The summer holidays are upon us again. Here is our guide to summer holiday fun in Peterborough!

Peterborough Museum

    The Age of the Dinosaurs' is the museum' s main attraction this summer. Get up close to prehistoric creatures via some great hands-on exhibits! Watch out for monsters lurking (潜伏）around every ember! The museum is open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday to Saturday, and from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm on Sundays in August.

Call 01733 864663 for details.

Saxon Youth Club

    School holiday fun: Young people aged 13-19 will be able to produce their own music, compete in spots activities, or try their hand at cooking at Saxon Youth Club, Saxon Community Center, Norman Road, Peterborough every Monday and Wednesday from 3:00 pm. PLUS an aero ball tournament will take place on Thursday, 12^th August between 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm.

Houghton Mill

    Alice through the Looking Class－a new production of the family favorite on Monday, 30^th August. Bring rugs or chairs to sit on and a picnic if you wish to eat during the play. Gates open 5:30 performance 6:30 pm-8:30 pm. Tea room will be open until end of the interval. Adult £10. Child £7. Family £20.

Farmland Museum and Denny Abbey

    Farmland Games: From Wellie Wanging to Pretend Ploughing matches, come and join the Farmland Team. Collect your sporting stickers and create a colorful rosette （玫瑰形饰物）that is fit for a winner! No need to book, just turn up between 12:00 pm and 4:00 pm on Thursday, 19^th August. Suitable for children aged four and above, each child should be accompanied by an adult and all activities are included in the normal admission price. Tickets Cost £7 per child.

For further information, call 01223 810080.

    Last Friday, after doing all the family shopping in town I wanted a rest before catching the train, so I bought a newspaper and some chocolate and went into the station coffee shop. It was a cheap self-service place with long table to keep a place and went to get a cup of coffee.

    When I came back with the coffee, there was someone in the next seat. It was one of those wild-looking boys, with dark glasses and old clothes, and his hair was colored bright red at the front. What did surprise me was that he'd started to eat my chocolate.

    I was rather uneasy about him, but I didn't want to make more trouble. I just looked down at the front page of the newspaper, tasted my coffee and took a bit of chocolate. The boy looked at me closely. Then he took a second piece of chocolate. I could hardly believe it. Still I didn't say anything to him. When he took a third piece, I felt angrier. I thought, well, I shall have the last piece. “And I got it.”

    The boy gave me a strange look, and then stood up. As he left he shouted out, “There is something wrong with the woman,” Everybody looked at me, but it was worse then I finished my coffee and got ready to leave. My face turned red when I knew I'd made a mistake. I wasn't my chocolate that I had eaten. There was mine, just under my newspaper.

    An open office is supposed to force employees to cooperate. To have them talk more face to face. To get them off instant messenger (IM) and brainstorming new ideas. But a recent study by two researchers offers evidence to support what many people who work in open offices already know: It doesn't really work that way. The noise causes people to put on headphones and tune out. The lack of privacy causes others to work from home when they can. And the sense of being in a fishbowl means many choose email over a desk-side chat.

    Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban, two Harvard Business School professors, studied two Fortune 500 companies that made the shift to an open office environment from one where workers had more privacy. Using “sociometric” electronic badges (徽章) and microphones, as well as data on email and instant messenger use by employees, the researchers found in the first study that after the organization made the move to open-plan offices, workers spent 73% less time in face-to-face interaction. Meanwhile, email use rose 67% and IM use went up 75%.

    The participants wore the badges and microphones for several weeks before the office was redesigned and for several after, and the company gave the researchers access to their electronic communications. The results were astonishing. “We were surprised by the degree to which we found the effect,” Bernstein said. The badges could tell that two people had a face-to-face interaction without recording actual spoken words. The researchers were careful to make sure other factors weren't in question—the business cycle was similar, for instance, and the group of employees were the same.

    In a second study, the researchers looked at the changes in interaction between specific pairs of colleagues, finding a similar drop in face-to-face communication and a smaller but still significant increase in electronic correspondence.

    Another wrinkle in their research, Bernstein said, is that not only did workers shift the way of communication they used, but they also tended to interact with different groups of people online than they did in person. Moving from one kind of communication to another may not be all bad—“maybe email is just more efficient,” he said—but if managers want certain teams of people to be interacting, that may be lost more than they think. The shift in office space could “have strong effects on productivity and the quality of work”.

