I'm tasting in London and beyond. Sign up at https://jenniferearle.substack.comAbout this London food podcast host:Jennifer Earle is the founder of London's first food tour business - Chocolate Ecstasy Tours - and a former Food Buyer and Food Developer at major UK food retailers. She walks the streets of London searching for delicious food and spends far too much time on Instagram (@jennifer.earle)Stay up to date with the latest London Food:Follow @thenextdeliciousthing on Instagram.Receive the weekly list via newsletter at https://jenniferearle.substack.com See the blog at thenextdeliciousthing.comAbout this food podcast:The Next Delicious Thing is hosted, produced and edited by Jennifer Earle.This podcast sharing the best of London food is a passion project designed to help people who love food find out what's worth spending their money on and also help out the businesses that are producing delicious things, many of them are small businesses. I'd be so grateful if you could... Get full access to The Next Delicious Thing at jenniferearle.substack.com/subscribe

google uk ukraine receive cook chocolate cookies delicious api essex norfolk east london complease croissants ife saffron walden

Brian Peggs - Saffron Walden, Essex, England

Grassroots Soccer Coaching

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 12, 2022 78:11

My latest podcast with Brian Peggs from Saffron Waldon Community FC in Essex England was recorded a while back and was another impromptu Zoom call that we decided to record at the last second and Im glad I did! Brian is one of the leaders and coaches at Saffron Walden which has a large girls contingent. They have some really unique ways of doing things, the clubs approach is refreshing, Brians ideas and knowledge he has gained from 12 years of coaching and a lifetime in the game were shared openly, A great chat worth the listen.

zoom brians saffron walden essex england

The fight for talent with Kate Nicholls, CEO of UKHospitality

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2021 40:03

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.

From the Pavilion – Gadbsy gunning for England, Cambs lose SF bowl-out & Lower Junior Cup Finals Day

england finals lower bowl cup final pavilion gunning ben harris junior cup saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2021 55:19

On this week’s From the Pavilion, Ollie Slack and guest co-host Ben Harris of Saffron Walden round up the local scene, preview the Lower Junior Cup Finals Day with Little […]

From the Pavilion – Gadbsy gunning for England, Cambs lose SF bowl-out & Lower Junior Cup Finals Day

england finals lower bowl cup final pavilion gunning ben harris junior cup saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2021 55:19

On this week’s From the Pavilion, Ollie Slack and guest co-host Ben Harris of Saffron Walden round up the local scene, preview the Lower Junior Cup Finals Day with Little […]

Developing an augmented reality experience for The National Memorial Arboretum. With Mark Ellis

Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2021 48:43

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.

covid-19 christmas american spotify founders head learning english uk peace coronavirus pandemic doctors digital joe biden brand events developing police tales conference world war ii partnership competition md escape treat act breakfast tickets retail pixar reconciliation skip couch customer service tourism dedication world war cv remembrance wi nhs worked entry graves participation ultimate guide aspects 5k scouting arcade west end chapel takes blu norfolk dwell looked augmented reality paco managed salvation army user experience armed forces new technology matt smith queue charitable attractions suffolk trench grime zoos david tennant terry pratchett easter weekend westminster abbey jodie whittaker national forests tom baker arboretum staffordshire discworld fire service dachshunds tom peters commemorate epos east midlands tarmac experience economy peak district podcastif blakey rnli bbc breakfast mark ellis ambulance services english heritage greg james visitor center armed forces day castleton commercial operations nma visitor experience tourism marketing pdsa paul griffiths disneyfied paco underhill saffron walden granny weatherwax on the beat waltham abbey sam vimes national memorial arboretum kelly molson

Strange Worlds of Their Own

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2021 50:14

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the novelist Margaret Drabble to consider the ‘curiously free-floating reputation' of Russell Hoban, whose adult novels, including ‘Riddley Walker', now appear as Penguin Modern Classics; as twin exhibitions mark the centenary of the birth of the English sculptor, painter, writer, designer and illustrator Michael Ayrton, the critic Boyd Tonkin delves into the myth-laden maze of the artist's thought‘From Oprah to Medusa: The endlessly various world of Russell Hoban' by Margaret Drabble: www.the-tls.co.uk‘Michael Ayrton: A singular obsession', Fry Art Gallery Too, Saffron Walden, until October 31st‘Michael Ayrton Centenary: Ideas, images, reflections', edited by Justine Hopkins‘Celebrating Michael Ayrton: A centenary exhibition', the Lightbox, Woking, until August 8thA special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/podProducer: Ben Mitchell See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

english strange oprah winfrey worlds tls woking lightbox margaret drabble russell hoban saffron walden penguin modern classics riddley walker boyd tonkin lucy dallas

Chatbots and voice strategies! How attractions can obtain maximum value from both. With Roy Murphy

