Volunteering Opportunity in Luganville, Vanuatu

After a year in Luganville, Vanuatu on the waste management assignment with Volunteer Service Abroad I am now back at work in Auckland with GHD. The next phase of the project is an assignment for a Geo-Environmental Engineer/Scientist / Geotechnical Engineer which is now being advertised. Check out the link below for more details and please share with anyone within your network that you think might be interested in taking part. Its a great opportunity.

http://www.vsa.org.nz/what-you-can-do/volunteer-overseas-hub/volunteer-overseas/geo-environmental-engineer/

Holiday Update

I was supposed to update this blog by the end of July with a final report on the Vanuatu Assignment but a holiday in Ireland got in the way. I'll write the report when I get back to Auckland and post it in August.

The Assignment Ends.

Mary O'Reilly, myself, Gina Tari Buletare and Ryoma Masuda putting on brave faces. 

Is it a gate? Is it a fence? Is it abstract art?!

I had asked the carpenter to build stuff for me before and his work quality was excellent. What happened with this fence left me at a loss for words. I didn't bother questioning him. There must be a reason.

Article for Waste Management Trade Magazine

Vanuatu seeks waste management assistance from NZ organizations.

Are you keen to help your Pacific neighbours sort out their waste problems?

Through Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA), two New Zealand waste management volunteers have been working with the Luganville Municipal Council in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu to help improve the Municipals waste management planning, waste collection and waste disposal practices.  Sean Toland from GHD’s Auckland Office started in 2013 and Mary O’Reilly, previously at Christchurch City Council, started in 2011.

To date they have been very successful. The Samna Province and Luganville Municipality Waste Management Plan 2013-2016 was adopted and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed to promote cooperation between the Province and the Municipality on the provision of waste management services beyond the municipal boundary. A number of recycling initiatives have been introduced and major improvements in the operation and management of the open dump site have been put in place.

The next phase of the project is selecting a suitable site for a new landfill and developing a means to fund the design and construction phases, as well as closing the open dump site. The current site is very close to the airport and a runway extension planned for 2017 will increase its proximity.

This is where we would like to put a call out to any companies or professionals that may be interested in partnering with VSA and Luganville Municipal Council to assist them through this next important stage in their waste management planning.

There are a number of ways the partnership could work, but the initial focus will be on locating a site and conducting a site investigation which will require someone with Geotechnical / Environmental experience. The design and construction phase may require a full time Waste Management Engineer and of course any sort of financial support or dollar for dollar partnership would ensure that this project gets off the ground and is completed within a reasonable timeframe. Of course, reasonable timeframes are relative when it comes to working in Vanuatu!

If any of this appeals to you or you know of anyone who may be an ideal candidate for this, please get in touch with Sean: sean.toland@ghd.com or Mary maryeoreilly@gmail.com.

For more information on volunteering with VSA visit www.vsa.org.nz

For more information on progress of this project visit Facebook: Luganville Waste Management.

Sometimes Perfection is Worth the Wait.

I had a grand old time fighting with a radio station this last couple of weeks. Over two weeks ago we asked them to produce three ads for us to air for three consecutive months. The three ads were public information campaigns for;

1. Illegal burning of rubbish

2. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

3. Composting garden waste.

Our logo, Tito the Green Gecko, features in these ads. We finally got versions of ads that we had to make do with yesterday and they are playing the wrong ad today.

We have had them produce 2 ads previously for us and that was also a difficult process mainly because they never read their emails properly and don't follow instructions at all.

So with the three new ads we thought that given they did the previous ads it would be easy to reproduce the same sound and feel as the old ads. We wanted consistency and familiarity in our message delivery. 

In the first batch of ads we had asked that a well known DJ do the vocals as he is quite hi nrg, speaks numerous languages and seemed intelligent. We made the same request this time around, thinking that a familiar, friendly voice would do the trick.

So we thought we had him on the first 2 ads and they were exactly as I had imagined them and they were pretty perfect as far as I was concerned. Great background music, gecko vocal fx in the correct places, message spoken with the correct tone of voice and it was pretty damn good and sounded quite exciting stuff, despite it being waste management. 

