Last week guests, staff and volunteers at the Gatehouse were pleased to welcome Simon Airey from Corner Exotics into the community centre. Everybody was treated to a talk including topics such as biogeography, paleontology, evolution, climate change and animal welfare as well as a raft of cheesy jokes.
Guests were able to engage with a variety of animals ranging from a cute and fluffy chinchilla (which ended up on Operations Manager Zoe’s head!), a baby hedgehog, giant stick insects, a scorpion, frogs & toads, a tortoise, a chameleon and other lizards, a trio of tarantulas and snakes in ever increasing sizes up to a 15kg boa constrictor over 3m in length! The event was well attended by Gatehouse guests with many conquering fears and really getting up close and personal whilst handling these beasts.
As we were loading the car ready for Simon to depart, the boa constrictor even made a brief dash to escape with Simon explaining that by the time he got home he expected it to end up somewhere under his seat! This event was part of a range of practical, therapeutic, purposeful and educational workshops and activities taking place this year at the Gatehouse. Other workshops currently under way include art, a guest led talking group, and bicycle repair, with many more planned for the remainder of the year such as our building confidence and self-esteem workshsop as well as first aid and mental health first aid. See our Workshops & Activity Groups page for details of all our current workshops or the activities calendar on our Home page to see what is happening on any particular day.
This visit was also featured in an article on the Oxford Mail website which you can also read as a pdf version.
