Australia Zoo will host a presentation at the Beerwah RSL on Tuesday, January 4 th at 6:30pm with key note speakers Joe Hefferman, Indochina Elephant Program Coordinator for Fauna and Flora International (FFI) and Matt Hunt, Animal Husbandry Specialist for WildAid, (a non-profit organisation all about eliminating the trade of wildlife products). The presentation evening will raise funds and awareness to aide some of the world’s most endangered animals in one of the most beautiful, yet struggling wildlife habitats.

This important conservation project furthers Australia Zoo’s relationship with FFI, the oldest conservation organisation in the world. Previously Australia Zoo and FFI have worked together to save the endangered tigers in Sumatra. Now the focus is on Cambodia - it’s wildlife really needs help!

Cambodia , at the end of 30 years of civil unrest is slowly rebuilding. Economic development is the country’s highest priority, while wildlife and their habitats struggle to survive. Elephants, Siamese Crocodiles, Sun Bears and Tigers are some of the animal kingdom’s most magnificent creatures and by crikey – they are at risk! Wildlife poaching is rampant and the trade of wildlife products is increasing. This, along with rapid large scale forest clearance is causing Cambodia’s most stunning wildlife species to face severe pressure and possible extinction!

Humans really do need animals and the sad fact is that extinction is not a thing of the past. Imagine future generations saying, “Once upon a time there were these beautiful big cats called ‘Tigers’”. Here is your chance to be actively involved in the ever-important conservation of wildlife.

Make sure one of your New Year’s resolutions is to help save our precious wildlife and come along to the Beerwah RSL on Tuesday, January 4 th by 6:30pm. Your gold coin donation upon entry really will help!

Sunshine Coast Rugby League export, Chris Flannery, was home for the holidays and brought his sister, Elissa, to check out Australia Zoo on Christmas Eve. Catching up with one of his feathered friends was the highlight of the day for this Sydney City Rooster, who took on the challenge of having a Wedge-tail Eagle fly and land on his arm with one of our incredible Animal Encounters!

BW and Renee in the Wonder Factory with Volunteers Barry and Clare and some little friends

As well as entertaining the crowds at the Zoo, BW also loves to visit the sick children at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. BW and I have been visiting the children for 12 months. Our last visit to the Hospital was on the 9 th of December. We all had a great time with lots of goodies to give the children including signed postcards of Steve and Terri, Zoo stickers and pencils and even little BW toys. Of course there are lots of hugs and handshakes from BW Croc. I think the nursing staff even enjoys it as much as the children.

Each month we are taken around the Patterson, McConnell, Surf and Banksia wards by a volunteer staff member from the Wonder Factory. The Wonder Factory is a fun entertainment area where those children well enough to leave their rooms can go and play for a while.

For those children who are not well enough to leave their rooms BW will always try to pop in and say hello and drop off some goodies. She always manages to bring a smile to the face of a child, not to mention their parents!

Renee from marketing and Scott from Entertainment

The local Christmas celebrations, organised by the Beerwah & District Business Association and Pastor Les Peel, of Beerwah’s Church on the Rise, were an absolute smash hit! Our very own Ben Powney went along to represent Australia Zoo as emcee of the evening. By all accounts Ben entertained the crowd thoroughly with corny jokes and anecdotes – everything you would want for an evening full of Christmas cheer!

One audience member was lucky enough to win an awesome shopping spree at Australia Zoo’s Crocoseum Boutique! Lisa Pollock, a Beerwah local, brought her son, Sam, in to claim her prize. Lisa said this prize came at a good time for her family as they had experienced a rough time lately. “This is just perfect. Right before Christmas, this is exactly what we needed” Lisa said, “Australia Zoo is the best!”.

The best part is that the prize was won by true supporters of Australia Zoo. The Pollocks’ are annual pass holders and spend many weekends at Australia’s Top Tourism Export. “The annual pass is great. We come here all the time. We just can’t get enough of it!” Lisa said.

