The Language Blog by K International

The Swanbourne Endeavour

Richard Brooks — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:47:52 +0000

Yesterday (Sunday 23rd October) 6 brave souls from K International competed in and survived (with only minor injuries) the Swanbourne Endeavour. In the picture above (from left to right) you’ll see, Dave, Jana, Paul, Yvette, Rich and Brian standing next to the bell from HMS Victory which we rang when we completed the race.

Held in the beautiful grounds of Swanbourne School and with patriotic music blasting out of the sound system we ran, crawled, swam and slid our way around the course.

It was all for charity and we raised over £500 for Fundacion Comunitaria de la Frontera Norte, support to Territorial Army soldiers, the Royal British Legion, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Familes Association and Amara.

In total we recon we ran 7k cross-country and if that wasn’t enough the organisers had us… wading through ponds 4 feet deep, submerged in muddy water, crawling under 50 metres of barbed wire, crawling under nets, crawling through flooded tubes, leaping over burning straw, climbing over 8 foot tall walls, carrying logs and getting the muddiest we’ve all been since we were 6 years old. It was great fun.

Thanks to everyone who sponsored us, thanks to everyone who took part and BIG thanks to the organisers – it was a truly amazing event.

Hope to see you there next year .

EDIT: Some more pictures are on our facebook page.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | The Swanbourne Endeavour

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Renting out the Car Park

Richard Brooks — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:38:40 +0000

With our friends from Graymatter we our renting out the car park this weekend. The Foo Fighters are playing at the MK Bowl.

All proceeds go to Social Eyes and Willen Hospice.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Renting out the Car Park

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Google +1 on K International’s blog

Richard Brooks — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:48:09 +0000

We have added the google +1 to the top right hand corner of all pages on our blog. So if you like an article click on the button to vote for it. It helps us by appearing higher in the rankings and helps you to share great content with your friends and family.

The video below (from google) explains more about the +1 button.

I’m hoping that you find the new +1 addition to K International useful. As always, I would love to hear your feedback, ideas and suggestions. Comment are live below.

Additional

We have also just added the +1 button to the rest of the site (along with a tweet button). See image below for location.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Google +1 on K International’s blog

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French Guy in Milton Keynes

Tanguy — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:04:10 +0000

Everyone knows “an English man in New York”, the song of the great singer Sting. As soon as I arrived in Central station of Milton Keynes, this song has echoes in my head. I told myself “I am the French guy in Milton Keynes” who will start an internship for K International. But it’s difficult to compare the two cities and also difficult to compare an English man in NYC whose native language is English and a French guy who arrives in Milton Keynes whose native language is French (especially since we know the reputation of French with English!).

When I arrive in Milton Keynes I was greeted by my internship supervisor named Richard Brooks (general manager of K International). He invited me to a great restaurant and we ate pizzas and drank a beer. Then, he showed me the city centre and surroundings by car.

Milton Keynes was formally designated as a new town on 23 January 1967. Indeed, it’s a very modern city composed of large extent and avenues.

Then we went to K International and Richard Brooks introduced me to the team. They were very welcoming. Liz showed me the basis of her work and I talked with a French lady about practical issues (where was the central station on walk from the company and she showed me the various offices). There is a ground floor (customers prospecting negotiations and marketing department) and a one floor upstairs (translators, project managers, vendor managers and accounts department). I’ll be working in the marketing communication department with Richard Brooks. The missions are to develop the company visibility and acquire more clients using social media (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) and the Blog and Website. For this I’ll be learning some things around information technology (SEO, SEM, landing pages, Joomla and WordPress).

To conclude my first article I want to say I’m very happy to be here and I hope to enjoy this experience. Today it’s my second day in K International so these are my first impressions.

I’ll write another article in the coming weeks to let you know about the impressions of a “French guy in Milton Keynes”!

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | French Guy in Milton Keynes

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Best Ski Jokes Competition

Caroline Mikolajczyk — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:27:53 +0000

As you might already know, the World Ski & Snowboard Championship is starting this month in Canada. For this special event, we decided to organize a “Best Ski Jokes Competition” where the winners will have their stories and pictures published on our blog. For once in a while, it’s good to have a laugh and April is the perfect month for that.

So you just have one thing to do….tell us your best joke about ski or snowboarding now!

Log on here and fill the form, easy, quick and funny.

Good Luck

Tell us your best ski joke

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Best Ski Jokes Competition

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Fancy an iTunes Gift Card?

Caroline Mikolajczyk — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:03 +0000

Because March was the month of the Rio Carnival, we organised a special competition to celebrate it. As today is the last day of March, the competition will end tonight at midnight.

