Public lectures for the "lay person"?

Ficheall

Whiteboard arrived this morning. Decent size and portable. Reasonable for 100e. Small fault at the corner so they're replacing it tomorrow, but it looks like we'll be good to go on Saturday, weather-permitting.
Still vacillating over whether we'll give an introductory talk, or just launch into the first talk - it's not like we're likely to have an audience from the off in any case. By my reckoning we'll be short one speaker for this week - and while it's no difficulty for someone to give more than one talk, it would be nice if we could have all different people. I'm sure one of you lot must be happy to give a talk for twenty minutes? Let us know.
20 minute talks followed by 10 mins for q & a will be every half hour from 11-2, I reckon. Should be fun!
Low tide is at 12:30, so there shouldn't be an issue there, this weekend at least...

If you're down one speaker, then could you use that time to give the introductory talk and then launch straight into it?

Ficheall

(I actually have no idea how many speakers we have - I'm trying to make it seem a lot more organised than it actually is, and was hoping that someone might be cajoled into doing it if they thought we were short one person.. but thanks!)

What we could use help with, if anyone has anything suitable, is a stand for the whiteboard. We can't rest it in the sand, as it'd be destroyed, and it's too big for people to hold up for very long.
I do have one of those metal frames that they put temporary road signs on - someone chucked it over our back wall years ago - so we could fashion that into a stand, I'm sure. It's ungainly though, and we'll already be carrying the whiteboard about 5 clicks, so if it were at all possible to avoid lugging yon rusty piece of junk with us as well, that would be awesome.



edit: another thing ye could help with - I should probably set up a twitter account that could let people know which lectures were on every week, hateful and all as that social networking might be, for which we would need a "name" for these lectures. Suggestions welcome...

Mrs OBumble

Ficheall wrote: »

... I should probably set up a twitter account that could let people know which lectures were on every week, hateful and all as that social networking might be

Twitface has it's uses

How about "DOUGAL" ... seeing as it like an outside Galway version of TED. I'm not sure what that might stand for, but reckon you can work something out.

Ficheall

DougalTalks account created, Dougal was already taken.
If something better is suggested then we can change to that, but I quite like that one
It'd be a tricky acronym alright...

ScumLord

Ficheall wrote: »

DougalTalks account created,

Great name.

inisboffin

Ficheall wrote: »

DougalTalks account created, Dougal was already taken.
If something better is suggested then we can change to that, but I quite like that one
It'd be a tricky acronym alright...

Agree about the acronym too but how about;

"why Google it when you can Dougal it?"

Ficheall

:pac:

oh dear...

cranky bollix

will these lectures be taking place this saturday

Ficheall

That's the plan, aye..

Ficheall

Kk... assuming the feckers replace the whiteboard before then (they never arrived this morning) the talks are set to be on:
How Corrective Lenses Work,
Memorisation Techniques,
Reading Music,
On Hackerspaces,
Knots,
Juggling.

They're not in order, we'll play that by ear.

Yon twittery thing is up too for anyone who's on that.


edit: this Saturday at Blackrock from 11-2.

Ficheall

Btw - thank you to JustMary and inisboffin for the name and slogan, respectively.

And to think that they said that the people of the Galway City forum were a useless shower of gob****es...

Ficheall

New whiteboard arrived. Now all we need is a stand of some sort for it, and we're good to go.
Needless to say, if it's raining, this won't go ahead; unless someone can think of a nice suitable indoor venue..

pseudonym1

Best of luck won't be here unfortunately, but look forward to attending future lectures. Maybe you could post a thread a
Requesting temporary donation of an easel?

Average-Ro

AH, this sucks, I'm shooting a wedding tomorrow. Would have loved to come to this:(

Hopefully I can catch the next one. Good luck with it!

Ficheall

pseudonym1 wrote: »

Best of luck won't be here unfortunately, but look forward to attending future lectures. Maybe you could post a thread a
Requesting temporary donation of an easel?