We’re so pleased it went to such a deserving family! It’s a Happy Christmas for the Pollocks!

E-mail info@australiazoo.com.au to find out how you can become an annual pass holder.

This month the Crocodile Hunter’s Australia Zoo club gained its 1000th member! Crikey! The lucky member was six-year-old Aaron from New South Wales in Australia, who is a dead-set Crocodile Hunter fan. When we contacted Aaron to tell him the great news, we found out he was coming to Australia Zoo with his family to visit Charlie the Saltwater Crocodile and a Long-necked turtle, the animals at the zoo that Aaron and his sister Renae have adopted in our ‘Adopt an Animal’ program.

We decided to give Aaron an extra special treat during his visit for being our 1000th club member. As you can see, Aaron, who was all decked out in his Crocodile Hunter gear, got to meet the oldest living animal in captivity in the world – Harriet, the Giant Galapagos Land Tortoise. Aaron was lucky enough to hand feed Harriet and give her a scratch under her shell – which is Harriet’s favourite thing! What a little ripper! Congratulations Aaron, we hope you enjoyed your day and have a ball being a certified Zoo Club member! If you want to become a you-beaut Australia Zoo Club member click here.

The Crocodile Hunter is running scared… it’s 28’ long and weighs over 2.5 tonnes! Crikey, it’s the biggest croc ever and it has just landed at Australia Zoo! Everyone can help wrangle this one, because it is actually a replica built to scale. Phew! So come along and feel free to climb all over it without the worry of the death rolls, tail slaps and that incredible jaw pressure!

Holy smokes mate! Australia Zoo is providing a once in a lifetime opportunity for enthusiastic performing arts students from the Sunshine Coast region, to perform in front of an audience of thousands. Terri Irwin originally proposed the concept of the students showcasing their talent at Australia Zoo, and the search was on!

Most local Sunshine Coast schools where informed of the opportunity, and those that were interested instantly created a script and started rehearsals. Within a 3 month deadline and children's pantomime criteria, Kawana State High School, Maroochydore State High School and Beerwah State High School beat the deadline, and are currently performing short children's pantomimes in the Crocoseum. Get a load of this!

Kawana State High School performed 'Rat in the Hat' on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of December. Their presentation involved over 15 enthusiastic performing arts students. The show was based on 'Cat in the Hat' and involved similar characters from 'Dr Suess' and 'The Grinch'.

Beerwah State High School performed 'Time Travel' on the 16th, 17th, 18th of December.

Maroochydore State High School performed 'Animal Idol' and 'Why shouldn't we hunt?' on the 19th , 20th, 21st and 22nd of December. There is always something new and exciting to see in the Crocoseum at Australia Zoo! Make sure you grab your seat these school holidays.

Brian, our retail manager is one very pretty boy! What a crack up!

Okay, I realize this isn’t exactly riveting news, but I just had to let you all share in my excitement! We got a new camera! Wooo-hoo!

Fuji kindly provided the promotions department with a brand new Fujifilm FinePix F410 digital camera so we can snap away when we attend all kinds of events. Of course, I had to figure out how to use it... so Eliza from photography gave me a crash course and I had loads of fun testing out the new gear!

Check out the Zoo Crew posing for me! Gee, they’re a shy bunch!

As you can see from these awesome photos, the new camera is a smash hit!

Sally
Promotions Manager

Bindi cutting Harriet's birthday cake

On November 15th, Harriet’s 174th Birthday was an absolute blast! Shelby the Tortoise and Harry the Hare raced around the Zoo all day, while the Gubbi Gubbi dance troupe impressed crowds with their indigenous performances.

What a cake! Harriet’s birthday cake was incredible – a massive mountain of chocolate mud cake, shaped and iced to look exactly like the birthday girl herself! Thousands of visitors enjoyed a slice and there was still stacks left at the end of the day for afternoon tea among the staff.

