January 30, 2009
Liz |
It's good to talk |
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to do more in my village community, so when I was asked by the vicar to give a skincare talk to our local youth group I happily agreed. So this was how I came to spend last Sunday evening in the primary school hall, soothing teenage skincare angst with a dozen or so young girls (and a few mums who’d sneaked in too). Meanwhile, the local lads were busy at the other end of the hall tying knots and practising army rescue techniques under the guidance of a serving army officer who also lives nearby. I told them that Cleanse & Polish was very popular with the army for removing camouflage cream – and just as many of the boys as girls went home with goody bags at the end of the evening.
On Tuesday I continued the sense of community spirit down on the Island with a talk in Ryde Baptist church. It was a jolly evening, despite the pelting rain which I thought might keep some at home, but we ended up with over 120 packed into the upper room. I shared some of my pictures from botanical research trips last year – including a couple of my favourites which I’ve posted here. These include a snap of my husband jump-starting our small bush plane with jump-leads attached to a Land Rover after we got stuck in Samburuland! (close by to where the brilliant Secret Life of Elephants television series is filmed).
We’re due to go off on another botanical fact-finding adventure soon, so I hope we don’t have a repeat experience… Down on the Kenyan coast last year, I was part of a turtle conservation expedition to safely hatch and release baby turtles back into the wild. Here’s a picture of one of these newly-hatched extraordinary creatures in my hand to show just how small and vulnerable they are. You can find out lots more about them at www.seaturtletrust.org.
From my talk on the Isle of Wight I went up to London to hear someone else talk for a change. I was invited as a guest of Coast Magazine to a lunch for ‘influential people of the coast’. I sat opposite the head of the Camping and Caravan Club – who said he knew who I was as his mother had bought him a men’s gift box for Christmas and he was enjoying the men’s range very much! What a small world. I was especially interested to hear from another guest from the RNLI, who told me about their national fundraising day – which is today. I didn’t know that the RNLI was the first charity in the world to run a street charity collection in October 1890, to raise funds for the families of 23 lifeboat men who drowned in one night while saving others at sea. As a coastal nation, our lifeboats are a vital emergency service for us and the RNLI support boats nationwide as well as training and equipment for 4500 volunteer crew. Each and every day, on average, 20 lifeboats are launched and 20 people rescued. They don’t only help our fishing fleet and commercial sailors - at least half of all rescues are now for leisure users of the sea, from kite surfers to dingy racers. The RNLI also help to provide 150 lifeguards on Britain’s busiest beaches and this is a growing area of demand. To find out more, please visit www.rnli.org.uk/sos. Our local lifeboat station in Bembridge is aiming to raise £1million and, as an Island-based company, we all think it’s an especially worthy cause. One of our finance team, Jason, is actually a volunteer on the lifeboat crew and this afternoon we’re having a special SOS-themed tea and cake fundraiser – do take a look at some of our pictures on our Facebook page next week to see more behind the scenes from this event.
