Summer Open Days

The Summer Open Days are done! We had two, as before. And this year it went well! At least, I think so. Last year we struggled with getting peer guides. Most of our peer guides are undergraduates, and most undergraduates go home for the summer. This year we had decided to just send an email to all MSc students (in addition to the peer guides) to see if they were willing to step in. They get paid for it! And MSc students can be a bit skint, so a fair number of them was interested. We only got two 'regular' peer guides! Everybody else was a master student. But they're a good bunch.

I didn't have to organise these; my colleague Mattias does that. I do the spring series. But we have agreed we each attend the first one of the other one's series so we are reminded of how it goes. Then we could step in if the other one gets ill or something! But then we are excused for the rest. Except this time, evidently; I duly did the first one of Mattias' Open Days but then he had a staff shortage for the second one so I went to that one too. Oh well.

It was very busy both mornings! I had only just enough demonstrations to send the people to. But we managed it. And both days I was double-booked; I had to assign all visitors (in small groups) a peer guide (and a demonstration to go to, to make sure people were spread out), and then quickly get in as David might be assigning a group of visitors to me, to talk them through our degree programmes. Busy! But the visitors don't have lunch with us, so after doing two rounds of tours-and conversations all visitors left and I could go and have lunch with the other staff and peer guides. It's quite a long lunch break! And after lunch it's always a lot quieter. Often less than half the people we get in mornings. So we can send every family group (it tends to be families that show up) with their own guide. That's cool!

So now it's over for the summer! Nice. I like getting my weekends back! Enough to do!

The Prince Madog, and the School of Ocean Sciences behind it, seen from the water