It wasn’t long before we could enjoy more yummy birthday cake... the cutest Zoo baby of all, Robert Irwin, turned one year old on Wednesday 1st December! This time, we all enjoyed eating a massive cake in the shape of Humphrey B Bear! Our dear friend, Humphrey even came along to perform and sing Happy Birthday to little Robert, who along with big sis, Bindi, starred in the launch of the BRAND NEW Bob & Bindi Wear! Now, we’re gearing up for a ripper holiday season and New Year!

Have a go at this bonza letter we received:

Harriet having a feast on her favourite flower, Hibiscus

Hi Jenny and all at Australia Zoo,

My name is Tina Brown and I am a floristry student at the North Brisbane College of TAFE, Grovely campus. Recently I completed my certificate 2 in floristry, the final assessment was to promote a business with the use of flowers and various props -the area we were allowed was 2m high and 1 metre square. I contacted you and you very kindly sent me posters and brochures to use, thank you so much Jenny for all your help. I was thrilled to stand back and hear all the comments from our visitors and guests who attended our wine/judging night. Some of the comments I heard were how interesting the display was.

The thing that really made me smile was the little children who congregated in front of our display - I had made a snake nest and drained an egg and had a little snake emerging from it, they were so interested and discussing amongst themselves about Australia Zoo - when they'd been there and how much they'd loved it and of course how much they loved Steve.

The best news of all is that our display WON! Our prize was for the best use of sponsorship. The prize was a mister/sprayer water bottle - complete with brass fittings, a really useful prize for a florist, it's a large one so very practical.

Thank you for giving me the honour of promoting Australia Zoo- I really put my heart into it because I am proud of Australia Zoo and glad it is on the Sunshine Coast, where I live. The horticulture teachers and students also came to look at our display and were very impressed too. I'm sure Steve's handsome face must have won the judges over as well. I know I have told you already, but if you need any flowers done just ring me and I'll be happy to help. Thanks again for everything.

Yours sincerely
Tina Brown

We heard that Tina’s display featuring Australia Zoo was absolutely awesome, so we decided to take her up on her offer to recreate it for us here at the Zoo! You can check out her beautiful floristry on Australia Day, Wednesday 26th January. Best of all, you can even have the chance to win one of Tina’s drop dead gorgeous arrangements when you get in early and enter the draw before 9:00am on the day! What a little beauty!

Click here to check out what’s happening at Australia Zoo on Australia Day!

Sally Townsend
Promotions

Chris Chamberlain, owner of CC’s Croc Connections handing over the cheque to sponsor Kahn one of our gorgeous Bengal Tigers

For more information about sponsoring animals at Australia Zoo click here.

Jenny - Marketing

I was lucky enough to escape the office and make my way to Melbourne with a cracking sales team representing the Sunshine Coast. I was accompanied by Jane from Underwater World, Don from Sunshine Coast Airports, Andrew from Tourism Noosa and Amy from Tourism Sunshine Coast. We spent a hectic 3 days in the city and regional areas selling the Sunshine Coast and the great attractions and accommodation we have to offer. Australia Zoo was very well received by all the travel agents we visited (especially after I gave them a CRIKEY! pen to play with) and they were very interested to hear what is going on up here in Sunny Queensland with all our new expansions.

The best part of the trip was when we got to take out the staff from the Queensland Travel Centre and reward them for their hard work. These agents are the best of the best when it comes to selling Queensland and that means getting people to the Best Major Tourist Attraction in Australia!

Melbourne City has a great new bowling alley called STRIKE! so off we went for a bit of friendly bowling!

As you can see by our crazy “Sunshine Coast” shirts we definitely made an impact on the Travel Agents in Melbourne, most of the time we had to escape their offices before they called the fashion Police!

Renee – Domestic Marketing Coordinator

Carly and Krystal.

Here at Australia Zoo, we celebrate many special events.

Every month we have a promotional day Eg: Mothers Day, Valentines Day or Australia Day ...we celebrate them all.

