Putting the final details on our posters.
FINISHING OUR FOYER DISPLAY WORK:
Today we spent the morning putting together the final copies of our foyer display posters. We finished editing all of our written research and printed it out. We then had to organise all of the writing, along with images we had chosen and photos of our clay models, into a presentable order. We did a lot of cutting, experimenting with different titles and headings, and re-arranging of our work on pieces of card. We did this until we were happy that they looked visually effective and had all the important information on them in the best possible order. When we were happy with our poster layout we glued everything into place and used pastels to add colourful borders, underlines, and bold ‘attention grabbing’ headings. We were a very industrious and busy team until every group finished their research posters! Posters describing life on board The Aumoana and about the diving work done on the boat were also completed. The company logo was also finalised and company letterhead designed, which had the logo, mission statement, and company name on it. A company name tag was also made for’ Sarah’ to wear when she made her visit. These were very effective. The posters all look fantastic and everyone felt very proud seeing all their research presented so effectively. Well done team!
'Sarah's' name badge and our company letterhead showing logo and mission statement.
Once the posters were completed Max and Sally filmed one group that had organised an interview about life on board The Aumoana and another group that had organised a presentation about diving procedures and the equipment needed for diving under ice in Antarctica.
These films have now been made into small movies that will be on display as part of our foyer display design. Actors, film crew, and audience (with their feedback and support) all worked well to get these put together.
SOME MAORI WORDS FOR OUR MISSION STATEMENT:
Mr Chadwick wrote back to us with a couple of Maori proverbs that he thought might go well with our mission statement. After some discussion this is the proverb we chose to go alongside our company’s mission statement:
He taura whiri kotahi mai ana te kopunga tai no i te pu au
From the source to the mouth of the sea all things are joined together as one
PLANNING OUR PRESENTATION TO ‘SARAH’
Our next job was to sit down as a whole team and decide how we were going to present all our work to ‘Sarah’ when she visited.
Ms Gain stepped back and let the team discuss this on their own, this was a big challenge! We had to organise ourselves, listen to each other, negotiate, and make decisions that the whole group were happy with. Rosa was the scribe and everyone shared their ideas.
The team deciding on how they will present their work to 'Sarah'
An order of events was written down, which include:
• a welcome (offering a drink and giving her a name badge),
• a general overview of what the presentation will involve (giving ‘Sarah’ a copy of the programme so she knows what to expect – on our company letterhead!),
• showing the posters about Life on the Boat and the movie of the interview.
• inviting ‘Sarah’ to push ‘information buttons’ where we read out diary entries that have been written about doing research work on a boat,
• someone guiding her around the different research groups and each group presenting their work and talking her through the poster,
• showing her the poster about the next planned research expedition,
• showing the second movie on diving along with the diving poster,
• showing the company historical timeline, including the mission statement and values,
• inviting ‘Sarah’ to join the team at a meeting table so that we can invite her to respond and ask her “what do you think?”
• farewelling with a song: ‘God of Nations’ in Te Reo Maori and English (“because our work is to do with the whole country”).
A TENSION:
In the afternoon we received an email from ‘Sarah’ in management with some worrying news. The news was that senior management are considering renting out parts of the company building in order to help the company financially. The parts of the building that they are considering renting out, and thus removing from NZ COSSA’s useable space, include one of the meeting rooms, some of the carparking space, and the entrance foyer!
This news was met with outcry and disappointment, as this will leave us without a space for all our work. Cries from around the meeting table included:
“They can’t do that, we have worked so hard!”
“Ring Sarah and tell her we don’t like her email”
Georgia reading email from 'Sarah' to the team.
The team then discussed further what this news meant for us. We decided that the decision wasn’t final and there was still a chance of convincing senior management that having an informative foyer display is important for educating the public about our work. Two ideas shared were:
1. To talk to some people in education and get some support from them. It was felt that once educators saw our work they would understand how important it is to educate people about sea science activity around New Zealand.
2. To have a trial for a month and show management how effective the foyer display is in informing and getting interest from the public.
At the end of her email 'Sarah' said that she could no longer make a visit today and suggested that perhaps she put her visit on hold until a more final decision was made about the future of the building. The team thought that Sarah should still visit so that we could have the chance to convince her and show her the quality of the work we have done. Lucy found an old phone in the classroom and Rosa ‘made a call’ to Sarah to respond to the email and ask her to still visit us.
Sarah agreed to visit us next Monday. Let’s hope we can convince her!
