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Tue 23 Oct 2007 NUS Green Carnival at the Central Form, 22-24 Oct 2007Category : events Toddycats! setup their biodiversity awareness both for the third year running at NUS Central Forum with specimens from the Raffles Museum. The age-old baby dugong worked its usual magic and guides led them in discovery from dugongs to dolphins to turtles to marine and terrestrial life. A handy mounted Singapore map helped that conversation along. There were more terrestrial specimens this year so the forest was not overlooked! 
This year had nearby schools drop in for a visit so they were introduced to our denizen of specimens. Already in a conversation with Peck Thian Guan (NUS Campus Sustainability Committee) we figured we could construct a syllabus that will provide targetted exhibits within a variety of booths for the students, complete with worksheet. In which case we should feature more research, past and present. That will mean guides will have to prepare a little more - we conducted a tutorial this year and next year we figured we should do it next to a mock up of the booth - would be more helpful.  Well, we always make grand plans but tell ourselves in the end that we were lucky just to have a booth stocked with enthusiastic guides every hour! In fact the guiding didn't stop through for the speeches during the opening ceremony as its an open venue, but I listened with great interest to the Amy Khor (Mayor, SECDC) and the Danish ambassador's determined and practical speeches about the helping the environment. Read more on the Toddycats new blog at toddycats.wordpress.com which also has news about the long awaited, inaugural Toddycats t-shirt!  Sat 07 Oct 2006 Fuel for ThoughtCategory : trade At the NUS Green Carnival on Tue 03 Oct 2006, I spotted a bunch of students who were promoting fair trade products. So I drew up a chair and had a chat with them - these students were from the University Scholars Programme, and had met on a Youth Expedition Project to India, possibly Operation Lumous II. In response to that expedition, they had, amongst other things, set up a booth at the Green Carnival to promote fair trade awareness. Fair trade, WIkipedia-ly put, attempts to "give disadvantaged producers in developing countries a fair chance on the world's market" and "support their self-determined sustainable development." My exposure to fair trade articles come mainly from links highlighted by Jasmin Chua a.k.a. The Worsted Witch. One of our biology graduates, she took up journalism and writes and lives in New York City. In fact a few nights ago, with Halloween approaching, she penned a note about chocolate: "..almost half of the chocolate consumed in this country [USA], including those by Nestle, Hershey's, and M&M/Mars, is made from cocoa beans imported from Africa's Ivory Coast, and largely harvested by child slaves as young as 9." She links to these articles - "Bittersweet chocolate." By Caroline Tiger. Salon.com, 14 Feb 2003, and "AFRICA: The Dark Side of Chocolate." By Kate McMahon. Alternet, Wiretap, 28 Oct 2005. The latter suggests that: "A solution to the problem of child labor and slavery in cocoa production is on the rise; fair trade chocolate ensures that farmers receive a fair price for their product and that their labor force is not comprised of children or slaves."
The NUS students' booth had several fair trade products on sale from villageexchange, which can also order online. The banner "Fight Poverty, Shop Fair Trade" was prominently featured and amongst the products was coffee. Since many of us in Science are Spinelli guzzlers, and with Jasmin's The Worsted Witch posts buzzing in my ears, I suggested to them, as fair trade specialists, they could help improve the situation in our own "backyard," i.e. with Spinelli outlets at NUS for starters. In the process they'll gain some advocacy experience and raise fair tradde awareness. The students looked ideal to raise such an idea inoffensively. Then I suggested some suggestions that attempted to balance the interests of Spinelli's, their consumers and fair trade awareness. They said we'll meet again in future and figure it out. Meanwhile surfing revealed another made in Singapore fair trade group - Fairtrade.sg. Two links in particular are - buying fair trade products in Singapore and Fair Trade Action, a student movement that grew out of an RGS that any school group can tap as a resource. Turning the consumer could be tough - and it'd be pretty important that fair trade coffee tasted good as well. Else they'd not have a hope of convincing the hard-core Spinelli coffee drinker. So we started at the bottom of the coffee drinking totem pole, with the occasional, Nescafe-drinking Toddycat, Anand, who took home a pack of fair trade coffee and reported tonight:
I can't believe I got a tea drinker to review the coffee. That is seriously flawed. Oh well, next to try it on a lab full of coffee addicts! Thu 05 Oct 2006 Public education at the NUS Green Carnival, 2nd & 3rd October 2006Category : events NUS Green Carnival, 2nd/3rd Oct 2006 - This time the Raffles Museum Toddycats were trying to suss out enthusiastic recruits from our traditional hunting ground - NUS. However, the Toddycats on duty did not switch out public education mode and talked to the most unlikely recruits from 9am to 6pm over two days! Even the "Milo Uncle" was not neglected and his interest ensured he was faithfully attended to by an admiring Toddycat.
