The Aquarium is a great place to work. You’ve heard it from me, and you’ve heard it from a number of my colleagues.
It’s a great place for a whole variety of reasons – we are surrounded by beautiful and intriguing animals, penguins visit our offices, we are inspired, we have fun, we do good deeds …
But besides these things, there is scope to grow, to take on new challenges, to craft a niche for yourself if you look for the gaps, and are open to trying new experiences and learning new things.
It therefore gives me great pleasure to inform you that Hayley McLellan, aka the Penguin Chick or the Bag Lady, joined the Communications and Sustainability team as our full-time campaign co-ordinator on 1 October.
As some of you are aware, Hayley has been driving the Rethink the Bag campaign since 2011. She has been invited to give presentations at numerous festivals and speaker platforms. These include TEDxSeaPoint (2012), Pecha Kucha (2012), the Kleinmond Blues Music Festival (2012), the Greyton Trash to Treasure Festival (2012), the 8th International Aquarium Congress (2012), the PAAZAB Annual Conference (2012 and 2013) and the AKAA Conference (2013). The campaign has also featured in the media, and was recently adopted as one of PAAZAB‘s key conservation campaigns.
Discussions with Woolworths around the issue of single-use plastic bags resulted in the production of two marine-themed Ocean Promise reusable bags, both of which urge consumers to reduce their reliance on plastic.
The Rethink the Bag campaign is receiving increasing attention from a wide variety of organisations and is gaining a foothold in the minds of many individuals. The campaign is also increasingly being integrated into the Aquarium’s own sustainability efforts and is being promoted at every opportunity through exhibits, signage, training and awareness initiatives, and education programmes. As such, we realised that the time had come for Hayley to dedicate her time entirely to Rethink the Bag and to take the campaign to new levels.
Hayley will promote the campaign widely to consumers, municipalities, retailers and government, and will also assist other PAAZAB facilities to adopt Rethink the Bag and to promote it among their staff and visitors. Rethink the Bag is just one campaign with which we are currently involved, and it will be Hayley’s responsibility to co-ordinate any other environmental campaigns adopted by the Aquarium in the future.
She will also concentrate on a number of other areas within the sustainability portfolio, including increased responsibilities in her role as chairperson of the Green Team.
Look out for Hayley at the forthcoming Hout Bay Green Faire and the Green Expo.
I am thrilled about Hayley joining the Communications and Sustainability team, and also in terms of what this means for the Two Oceans Aquarium – once again we are showing that we are committed to sustainability, and walking the talk.
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