VOLUNTEER HELP WANTED, WORKING WITH NEW EVENTS TEAM

Gants Hill, London

    We are looking for a few volunteers to work with us in the creation of a new events group which is needing help to expand and may lead to part-time or full-time work. Hours are flexible, and successful candidates will be working on social media and liaising (联络) phone calls with organizations and groups. Candidates must speak excellent fluent English.

VOLUNTEER EVENTS ADMINISTRATION

Westminster, London

    We would like an enthusiastic and outgoing administration volunteer for our Events Team at our London Head Office. This opportunity would suit a well-organized person with an eye for detail and good computer skills. You will support our Events by sending thank-you letters, answering the telephone, and assisting with all aspects of event organization for 2 days a week.

LOVE MUSIC? WANT EVENTS EXPERIENCE?

Notting Hill, London

    Oxfam Notting Hill Takeover are looking for volunteers for our music festival on 19th October 2013. The festival takes place in 5 places in Notting Hill. This charity event will be showcasing over 30 bands and DJs and playing all forms of music. We need a team of volunteers to assist us on the day in order to make sure everybody has a good time. If you want to be a part of a great event to help us raise money for Oxfam then please come along to our open recruitment session (招聘会).

VOLUNTEERS WANTED!

Hillingdon, London

    Royal Voluntary Service is a national charity which delivers services through volunteers to help older people remain active and independent in their communities. We are growing our new Dementia Support Service in Hillingdon and need help from you! You will be required to have good communication skills.

A Koala Isn't a Bear

    Koalas remind people of teddy bears. They have thick fur and large ears. Their broad, flat nose makes them look cute, similar to teddy bears. In fact, koalas aren't cute. They have sharp teeth and very sharp claws! Koalas are marsupials. This means the mother carries her baby in a pocket while it develops, similar to a kangaroo. The baby koala lives in its mother's pocket for the first six months of its life.

    The name “koala” comes from a native Australian word that means “no drink”. The koalas get almost all their water from the eucalyptus (桉树) leaves they eat. That's where they get their food too. Koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves, and only the leaves of certain eucalyptus trees. The eucalyptus trees are where the koalas live. It's also where they sleep. Koalas sleep about nineteen hours a day!

    Why do they sleep so much? Some people think it's because they're lazy. But koalas aren't lazy. They sleep so much because there isn't much nutrition in eucalyptus leaves. Koalas store hardly any fat, so they must save their energy. One way to do this is to move slowly and sleep a lot.

    After a day of sleeping, they like to move around and eat just after sunset. They live alone most of the time. Koalas are very protective of their trees. If a koala sees another koala eating in its favorite tree, it might tell the other koala to leave by “barking” at it. Koalas do “talk” to each other. Besides barks, the males make a deep grunting sound. The mothers and babies talk in soft clicking sounds. If they get scared, they may scream like a baby.

    Theater is one of the oldest and most important art forms in world culture, it is also one of the richest art forms. Many people work together to bring a play to life. There are playwrights, directors, set designers, costumers, lighting technicians, and, of course, actors. If the performance is a musical, the skills of a songwriter, a choreographer, and musicians are also required. The excitement of opening night can be felt by the people waiting to watch a performance and by the performers and workers backstage waiting for the curtain to go up. Live theater is thrilling because no one really knows how well the play will go until it is performed.

    The word theater comes from the Greek theatron, which means "a place for seeing." One concept from Greek theater that is still seen in some plays today is the "Greek Chorus". This consists of several actors or characters watching the action of the play(almost like the audience) and then commenting on what whey just saw with either reactions or dialogue.

Although most people think of the theater in terms of a play performed on the stage, theater has taken on a much broader meaning in the modern world. You may find yourself walking into a theater with no seats in the rows. Instead, you are seated among the set pieces, which makes you part of the setting. Sometimes theater may come to life on a street corner, or in a classroom. The excitement of theater is in its very nature—-it is an art form that changes as it is interpreted(诠释) in different ways by different people. That is probably why the works of the greatest playwright of all time, William Shakespeare, are still performed and enjoyed today, both in classic and new interpretations.

    Despite an advertisement campaign suggesting wall-to-wall special effects, “Bridge of Terabithia” is grounded in reality far more than in fantasy. Adapting Katherine Paterson's award-winning novel, the screenwriters David Paterson and Jeff Stockwell have produced a thoughtful and extremely affecting story of a transformative friendship between two unusually gifted children. The result is a movie whose emotional depth could appeal more to adults than to their children.

    Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) is a sixth grader with four sisters, financially tensed parents and a talent for drawing. An introverted(内向的) kid who is regularly picked on by the school buses, Jess forms a bond with a new student named Leslie (Anna Sophia Robb), a free spirit whose parents, both writers, are fondly neglectful. An attraction between outsiders, their friendship feeds on her words and his pictures; together they create an imaginary kingdom in the woods behind their homes, a world they can control and where their minds can wander free.

    Beautifully capturing a time when a bully in school can occur as large as a monster in a nightmare and the encouragement of a teacher can alter the course of a life, “Bridge to Terabithia” keeps the fantasy in the background to find magic in the everyday. Gabor Csupo directs this, his first feature, like someone close to the pain of being different, fascinated in tiny, perfect details.

    With strong performances from all the leads, “Bridge to Terabithia” is able to handle adult topics with sensitivity. As the emotional landscape darkens, those who haven't read the book may be surprised at the sorrow the filmmakers cause without ever resorting to horror or terror. In other words, your children may cry, but they won't be traumatized so badly.

    Consistently smart and delicate as a spider web, “Bridge to Terabithia” is the kind of children's movie rarely seen nowadays. At a time when many public schools are being forced to cut music and art from the curriculum, the story's insistence on the healing power of a cultivated imagination is both welcome and essential.

    Metropolis Book Club

    Membership:

    All you need to do is fill out the order form at the bottom of the page, select your first order from our book list and then post the completed form back to us.

    Special offers for new members:

    As a special offer, you may choose any reduced-price books from our new members' book list, to the value of 100 yuan in total.

    Tick the box on your form to order a free watch.

    Join before the end of this month and you receive another free book carefully chosen by our staff.

    Order an audio-book from the many on offer, at half the recommended retail price.

    When you've joined:

    As a member you get around 50% off the publisher's price of every book you buy, and what's more, they come straight to your door. Your free club magazine arrives once a month to keep you up to date with the latest best-sellers we've added to our list. On the Internet, you can find all our titles for the year at our exclusive members' website. Our website also has a book swap service where members can request or offer books for exchange.

    Being a member:

    All you have to do is order four books during your first year. After that, you can decide on the number of books you wish to take.

    In each of your monthly club magazines, our experienced staff choose a "Book of the Month" for you, which is offered at an extra-special price. If you do not want this book, just say so in the space provided on the form and send it back to us. We always send the book if we do not receive this form.

    Once we receive your order, your books are delivered within one week. And remember, you have up to a fortnight to decide if you wish to keep the books you have ordered. If they aren't what you expected just send them back!

    When Huang Lizhi took her first class in African sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa in February, her professor asked her and her classmates what impresses them most when it comes to Africa.

    Unexpectedly, Huang, 31, found that words like "poverty" and "safari" – negative words that were often associated with the continent in media reports – were the kind of terms her African classmates didn't want to hear. Instead, they preferred to hear the question answered in this way: "Africa is the cradle of humankind" and "Africans are passionate and generous".

    Apparently, there are some misunderstandings between us. It's true that with incidents like the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa and the emergence (出现) of pirates off the coast of Somalia hitting the news, it's easy for us to keep forgetting that Africa has one of the world's oldest civilizations – Egypt, born by the world's longest river, the Nile. The proof is in the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx of Giza, which are both popular among tourists. And the tombs of ancient Egypt have also become endless sources for the literature and film industries.

    When it comes to the natural environment of Africa, our misunderstandings are only bigger. But the truth is that instead of being extremely hot all year and covered by desert, the continent has large areas of savannas (稀树草原) where lions, giraffes and zebras live, the snowcapped Kilimanjaro – the highest mountain in Africa – and even thick forest on the island of Madagascar. These misunderstandings are one of the reasons why the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was held on Sept 3 and 4 – to understand each other better.

    Indeed, only by visiting Africa herself did Huang see the convenient living conditions, the amazing natural beauty and the friendly people. In her eyes, her classmates were as hopeful about the future of their own countries as they were about Africa as a whole, and they were quick to demonstrate both their strong will and activity. "At that moment, I knew exactly what they wanted – they wanted their culture to be respected."