I don't think an actual easel would do the trick. The board is 6ft by 4ft, so one would need two, and they'd need to be very stable.
We shall see.

To those of you devastated you might miss this first installment - I reckon it's going to rain tomorrow, in which case it won't go ahead. And we can always repeat talks which are particularly well-received, or requested.

Ficheall

It looks like the weather's not on our side for this one...
I think we'll have to postpone tomorrow's talks.

Ficheall

K, barring a meteorological miracle there'll be no talks tomorrow.
The best way to approach this now seems to be to have a list of people willing to give talks and, when the opportunity presents itself, to just round up a few available folk and go for it. There'll be no notice given then, of course, bar a mention on the twitter, but I reckon it's the only way to deal with the bull**** weather.

So if anyone is willing to give a talk, not necessarily at the next set of talks, but some time, feel free to drop a pm, or email the obvious email for dougaltalks at gmail. Or, indeed, if there's a particular topic you've always wanted to learn about/ get a lesson on, then sure fire that suggestion along too, and we'll see about getting someone to give such a talk.

The suggestion was made that we video the talks and stick them up on youtube... I hate cameras, and I reckon there are more than enough "tutorials" on youtube already, but I'm curious as to what general opinion might be - would you watch the talks online? be discouraged from giving a talk if it was put online? etc...

inisboffin

Ficheall wrote: »

K, barring a meteorological miracle there'll be no talks tomorrow.
The best way to approach this now seems to be to have a list of people willing to give talks and, when the opportunity presents itself, to just round up a few available folk and go for it. There'll be no notice given then, of course, bar a mention on the twitter, but I reckon it's the only way to deal with the bull**** weather.

So if anyone is willing to give a talk, not necessarily at the next set of talks, but some time, feel free to drop a pm, or email the obvious email for dougaltalks at gmail. Or, indeed, if there's a particular topic you've always wanted to learn about/ get a lesson on, then sure fire that suggestion along too, and we'll see about getting someone to give such a talk.

The suggestion was made that we video the talks and stick them up on youtube... I hate cameras, and I reckon there are more than enough "tutorials" on youtube already, but I'm curious as to what general opinion might be - would you watch the talks online? be discouraged from giving a talk if it was put online? etc...

Personally I'd prefer that they stayed 'live' and not be filmed. That's part of what makes them cool.

Ficheall

K, looks like the weather has finally copped itself on, so we're aiming to give this another go tomorrow. Unfortunately our lift is unavailable, so I dunno how long it will take us to cart the board and "stand" out.
The plan, though, is to start at 11.
If anyone reckons they'll be really bored tomorrow morning and able to give us a spin out, 'twould be much appreciated.
Venue is still Blackrock.

The "line-up" has changed slightly:
Memory Techniques, "Enough Irish To Get By" for Tourists, How Big Is Infinity?, Knots, Finding Exoplanets, How To Juggle, and possibly more.

I had a look through the "wanted" section in the Skills swap thread, and it seems the most 'popular' things people want to learn are, approximately in order of popularity are:
Driving, Irish, Spanish, French, maths, fitness/physio, cookery, website design/development, knitting, guitar, yoga, photography, interior design, German, sewing, back massage, hairdressing, Korean, piano, music reading.

Obviously some of these are impossible to teach in a lecture setting, and some are impossible to teach at the beach, but it's interesting to note what people would be interested in.

I reckon in the winter we'll try to find a room in town and give talks on more 'indoorsy' stuff. One lass is willing to teach people to knit, for example, but it wouldn't really work at the beach. Similarly website design/development requires more than a whiteboard and marker.
Driving is obviously completely out. The languages, when one gets to the even slight more advanced stuff, will need to be in a classroom. Guitar, piano, sewing, hairdressing won't really work well at the beach.
Yoga, back massage, and fitness stuff might be ok, but does one need a proper instructor for those, for fear of someone doing themselves or someone else an injury?
I've no idea how one would go about teaching photography or interior design...

