Image by Przemyslaw Idzkiewicz.

And I hope all my fellow science geeks in the Northern hemisphere had a pleasant Winter Solstice. (Summer solstice wishes, of course, to our Antipodean readers). I am certainly relieved now the sun is coming back… And I hope you all had a great Christmas, Yalda, Saturnalia, Karachun, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or other midwinter festival of your choice.

2010 so far…

As you all know, this is going to be a big year for us, now that we have the funding to roll out I’m a Scientist on a much bigger scale. We’ve started the year with a lot of excitement, as we are recruiting a new member of staff to help us cope. I’ve been shortlisting all week (please, teachers, tell your students to never, ever, send someone a file called ‘My CV’. When you get dozens of them the renaming gets very tedious). It’s been really difficult choosing from some very strong candidates but I think everyone on our shortlist would do a great job for us and we are looking forward to interviewing them.

I would like to record here (for Shane-the-boss’s benefit), that I am the event producer who never sleeps! I spent New Year in a big cottage in Scarborough with a group of old friends and, with the help of some New Year’s Eve tequila, have persuaded a public health consultant from Norwich PCT, and a medical physicist from UCLH that they would LOVE to take part in I’m a Scientist.

If you don’t want to be strong-armed into any involvement with youth engagement events, I strongly advise you never to talk to me.

Immediate plans

This week I shall be at the ASE conference on Friday and on Saturday.

Have you seen this woman?

I look like this picture, only less haggard:-/ If you see me, say hello! I’ll hopefully be talking to lots of people about I’m a Scientist and getting lots more people signed up for the event, or the debate kits, or both!

Next week, back in the office, where one of my priorities will be  coming up with a plan to keep the blog updated more often. I was horrified to notice today how long ago my last post was… Another priority will be keeping warm in the poorly-insulated office of balticness. Happily my Mum bought me thermal undies for Christmas. Bless her.

Longer term plans

Our plans for the year are to run two I’m a Scientist events, one smallish scale one in March, to test out the new website (which is being built as we speak!) and then a bigger scale one in June.

March event | 15th-26th | 5 zones | 25 scientists | 100 classes

June event | 14th – 25th | 20 zone | 100 scientists | 400 classes

If you are a scientist or a teacher who wants to get involved in either (or even both!) then get in touch.

And finally…

As a cheering little story, here’s a link that made me laugh yesterday. “Locations of Ancient Woolworths Stores follow Precise Geometrical Pattern”. Matt Parker, a mathematician at Queen Mary, University of London has done a great job here of pointing out the flaws in a ridiculous Daily Mail ‘Stone Age satnav’ story by applying the same methodology to a different set of data. Which might be a great way for you to get a class thinking critically about data analysis. Have fun:-)