Tudor History with Claire Ridgway

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2021 33:30

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 March 31st 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references:Podcast: www.conversationsworthmillions.comAgency: www.syntheticagency.coLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/roymurphy/Twitter: www.twitter.com/agencysynthetichttps://www.syntheticagency.co/10-simple-tips-on-bot-strategy-and-design/https://www.syntheticagency.co/oracle-chatbots/ ‘Songs for themeparks’ - 100 tunes for those who love + those who are terrifiedhttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/6SQ77ZYMDbdHBYPKkQKJ4V?si=XqTPtiTZSICe7Daeb4Mn4w 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 Roy Murphy from Synthetic, the chatbot and voice agency. We discuss the opportunity for exciting voice strategies for attractions, and also how attractions can derive maximum value from chatbots. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: Roy, welcome to the Skip The Queue podcast, it's good to have you on today.Roy Murphy: Hello Kelly, looking forward to talking to you on the legendary Skip The Queue podcast. This will be a great conversation.Kelly Molson: You are very kind indeed. Now as you know, you've listened to a few of these episodes and you know that I start off with a few icebreaker questions, which you don't get to prep. Are you ready?Roy Murphy: As ready as I'll ever be. Kelly Molson: Okay. All right, what is the worst job that you've ever had?Roy Murphy: The worst job I've ever had is probably when I was very young on a Pitch and Putt golf course, not because the Pitch and Putt wasn't bad as a summer job, it was pretty cool, I quite enjoyed my job, but it was in a small hut in Wellington Island in Braze in South Dublin in Ireland many years ago, and the problem with the job was that it was in a small hut on the seafront outside a pub, and after the pub, everyone would come into the hut and kick it in and not only take the golf equipment out onto the kind of fairway in front of the promenade, then also do some not very nice things and use it as a toilet.Kelly Molson: Oh no, oh that's horrible.Roy Murphy: So for that reason, that is ... I've got a few other ones, but that's probably my top of the list I think.Kelly Molson: Oh God.Roy Murphy: Let's move on.Kelly Molson: So yeah let's ... shall we? Roy Murphy: Let's move on.Kelly Molson: Sorry.Roy Murphy: Anyway, I told you that, it's awful, isn't it?Kelly Molson: Sounds dreadful. Sorry, I'm just really having a chuckle, I feel bad that I'm laughing at your unfortunate job. Roy Murphy: It's all right.Kelly Molson: Okay.Roy Murphy: My hands are clean now though. My hands are clean now, it's fine. Kelly Molson: Good that, hygiene is very important.Roy Murphy: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Which cartoon character do you wish was real?Roy Murphy: Oh, Tasmanian Devil.Kelly Molson: Yeah.Roy Murphy: Just for the mayhem, I think. I just love ... I loved it as a kid, I'm not sure if it's appropriate now in terms of the name and so on, but just that whole kind of whirling dervish, and let it loose on various politicians.Kelly Molson: Yeah. If you had your own late-night talk show, who would be the first person that you'd invite on as a guest?Roy Murphy: Andrew Ridgeley. Kelly Molson: For what reason?Roy Murphy: I read his biography last year and I found it absolutely fascinating. I love those stories behind the fame, and actually, it came across that he was actually quite talented. You wouldn't have thought that from his public persona, but actually as a songwriter and a musician he gets kind of a bad rep, you know, George Michael, God bless, was so talented and popular, and I actually ... I think the stories behind the stories are sometimes more interesting, so I'd like to have him on and tell his side of the story face-to-face.Kelly Molson: That would be a great guest. I have to say that I was a massive Wham! fan so I would be watching that.Roy Murphy: Shows your age a bit.Kelly Molson: I know, I can't help it. Tell me something that is true that almost nobody agrees with you on, so your unpopular opinion.Roy Murphy: Oh, I've got lots of those. Kelly Molson: Oh, I'm intrigued.Roy Murphy: I like being contrary. So I pose it that winter doesn't exist. I have a theory.Kelly Molson: You need to explain this theory because it feels very wintery at the moment.Roy Murphy: Well, I'm not a flat-earther, but I have a theory. Let me run it past you. Typically there's four seasons in a year, I get that, and my own way of thinking is ... and I'm an optimist and I hate winter, by the way, just to set the groundwork. So summer doesn't end until September in my book, right? Because ultimately you always want an Indian summer, and September's still summer in my book. Autumn is October, November, and part of December because October, November are kind of autumn-ish, and December is a month of Fridays, right? So December isn't winter either. Roy Murphy: On the 21st of December, it's the winter equinox, and it gets lighter one minute per day, so therefore by the time you're into the 21st of December, forget about Christmas, that's always fun, by the time you get to first of January, the days are getting lighter every day by a minute, therefore winter doesn't exist. Discussed.Kelly Molson: I'm going to disagree, but I'm going to do it based ... I know where you're going, I understand where you're going with the equinox, but the winter ... the weather in January is horrendous and you could not associate that with any other month, other than winter. Roy Murphy: Disagree. Kelly Molson: Like it's always miserable, it's always really super cold, it normally snows.Roy Murphy: I see your point, but I'm an absolute optimist and I'm not having it. Winter is a construct, doesn't exist, and we're already into spring, so I'm skipping winter.Kelly Molson: I feel like we all need to do that this year.Roy Murphy: Every year.Kelly Molson: So maybe we should just all agree with you.Roy Murphy: Every year. This year in particular.Kelly Molson: January is my birthday month, which is really tough, nobody ever has any money, everyone's a bit miserable, the weather's rubbish, so maybe we should all just skip January and then I'll have a birthday later on in the summer.Roy Murphy: You'll thank me for it, Kelly, believe me.Kelly Molson: I'm with you. Thank you, Roy, for answering my questions. Roy, I want you to tell us about your agency that you run. So your agency is Synthetic, tell me what you do. Roy Murphy: So I run Synthetic, we are an emerging technology agency with a specialism in conversational AI, so what that means is we create conversations worth millions for our clients using chat, voice, messaging, all those AI-based concepts. I've been running it for about four years, got in quite early into the space, previously we were a mobile agency, but niched down into conversational AI because it's a really growing space, very interesting things happening across all those kind of areas from chat, voice, and messaging and so on.Roy Murphy: The platform is getting bigger, social's getting bigger, and customers and clients both are using these platforms every day, and therefore there's a massive opportunity for niche agencies in that space to help strategy, help to develop, and help to maintain those kinds of platforms and those kinds of activities.Kelly Molson: And what kind of ... like give me an example of something that you've worked on that we can reference. Roy Murphy: Sure, there's a couple of interesting ones, one on the kind of more entertainment side and maybe some more business-related ones. So one of the first ones and a very successful one we did a little while ago was a Robbie Williams virtual personality bot. So that was a fascinating project actually, so we actually got some time with the man himself and went through it with his record company and so on, and that was to promote ... I think about two albums ago, it was about 2016 we started that, that's still going actually, it's one of the longest-running ... certainly messenger chatbots, or successful ones, that's been around.Roy Murphy: So the idea being that you know, it's a virtual personality, he is not obviously there, but when we started it, it was quite early in the kind of chat space and area, there were so many messages coming through saying, "Is this you? Tell me where you are, I'm going to show you something," and it got quite personal actually-Kelly Molson: I can imagine.Roy Murphy: Not [crosstalk 00:07:09] yeah it did, but at one point we had ... I think we broke Facebook inbox it was so popular, and this was, you know, one of those kinds of small budget and small kind of time-spent projects that had a massive footprint.Kelly Molson: So it was a bit like ... as if you were messaging Robbie and you would get responses back from him?Roy Murphy: Yeah, exactly right, yeah. Since then obviously like lots has happened in that space around a kind of virtual assistants, a lot more sort or reality around augmented reality and kind of replicas of people and digital twins and so on, but that was kind of where it started, that was very successful and very popular, and still going actually. So a bit more up-to-date, we work with a number of large technology companies, one in particular, so we are doing a bunch of stuff with them around gamification and chat, so that's using the conversational piece to ... in the SaaS space actually along sort of [inaudible 00:08:01] and CX in that space, where we're doing things like virtual events on chat and we're doing some voice applications as well. Roy Murphy: Customers will come onto the website and using things like web chat to find out more about some of their products and then upselling from there, so chat and conversational AI with an ROI behind it.Kelly Molson: And that's kind of what I want to talk about today. So Roy and I are both members of an agency networking group, so we're both members of Agencynomics, and this is how we met, and I think Roy saw something that I posted about chatbots on LinkedIn, which spurred us to have a conversation about a few things. So some of you listening will have seen me speak at the Visitor Attractions Conference last year, and as part of our talk we were talking about things that could improve the guest's user journey and guest experience online, and one of the things that we suggested was using a chatbot.Kelly Molson: I mean chatbots are great, they can often give people information that they can't find that easily, or you know, if you have a chatbot you're freeing up someone else's time from having to kind of be on that and populating it themselves, and that's how we got talking, and I have to admit, after the talk in the Q&A session, I got a lot of questions about chatbots, and I thought, "Why don't I get Roy on to answer those questions? Because he is an expert in it and I am not." Hence why you're on Roy.Roy Murphy: That's useful.Kelly Molson: So I kind of want to talk about that kind of side of voice activation and voice kind of conversation around attractions, and I know that you have worked a little bit in that sector, and I wondered if you could give us your kind of ... well, your thoughts on them, and then maybe can we talk about how ... like how can attractions derive that kind of maximum value from using chatbots?Roy Murphy: Just to set the scene a little bit, quite important to mention I think, that you know, around the chat and conversational AI space we're still very early into it. I mean from our side it feels like it's been going on forever, we're almost five years into this kind of space, so the questions that we still get are often quite fundamental questions, you know, "Can I give my website, my product, over to an AI? What's going to happen? What if they start making ridiculous claims and comments? Will people be able to use them? Are we lying to people because they're not talking to people? Is there any kind of brand damage that might happen?Roy Murphy: You know we get a lot of these questions still quite a lot from the educational side, and that's, of course, every sector, not just visitor attractions, that's everything from finance to healthcare, wellness, education and so on. So the fundamentals still apply. So the first thing to say is, of course, we're still quite early into it, although we've been doing it for quite a while, so these questions do still apply, and then the second thing we often get as well is, you know, how do you get started? Is it very difficult and complicated and therefore expensive?Roy Murphy: And it really isn't. You know, of course, anything ... as a piece of string, can be ... you can be using very basic bots or very, very complex and integrated with the CRM systems, so in essence, we are early into it, there are lots of use-cases coming in that are ROI focused and kind of based in reality, which is great, but in terms of visitor attractions, you know, the very basics of a museum or an attraction using an FAQ bot is a great place or a great