16 June 2022

Third attempt at side gig

In April, the second iteration of my climate course ended. So what would be next? When I discussed it with my contact person we decided she would advertise the course again for June, and she asked me about potential extra sessions. The discussion about extra sessions ended in me making a suggestion and that not being responded to, but the course was duly advertised. By coincidence, it would start really closely after my return from the Netherlands. Seven days before the start I was informed of recruitment; it was a list of five names. Not much! But I will work with that.

When I got back from the Netherlands the day before I sent an email out to those who had registered, to say welcome and remind them and generally make them feel like something was really going to happen. I also chased up a Zoom link from technical support. In the end I made one myself.

When the day came, only one person appeared. Oh dear! That's not good. The lady thought that maybe everyone else had sort of forgot about it, as they had registered quite a while ago, and my email seems to have been the first contact they received to remind them. I think I need to have a chat with the organisation about engagement. I can't contact anyone until I have been given contact information, and if they do that only a week before the start of the course, then there is a lot of time for attendees to forget about the whole thing and decide to spend their time differently.

I did have a lovely session with the one lady. So far from all was lost! And I later got an email from another participant who said their internet had gone down, but she would be there from the second session onwards. A 100% increase of participants! That's nice.

I could imagine they give it a break now, given the low numbers. But it has been an interesting experience!



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