WOW!!
What a week!
There has been so much going on, that I'm not sure where to begin. I suppose at the beginning is as good a place as any, if not the best!
It all began with a phone call:
"Hello, is that Dr D?"
"Yes, it is" I replied, my heart racing at the thought that this could be a potential customer.
"I picked up one of your flyers for children's birthday parties in a local pub" said the man on the other end of the line. I felt my optimism rise even further... Here it comes, my first paid birthday party booking... I remained calm and professional (at least outwardly, I hope!).
But there was no booking.
It was better than that!
The man I was talking to was a presenter on my local BBC radio station, who wanted to do an interview with me on the following morning's breakfast show... I could potentially reach out to untold numbers of children and parents, who would hear my enthusiasm for science, and immediately phone me to book my services!
"Yes, no problem. I can be there at 8.15 a.m." I said, trying to hide my excitement.
The interview went well. I 'ummed' a bit, but didn't make any major gaffes. The presenter was friendly, enthusiastic about the subject of increasingly elaborate and novel children's parties in general, and seemed genuinely pleased to be given a small section of drinking straw to blow through to make squeaky noises (I was asked to take a radio friendly demo with me).
I returned home.
I waited for the influx of calls.
I checked my Google analytics every hour hoping for a spike of hits on the website.
Nothing.
The following day did see a slight increase in website visitors, so things are looking up, and I have picked up a new follower on twitter (the radio presenter, who I now also follow) who provides some interesting info and questions via his tweets, which I find myself compelled to reply to!
More optimism was inspired by the fact that the weekend saw my highest ever daily page views for my writing on Suite101 (110 in a day, as compared to my previous best of 53!). The article which seems to be generating the most interest is totally off my normal topics, but I have since written a proper science education based article, which has also attracted a lot of attention, and gives details of a really creative way to involve students in a demonstration of the differences between conduction, convection and radiation, using only a teddy bear!
Monday saw me travelling to Leicester for an event to celebrate the multitude of successes from the Ignition programme, run by Ignite Futures. The event brought together scientists and artists from across the East Midlands, who had been involved in various projects to engage school children in creative activities with a scientific focus. I had been invited to attend due to my work with the school in Boston way back in March. It was an absolute pleasure to see Rick (the organiser) again, to meet (in person) the lady who had been so helpful on the phone during the organisation of my small part of the programme, and to meet some of the other science and arts practitioners who had been involved in various projects across the whole of the East Midlands. The 'Magical Butterflies' project, which assists communication in children with severe mental and physical disabilities, is truly inspirational, and absolutely deserves funding to be developed further. It is the perfect example of how the combination of art and science can create something which can ignite a revolution in our understanding of ourselves and others. Truly inspirational!
Finally, today's big news is that I have finally (with the assistance of my wonderfully patient tech guru) sent an email out to every primary school in Lincolnshire. I am really hoping that my initial contact (which was totally unsolicited, and I know how much I hate 'cold calling' and spam) will be received in the right way, and will lead to lots of people signing up via the website for future updates about in-school science activities.