Average-Ro

I'm a cameraman/editor. I understand that filming the talks it isn't a very popular option, but if these talks gather speed and there's a big one planned that you might want filmed; shoot a PM my way:)

Mrs OBumble

Ficheall wrote: »

I reckon in the winter we'll try to find a room in town and give talks on more 'indoorsy' stuff. .

Only just seeing this now ... so I won't be there.

Unless you want to get really structured, you probably should keep this really really infomal (walk-up, public space activity - you have no relationship to the folks who just happen to stop to listen, etc).

Public liability insurance is expensive.

rain on

Saw yis down there around midday with the whiteboard, wanted to stop and watch but I was dying for some food after my swim! Hope it went well. That is one big whiteboard.

Ficheall

't went alright. Tired and sunburned after carrying the stuff for an hour out to Salthill and then back, but 'twas interesting. We didn't get starting 'til 1, as it turned out, so you would actually have had plenty of time to make it down, JustMary.
Sadly, there was feck all interest displayed by the general passing public other than "what are those gob****es up to?", so it was mostly just us lecturing to ourselves.
The lectures were all a little "rough", given that it was the first outing, but one would hope that over time this would improve.
The "easel/stand" worked a charm, though it would be nice if we could construct something with wheels for future talks.

The first talk was on "How To Juggle" and the speaker had even brought along a suitcase full of equipment people could use, as learning to juggle by watching was always going to be tricky. No passers-by seemed interested in learning to juggle though, so the speaker just ended up teaching a couple of us, which was grand in and of itself, but a little inauspicious as one would have expected juggling to be the most accessible to the 'lay-person'. After showing us how to juggle 3 balls the speaker gave a brief introduction to the mathematics of juggling, or rather the numbering system which jugglers use for their throws, before giving us a small juggling display.
There were a couple of passers-by who came and stopped briefly during the rest of the talks, but never a crowd, but sure what harm...
The second talk was on "How Big Is Infinity?" which was probably slightly over the heads of people with little mathematics background, but there was nothing terribly complicated in it, and was easy to follow once one had an idea of what was going on. 'Infinity' is always a difficult topic to change people's notions of.
The third talk was on "Stars"; their birth, evolution and death. Interesting stuff, if a little technical. It was quite dense though, and I would have had to have taken notes to be able to recount any of it. Gave some perception of the vastness of the universe and how tiny and insignificant we are though, which is always nice...
The fourth talk was on "Finding exoplanets", which, as the title may have suggested, synopsised some of the techniques used for finding exoplanets. I'll be honest, I tuned out a little half-way through this one, as I'd taken in all the astronomy I could handle. Ideally we'd try to avoid having two consecutive talks on the same subject for fear of boring an audience, but one of the speakers had a bus to catch, and it's not like there was any audience to bore anyway.
The fifth talk was on "Knots", which was probably my favourite. Practical, and reasonably easy to follow. The speaker had neglected to bring a knife to cut bits of rope so that the audience could try the knots for themselves, so I'd probably not be able to tie any of the knots now if asked, but only for that slight hiccough the talk went really well; volunteers from the audience used etc.
I gave the sixth talk on "Memorisation Techniques", so needless to say it was unbelievably awesome and enlightening.
The seventh speaker had been due to give the " 'Enough Irish to Get By' for Tourists" talk, but given that there didn't seem to be any foreigners listening at the time, he opted instead for a talk on what was termed as the "World War II Effect". And though the talk epitomised why I've objections to waffly subjects, it did seem to have the largest randommer audience (6), though whether this was merely coincidence, or due to the time, or the fact the speaker wore a suit, I don't know.

We then asked whether anyone in the audience wanted to give a talk, or whether there was anything they would like to hear a talk on but there were no affirmative responses so we packed up and headed home.

JustMary wrote: »

Unless you want to get really structured, you probably should keep this really really infomal (walk-up, public space activity - you have no relationship to the folks who just happen to stop to listen, etc).

Public liability insurance is expensive.

That's a good point. Damned insurance-crazy society.
We shall see what happens, I suppose...