The foetal dugong was the crowd puller once again - gawking students drawn to the exhibition eventually talked to Toddycats talk about wildlife and conservation in Singapore. While uncomfortable about the gawking, these are actually the individuals who are learning the most. And there is lot of explaining to do - many think the horseshoe crab is a stingray, the pangolin is an armadillo and dugong is a pig! Despite this 'distraction', we recruited more than 10 willing souls for unrewarded (no ECA points, no allowance and no t-shirt) public education work, exceeding our wild targets (yeah, we're picky). These passionate individuals are worth ther weight in gold an few more more willing individuals are likely to emerge after Friday's lunchtime Public Gallery tours.
During the second day of the NUS Green Carnival, we had to rearrange and shift our exhibition several times due to rain, possible conflict, human traffic strategy, the blazing sun and shade enhancement! Meanwhile, our table size changed from one to two to three and finally back to two. But it ensured that the precious zoological specimens from the Raffles Museum were kept safe and we intersected NUS student flow effectively. The quick changes that were executed without fuss, reflect the thought, decisiveness, cooperation and dynamism of the Raffles Museum Toddycats! Okay I'll set the trumpet aside now...
This exhibition was part of the revival of Raffles Museum's participation at fairs. These outings help us to reach people who might never meet a volunteer guide at a nature area (see "Thoughts on Raffles Museum exhibitions at fairs"). Its success has been due to the passion of the Toddycats. Next to get organised! Mon 02 Oct 2006 Raffles Museum Toddycats at the NUS Green CarnivalCategory : events
Raffles Museum Toddycats are holding education and recruitment exhibition at NUS' Central Forum on Monday and Tuesday, 2nd and 3rd October 2006 in conjunction with the NUSSU SAVE Green Carnival. ALso present are ACRES and SEC's GVN. On Friday 6th Oct 2006, Toddycats will conduct lunch time for signups at: 11am, 12pm and 1pm at the Raffles Museum's Public Gallery. Otterman will be giving a talk on Wednesday, 4th Oct: 5pm-6pm. at Theatrette 1 @ Central Library. See greencarnival.com. An Inconvenient Truth is coming to Singapore! The screening of "An Inconvenient Truth" is being promoted on 26th Oct and 2nd Nov - sign up here and join all the naturalists and greenies in Singapore who for once, will be meeting in Plaza Singapore! 
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I can't believe I'm doing this, but since you persuaded me, here goes: I had a couple of cups of it over the last 2 days & my verdict is it's ....... well....... normal :p
We thought we had enough hands with at least four of us active during peak hours on the second day. However, most of us went home with sore throats, dehydrated and exhausted. Coupled with late nights to catch up with work, exhibitions are pretty demanding business. 
We also met Joseph P Mullinix, NUS' relatively new Deputy President (Administration) during the opening - he is taking over the sustainable campus initiative in NUS so it will become a well integrated plan. Folks from Campus Green Committee and the Office of Estate Development are elated about this. As we all know, a top down process works wonders - they have waited a long time for this and its time to celebrate!
All suggestions about getting work done were fanciful but Leaf Monkey did manage to blog the first day, during a lulls or two, and followed up with a second report on Wed evening - see 