On Friday I got the opportunity to take part in a very special community project at Swanborough House in Brighton, a rehabilitation home for people with neurological problems.  Organised by the Business Community Partnership http://www.bhbcp.org.uk/ and supported by around 50 Brighton businesses, our challenge was to build a huge new garden for residents in just one day!

I have to admit it didn’t look promising when we arrived at 9 in the morning with black skies threatening to soak the team of willing volunteers.  But we soon got into the swing of things and set to work transforming what was basically a large area of scrub land.

Much of the morning was spent digging paths which was pretty strenuous work but with plenty of opportunities to meet new people and stop for tea and cake.  After lunch I painted fences, planted lavender plants and blackcurrant bushes, as well as helping to construct a garden bench - a first for me!

We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the day but it was well worthwhile, particularly with residents cheering us on from the sidelines.  The garden was very nearly finished by the time we stopped for a welcome glass of wine at the end of the day.

Our pictures will be in The Argus and we have already appeared on Meridian TV apparently, although I hope they caught us when we were working hard rather than stopping for a natter.  I’m looking forward to the next project and trying my hand at a bit more gardening - it’s definitely a welcome break from the office!

Tags:Business Community Par

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad | Comments(0)

Cactus is supporting an environmental project at a local school, Springfield First School in Worthing, West Sussex this summer.

The school has been working hard to attain the various levels of the Eco-Schools Scheme, whereby children at the school (aged 4-8) work on projects to help the school be more environmentally active. This year, the children are working on a project called “What a load of Rubbish” which started with an audit of the schools bins and which will culminate in a week of activities centering around waste reduction, under the 3Rs of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The school plans to send ZERO waste to landfill within the next 6 months, which, it is understood, has never been done before by any school in the country.

Cactus’ donation will hopefully allow leading Norwegian artist, Tone Holmen to visit the school, and run a workshop with the children with a strong environmental theme - to make a polar bear sculpture from old plastic supermarket bags! Tone is a painter of abstract forms based on global warming, geography and travel routes through landscapes, and you can see more of her work here Tone’s portfolio.

 More about Cactus’ Green Policy

Tags:cactus green initiatives, eco-schools

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad | Comments(0)

The Cactus team kick-started our Brighton Festival events last night with a special Spanish and Italian taster evening at St Giles college.  After several weeks of preparation it was great to finally get underway and to meet festival-goers face-to-face.

The event was a big success, with a strong turnout of Brightonians (and even Londoners) of all ages and backgrounds.  Teachers Grazia and Eva gave fun and inspiring classes, including sangria and homemade tapas for the lucky Spanish students! Read the rest of this entry »

Tags:brighton, Brighton Festival Fringe, festival, Italian, Languages, Spanish

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad, Language Courses UK | Comments(0)

Cactus made its first appearance in the Brighton Fringe Festival this weekend! Flamenco Flow had its two final ‘Flamenco con Fusion’ shows on Sunday 11th May - both a huge success - and, as sponsors, it was great to see our new banners on stage standing tall and proud. My work remit stretched to one dress change, handing out flyers for the Cactus Fringe events and even selling CDs! Read the rest of this entry »

Tags:Brighton Festival Fringe, dance, flamenco, language holidays, spain, Spanish

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad, Cactus TEFL, Cactus Tailormade, Language Courses New York, Language Courses UK, Learning a language, Press Release, Spanish | Comments(0)

We’re aware as a company that we’re effectively sending lots of people away each year on language courses abroad. This is great culturally and developmentally, but it generally means that people are taking flights too, which has implications for CO2 emissions.

Within our offices here in Brighton, we do whatever we can to minimise our waste. We recycle waste paper, card, plastic, tin cans, tetra packs, printer hardware and take it in turns to take home paper towels, tea bags, coffee grounds and fruit and food waste, to be composted in our respective homes. We also give staff an extra day’s holiday if they travel to a foreign destination other than by flying, and take up off this offer is good.

But how to work towards offsetting our clients’ behaviour as well as our own. We could subscribe to an offsetting service, such as Climate Care, who do a great job, but this approach has also been criticised as not really helping to discourage the behaviour of air travellers, but almost justifying further travel as the environmental effect has been “paid for” and can be forgotten.