example to start with.Kelly Molson: Yeah.Roy Murphy: So in essence ... and that's very simple to do, so really these are not large projects, and most attractions and most businesses will have most of the information to hand anyway, which is often in their call centre scripts or on the FAQs or the questions being asked on their website, and indeed what's coming in on email, you know, whether it's the kind of ... you know, a more analogue process they have. So in the very basic version, it's not difficult for a site to spin up something on their current site based around their FAQs and then use that kind of data that comes back in to understand what people are asking for, because the beauty of those simple chatbot systems, of course, is that people are asking you actual questions, they're not ... you know you don't have to use eye-tracking software, you don't have to use Hotjar or something like that, you can actually get ... you know, people are actually asking you what they want, you know, what time you're open, will my discount vouchers still apply because of COVID? Roy Murphy: You know, are you COVID safe? You know, things that have really been kind of popular last year.Kelly Molson: In its simplistic form, you are gathering data about what people need to find out about your organization?Roy Murphy: It is ... in essence, it is really like having a conversation with a customer, and that can be automated, of course, so you don't have to have your call-centre staff on board, you don't have to have you, social team, if you're a small business as well with a single site attraction, this can all be automated very simply and very quickly, and that's a great place to start with this whole kind of AI space if you like because then you're going to get a load of data back which will inform you as you what you might do next.Roy Murphy: The classic what we call think like a startup, kill or continue, so if you're getting a whole bunch of questions back and you've already answered, okay, maybe that is what you need to spend your time on, but if people are often ... if your bot or if your site's failing on the certain questions of ... you know, maybe someone's asking a particular question all the time, are you open? How do I get to you? How much is it? How much are ticket costs? You can use that and you'll find that we've got loads of data around how people use conversation versus how they use a website, and they'll spend more time basically on chatbots, and they'll ask more questions, side-by-side apples with apples than they will on the website, we've seen that time and time again. Kelly Molson: So the time that they'll spend talking to a bot will be longer than a browse time?Roy Murphy: Yeah, often. Often there's caveats around that of course, but yeah, in essence, we see that a lot because if you've ... and again, you don't have to brand it particularly excitingly, although keep away from female named assistants, I've got a massive bugbear about that, let's get onto that later, but you know, if you're not ... you know, you don't have to spend huge amounts of time with developing new characters or new kind of personas for your bot, if you've got a friendly open museum visitor attraction park, whatever, just use that. Answer the basic questions, and use those questions to inform what you do next.Roy Murphy: And the other point of that is ... so the other important point is that of course if someone gets stuck or if they've got a major problem, or it's a high priority customer service question you can always hand over to a live agent anyway, so there's loads of nuances around how you would do that and when you would do it, but these things are all very possible and very easy to integrate with whatever you're currently using in terms of your live chat.Kelly Molson: Sounds really cool, doesn't it? Like it sounds like something that everybody should be using.Roy Murphy: I think people are often quite flummoxed by where to start and how easy it can be, because it seems like it's a great thing to do and everyone, of course, jumps in and goes, "Right, can we have a Robbie plus replica ... can we have someone in our ... can they be AR? Can they be this? And can they connect to all our systems?" And absolutely it can, but you don't necessarily have to start there. So you know ... and again, because the prevalence of chat and voice and all these technologies that are happening and your customers are using them, it's not a big jump for them, so really it's something you should be doing, you should be talking to your customers on the channels they're already using.Kelly Molson: And what would you say is the starting point? Because you talked a little bit about things to think about before you get started with this, like what should an organization be thinking about before they commit to something or before they come and speak to you for example?Roy Murphy: It's very simple really. I mean you've got to pick a use-case, so there's a bunch of things you could do, and a bunch of things you should do, but what you absolutely must do is, you know, set your KPI, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to, number one, reduce the amount of hours spent with your social team on answering questions that could be very simply answered by a bot? Are you number two, needing to increase sales by X percent and will this help us to do that? What do we do about? How do we get involved in that? Roy Murphy: So first thing you need to do, understand what it is you're trying to do in terms of the business KPIs, and then the second thing, of course, is that ... you know, leading on from that is describing it which is just a pre-post or after-sales type of scenario, or is it an engagement tool? So are we looking at conversational AI in this instance? Should we be ... are we using it for your website? So that's pre-buy, someone's looking at your information, it's top of the funnel, it's awareness, and that's one thing and that can be driven all the way through to the final ... to kind of booking.Roy Murphy: Or is it on the other side of the coin when someone gets to your park, your attraction, or your museum, whatever it might be, are you interacting more there with a character? Is it more things like treasure hunts? Is it something that's engaging in terms of dwell time? Are you upselling from there? So they're kind of separate things. Either can be started off very simply, but I think you need to ask yourself those simple kind of one-page answers and questions which are, what's the bot trying to do? What's the key audience? And what the success looked like, you know, very simple, basic questions you need to start with first.Kelly Molson: Yeah, one of the questions that came up ... well there was a couple, there was quite a few questions actually at the Visitor Attractions Conference, but one that sticks in my mind was around ... it was around social media, you know, was there a platform of some sort or something that would interact with people's social media, as well as people, being able to ask questions on the website as well? I guess if you're building something bespoke for an organization, you can make it do pretty much whatever you want it to.Roy Murphy: Yeah pretty much. I mean anything with API is integrable, basically. So, in essence, yeah, so whether you want to ingest your Twitter feeds ... or indeed a lot of the chats are actually social themselves, so they don't have to be ... and there's kind of ... there's open and closed systems of course, but you know, for instance, Facebook obviously everyone's aware of, and it would appear from all the things that we see that ... and not forgetting that Facebook own three of the biggest social platforms in the world, you know, not just Facebook, of course, they own Instagram, of course, they own WhatsApp, and who knows what else, and they are moving into a ... it feels like or it seems like an integrated system where you can now message, you can now use chatbots, to an extent, on Instagram. Roy Murphy: Messenger obviously is the platform for bots for Facebook, but again, WhatsApp being more private has had business beta on it, and it hasn't really broken in the Western countries as yet. It's massive in India mind you, WhatsApp. So all these things are all possible and all ... and you can build one system and one platform to interact on those as a single point of view, so yeah, it's all very possible from a social perspective, yeah.Kelly Molson: How about engaging with different demographics? So is there ... you know, in your experience, is there a certain age bracket that will interact more with a chatbot on a site? I guess ... again one of the questions was around kind of our grandparents that are booking a trip with their grandkids, are they going to use this chatbot? Is it going to be helpful for them?Roy Murphy: That is a very, very common question. That's a great question. Before I started in this whole space I had the same question, isn't this just for kids though? But actually, kids aren't using Facebook as you've probably noticed. I've got a 14-and-a-half year old going on 20 daughter, she hasn't touched Facebook in four years, or for that matter, Instagram and WhatsApp. If you're not on TikTok or some of the newer ones you're kind of toast really. So yeah, we've seen ... we've got a ream of data around this and you'll probably be quite surprised from the grandparent question that they're actually very capable and use Facebook, in particular, a lot, because that's how they communicate with their kids and grandkids. Roy Murphy: So we see a huge spread. We thought the same thing actually a couple of years ago, is this route for kids? And would anyone use it? And is it all ... opposite, if it's easy to use, that's a truism across any platform, if it's simple, you use and you're being upfront about what it is and how you use it, it really does cross ... there isn't a demographic we've seen that doesn't use it. So yeah, it's not skewed young in essence, no.Kelly Molson: Is it a case of if it's easy, anybody will use it? Or would an attraction have to put in any kind of work to get people to engage with it? Because I think that was something that people were a bit worried about, is committing to this and then it not being used, and would it need to be ... like would they need to put this huge kind of drive behind encouraging people to use it?Roy Murphy: So again, depending on what the use-case is. So in very simple terms for the kind of top-of-funnel awareness, and there is other ways of doing this, but your classic chatbot scenario is the bottom right circle, you know, on your website, which you select, and I think we're all pretty used to ... there's loads of different ones out there from some of the big names like Drift and Intercom and so on, and some of the other platforms. So that is really a tap of a button to ask questions into a kind of FAQ.Roy Murphy: So that is people are coming to your site anyway, or they're coming to your Facebook page, and that how you interact anyway, or they're Instagram now and possibly WhatsApp and so on, so that's all kind of intrinsically baked in. In terms of on-park or on-site, slightly different scenario. So yeah, I think it's fair to say that you need to surface it. So if you're in the aquarium or whatever it might be, or you know, a London Bridge experience or whatever, front-of-house, there's something there they haven't seen already, I think definitely. Roy Murphy: Parts of your marketing in terms of if you're using an app already and there's a nice part of it which might be chat-related or kind of something you would engage with through the experience, I think yeah, so it really depends. I think the key though is ultimately ... it's telling people about it, yes, but then making it really simple to use, and there's two things you want to do really, you know, you don't want to take away from the experience itself, right? The reason they're there is to see fantastic ocean animals or go on roller coaster rides.Roy Murphy: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that, you know, some train or some ... or at least an awareness from front-of-house staff would be important, if you know ... just to check in with people, "Have you seen X or Y? Have you seen we've got a new dipper," you know, for museum, you know, our new Dippy chat bot, interact with it, you can see ... find treasures, if you do the treasures you get a discount or an offer or something, you know, that kind of stuff is important I think, but again, not taking away from the experience is really important, because you know, let's face it, we, and our kids as well, spend enough time on screens, so it's got to add to the experience, and we're going through the experience of the attraction, and of course not all attractions are end-to-end and kind of, you know, linear, but understanding whether it's just using a QR code or something simple or being tripped by another kind of interactivity, is important, and making those things short and sweet I think is important as well, those interactions.Kelly Molson: This