10 things you didn’t know about Cactus
Thursday, 16th April 2009
In the 10 years that Cactus has been in existence, its number of employees has grown from 1 to over 30. The company now has offices in both Brighton and New York.
Cactus’ success in becoming one of the leading language training companies worldwide is attributable to many things, but largely the hard work and dedication of its varied and international team of employees.
Here are 10 things that you probably didn’t know about us and our development into the company that we are today!
1. We started as a coach excursions company for foreign students and were originally called Travel Santa Fe.
2. We were the very first company in our industry to take online bookings and payments from our clients…and that’s a fact. The original drop down booking form has since been copied by a number of competitors.
3. We used to have a department called Cactus Education and had a person working full time for us in Shanghai, China.
4. We are the only company in our industry to offer such a diverse range of language training options for the client, including evening language classes, language courses abroad and tailor made language training options.
5. Between us we speak 15 languages - English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Welsh, Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, Hindi, Telugu and Sanskrit.
6. Over 90% of us have lived in at least one foreign country.
7. A quarter of our permanent staff are fluent, but non-native speakers of English.
8. Cactus TEFL’s ELA program was nominated for a British Council Innovation award in 2008.
9. In our Brighton office, there are daily battles over what gets put on the CD player. Our US team have now progressed to an Ipod and are more democratic about what gets played, apparently!
10. Our favourite after work haunts include the Cricketers, the Black Lion, The Bath Arms and the Waggon and Horses in Brighton, and the Gingerman on 36th street in New York.
Tags: cactus tefl, language course, new york, brighton, language, languages, cactus, italian, tefl, german, french, spanish, english
Posted by Laura Harrison 2009-04 under Success Stories,
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