Our readers are important to us and that’s why we want to give you the opportunity to enter the competition as well.

Get in the party spirit with some great music by entering our exclusive draw to win 2 iTunes gift cards worth £25 each.

The only thing you have to do is log on our Rio Carnival Page and fill the form.

Good Luck!

ps: spread the word…

Try your luck...

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Fancy an iTunes Gift Card?

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Cake for Quake

Richard Brooks — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:09:03 +0000

Its Cake for Quake Day at K International.

We’ve all brought in cake to raise money for the British Red Cross to help them with the Japan Tsunami Appeal.

Here are some pictures. If you are in the area please drop in and give us your cash.

want some cake? put some ££ in the cup

some home made. some not (but best are home made).

they're going like hot cakes.

Gemma's beautiful cup cakes

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Cake for Quake

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Christmas Lunch Pictures Revealed

Caroline Mikolajczyk — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:39:35 +0000

Because i know you were really excited and impatient to discover the pictures of the Christmas lunch we had here at K yesterday, here are some. If you want to see more, don’t hesitate to take a look at our facebook page (they are all hidden over there). Enjoy and have a great week end!

Meet our Santa!

Paul and his little helpers

Plenty of delicious food

Liz and Caroline dressed the same!

Happy Chaps

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Christmas Lunch Pictures Revealed

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Bon Apetit!

Caroline Mikolajczyk — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:40:55 +0000

Today is not like the others at K, today is the day where we will be sharing many laughs around some fabulous food, exchanging our well wrapped presents, dressing up as the Santa’s little helpers and just enjoy a good time all together. Since this morning 9 am, you can feel the electric atmosphere in the office as each one of us is very excited about this special occasion, everybody placed their Santa secret present in the big box, brought their homemade meal to the kitchen and most important didn’t forget to put a smile on their face. Because Christmas is coming so close now, we decided it was time to organise a lunch to celebrate it all together. In our society, people tend to think that to be part of a family, you need to have the same blood, compatible DNA or identical colour hair…and I won’t say it’s false, but you can also feel part of a family even if you are not actually related to the people.

It feels like this at K, today is the day where you take the time to realise that you are part of a new family, a “work” family if you prefer where the guy sitting in front of his computer next to you could be your brother, your boss your uncle and your other colleagues your cousins, each of them having their own personality and characteristics. Of course, like in each family, we have our disagreements and arguments sometimes but they are just small bumps on the road because at the end we are here supporting each other in the difficult times, overcoming the obstacles together and always do our best to be the most efficient team we can. It’s good to take a break and look back on what we have achieved as a family, from where we started to where we are now, all the challenges we came across and the problems we solved for many other people out there. The journey has been hell of a ride for each of us but we can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us.

Because we never know what tomorrow is gonna bring, today is the time to be grateful and thank each other for their help and support during the whole year. Today is your day.

“Bon Appetit” to everyone and Happy Holidays!

Ps: watch out…pics coming soon!!

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Bon Apetit!

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Home Made Christmas Trees

Richard Brooks — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:03:36 +0000

Two years ago we started our tree planting program. To kick it off we bought 75 extra trees and gave them to the team @ K. Not everyone had the space for them so I planted a couple of dozen on a site just north of here and had a couple left over in my back garden.

It’s minus 7 Celsius (17 Fahrenheit) outside at the moment… very very cold for England. So I wanted to check on the trees this morning and they looked so beautiful I wanted to share them with you.

But are they ok?

The trees are native to Alaska, Sitka to be precise (which is where they get their name from). They grow natively from Kodiak Island all the way down the west coast of the US/Canada to Fort Bragg in Northern California. The temperature range along this stretch is from record lows of well below minus 20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) in the north to highs of 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) in August in California.

So I guess they’ll be fine in England even though its going to be a tough winter this year.

Why Sitka?

We’re planting Sitka as its one of the fastest growing tree species and has an important role to play in Carbon Sequestration. This is the process by which Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, a contributor to global warming, is ‘fixed’ by trees and stored in the timber, foliage and roots. Sitka spruce removes carbon from the atmosphere as it grows and can hold over 200 tonnes of Carbon per hectare. We can’t just plant these on their own and we mix them up with beech, alder, norwegian spruce and oak – doing this improves the bio-diversity of the area.

The largest tree planting site we have is in County Durham (north of England). Temperatures there at the moment are almost minus 10 Celsius. As soon as spring comes we’ll be doing a comprehensive inspection of the 6,500 baby trees that went in this year and planning the planting schedule for next year. I’ll keep you up-to-speed via this blog.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Home Made Christmas Trees

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