Morocco!

At last we are ready to announce: MASC is going to Morocco! BMCRif (Barbary Macaque Conservation in the Rif) have asked us to develop a piece about pet trade including a tortoise to take to rural parts of Northern Morocco.

We are absolutely thrilled! The script is almost finished (though it will be mimed so only the narrator will need it). I have put out a casting call online and we will be scheduling auditions and rehearsals after a meeting tomorrow. Anyone who is interested in being involved contact me through the blog, Twitter, Facebook or by email to joy@monkeysinschools.org.

We are going to be fundraising and applying for grants so any advice or offers of support are always welcome

Thank you so much all you monkeys!

Hugs of the monkey variety

Fota Wildlife Park – My favourite place in Cork!

It’s my favourite place to go when I come home and getting up early to spend all day walking around in a persistent drizzle to get the most out of the visit was more than worth it.The last visit I paid was just about a year ago and I was delighted with the changes and developments that have been going on. The white-tailed sea eagles are getting an extension. The whole of the entrance has been revamped with a new cafe, gift shop and education centre. The ever more popular meerkats have joined Fota’s team of conservation ambassadors.

I was most excited by the addition of a beautiful group of grey-cheeked mangabeys to the collection. Watching them cracking walnut shells without even the slightest effort and stuffing their cheek pouches made me smile. They share an enclosure with the meerkats, warming their bellys in the picture. Getting off the train to the sound of dueting Lar gibbons was pretty cool too! Having the park almost to ourselves was a treat (coz most people probably wouldn’t be very attracted to the idea of walking around all day in the rain).

I was impressed by the abundace of young throughout the park including Lar gibbon, Agile gibbon, Grant’s zebra (above), Howler monkey, Columbian black spider monkey (first picture on the right, not the best quality but they are so gorgeous I had to include it), Rothschild giraffe, Eastern grey kangaroo , Chilean flamingo, lion-tailed macaque, ostrich. Personally ostriches scare me but they were still a delight. Seeing the gibbons and other primates making use of every bit of their enclosures was great to see, and seeing a joey in its mama’s pouch for the first time was a treat(right)!

I’m already looking forward to my next visit.

Monkey hugs

Ethics vs Price

Once again I am struck by the eternal problem of price vs ethics. Only those who are very affluent can afford to make only ethical decisions. My partner and I are not particularly well off, one student and one casually employed technician, both working for a charity. We are both passionately driven conservationists. We can’t afford to only buy ethical things.

Wherever possible we buy local, ethical and particularly environmentally sound. This can add as much as a third onto our weekly shop. So what do you do?

Can you cut out things that are fairtrade and focus on organic? Should you focus on buying local food from Farmer’s markets or organic from a consumer giant like Tesco? Is it better to focus on ethical food and forget toiletries and clothing? Should you go and get things from the green grocer, butcher, baker etc separately or only drive to one place and get everything there?

Each person has to pick which things are truly important to them and allow themselves to have a treat from time to time. None of us can survive without filling the tank of happiness!

So the moral is, make ethical choices where you feel you can and let yourself off where you can’t

Monkey hugs

Home again, home again jiggedy jog

We have two more days in Ireland and with a trustees’ meeting on the next day I am trying to get ready a little before we fly. My body may still be in the Emerald Isle but my mind is home busying itself with preparations.

We have a meeting and then some intense work on fundraising and organising for the New Year. At some point we have to fit in some promotion and website maintenance, well I am sure we will find time.

Aoife’s PhD starts next week and I am getting increasingly nervous about it. She seems as solid as a rock and I have every faith in her ability, just getting butterflies in my stomach.

Well I hope everyone else is having as busy and productive beginning of the year as we are. All the changes are due in the next few months. Then hopefully we will all be settled into a new way of life!

Thoughtful monkey hugs

Goodbye Panto – Hello Ireland

Well panto is over (oh no it’s not). I am going to miss the people but not the songs and the jokes with a few notable exceptions. I am off to join Aoife in Ireland tomorrow and we are spending 10 days with her family in Cork.

A nice holiday but I have to prepare for a trustees meeting, apply for funding and jobs, write a new piece and try to come up with some conceptual sketches… No rest for the wicked eh! Hopefully once we are back and settling down into normal rhythms I will be able to update the website too.

Hope the beginning of the year is exciting and filled with potential still, fingers crossed this year is going to be a good one

Monkey hugs

Another two calenders

I have put the last two calenders signed by Bill Bailey up to auction. Your support will help us visit schools and zoos this year to spread the word about palm oil and the pet trade.

Monkey hugs

Happy New Year!

Sorry for lack of posting! Been crazily busy working on panto. The picture is of me and Widow Twankey played by the audacious Jon Dixon and Wishee Washee played by the lovely Justin Fletcher (who despite having two BAFTAs and four TV shows still had a second to smile for MASC).

We are busily researching the new pieces and getting ready for a busy January of meetings to get the new year going.

Hope everyone had a lovely winter time whatever you celebrate and hope 2012 is a year of promise for us all

Monkey Hugs

Quick Catch up

Sorry monkey-lovers for the enormous break but we have all been very busy. So here is a quick catch-up like a Christmas newsletter to keep anyone up-to-date if they are interested:

Aoife has submitted her PhD application and will hopefully be starting in January

We have been in speaks with BMCRif about producing a new piece about barbary macaques and spur-thighed tortoise that are taken from the wild to be part of the pet trade

I have left Blinding Light Ltd and am now working on Aladdin the panto at the Hexagon, Reading, follow spotting and having a great time

I gave my lecture at Oxford Brookes at the end of November and was very well received so thank you to everyone who came to hear it (see picture)href=”http://monkeyunmasked.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/img_0044.jpg”>

Bill Bailey signed a couple of Primate Connections calenders which we feature in and they will be available on eBay over the next few weeks. The first one has gone to Lorna Wilkie and the money raised is going towards our next schools tour

There are unsigned calenders available at £6.50 which again is raising money for a schools tour in the near future. Each month is a different primate charity with gorgeous pictures, tip of the month and information about the different charities involved. They make great Christmas presents!

So all roudn we have been busy and had a lot of fun. We are looking forward to the new year and all it will bring

Monkey hugs

New Covent Garden Soup Company

Hello monkey-lovers,

Sorry for the little break in blogging. We have been recovering from the last lot of shows and getting lots of admin bits out of the way.

I don’t know if the reader is aware that the New Covent Garden Soup Company is doing a competition to win a farm! I decided that we really wanted it and I have started consuming soup like Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

I realised that although I had already assessed that most if not all (at least of their veggie) soups were palm oil free I had not as I should have, blogged about them long time ago.

So eat your fill of seasonal soups and if you want to win the farm then that would be amazing too!

Monkey hugs

Over for the year

Hello,

There has been a very long gap in posts because we were putting together the most recent lots of shows at Beale Park, then doing them, then recovering from them!

They were received very well though we could have wished for a few more in the audiences on some of the days. We have had a great time with Beale Park this year and are looking forward to working with them again in February when they re-open for the season.

We are now taking a bit of a break. I am giving a lecture at Oxford Brookes to the new cohort of the course that Aoife and I did in 2009/10 and that Marie (another trustee) did a couple of years beforehand and Susan (yet another trustee) teaches on currently. I am a little more nervous than it warrants but I am hoping to be able to sound professional.

Monkey love to one and all and if you give me a few more days to recover I will blog more coherently!