Latest update of this file 20 November , 2009
Short form for this temporary website is from http://tinyurl.com/ by entering URL http://tinyurl.com/scicaf2 and
as a reserve redirect , scicaf and scicaf1, or Google keyword scicafshadow will get there
I am not in contact with the official Southampton Science Cafe organisers
Soton Sci Caf and
put this file up just in case that structure folds becoming one of the Gone but not forgotten.
There was no soton uni website update
February 2009 to mid May and no emails that I am aware of. Then the long academic recess,
after the scheduled apparent June talk, moved to July. Talks were apparently
continuing through the summer recess but not so, just the
June one shifted to July. No meeting in August or September 2009.
It would be a shame to loose
this Southampton facility. I offer myself as some sort of preliminary organiser ,
at this stage , for a shadow Science Cafe structure. Anyone else offering
assistance , please email me. And also email me if you could
give a talk or wish to be
included on the email circulation list, email addresses only, names not necessary. That list only to be used for circulating a week
before and morning of any meeting, and no other purpose , if it should progress to
operation. July 2009 the Portsmouth Café Scientifique http://www.port.ac.uk/special/cafescientifique/ ,
www.port.ac.uk/cafescientifique ,
seems to have problems, anyone know of changed URL or whatever ?
Nigel
A number of the pictures are now apparently not downloadable on this page, because the hosts have disallowed
remote linking although not saying so. To view them , you have to remove the picture file name
from the picture URL and put this .htm file name in its place
and scroll down to the relevant pic.
This is just a basic , easily adaptable, web page for info purposes, contact details etc.
A proper site can come later.
I've been to all the Southampton events , including at Borders, except the first one, before it moved to
the Soul Cellar. It seems that high level academics are not in
Southampton consistently enough , due to conferences/conventions etc, to
deal with venue booking conflicts/ lecturer plan changes etc. I'm not in that
situation, being here practically all the time.
I'm aware that part of the concept of a Southampton Sci Caf was that
it had to be off campus, as deemed to deter ordinary mortals. Getting
a reliable and quiet university lecture theatre in the evening would be a doddle.
I've made preliminary arrangements with Shona at the South Western Arms
, St Denys , for use of the upstairs room , once a month.
Maybe 7.45 to 9.15 core time, or 8pm to 9.30 maybe better for people, comments please.
For the pub,
the best night, quietest otherwise, is Mondays. I'm thinking the first Monday of the
month unless a good reason not. I know it will
clash perhaps once a year with a bank holiday but make it the second
Monday of the month in those cases. It does not
clash with Salisbury Sci Caf
or Pompey Sci Caf days. There is sometimes
TV football/rugby (not Sky) shown up there and there is a pool table and a
table-football machine and dart board, off to the left out of view. We could
live with the last two and there is a second dart board downstairs anyway.
In the event of a conflict , if they are not
amenable to go to one of the nearby pubs, also with TV and pool
then there is a fallback option.
There is a large smokers covered area in the garden, we could decamp
to, rather than change of date, and if only 15 or so
then the downstairs dartboard annex could probably do.
Accompanied chldren are ok up to 9pm , after that I'm not sure.
South Western Arms
36 Adelaide Rd, St Denys and for satnavs , the postcode SO17 2HW
The room upstairs,
My camera does not like low light levels. The cover for the pool
table is what is blocking out part of the light at the window,
so can form a table for video projector etc.
A roll down projector screen is near those green pool table
luminaires. 16 seats obscured by the balustrade
in line with the pool table, and tables and seats along
the right, before the sofas. Seats about 40 people , without sitting on tables or
grabbing seats from downstairs. It is about the same size as the Soul Cellar floor
area but without so much noise intrusion. There is a juke box , but
no speakers upstairs and the downstair ones are not monsters and I'm sure if they made added
coffee/beer/wine/snacks sales they would turn it right down. Already a number of
academics get in there , academics and real ale ?. 7 real ales on at
any one time and organised as an on-going beer festival with
6 of the 7 changing almost daily, certainly weekly.
There is a carpark attached to the pub , otherwise a yellowline-free
residential area. It is immediately next door to St Denys Railway Station.
As of 17 May to 12 Dec 2009 the times of last trains from St Denys Railway Station on a weekday , in the 4 main directions depart for: -
Bournemouth at 11.31
Romsey 11.25/11.31
Portsmouth 10.49
Winchester 10.40
You can meet the pub cat , Hercules. A proper pub cat,
walked in off the street in 1998 and never left, having now
outlasted 3 sets of managers, sitting on
his favourite barstool. SWA comments page
I have read Guide to running a Sci Caf
and I endorse all the info there. I would say that maybe the question
and answers are more important than the talk, allowing non
technical people or scientists out of their field to ask questions.
Often the Q&A are longer duration than the talk.
I've been to the Salisbury Sci Caf and talked to one of their
organisers. On that night I counted 120 people , a low turnout,
as it transpired. A large
arts centre converted church, requiring a wireless mike
to ask questions and full public address for the speakers.
From her , one paramount requirement , is an email circulation list.
There is no room charge for hiring the upstairs room
of the SWA, implicit assumption that people would buy some beer,
and I anticipate still free access to the talks. If transfered to
St Denys Community Centre, say, then the hire fee for 2 hours for
a non-profit concern would be 15.00 GBP.