At the same time, it took a long time to reach this perfection because they were nightmare people to deal with. But the perfection was worth the wait.

So I sent them the instructions this time around with the scripts, the gecko vocals, specs on music and vocals and sound effects and everything they needed so that it would be a simple process. Simple it was not.

The first versions came through and it was the exact opposite to what we asked for;

1. The music was funeral dirge quality, like a horrible version of Joy Division, like an especially turgid episode of Grays Anatomy. It was very traumatizing to listen to. 

2. The mix was murky, like a shipwreck at the bottom of the muddy sea.

3. The vocals were of 2 people, of a man and a woman. The woman was hesitant and sounding unsure of herself. Like this was the first time she had read the script, or the concepts were entirely new to her. They probably were. They sounded like bored university students, like something from the Open University or a dull Radio 2 broadcast. These ads were not going to encourage people into thinking positively about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, etc. It was gonna put the frighteners on people listening and ensure that we would be hated forever for ruining their days by nagging at them about how they should live their lives.

4. Worst of all it was really boring. 

So I had a bit of a complain to them via email because they never answer their phones, despite numerous calls and requests to return calls. So they tried again, but the DJ started delegating work to another producer/station manager. Apparently they were very busy. I was sure they were only busy because of incompetence.

The second version eventually came around and still the ads were completely off kilter. I cant remember what was wrong. It was a slight improvement but still they were using the wrong music and some of the script wasn't followed correctly.

I was getting desperate at this stage. I knew what I wanted but was not getting it. I was considering scrapping the ad campaign as it seemed like too much trouble, but it was a great way of getting the message out. It seemed very simple to me but the boys were not listening. 

If only I had the skills. If only I had a recording studio. If only I was in Port Vila I could sit in the studio with them. If only.....

I decided that desperate tactics were required. I wrote an email to the DJ and massaged his ego. I told him the reason we wanted his vocals on the ad was that he sounded great and he was the best and the previous ads were brilliant work and would he please hurry up because we wanted to hear his brilliant work again. I cc'd in his station manager as well. How low can one go to get what they want?

Later on I tried calling again and got speaking to the station manager. The station manager sounded like a clone of the DJ. The Station Manager confessed to being confused. The original ads were not the vocals of the DJ, but of the station manager, and did I really want the DJ to voice the ads? I was now quite confused and in a quandary (Hmm. I didn't know quandry was spelled like that). I had just polished someone's ego for no good reason. I told him I was confused and would ring back and told him that the original request for the first 2 ads were for the DJ to vocalise and why wasn't instructions followed?

I got over the confusion quickly and tried again. This time berating them halfheartedly, using office speak and offending myself entirely in the process. 

They tried again but it turned out that the IT dept had swept through like some evil bird of prey and deleted the music file I requested from the station computer. I told them I didn't care now and could they use music that sounded similar and how hard can it be?

Eventually after 15 days into a job that should have taken an hour and a half the 3 ads swung their way into my mail box with only minor technicalities affecting them, but not enough for me to want to go back to asking them to redo them. The ads sounded excellent apart from the fact you could hear a woman whisper something at the start of them all, an occasional wrong word used, the music slightly too high in the mix (the correct music too! With a seriously propulsive bassline which I hadn't noticed before.) and a mix that was fairly shoddy, sounding like it was spliced with a battle axe.

We had a listen and decided that the music was slightly too high so we managed to get that changed in super quick time.

We then asked for the ad campaign to start. One ad to air this month, and the other two to air in the following months. Naturally, this morning I listened to the radio to make sure they got the right ad on. Naturally, they got the wrong ad playing. Cue, the circus continues. Sometimes perfection is worth the wait.

Hilarious. And this isn't even half the story. 

Land Diving, The Island of Pentecost, Vanuatu, 26/4/14

HUP!

ARGH!!!! Who tied the rope?!

Pretty Cool, huh?

NEXT!!!!!