This last month we celebrated Halloween on Sunday the 31st. The day was filled with free monster muffins, trick or treating, games, prizes, free pony rides and you could meet Dracula and Casper the friendly ghost.

Just about all the Zoo staff dressed up in costumes and even some guests dressed up in the Halloween spirit too. From top to bottom the Zoo was covered in Halloween decorations and it looked great!

Now of course the rovers always love to lend a helping hand, we had so much fun cutting out wacky pumpkin designs and they worked out really well. Who knows it maybe a new skill to add to our job description? “pumpkin sculpting”

Halloween was a blast; lots of colour and fun everywhere you went just like every promotional day. This November the 15th we have a big birthday party for Harriet our Giant Galapagos Land Tortoise. She’s turning 174 and boy does she look great!!!!

So join us on Monday the 15th for a fun filled action packed day.

ROVING CARLY

BW Croc, Ben and Adam entertaining guests in the Crocoseum.

Just recently our entertainers conducted a survey to evaluate the most commonly asked question at ‘Australia Zoo’. Obviously one of the most common questions was, ‘Where’s Steve? This question was ranked as the second most popular. The most popular question was “Is BEN single?” Out of the two people surveyed this was the startling result. (Just Joking – Ben wishes).

ROVING ENTERTAINMENT

What a ripper!
Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie awarded Steve with a special award for his “outstanding contribution to exporting” at the glitzy Export Awards held in Brisbane. Australia Zoo also picked up the Tourism Award on the evening. The Premier acknowledged that Steve’s contribution to exporting had “put Australia Zoo on the map for the hundreds of thousands international visitors to Queensland”. Wooo-hoo!

Some of the Zoo Crew headed out for the evening to accept the award – and a few even made it into the local newspaper…

MARKETING

All of the Zoo crew including Steve, Terri and Bindi, help celebrate Frank's birthday.

This was a little gathering on Wednesday 29th September for Frank - our General Manager’s birthday…..we didn’t mention 45 did we?! It makes his star-sign Libra. That is symbolized by scales which means he’s really good at keeping things at balance – certainly a great trait for his job here. We all wanted to wish him a huge happy birthday!!!!

You will see some faces here that you easily recognize and others you don’t! If you have a look at the Zoo Crew section of our website, you can find out more about everyone (give you some hints for us others…office, hr, retail). Trust Stuart to do the peace sign behind Wes – he’ll never be able to deny it now that i’ve put it on the web for everyone to see! Bindi looks a little ruffled only because she had just finished giving us all a boxing demonstration with her Dad. She has a great left jab…and also a left, right, left!

HUMAN RESOURCES

Wednesday 22nd September 04 saw Amanda Gruenert saying farewell to her staff mates and some of her best friends. As you can see, she’s pregnant and about to give birth! The family thing really happens around here and we seem to have a real trend for pregnancies. In fact, we’re actually blaming one particular chair at reception and advising females not to sit on it at all! (unless they want to be pregnant of course).

Amanda’s farewell saw Frank our General Manager say a few words and there was nearly tears from Amanda and some in the crowd. Then of course Jodie & Kelsey had to relive some of the more jovial moments – Briano glue-ing the computer mouse to the desk…linking all the paper clips together (don’t ya hate that!)...and many more practical jokes. Amanda started five and a half years ago when there was only twelve staff working at the Zoo. Back then, she also presented some shows - the Otters, Harriet and had assisted with the Crocs.

It is sad to see Amanda leave, and even Steve looked like he was getting a little choked during his speech. Terri and Steve still managed to give a bit of ‘stick’ to Amanda and had everyone in ‘stitches’ with tales of their recent Bob adventures. GOOD LUCK AMANDA – you’ll be a great mum!