was going to be like my kind of final round-up question to you because what we've focused on quite a bit is what I think is that kind of pre-attraction journey using chatbots, so people are asking questions about you know, are you open? How much is the ticket price? I can't find this thing to be able to book, but actually, there's a lot that can be done in terms of voice strategies for attractions once you're at the attraction as well. Kelly Molson: Like what kind of things could potentially attractions be looking at for that? I guess this is endless, endless opportunities?Roy Murphy: Yeah absolutely. I mean you know, depending on the attraction, like I say, I mentioned the kind of Dippy scenario where ... you know, are we looking through the museum at bones or artifacts or using a voice to give hints around where to find things, more like an interactive treasure hunt scenario, I think is definitely useful. Making it engaging as well, because you know, obviously moving into a post ... hopefully a post-COVID world soon where things are back open again, hopefully sooner rather than later, you're able to touch things, but maybe people don't want to, so I think it's going to be quite important that that kind of touchless experience is probably more part of the experience going forward than it has been.Kelly Molson: Really good point.Roy Murphy: So then that's going to be important. There's tons of things you can do, like you say, create new characters, use some new technology like AR to kind enhance, I've seen some great stuff around museum attractions around selfies, you know, putting yourself into pictures and really engaging and immersing yourself in whatever you're looking around. I mean my own personal favourite which doesn't exist, I'm so disappointed that they stopped doing it, was in Audley End, you know, the national heritage-Kelly Molson: I live right near Audley End-Roy Murphy: Oh okay. Kelly Molson: Yeah, we live in Saffron Walden.Roy Murphy: I love it.Kelly Molson: It's a great place.Roy Murphy: I love Audley End, they used to have a Victorian sing-along at Christmas, I don't know if you ever went to it-Kelly Molson: No, we moved here a couple of years ago so-Roy Murphy: Right, I think they stopped it about three or four years ago, every time I go there I'm so disappointed they don't do it, because you got a chance to go into the house and there were some people dressed up in Victorian ... I thought, "Wow that's what I want, I want a Victorian granddad bot, that's what they're missing," right?Kelly Molson: Yes.Roy Murphy: I honestly do, I might just go and do it anyway because it's a fantastic idea, but that kind of interactive and engagement, these things, these character-driven kind of experiences around AI are again ... they can be quite complex. It's not that difficult to start, but again, it just adds to the kind of fun, doesn't it? And again, the important point I think is, is not just to have that on the park, so there's any kind of brand and merchandise extensions that are possible in terms of licensing et cetera, so if you're ... I know Dippy's a good example, or maybe Audley End's a bad example, but there's certainly plenty of character-driven attractions where you could extend that more and you could have more engagement from people outside of visiting the attraction.Roy Murphy: And again, it could just be that you have a conversation starter and you are able to talk to people and engage, and that might be, "Did you know we're open? Why don't you come along and have a two-for-one offer?" And these are you know, digitally printed tickets, they can go into an existing app they've got, they can go onto social, go onto the bot itself, so lots of opportunities I think, commercially speaking, that aren't really being utilized that well because ... because we're quite early into it, and again, I'm going to put a stake in the ground and say I think that in the visitor attraction kind of space there's huge opportunities because ... for people to steal a march on the competitors to be honest.Roy Murphy: Because not many people are doing it and doing it well, so there's a massive opportunity. The audience is definitely there, we know that, we're going to reopen again soon, and even before reopening it's a brilliant way to engage people and not particularly ... I wouldn't say cost-neutral, but it's not particularly expensive to get these things started if you go in with an MVP think like the startup mindset.Kelly Molson: Yeah, totally agree with that. There is endless possibilities and huge opportunities at the moment. I love what you talked about ... the Audley End example is a really great example actually because it is about ... you know, it's about putting you into that experience, isn't it? It's about ... it's complementary to it, it enhances the experience, it doesn't take away from it or distract you from what's actually happening there at the same time. Roy Murphy: Yeah, I think that's really important. I was also just thinking about audio as well, and again, this is just simple things, and this isn't necessarily around conversational, but you know, just ahead of us having a chat, just thinking about things like some of the more ride-based attractions, and whether this has been done or not, I'm using ... audio is massive obviously, podcasts are massive, audio content's massive, Alexa and Google and so on are massive, and you know, just simple things like those additional engagements of those ... for instance Spotify or Alexa playlists of ... you know, you're going to Alton Towers in a month's time, you're really excited about it, here's the Terror List list with ride on time and songs from TerrorVision and Screamadelica, why aren't we doing that? This is not difficult to do. Roy Murphy: You know, and you can do corporate audio and AI and conversation to all these things, and there's so many good opportunities I think for this, and I think there's a ... you know, I think the brands that jump on this and attractions that jump on this will ... they'll put themselves in a good spot I think.Kelly Molson: That's such a great idea, what is your attraction's playlist? That's what I want everyone to tweet me, what would be on your attraction's playlist? Roy Murphy: You can't use Screamadelica, I've used that. Try and get an example that's under 30 years old, I tried to think of one earlier, I couldn't. Kelly Molson: Well this one's not under 30 years ... well ... yeah no, it is, but I always think about ... there's the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster at Disney and it plays Aerosmith, and it's such a great song, Dude (Looks like a lady), and I just have got such great memories, and every time I hear that song I instantly get transported back to that attraction. It would be really cool wouldn't it, to have like your playlist from your favourite attractions?Roy Murphy: It'd be great, just on a personal note, I'm a heavy ... well my family, we are heavy attraction users, I was talking to my wife earlier and I think we count ... even though we're on COVID, I think we counted up about 30 attractions last year we did.Kelly Molson: Nice.Roy Murphy: And we generally do around 40 plus, and that's everything from you know, the obvious big ones, you know, the Alton Towers and so on, to ... we went to Portsmouth into the Mary Rose and the dockyards we did [inaudible 00:27:53] Tower, we did Woburn Safari, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Shakespeare Museums, and I did one interestingly, like just before Christmas, the Silverstone Experience, don't know if you've done it, which is-Kelly Molson: Oh no, I haven't yet. I should because it's not that far from where we are.Roy Murphy: It was actually really good. You know, I'm not a huge Formula 1 fan, but I know lots of people are, but I took the kids out there and my wife came as well, and you get to drive on the track, and now it's very slow, but they've got little lights on, it's fantastic actually.Kelly Molson: That's cool.Roy Murphy: And there was a Silverstone radio station which you could turn on and they play some tunes, but I thought they were missing a huge trick around interactivity, they should have had a very simple point and click where they are, which you can do very easily now. You're all going very slowly up the grid, why they didn't have sounds popping and people revving their engines like Lewis Hamilton on the grid is beyond me.Kelly Molson: Yeah, really build that atmosphere a bit, yeah.Roy Murphy: Exactly. Roll your phone over the ... traffic lights are, you know, they're red, amber, green, and then show it off and then you could have James [inaudible 00:28:46] it just missed the big trick there, and none of this is difficult, whether you could just point your thing at the stands and you can have the voice of Murray Walker or whatever it is for the F1 fans. These interactivity things, again, are not difficult.Kelly Molson: Well I mean they might be listening Roy, so-Roy Murphy: They should. Call us.Kelly Molson: You could get a call. Call Roy. Roy Murphy: Call us. Call Kelly.Kelly Molson: On that note, if you do want to know a bit more about Roy and what he does at Synthetic, then there's loads of places you can look. So you've got loads of really great articles on your website, syntehticagency.co, now there's a couple of really specific articles that are really useful to this conversation, so you've got 10 simple tips on bot strategy and design, and you've got a case study around Oracle chatbots as well, and there's just some really, really useful information if you want to carry this conversation on, that's the best place to go. Kelly Molson: And actually Roy you've got a podcast as well, haven't you?Roy Murphy: It is called Conversations Worth Millions.Kelly Molson: Love it.Roy Murphy: So in essence, conversationsworthmillions.com is the URL, but if you ... because I'm amazing at SEO as well, if you type in conversations worth millions into Google, every result on the home pace will be my podcast, if it isn't, my OCD's going to go mental.Kelly Molson: Okay, well let's test this, so yeah, if you want to listen to a bit more about this topic, then Conversations Worth Millions is what you type into Google and as Roy said, you should find everything that you need. One last question for you, I always ask all of our guests to recommend a book, and it can be a book that you love, just you love it personally, or it could be a book that's kind of helped shape your career on some way, so have you got a recommendation for us today?Roy Murphy: Can I just make one small comment before I tell you what book it is? My second unpopular opinion is that you can't read too much.Kelly Molson: Okay, yeah.Roy Murphy: I'm a doer, don't ... my final parting shot on that is don't just consume, create. I'll leave it there, however-Kelly Molson: Yeah, no do you know what? I agree, and don't just read self-help books, I think there's a lot of people who consume self-help business book one after the other, go read some fiction as well, and mix it up.Roy Murphy: Speaking of self-help, I've got one for you. Kelly Molson: Good.Roy Murphy: You'll like this. Okay so this one has got ... it's a bit of a mouthful for a name, it's brand new, don't know if you've seen it, so this is the Almanack of Naval Ravikant, have you seen it?Kelly Molson: No, I haven't.Roy Murphy: Okay, so I'll give you a quick pre-see of what it says on the back cover. So it says getting rich is not just about luck, happiness is not just a trait we are born with. So in essence what this is, is Naval is very famous on Twitter, he's a VC and a bit of a lifestyle guru and so on, and a tech guru too, he wrote quite a ... again, famous tweet about a year-and-a-half ago on why getting rich isn't just about money, it was a massive Twitter thread of maybe, I don't know, 15 tweets. Someone took those tweets and turned them into a book, which I thought for a couple of reasons was fantastic.Roy Murphy: First of all, to be able to spin a book out of 15 tweets is really interesting, and actually the lessons in it I think are actually quite powerful, so that's my recommendation. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Kelly Molson: Great. Good. That is a good choice. As ever, if you would like to win a copy of this book, we offer it as a prize, so all you need to do is head over to our Twitter account which is Skip The Queue if you just search for that on Twitter, and then if you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Roy's books," then you will be put into a prize draw to potentially win it. Kelly Molson: Roy thank you, I've really enjoyed this chat. Thanks for coming on and for sharing your knowledge about this topic. Please, everyone, go and subscribe to Roy's podcast the Conversations Worth Millions. If you are interested in what we've been talking about today, it's a wealth of knowledge there, and I would definitely check out Roy's website too. Thanks for coming on.Roy Murphy: Thanks a lot, Kelly, it's been a pleasure. 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.

