September !

The year ended with a mention form Bite-Back Shark and Marine Conservation! Still lots more for us all to do if we are going to get sharks off the menu in the UK. It’s a big year for the oceans in 2020 Fin will be campaigning even harder to save these amazing animals.

In November 2019 Fin learned about online statistics, namely ‘reach’ and ‘engagement’ through his work with Twinkl Resoures for schools. Students viewed from the other side of the world, a total of 150 schools had viewed the teaching aids during the first month that they went live. 

Ella and I wanted to do something to mark Mental Health Awareness Week.

We called in to Ullapool Men’s Shed last week to give them a copy of Joe Harkness’ book ‘Bird Therapy’. I met Joe at Birdfair 2019 and when he generously offered to give away some of his new books. I asked if I could get one for the men’s shed, explaining how they do such good work in our community, keeping people active and helping keep older people from feeling isolated and lonely. The book details Joe’s personal struggles and how through bird watching and his connection with nature he is able to battle these problems. Joe has a website too called Bird Therapy

Ella kindly donated a pair of her binoculars too so hopefully it will help and inspire the group to get out and enjoy nature as much as we do. Ella has also become a camera dodger;- she is not keen on having her photo taken!

Finlay

Last month The National newspaper in Scotland interviewed the Pringle family to find out about the changes they made to lower their carbon foot print in order to reduce their impact on the enviroment. There are lots of ways people can do the same without too much hassle.

“My main message is anyone can do anything. You don’t need to do big things to make a difference – any one person can make one change, even just eating meat for one less day a week.  Read all about how we lowered our carbon footprint – we would love to hear what other people have done too.”

Thanks Finlay

Really pleased to announce that the big education project that I have been working on for several months has now been launched.

It has been difficult this year managing all the requests that people want me to get involved in and due to pressure of time, money and the need to strike a balance with my school work I have had to say no to some.

This particular project though was one I was very keen to do as I love the idea of peer to peer learning, spreading a positive message, educating  and inspiring other young people to understand the  issues affecting our health, our lives and the things we can all do to make a difference. It is mostly aimed at nursery and primary school level.

I met Helen Foulson of Twinkl at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield and she was very keen to work with me on a project. The company have been very easy to work with and were happy to take on board my ideas. I’m never very keen to listen or watch myself speaking  but I am really pleased with what they have achieved in terms of the videos and artwork. The cartoon style images of me they have created are pretty cool ! Hopefully this is the start of a series of projects with them.

The personal nature of the project they suggested did initially make me feel uncomfortable as I thought it might result in the kids at school taking the mickey or worse, but in the end I thought that the issues we young people face were far too important to ignore and worth any backlash I might get.

I wasn’t really aware how big an education resource company Twinkl were until I was invited to their head office to do the filming  and saw how many people they employ (500 +) not only here but around the world.

The thought that the resource we have created will now be available to teachers in  all schools in many different countries is pretty mental and something I am very proud of.

Twinkl have a large Facebook presence, TwinklResources, where all the banners, school assembly pack etc can be viewed. The plan is to slowly add to the resources over the next few weeks. It will also be available on their Twitter account at some point too.

I would be happy to hear any constructive comments about what people think of the resource as it will evolve over the next few months.

Thanks Finlay