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| A sunset recently - carefully cropped to avoid ugly razor-wire and buildings. |
On return from New Ireland we prepared for a week of training. NARI staff from Aiyura Highlands Regional Centre came down to Lae and were joined by a few from NARI Port Moresby, the Coconut Industry Board in Madang and PNG Biosecurity folk from Lae, Port Moresby and Rabaul. With colleague Boney Wera we ran Scientific Writing, Spreadsheet Basics, Experimental Design and Data Analysis, Soft Skills and Leadership and Supervisory skills. The shuffling of people through the available accommodation sadly meant that a few people couldn't do everything they wanted. Otherwise it went well with lots of positive feedback. The NARI guesthouse, drivers and catering staff do a great job.
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| Me delivering Scientific Writing training. |
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You haven't done the training unless you have a certificate to prove it.
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| You can pick the trainers as they are the ones without certificates. |
Following that we geared up for the 2026 Food and Nutrition Conference which was held at the University of Technology here in Lae. Some 400 people attended from many organisations and from all over the country. The conference was well run apart from time keeping. Some people when given the opportunity to ask a question insist on giving us a summary of their 30 years of experience in the industry and then, when prompted by the chair, begrudgingly ask their question. We were usually an hour late after the morning session.
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| Every session was live-streamed via Zoom and Facebook. Sadly the operators occasionally forgot to unmute before starting the stream. The technology mostly worked well. |
I was interested in the quality of the presentations given that I have been running training on this. Most presenters could do with some training. Common problems were: running out of time, not rehearsing, slides that had too much information, distracting transitions and animations, not getting across a couple of key points. The worst offenders seemed to be some of the more senior, experienced people. I chaired a session which started about 20 mins late and while waiting for everyone to arrive I asked those assembled if I should show any mercy to wafflers during question time. No! was the unanimous answer. So I kept things tight, my speakers were excellent, we had a good series of questions and finished 10 minutes early.
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| I was often distracted by the huge numbers of Great Flying-Foxes that regularly drifted across the campus. |
We have two weeks left. Next week is a big training week for staff from the NARI Tambul High Altitude Regional Centre (up near Mount Hagen) and a few other organisations. Hopefully we have a better timetable this time and everyone will be able to attend what they want. If the overwhelmingly positive feedback is to be believed, I think we have really made a great contribution with this aspect of our time here. I'm not sure what we will do in the last week...
The only bird sighting of note in recent weeks was a pair of Ruby-throated Myzomelas (a species of small honeyeater) in the bush just across our fence. We have had a lot of rain recently and I hoped that this would see a movement of birds down from the mountains. Sadly this has not been apparent. Plenty of interesting bugs and other creatures to keep me busy however. Most days I find something to photograph and submit to iNaturalist. Some recent highlights:
When we returned from Queensland after our Christmas-New Year holiday, our fruit and veggie market at 9-mile was no more. It apparently had been infiltrated by rascals and the police solved the problem by shutting the market down. It was always supposed to open once things settled down but it hasn't. This has meant that we have been going to the main market in town every Saturday morning. Probably the worst day and time but we haven't a choice. I don't enjoy it! It is very crowded, hard to get to by car, full of touts, probably full of pickpockets, often muddy etc. The quality is great however and the supermarkets are expensive and have poor quality. Today was our second last visit to the market. It is actually a temporary market as the original one burnt down. A new one is being built from scratch by The Australian and New Zealand governments and should be open early next year. It sounds like it will be a much more pleasant experience for both sellers and buyers.
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