Mad people can be executed, a miscarriage of justice, problematic prophecies and William Waste All - February 8-14 Part 2

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 10, 2021 12:54

In this second part of This Week in Tudor History for the week beginning 8th February, historian Claire Ridgway talks about two parliamentary acts that allowed a king to execute his wife and to execute people showing signs of madness; a miscarriage of justice which led to a priest being executed in Elizabeth I’s reign; an Elizabethan astrologer who was ridiculed after his prophecies didn't come true, and a man known as William Waste-all.You can see this podcast as a video at the following link:https://youtu.be/9WrA3ivcjCU 11th February 1542 - King Henry VIII gave his assent "in absentia" to an act of attainder against his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, and her lady-in-waiting, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford. A bill allowing people showing signs of lunacy was also passed, an awful thing, but the king was determined to take revenge. 12th February 1584, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I - The executions of five Catholic priests by hanging, drawing and quartering at Tyburn. One of them, James Fenn, suffered a huge miscarriage of justice, being accused of plotting in Rome when he was actually in England, in prison, at the time! 13th February 1564, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I - Astrologer and physician John Harvey was baptised at Saffron Walden in Essex. Harvey ended up being ridiculed with his brother, Richard, after their prophecies of apocalyptic events didn't come true. 14th February 1492, in the reign of King Henry VII - Death of William Berkeley, Marquis of Berkeley, a man who took part in the last English battle fought between private armies of feudal magnates, but who was nicknamed William Waste All by the family historian. Teasel's Tudor Trivia video on Valentine's Day can be found at https://youtu.be/iSl4Zk7htSc Videos on other Tudor events for 11-14th February:February 11 - The birth and death of Elizabeth of York - https://youtu.be/FIeJtsYCvcUFebruary 11 - Success for George Boleyn - https://youtu.be/m9Gs3tvgCWoFebruary 12 - The executions of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley - https://youtu.be/qf7up1CHfJAFebruary 12 - Blanche Parry, a mother figure to Elizabeth I - https://youtu.be/eaB9piZbhxsFebruary 13 - Bess of Hardwick - https://youtu.be/zCehMXaVkqsFebruary 13 - The Executions of Catherine Howard and Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford - https://youtu.be/4nGL47QKe4kFebruary 14 - Being a royal favourite doesn't save you - https://youtu.be/5A5CSKvzbhEFebruary 14 - A dog licks up the king's blood - https://youtu.be/jg-97Zi5ZLs