Input to my video projector as 2 phono/RCA
sockets, video and audio, or by S-video lead I've not tried the M1 input,
but probably works for laptop/SVGA use, as long as they have a lead
or if someone can donate one. No remote control with it anyway, anyone
own a Infocus X2 with a remote control I could copy to a learning
"universal " remote ?
There is the pub video projector , but
it is one of those large ceiling mounted ones and probably too
much of a liability if one projector lamp fails on my watch.
Access to overhead projector and slide projector , and
a small public address amplifier , if required. It
would be possible for a DVD based slideshow/ presentation
to be outputed to the video projector, in theory.
It is obvious from the Pompey and Salisbury lectures that there
is some sort of circuit, same lecturer/lecture. Anyone's
input on that side would be welcome. I can see it would
be easy to attract presenters trying to sell their
book or snake-oil or whatever or hotheads/cranks. I will
contact a few local academics I know, to see if they would
be able to put some sort of talk together.
One confirmed talk by a Hampshire industrial chemist
Title: The manufacture of citrus oils and plant oleoresins for
the food flavouring industry.
Synopsis:
Manipulation of natural fruits , herbs and spices, processes involved and issues surrounding
pesticides, plasticizers and packaging. Exploring tinctures, extracts, terpenes, oleoresins, solvents, milling, pelletising,
quality control , pesticide analysis and other potential adulteration. A chance to experience some of the
exotic concentrated fragrances such as limonene , bergamot oil etc on fragrance smelling sticks.
Some other possible speaker topics: -
meteorology/oceanography, cochlea implants, textiles conservation, engineering aspects of high performance
internal combustion engines (interested but only if/when its got going), 3D graphics and simulators or Stirling Engines (confirmed interested)
, optoelectronics, ship handling and accurate positioning in all sea
conditions (confirmed interested) , science and practice of dating ceramics/pottery/bricks for archaeological
purposes (confirmed interested) ,scientific glass blowing, the greening of electronics ?,
and a mycologist (confirmed interested).
If goes into full swing , then I would give Portswood library
and the central library a monthly poster. If anyone else could commit
to the same for their local library. And during the meet , passing around a
pen , tear off pad and box, for people to add their email address
and comments etc. Whats-on listing in the local freesheet Southampton
Advertiser ( NewsExtra) . The Teletext offshoot http://www.whatsonintheuk.co.uk/Local/Southampton/Things%20to%20do
and Usenet uk.local.hampshire . Perhaps a local flyer drop to St Denys letter boxes for the first one or two.
Some comments I've received so far
from JE
Mention , in links, "skeptics in the pub" (in list below). If a local offshoot developed , he would not have
to go to London. Also consider the concept of webcasting . From my limited
experience Q&A would not work as well as in a live environment.
From IH
Consider contacting IBM, Hursely for inclusion in their internal
bulletin. If he gets some more info and the shadow structure
is dropped, and full-on structure emerges, I may well do so.
From JG
It is good to hear that you are thinking of
starting up another Café Sci. However, if I were you I would avoid
posing it as an alternative to the existing one or a contingency plan
"should the original one fail". I'm sure Southampton is big enough to
have two or more cafes runnning simultaneously; there are already
multiple cafes in Leeds and Bristol, and probably other places too -
since Café Sci needs to be small to work, the only way of responding to
an increased demand is to open a second one - holding one café in a room
big enough for 200 people would just destroy the atmosphere. We at
Brighton are constantly full to overflowing, and are looking to find a
slightly bigger venue, but the ideal solution would be for someone (not
me!) to start a second one.
So I wish you luck. I have been to a few of the Southampton Cafes and
have found it a little frustrating that the oganisation seems so
intermittent. I always book our speakers up many months in advance - in
fact to get the best ones, you have to - and find it hard to understand
how a café can function on such a "last-minute" basis. I also think a
pub function room would be better than the Soul Cellar - on one occasion
when I was there the speaker had to give up because of the excessive
noise coming from the sound system downstairs, even though there were
hardly any customers in the bar, but about 30 of us upstairs!
Whay don't you try and contact the existing organiser and try and work
with him/her? (I forget who it is currently). I am sure he/she will
welcome a new venture like yours and it will stop any "bad blood"
situation from developing.
Anyway, good luck again. Keep me on the list - I do not get over there
much but will try.
Reply - I'd only seen one sci cafe represented, per town /city, on the national sci caf site
, and only looked in detail at the local group and not realised that some were subdivided,
so more than one in a town. As for the Soul Cellar I found the noisey
patrons hanging around in the foyer more intrusive. I note your use of the word speaker and perhaps I will
start using it instead of lecturer as it may be off-putting. Is
there a suitable low-key word for lecture, as well ?
From GO
He uses the term "lead-off" for this concept of short introductory talk before
a longer discussion on that topic. So perhaps the term lead-off talk is preferable to the
word lecture.
From CS
I wish you every success in setting up Southampton Science Cafe ( Shadow )
We may add you meetings to HASSNERS Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/HASSNERS/
when you get up and running.
From NB
I would be keen to be involved and would be willing to talk. I am
currently a lecturer in Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton
University but am conceited enough to want to talk on subjects on which I
am not an expert.
Number of valid email addresses in the circulation list as of the
above edition date : 110
Please make emails plain text only , no more than 5KByte or 500 words.
Anyone sending larger texts or attachments such as digital signatures, pictures etc will have
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my fastmail or my fsnet.co.uk account.
If this email address fails then replace onetel.com with fastmail.fm or
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( for anti-spamming reasons please remove
all 5 dots ..... between co and m ) 
