Interpretation Australia

Hi all,

A friend of mine met someone over the Christmas/New Year break who told her that he was a freelance interpreter. He works with the Melbourne Zoo and aquarium to deliver "shows". I am intrigued by this as I know they have several education staff already.

I'm curious as to exactly what type of activities these contractors are used for and why. Also how effective they are in meeting the needs of programs - i.e. conservation objectives. Are they used more like entertainers at a theme park or are they delivering message based interps?

Anyone know?

Hi Nick,

Yes our skillful interpreters reach far and wide indeed!

Nothing beats a face to face presentation or encounter to deliver effective messaging and drive behaviour change.  The unique insights that visitors receive when they meet our staff are invaluable.  Which is why we have a dedicated team of face to face presenters to capture the hearts and minds of our visitors.  Our Zoo Encounters Presenters do a wide range of presentations that range from intimate behind the scenes experiences through to keeper talks and presentations for larger groups of up to 150 or so at our Seal Exhibit.  They are all employed by Melbourne Zoo (not contractors), with many of them having a raft of other interests, some have other positions within the Zoo and some also work at other venues as well.

They play a key role in delivering our conservation campaigns and empowering our visitors to take positive action to help wildlife.  Through their fun, quirky and approachable style they are able to engage our visitors enabling long lasting connections with wildlife.  One of the key components to their success is through interpreting the stories of our animals and the issues that face their wild cousins.  By providing targeted actions that have a clear outcome our visitors are empowered knowing that they can make a difference by adopting / changing that one key behaviour.

Let me know if you need further information

Paula Simpson
Interpretation Coordinator, Melbourne Zoo

Hi Nick,

There are a few people / companies around who are contracted in to do face to face interpretation. In the organisations where I've worked in the past they were generally engaged for special events, for activites which required a skill set that was outside that of staff (and not of a regular enough nature to warrant training of staff in that specialist skill), for the training of other staff in specialist skills (so an indirect form of face to face) and sometimes to provide 'fresh' eyes. A quick rummage through my memory seems to pull out similar uses for what i've seen of late - in essence they are like other contractors brought in for their specialist skills.

As to whether they deliver message interps of entertainment - guess that depends on their brief but i know of some very good 'contracting performing interpreters' who do a very good job at message based interps as much as they do with entertainment.

Hope this helps - happy to chat more and provide detals if you're interested.

John P.