Portentous Perils: Literally Half an Hour of Adverts

Portentous Perils in the 23rd Century

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2020 23:42

In this summer special, Portentous is still missing so in the place of her usual column, the paper literally just plays half an hour of adverts. Find out about Barry Island's monkey-proof fencing, Saffron Walden's Vegan Meats, the upcoming Global Election and the fun, fun harmless hobby of gambling. Guest starring Clarissa Maycock, Frog Stone, Gareth Gwynn, Ben Partridge, Nat Metcalfe, Meabh de Brun, Jon Hunter, Jenny Laville & Max Davis

perils brun adverts meabh saffron walden max davis barry island gareth gwynn portentous frog stone

From the Pavilion: Lockdown Podcast – CCA proposals & England’s 55-man training group

england lockdown proposals pavilion training group saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 3, 2020 49:37

From the Pavilion: Lockdown Podcast – CCA proposals & England’s 55-man training group

england lockdown proposals pavilion ben harris training group saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 3, 2020 49:37

On this week’s From The Pavilion: Lockdown Podcast, Ollie Slack and Callum Guest discuss the new proposals from the Cambridgeshire Cricket Association for the recreation 2020 season. Saffron Walden skipper Ben Harris also joins them to pick three England XIs from the 55-man training group and name his fantasy slip cordon. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep […]

From the Pavilion: Lockdown Podcast – Johnny Atkinson & Alex Sears pick best pro XI they’ve played against

lockdown cambridge played sears atkinson pavilion saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2020 40:12

In today's From The Pavilion: Lockdown Podcast, Ollie Slack and Callum Guest are joined by Cambridge’s Johnny Atkinson and Saffron Walden’s Alex Sears to debate whether the 2020 season will […]

From the Pavilion: Lockdown Podcast – Johnny Atkinson & Alex Sears pick best pro XI they’ve played against

lockdown cambridge played xi sears atkinson pavilion saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2020 40:12

In today’s From The Pavilion: Lockdown Podcast, Ollie Slack and Callum Guest are joined by Cambridge’s Johnny Atkinson and Saffron Walden’s Alex Sears to debate whether the 2020 season will go ahead. They pick their best XI of pro players they’ve played against, a fantasy slip cordon made up of famous faces, plus some great […]

Finding my food freedom, with personal trainer: Jayne Hartley

The Eating Disorder Therapist

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2020 26:58

Today I interview my first guest - Jayne Hartley, who is a personal trainer, mum of 3 and owner of Fierce Fitness, in Clavering, near Saffron Walden. Jayne started dancing from the age of 5 – later training as a professional dancer; she's also a fully qualified nurse and is now a personal trainer. Today, Jayne is in a great place with eating and body image, but it hasn't always been this way. Jayne talks about her journey in finding peace with food and the things that have helped her achieve this. Find Jayne on Instagram: @jayne.hartley.fierce.fitness https://www.facebook.com/fiercefitnessandnutrition/

personal trainers hartley food freedom saffron walden

April 4 - William Strachey and Shakespeare's The Tempest

Tudor History with Claire Ridgway

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2020 5:52

On this day in Tudor history, 4th April 1572, William Strachey, writer and historian of Virginia, was born in Saffron Walden in Essex, England.Strachey's account of the 1609 shipwreck of the Sea Venture in a hurricane was used as a source for William Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Find out more about Strachey, how he was marooned for a year, and why he died in poverty, in today's talk from Claire Ridgway, founder of the Tudor Society. Here's a link to find out more about Strachey's signet ring - https://historicjamestowne.org/selected-artifacts/stracheys-ring-2/Also on this day in Tudor history, 4th April 1589, Mildred Cecil, Lady Burghley, wife of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and an accomplished and influential woman in her own right, died. You can find out more about her in last year’s video - https://youtu.be/Jaap4Mj2Jbg

england essex tudor saffron walden strachey william cecil shakespeare's the tempest sea venture claire ridgway

Mi Casa Es Tu Casa Podcast Episode 23

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2019 42:29

On this weeks show we have music from Jon Cutler, Full Intention and Soulsearcher.Plus a round up of all the forthcoming parties and chatting about Clockwork Orange at Fabric last weekend.2020 with be our 5th Year and the party is going from strength to strength.Mi Casa Es Tu Casa is a party for people that love house and disco created by Paul Hutchinson, who this year is making his debut for iconic brand Clockwork Orange at Clockstock 2020 alongside some of the biggest names in House music.“Just seeing people dancing and smiling to the music I select makes this the best job in the world” say’s Paul. Joined by Mister Shed on percussion on most parties Paul & Sebastian like bringing that live element to each party, and their passion shows through in there performance.With parties in Italy, Ibiza, Amsterdam and with regular parties in Great Dunmow, Chelmsford, Colchester, Saffron Walden, Sawbridgeworth, Letchworth and Hertford 2020 is going to be huge for Paul and Mi Casa Es Tu Casa.House and Disco never sounded so good and if you haven’t yet, the time has come to take notice of what Mi Casa Es Tu Casa and Paul Hutchinson are doing. #housemusicforthesoul #welovetoboogiehttps://www.micasaestucasa.co.uk

house italy amsterdam disco ibiza fabric clockwork orange mi casa colchester chelmsford full intention jon cutler soulsearcher paul hutchinson hertford letchworth saffron walden mi casa es tu casa

Mi Casa Es Tu Casa Podcast Episode 23

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2019 42:30

On this weeks show we have music from Jon Cutler, Full Intention and Soulsearcher. Plus a round up of all the forthcoming parties and chatting about Clockwork Orange at Fabric last weekend. 2020 with be our 5th Year and the party is going from strength to strength. Mi Casa Es Tu Casa is a party for people that love house and disco created by Paul Hutchinson, who this year is making his debut for iconic brand Clockwork Orange at Clockstock 2020 alongside some of the biggest names in House music. “Just seeing people dancing and smiling to the music I select makes this the best job in the world” say’s Paul. Joined by Mister Shed on percussion on most parties Paul & Sebastian like bringing that live element to each party, and their passion shows through in there performance. With parties in Italy, Ibiza, Amsterdam and with regular parties in Great Dunmow, Chelmsford, Colchester, Saffron Walden, Sawbridgeworth, Letchworth and Hertford 2020 is going to be huge for Paul and Mi Casa Es Tu Casa. House and Disco never sounded so good and if you haven’t yet, the time has come to take notice of what Mi Casa Es Tu Casa and Paul Hutchinson are doing. #housemusicforthesoul #welovetoboogie https://www.micasaestucasa.co.uk

house italy amsterdam disco ibiza fabric clockwork orange mi casa colchester chelmsford full intention jon cutler soulsearcher paul hutchinson hertford letchworth saffron walden mi casa es tu casa

Mi Casa Es Tu Casa Podcast Episode 22

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2019 53:19

Welcome to Episode 22 of the Mi Casa Es tu Casa Podcast with Paul Hutchinson. On this weeks show we have music from Saison, The Discoboxers, First Choicem Kings of Tomorrow and an exclusive play of my new track with Amanda Kerrison aka Vice Queen. 2020 with be our 5th Year and the party is going from strength to strength. Mi Casa Es Tu Casa is a party for people that love house and disco created by Paul Hutchinson, who this year is making his debut for iconic brand Clockwork Orange at Clockstock 2020 alongside some of the biggest names in House music. “Just seeing people dancing and smiling to the music I select makes this the best job in the world” say’s Paul. Joined by Mister Shed on percussion on most parties Paul & Sebastian like bringing that live element to each party, and their passion shows through in there performance. With parties in Italy, Ibiza, Amsterdam and with regular parties in Great Dunmow, Chelmsford, Colchester, Saffron Walden, Sawbridgeworth, Letchworth and Hertford 2020 is going to be huge for Paul and Mi Casa Es Tu Casa. House and Disco never sounded so good and if you haven’t yet, the time has come to take notice of what Mi Casa Es Tu Casa and Paul Hutchinson are doing. #housemusicforthesoul #welovetoboogie https://www.micasaestucasa.co.uk

house italy amsterdam disco saison ibiza clockwork orange mi casa colchester chelmsford paul hutchinson hertford letchworth saffron walden mi casa es tu casa