We are therefore spending time working at offering alternative solutions to our travelling clients, and if you have any ideas, then please let us know. Travelling to a destination overland, though sometimes more time consuming, can be a great way of getting to know the country better of starting your holiday from the moment you get on that train, into the car, etc. and avoids a lot of the frenetic stress of airports.

 More about Cactus’ Green Policy

Tags:cactus green ethical policy, carbon offsetting, eco-tourism, green tourism

Posted in: Cactus Staff Opinion | Comments(0)

Cactus Sales Director Germaine Broadbent speaks about Cactus’ role in the Olympics

What a week for thoughts of the future - particularly London 2012 and the Olympics in general. Cactus’ involvement with the Olympic Games began in 2006 when Cactus Language Training successfully conducted an Olympic English Language Training Course for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics bid team. Sochi won and is now the host of the 2014 Olympic Games! I like to think that our support, research and solid teaching played a part in helping Sochi achieve the success it deserved. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags:Beijing, brighton, Cactus Language Training, in-company language training, London 2012, Olympic Games, Olympics, Sochi

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad, Cactus Tailormade, Language Courses New York, Language Courses UK | Comments(0)

The team at Cactus has a certain reputation for celebrating whatever event they can possibly justify to themselves is worth opening a bottle for. Birthdays stand out though, and usually see an amount of bubbling alcoholic liquid - be it Koelnsh, Cava or Kronenburg - combined with sickly M&S buns, biscuits and crisps.

Not, however, in the case of Cactus’ own Amy Emerson in Finance. The usual Cactus confection has been utterly upstaged, with the arrival of the latest in a long line of cakes from Amy’s mum. So massive thanks to Cakes R Us!

Cakes R Us
Novelty Cakes Made for All Occasions
Tel: 01273 323 562
Mobile: 07870 793 572

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TEFL Course Advisor Laura Harrison tells us about her Italian course in Cagliari, Sardinia 

For anyone wanting to sample that legendary Italian hospitality…and cookery, Cagliari is the place to go.

The school in Cagliari is a fantastic place to learn or improve your Italian. It benefits from a perfect city centre location, and is big enough to provide a good learning environment, but small enough that the atmosphere remains personal. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags:Cagliari, Italian course, language course, language learning, Sardinia

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad | Comments(0)

A government report today shows that the share of pupils in England’s schools speaking English as a second language has reached a new high.  The latest figures translate to around 470,080 pupils in primary schools and 354,300 pupils in seconday schools.

It’s clear that this trend is putting extra demands on schools and teachers alike, who are struggling to cope with the numbers of children arriving from abroad with little or no English.   In fact, local authorities have been calling for emergency funds to help them respond to these demands on education and other services.

Currently, there’s no specific money designated to ESOL training (English to Speakers of other Languages)  in state schools.  The government  needs to make money available but this shouldn’t come out of individual school budgets, as some schools are obviously more in need than others, particuarly in urban areas.

What’s required is a coherent nationwide strategy for ESOL provision.  In particular, SENCOs (Special Educational Needs Coordinators) and EAL link teachers (English as Additional Language) need to be given proper advice and support about training provision.  There also needs to be more funding to help children adapt culturally at their new schools, enabling them to integrate and feel part of school life.

Tags:BBC, ESOL, non-English speaking pupils

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad | Comments(0)

Senior Language Holiday Advisor Elvira Rodriguez tells us about her fam trip to Pamplona, Spain (April 08) 

Hemingway fell in love with Pamplona and wrote a few novels based on this proud and ancient capital of Navarra, especially its world-renowned festival of San Fermin (the running of the bulls). Beautiful novels came out of his experience under the titles of  A Dangerous Summer, Sun Also Rises and Death in the Afternoon. Despite Pamplona being widely known for this festival, it lasts just one week and the ”running” each day takes as little as 5 minutes! What do they do the rest of the year? Read the rest of this entry »

Tags:language learning, Navarra, Pamplona, pintxos, running of the bulls, spain, Spanish, wine tasting

Posted in: Cactus Languages Abroad, Cactus Staff Opinion, Learning a language, Spanish | Comments(0)