Winnie The Pooh
How the real Winnie the Pooh and the black bear inspired the famous children’s book...
Lieutenant Harry Colebourn was born in Birmingham, England and moved to Canada, Winnipeg, and following his passion for animals, he studied veterinary surgery.
Following the breakout of World War 1, he was to be one of the first to enlist and left to join the military training camp at Valcartier, Quebec. It was during this time that a tiny black bear cub, who had been orphaned took the heart of Harry Colebourn and he brought him for $20, naming him Winnipeg, which was soon to be known as ‘Winnie’, posing for photos with soldiers and went onto become the mascot of the regiment.
When Lieutenant Harry Coleborn was faced with the call to the Western Front, in France, in December of 1914 he took Winnie to her new home at the London Zoo, who had a new bear habitat waiting for her, with mountain landscapes. Whenever on leave he would visit Winnie, who meanwhile had become quite a hit with the younger generation.
Children came to feed her and ride on her back, and when he was finally reunited with Winnie, he made the heartfelt decision to leave her at the Zoo, as he believed she now belonged to the people of London.
Among these children who became attached with Winnie, was the young boy, Christopher Robin Milne, son of author A.A. Milne and soon Winnie and other toys of Christopher’s became the inspiration that led to the writing of Winnie-the-Pooh. This first came to life in 1924, that led to the literary classic we know today.
How can my Endeavour support this campaign?
- Use #WinnieThePoohDay on all your business social media posts, sharing updates of how you and your team are celebrating the day, and include pictures to showcase your wellbeing endeavour, helping to raise funds and awareness for this endearing Pooh endeavour activity.
-Now, this endeavour is a challenge on your resources, your problem-solving skills and decision making, so how will you challenge your team, colleagues, or connections to escape from the hundred-acre woods? This wellbeing endeavour is sheer brilliance for putting the theatre into your wellbeing endeavour activity.
-Choose the resources you are going to give each person, resources such as mind busting puzzles to break before they can move onto the next challenge, the puzzle can be a simple word search, but until they find the words, they can’t unlock how to move to the next challenge.
-The next challenge in the endeavour activity will be a map with a riddle, and the riddle will show them where on the map their destination will be, and the first person, or team to reach the destination, breaks out and escapes the woods.
-You can set a time limit and reconvene if no one or team reaches the destination. Either way it will give lots for everyone to talk about.
-If time isn’t an issue, then allow sufficient time for this endeavour activity, we suggest around 2 hours, that’s enough time to break the puzzle, the riddle and find the place on the map, and have a discussion to find out where the challenges were, and the experience that everyone had during the wellbeing endeavour activity.
-This is the perfect endeavour activity to involve new recruits and watch how quickly they will feel part of the team.
-It’s a real challenge on everyone’s approach to dealing with the unknown and figuring out how to work their way through the challenges to reach the end goal, and destination.
Services: People Focus Area