Mi Casa Es Tu Casa Podcast Episode 22

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2019 53:18

Welcome to Episode 22 of the Mi Casa Es tu Casa Podcast with Paul Hutchinson.On this weeks show we have music from Saison, The Discoboxers, First Choicem Kings of Tomorrow and an exclusive play of my new track with Amanda Kerrison aka Vice Queen.2020 with be our 5th Year and the party is going from strength to strength.Mi Casa Es Tu Casa is a party for people that love house and disco created by Paul Hutchinson, who this year is making his debut for iconic brand Clockwork Orange at Clockstock 2020 alongside some of the biggest names in House music.“Just seeing people dancing and smiling to the music I select makes this the best job in the world” say’s Paul. Joined by Mister Shed on percussion on most parties Paul & Sebastian like bringing that live element to each party, and their passion shows through in there performance.With parties in Italy, Ibiza, Amsterdam and with regular parties in Great Dunmow, Chelmsford, Colchester, Saffron Walden, Sawbridgeworth, Letchworth and Hertford 2020 is going to be huge for Paul and Mi Casa Es Tu Casa.House and Disco never sounded so good and if you haven’t yet, the time has come to take notice of what Mi Casa Es Tu Casa and Paul Hutchinson are doing. #housemusicforthesoul #welovetoboogiehttps://www.micasaestucasa.co.uk

house italy amsterdam disco saison ibiza clockwork orange mi casa colchester chelmsford paul hutchinson hertford letchworth saffron walden mi casa es tu casa

Episode 129 Tri-Wiz 2019

united kingdom saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2019 54:08

It's Saturday and this week Tom and Jerry are discussing the recent Tri-Wiz 2019 tournament held in Saffron Walden, UK. Recorded 13th November 2019

Countertenor Iestyn Davies

Tea with Netty

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2019 49:49

What's brewing backstage with the Orchestra?In September 2019, Netty met up with countertenor Iestyn Davies during our run of Handel's Agrippina at the Royal Opera House, where he sang the role of Ottone.They discuss Iestyn's archaeology degree, how you don't choose to become a countertenor, and the important role of Cathedrals in British musical life. Tea with Netty is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's podcast hosted by viola player Annette Isserlis (Netty). Over a cuppa (or something a little stronger...), Netty chats with a variety of conductors, players and other guests as she 'spills the tea' on the side of classical music you don't normally hear.Iestyn performs with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Vivaldi and Pergolesi: Sacred Baroque, touring to London, Saffron Walden, New York and Ohio in November 2019.

new york british ohio tea enlightenment orchestras cathedrals vivaldi royal opera house countertenor iestyn saffron walden iestyn davies

NAC Orchestra 50th Anniversary European Tour

NACOcast: Classical music podcast with Sean Rice

Play Episode Listen Later May 10, 2019 30:57

In this episode of the NACOcast Sean Rice speaks with NAC Music Director Alexander Shelley. On the occasion of its 50th Anniversary, the National Arts Centre Orchestra will embark on a European tour in May 2019. CROSSINGS: the NAC Orchestra 50th Anniversary European Tour will feature concerts and collaborative community outreach events in 7 cities and 5 countries: London, Paris, Utrecht, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Saffron Walden. On this tour, Alexander Shelley and the NAC Orchestra will break new ground for the orchestral experience with an unprecedented representation of Canadian art, artists and stories. “Crossings is emblematic of what is at the heart of this tour….We are crossing expectations, generations and distances and as we engage with new and diverse audiences, artists and young people to experience music and to make music together.”-Alexander Shelley, NAC Music Director.

canadian european stockholm copenhagen orchestras 50th utrecht classical music european tour gothenburg crossings naco saffron walden national arts centre orchestra alexander shelley

Mary Black, Monster trucks, Defining intersex

Woman's Hour

Play Episode Listen Later May 3, 2019 46:41

We discuss the impact of Margaret Thatcher for women in politics. We'll be dipping into the Woman's Hour archive and asking why she is still relevant for women politicians today. With Kemi Badenoch, MP for Saffron Walden and Vice Chair of the Conservative Party, and Ayesha Hazarika, former special adviser to Harriet Harman.In the wake of Caster Semenya's legal battle we look at differences in sexual development (DSD). How are they identified, treated, and what impact do they have? Jane is joined by Cambridge University Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics, Ieuan Hughes, expert in paediatric endocrinology and DSD, and by Holly Greenberry, Founder and Lead Consultant at advocacy group Intersex UK.Mary Black is one of Ireland's most famous singers. She was born in the 50s in Dublin and has seen the country change dramatically over the years. One of her most famous albums, A Woman's Heart, was a collaboration with other Irish women musicians and is now twenty five years old. Last year the first song of the album called ‘Only a Woman's Heart' became an anthem for those wanting to change the law on abortion, appealing to a new generation of young women. Mary talks to our reporter, Siobhann Tighe.We speak to monster truck driver Brianna Mahon who drives 5 tonne vehicles, performing wheelies, donuts and big air stunts. She joins Jane to talk about life on tour, and surprising her hair salon clients with her second career.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Helen Fitzhenry Interviewed guest: Kemi Badenoch Interviewed guest: Ayesha Hazarika Interviewed guest: Ieuan Hughes Interviewed guest: Holly Greenberry Interviewed guest: Brianna Mahon

S1: 7 - Technological Advances in Contact Lenses and Materials

Specialty Lenses Unplugged

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 17, 2019 60:27

In this episode, Craig visits the headquarters of Contamac Ltd. located in beautiful Saffron Walden, Essex in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1987, Contamac is a global leader in the manufacture of contact lens and intraocular lens materials. Craig is first welcomed by managing director Rob McGregor to learn more about where Contamac began and where it is heading. Next, R&D manager Tristan Tapper discusses the process of developing new products and what new technologies the future could hold. Finally, Martin Conway discusses his role in professional services and how he works with eyecare practitioners and on educational initiatives within the industry. 832424

united kingdom founded materials essex contact lenses technological advances saffron walden contamac

