SOUTH DEVON AGS MEETING

[maggiepie]

Fantastic idea, Maggi, I look forward to seeing the plants up close and personal.

[ranunculus]

First class lectures being viewed live by any number of remote groups?
Lisse Live, Luit?  

[angie]

Brilliant what else can this forum deliver 

Angie

[Lvandelft]

First class lectures being viewed live by any number of remote groups?
Lisse Live, Luit?  

Wish you nice dreaming about that Cliff 

[Maggi Young]

I do hope there are clever folks out there who might help us deliver film of shows, or talks..... but what I would REALLY like to have on the Forum is  SCENT.... sometimes the frustration of knowing a plant ( or a cake  ) smell so sweet but all we get is the photo drives me to distraction.... we need a boffin to develop computers with scent simulators!

[Diane Clement]

I do hope there are clever folks out there who might help us deliver film of shows, or talks..... but what I would REALLY like to have on the Forum is  SCENT.... sometimes the frustration of knowing a plant ( or a cake  ) smell so sweet but all we get is the photo drives me to distraction.... we need a boffin to develop computers with scent simulators!

the other thing we could do with is real cakes, I'm fed up of the virtual ones, they just don't taste the same  

[Paul T]

Web cams at a show??? (says the woman who doesn't know how wifi works!)

It's called Magic, Maggi.  They have wizards that conjure spells and you can speak/contact internet etc.  Definitely magic.  Work of the devil if you ask me.   

 

[Lesley Cox]

I'm thinking along the lines of a web cam "Best of the bakeoff." Cakes of course. With an alpine theme.

[David Nicholson]

Just arrived home-I'm whacked.

First of my heartfelt thanks to all of you for responding as you did-marvellous-and special thanks to Maggi for acting as Forum alarm clock and memory jerker; and to Lesley and Paul for getting up at such an unearthly and ungodly hour. Lesley's first post caused much mirth from those who had never regarded me as a "gay Lothario" The ramble seemed to go down well and people came up to me and remarked that they had never realised that so much gardening related information was out there. So that was one of my objectives met.

So, what didn't go right? The hotel's wireless connection was very slow indeed and meant that some of the slow sites I had meant to use eg; the American Iris Society Wiki, refused to load at all and this caused me to have to rapidly re-shape my running order. Also, I was using a laptop borrowed from our sister AGS Group in Exeter and this turned out to have a version of Adobe Reader created when Adam was a lad and it refused to download any PDF files. This meant I could not use the Bulb Log or IRG both of which I would have waxed eloquently about. Sorry Ian, they didn't get to see your message. For obvious reasons I had meant to be very even handed in the time I gave to the SRGC site and the AGS site but I just could not get the AGS to load (may have been down for maintenance?). Later, after the talk had finished I tried again and it loaded fine. Sod's Law!  

All in all more successes than failures. I think a similar kind of thing would go down well at any SRGC/AGS group meeting as a change from normal!! talks. It was fairly easy to put together, I just copied my Gardening Favourites files to a memory stick and devised a running order and a few words about each site I was introducing with the idea of letting the pictures speak for themselves.

Once more friends many, many thanks.

....... and so to bed!!

[mark smyth]

I had a problem last June when for a talk I was told come with your memory stick. The group didnt have powerpoint on their computer.

[Paul T]

Mark,

I did a talk for a local gardening group a few months ago and all they could provide was a screen.  Thankfully I was able to borrow a laptop from a work colleague, and a computer projector from our local Orchid Society.  All went well.  Their attitude was that any presenters usually have their own equipment, and they knew that I was just filling in on short notice and wasn't a normal presenter (i.e this was the third talk I'd done).    Thankfully it worked out and people enjoyed it.

David,

I'm glad it went reasonably well, all things considered.  Aren't computers just such wonderful things.   Happy to help out and give a cheerio from the other side of the world. 

[Lesley Cox]

Screen, projector, PowerPoint, decent cakes, all these are things to be checked thoroughly before agreeing to do the talk in the first place.

Anyway David, well done. Very well done lad. You have the pioneering spirit.

[ranunculus]

Well done David ... superb initiative!

Paddy ... I must point out that your Ranunculus glacialis is probably R. alpestris.

[Diane Clement]

I had a problem last June when for a talk I was told come with your memory stick. The group didnt have powerpoint on their computer.

Better to save your powerpoint as a powerpoint show, then you don't need powerpoint to run it (go to File - Save As then select Powerpoint Show).  Even if you have powerpoint on the computer you are using, it looks better, as it opens straight into the presentation and not the slide view with the thumbnails at the side.

[Stephenb]

Thanks for that tip, Diane. Despite having given loads of PPT presentations at work and play, I hadn't come across that option! As I understand it the PPS file includes the display software.