    Bernstein hopes the research will offer evidence that will help managers consider the possible trade-offs of moving to an open office plan. In seeking a lower cost per square foot, they buy into the idea that it will also lead to more cooperation, even if it's not clear that's true. “I don't blame the architects,” he said. “But I do think we spend more of our time thinking about how to design workplaces based on the observer's angle”—the manager—“rather than the observed.”

    TOASTMASTERS

    Toastmasters is an international organization, designed to develop effective speaking and listening skills. It was set up in 1924 by Ralph Smedley and it's headquartered in California. It has a double purpose: the personal growth and strong effective communication skills.

    Who is Toastmasters open to?

    Many people think Toastmasters is open only to those who wish to be professional speakers, but that is not true. Toastmasters is open to the public at large. Any person who wishes to improve his public speaking is welcome. And also, those who just want to increase their overall self-confidence are encouraged to attend.

How can Toastmasters help you?

    Joining Toastmasters, a person will learn different methods of communicating what he really wants to say, and equally important, he will learn what the audience expects so he can send that message to them in an organized way. Some people are comfortable around friends, but when they appear before a group they don't know, they get nervous. The organization helps its members to get calm and organize thoughts, and express them in an effective way.

    Most often, people assume that when one is listening, he is also paying attention. This is not always true. Many times people are waiting for their turn to speak and are not really listening at all. Toastmasters can develop a person overall in organizing their thoughts, getting information from others and receiving effective feedback（反馈）.

    How does Toastmasters train people?

    Toastmasters has a way of learning by doing. The Toastmasters International Organization provides a menu called the basic menu because it gives a guideline for the development of speeches. These speeches can meet different purposes. For example, one might need voice training; another might be to organize his thoughts or develop use of humor in speeches. There is an eight-week program for young people and also an eight-week speech course offered for adults. As a person continues to give speeches and improve, he progresses from the point of being fearful to stand before a group to the point where he can speak to any group of people with confidence.

    I've come back to check on a baby. Just after dusk I'm in a car down a muddy road in the rain, past rows of shackled (戴镣的) elephants, their trunks swinging. I was here five hours before, when the sun was high and hot and tourists were on elephants' backs.

    Walking now, I can hardly see the path with my phone's flashlight. When the wooden fence post stops me short, I point my light down and follow a current of rainwater across the floor until it washes up against three large, gray feet. A fourth foot twisted above the surface, tied tightly by a short chain and choked by ring of metal spikes (尖刺). When the elephant gets tired and puts her foot down, the spikes press deeper into her ankle.

    Meena is four years and two months old, still a child as elephants go. Khammon Kongkhaw, her caretaker, told me earlier that Meena wears the spiked chain because she tends to kick. Kongkhaw has been responsible for Meena here at Maetaman Elephant Adventure, near Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, since she was 11 months old. He said he keeps her on the spiked chain only during the day and takes it off at night. But it's night now.

    I ask Jin Laoshen, the Maetaman worker, why her chain is still on. He says he doesn't know.

    Maetaman is one of many animal attractions in and around tourist-crowded Chiang Mai. Meena's life is set to follow the same track as many of the roughly 3,800 captive (被捕获的) elephants in Thailand. When Meena is too old or sick to give rides—maybe at 55, maybe at 75, she'll die. If she's lucky, she'll get a few years of retirement. She'll spend most of her life on a chain.

    When a terrible earthquake hit, many people were killed and many houses fell down. After the earthquake, all the newspapers reported many stories about some of the families who were in trouble.

    One Sunday, when I was reading a newspaper, a special picture touched me. It gave the clothing sizes of each family member. I thought that this would be a good chance to teach my children to help those who were less lucky than ourselves. I said to my seven-year-old twins, Brad and Brett, and three-year-old Meghan. "We have so much, and these poor people now have nothing. We'll share what we have with them."

    I filled a box with foods and clothes. While I was doing this, I encouraged the boys to choose their toys and donate some of their less favorite things. Meghan watched quietly as the boys took out their old toys and games and put them together. Then she walked away. A few minutes later she came back with Lucy, her much-loved doll. She put the doll on top of the other toys. "Oh, dear," I said. "You don't have to give Lucy. You love her so much." Meghan said, "Lucy makes me happy, Mommy. Maybe she'll make another little girl happy, too."

    I looked at Meghan for a long moment. She taught me a lesson. It's easy to give something that we don't want any more, but harder to give what we cherish (珍爱), isn't it?