Imogen Heap, 2 Classic tracks from deep in the Record Box and more…

From the Bottom of the Record Box

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2018 41:59

Welcome to the show. In this episode, we have the quite magical Imogen Heap (more on her later), New Music from Loyal Lobos and Sea Girls. In addition, we have James Brown vinyl spinning live on the show and a Pulp classic. The show is bookended by Camera Obscura and The White Stripes give us our Cover Shot. From the Bottom of the Record Box is a mixed jamboree of musical treats from past and present. Every week we invite you to join us, your hosts, Richard and Tobin for a relaxed listen to what is hopefully something new. Furthermore, we also spin a few Record Box Classics from deep in the vinyl crates. We aim to inspire you to widen your own musical appreciation and knowledge and as a consequence, we widen ours. If you like what you hear then please subscribe, or recommend a track for us to listen to on the show. Track Listing Do It Again Camera ObscuraJolene The White StripesSwim Loyal LobosAll I Want to Hear You Say Sea GirlsFunky President James BrownBabies PulpHide and Seek Imogen HeapI Need All of the Friends I Can Get Camera Obscura Imogen Heap - an exceptional talent Say "hello" to Imogen Heap – singer, songwriter, music producer, audio engineer, classically trained pianist, cellist and clarinettist. Moreover, guitarist, multi-percussionist and player and advocate of both the array mbira and the hang. To clarify, yeah, go follow those links because we had no idea what they were either! Imogen attended a private school in Saffron Walden and did not get along at all well with her music teacher despite her obvious talent. Having been classically trained in both clarinet, cello and piano Imogen taught herself guitar and drums. Clearly not enough, she went on to learn to music production, sampling, sequencing and production on Atari computers. Subsequently, you can hear echoes of all of those facets in her music. At age 18 she signed with independent label Almo Sounds after recording four demos with Nik Kershaw. After that Imogen then began collaborating with experimental pop band Acacia. Her debut album iMegaphone followed but Imogen was dropped by Almo Sounds when funding dried up. Without a label, Imogen continued her prolific output. She then formed the short-lived duet Frou Frou with longtime collaborator Guy Sigsworth. In 2002 they released their only album Details to critical acclaim. Things you may not know... Jarvis Cocker, the effortlessly cool bespectacled frontman of Pulp when asked about listening to his own work remarked: I’d rather suck off a dog’s knob than listen to one of my own records Tobin mentioned on the show today that there was a rumour that Jack and Meg White were brother and sister. He buried that myth with the news that they were, in fact, man and wife. Actually, Meg was always a White and Jack Gillis took her surname in marriage. James Brown was sent to live with his aunt Honey Washington at the age of 6. Honey ran a brothel and sold moonshine for a living. The Godfather of Soul died on Christmas Day 2006. Subsequently, he was laid to rest in a 24-karat-gold coffin. Listen to our vinyl 45rpm of James Brown's Funky President here

Episode 105 TriWiz 2018 tournament preperation show

united kingdom tournament preperation saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2018 67:29

It's Friday and this week Paul and Barry are discussing the upcoming TriWiz event to be held in Saffron Walden, UK on Saturday 3rd November 2018. Recorded 31/10/2018

Episode 78 Tri-Wiz 2017 Singles Tournament Review

united kingdom tournament singles saffron walden

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2017 74:09

It's Friday and this week Paul and Barry discuss the recent 20 player Tri-Wiz Singles Tournament based in Saffron Walden, UK. Recorded 16.11.2017

164-Vigil on the Ice

Futility Closet

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2017 33:01

In 1930, British explorer Augustine Courtauld volunteered to spend the winter alone on the Greenland ice cap, manning a remote weather station. As the snow gradually buried his hut and his supplies steadily dwindled, his relief party failed to arrive. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Courtauld's increasingly desperate vigil on the ice. We'll also retreat toward George III and puzzle over some unexpected evidence. Intro: Rudyard Kipling hid messages in his illustrations for the Just So Stories. In the early 1900s, Danes bred pigs colored to resemble the Danish flag. Sources for our feature on Augustine Courtauld: Nicholas Wollaston, The Man on the Ice Cap, 1980. Mollie Butler, August and Rab, 1987. "Augustine Courtauld," Encyclopedia Arctica (accessed July 23, 2017). "Augustine Courtauld," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessed July 23, 2017). "The British Arctic Air Route Expedition," Geographical Journal 76:1 (July 1930), 67-68. "British Air Route to the Arctic Regions," Science, New Series, 72:1857 (Aug. 1, 1930), 108-109. "Swedish Flier Ready to Hop for Greenland to Rescue Courtauld, Young British Explorer," New York Times, April 27, 1931, 4. Svend Carstensen, "Ahrenberg to Start Rescue Flight Today," New York Times, April 29, 1931, 12. Svend Carstensen, "Ahrenberg on Way to Save Courtauld, Lost in Greenland," New York Times, April 30, 1931, 1. "Rescuers Race to Locate Lost Arctic Explorer," China Press, May 2, 1931, 13. E. Lemon, "Plane in Greenland to Hunt Courtauld," New York Times, May 3, 1931, 2. Percy Lemon, "Ahrenberg Ready to Fly to Ice Cap," New York Times, May 5, 1931, 6. "Courtauld Hunted by Sea, Air And Land: Area of Great Arctic Search," New York Times, May 8, 1931, 12. "Courtauld Rescued," Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1931, 3. Percy Lemon, "Courtauld Is Found Safe on the Greenland Ice Cap," New York Times, May 8, 1931, 1. Albin Ahrenberg, "Ahrenberg to Guide Courtauld To Camp," New York Times, May 9, 1931, 1. Percy Lemon, "Courtauld Back Safely on Greenland Coast," New York Times, May 12, 1931, 1. H.G. Watkins, "Courtauld Search a Surprise to Him," New York Times, May 14, 1931, 12. "Courtauld Buried in Igloo 2 Months," Associated Press, May 15, 1931. "Arctic Burial Escape Told," Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1931, 4. "Courtauld Tells Story of Long Imprisonment," China Press, May 15, 1931, 1. "Rescued From Greenland's Icy Cap," Sphere 125:1634 (May 16, 1931), 278. "Courtauld to Sail Home on First Ship," New York Times, May 17, 1931, 2. T.J.C. Martyn, "Greenland Is Still a Scientific Puzzle," New York Times, May 24, 1931, 4. Augustine Courtauld, "Courtauld's Story of the Five Months He Spent on Ice Cap," New York Times, May 29, 1931, 1. "The Ice-Cap Hero," New York Times, May 30, 1931, 8. "The British Arctic Air Route Expedition," Geographical Journal 77:6 (June 1931), 551-554. "From the Four Winds: Mr. Courtauld's Arctic Vigil," China Herald, June 30, 1931, 459. "The British Arctic Air Route Expedition," Geographical Journal 78:3 (September 1931), 291. F.S. Chapman, "Watkins and Aides Held in No Danger," New York Times, Sept. 19, 1931, 17. "Explorers Return From Greenland," New York Times, Nov. 14, 1931, 8. William Goodenough, Augustine Courtauld, Lauge Koch, J.M. Wordie, and H.R. Mill, "The British Arctic Air Route Expedition: Discussion," Geographical Journal 79:6 (June 1932), 497-501. Percy Cox, Helge Larsen, Augustine Courtauld, M.A. Spender and J.M. Wordie, "A Journey in Rasmussen Land: Discussion," Geographical Journal 88:3 (September 1936), 208-215. Henry Balfour, E.C. Fountaine, W.A. Deer, Augustine Courtauld, L.R. Wager, and Ebbe Munck, "The Kangerdlugssuak Region of East Greenland: Discussion," Geographical Journal 90:5 (November 1937), 422-425. "Augustine Courtauld Dies at 54: Explored Greenland in Thirties," New York Times, March 4, 1959, 31. L.R. Wager, "Mr. Augustine Courtauld," Nature 183:4666 (April 4, 1959). Quintin Riley, "Obituary: Augustine Courtauld 1904-1959," Geographical Journal 125:2 (June 1959), 286-287. Ronald Porter, "Lady Butler of Saffron Walden,'" Independent, April 1, 2009. Listener mail: Matthew J. Kinservik, Sex, Scandal, and Celebrity in Late Eighteenth-Century England, 2007. Chris Best, "Watch: Hungry Bear Opens Fridge, Rummages Through Home," wkrg.com, July 6, 2017. "NC Bear Opens SUV Door, Climbs Inside and Destroys It," wncn.com, July 8, 2017. Mark Price, "NC's Bears Are Now Opening Car Doors, Leading to Strange Driveway Encounters," Charlotte Observer, July 9, 2017. "Bear and the SUV," Sylva Herald, June 21, 2017. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was devised by Sharon. Here are three corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website or browse our online store for Futility Closet merchandise. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

Episode 54 TriWiz Singles 2017 review