HUMAN RESOURCES

Helen teaching the Rovers First Aid

Have a look at this group! Every week, the Rovers schedule to refresh and improve their first aid skills. Here they are with ‘Auntie Helen’ from First Aid at the Crocoseum. As you can see they’re working through three different skills – CPR, using the Blood Pressure Kit and Bandaging. Helen goes around to each department on her daily journeys checking on how the staff are and also throwing in a few quiz questions that start with “what would you do if……?” Many of the departments are now chasing Helen trying to get their team booked in. We’re really proud of the high standards we’re achieving in First Aid and safety throughout the entire Zoo.

We do think it’s got to do with the bribes though. We’ve heard on the grapevine that Helen rewards with Caramello Koalas and Freddo Frogs! …and that Sandy (HR Manager) and Helen go to the Machinery Shed with the Building Services team every few weeks to take them cakes for smoko! Maybe we may be able to get some evidence of this in future gossip...

HUMAN RESOURCES

BW Croc

Can you spot the differences? Here she is having fun around the zoo. BW is actually growing up! We thought she just had a make-over but I’ve been informed that she is entering her teens. Please don’t make a fuss! You know what young girls are like!!!

BW has been very busy lately rehearsing…..mmm…wonder what that’s about? Stay tuned as I’ve heard we may be putting on a children’s show later in the year. Our entertainers and marketing have been trying to work out dance steps etc! Can’t wait – it could be hilarious or even then next big hit!!!

HUMAN RESOURCES

Warren and Alan

Every promotion day, our Human Resources Department announce a staff competition. It may be to write a poem as for Valentine’s Day but often it is to promote a fun dress up day for the staff (as if we don’t have enough fun already!).

Last year we suggested that staff dress up for Fathers’ Day and we only saw a few with any imagination. This year we were in stitches – have a look at these two! Warren Marshall was judged as the winner by our ‘mystery judges’ and Alan Sawyer was probably the happiest dad in the world that day (he treats all our guests like they are his family). Both of these staff belong to the Steve’s Safari Shuttle and they always put in huge effort on ‘promo’ days. Can’t wait to see what comes out this Halloween – it will certainly be gruesome!

Remember to keep checking out our website for updates and all the fun & excitement around the zoo…

HUMAN RESOURCES

Helen and Shane

As usual Shane and I have been having disagreements about whose backpack is the most user friendly. I had better explain about the backpacks. The Zoo’s First Aid team is a bit different to a lot of other places as we are a mobile unit. Most of the time you will find us walking around the Zoo, helping out when needed. Our backpacks allow us to carry a lot of first aid bits and pieces with us so we don’t have to go back to a room to put a bandaid on a scratch. Pretty cleaver aren’t we?

The problem started because Shane thinks his backpack is the tidiest and I know my pack has everything in the exact spot that I need it. Just because sometimes things tend to pop out of my bag doesn’t mean that it is untidy. Well really it is not untidy it is just…user friendly!

Shane keeps telling me that my pack is worse than his wife’s handbag, I think he just doesn’t understand what is essential. You can see by the photo that everything in my bag is helpful for a day at Australia Zoo!

FIRST AID

The front of house staff is the first point of call for all visitors to Australia Zoo. You will always be met by a smiling person at the ticket booths and these people will be only too happy to answer any questions that you may have about the Zoo or the day ahead of you. Why not take the time to meet some of the staff you may meet on your journey to Australia Zoo.

Wow- what an exciting couple of weeks we have had at admissions. Since the beginning of July we have served thousands of people from all over Australia and the world.

Our highlight of July was celebrating Bindi's Birthday where we were all able to dress up as fairies for the day- just one of the pleasures of working at admissions. We all had a ball with our fairy wings and wands and I'm sure that all the children that visited had a great time. There was face painting, pony rides, a fairy garden and everyone got to sing Happy Birthday to Bindi as she cut her cake. Everyone had a great day! Don't forget to let us know at admissions if it's your birthday (children) when you're visiting the Zoo as we have some fantastic gifts to give you too!!!! Below are some of our staff all dressed up!

FRONT OF HOUSE