Progress and Progressive Thinking

Our new website is in the testing stage so expect to see our revamped site very soon.

We are now halfway through our initial schools programme, rolled out in Burnley. It's been thrilling and we are pleased to have reached so many students. We now enter the inward run of schools with another school signed up and several schools enquiring about funding our service via the Institute of Physics. We have expanded our reach and are now pitching to wider areas of Lancashire, namely Blackburn and Rishton. We expect funding to arrive imminently to take the science of astronomy in to those schools too.

We have also hooked up with our local councillor, Liberal Democrat Charlie Briggs. He has assisted us in several ways and it now looks like we will be able to offer professional quality multimedia and also stage star parties as a result.

All of the above has come about as a result of our push for new ideas and to try new things. We are seeing such success and we hope to keep building and pushing knowledge. Read More!

Busy Busy, Busy

Man I have been busy recently. Funding applications left, right and centre, teaching, planning, stargazing, researching, cycling wherever I can. The summer is coming and things are looking good. This week was another great week for teaching. We covered the most requested subject Beauty in the Universe receives, Black Holes. Getting across to students the weirdness of these objects is quite a challenge, and I hope they got it. Even more so as I now know that they read both mine and Erica's blog.

I'm watching you kids.

I kid of course. I am planning to shift our programme slightly and cover the end of all things next week. This will allow me to talk about the conservation of nergy, thermodynamics and entropy. Stay tuned as that should be a pretty barking mad lesson conducted partly in the yard, weather permitting of course.

Some may have noticed I frequently post a song at the end of my posts. Music is a fine wonder, so this week I sign of with a classic of American pop/rock, the mighty Toto performing 'Africa' live. Read More!

Young Astronomers and More Progress

This week has been a very good time for Beauty in the Universe. We have secured a further funding award from CVS in Burnley and we have hatched a plan to create a club for young astronomers, with the working title 'Little Beauties'. This means more work of course, but fruitful labour rather than a chore. I will build a separate website where children can get updates, learn to stargaze and download/watch videos about astronomy.

Things are going well and we are experiencing small scale successes that are already beginning to add up to a very substantial whole. Our next goal behind the scenes is to secure enough funding to lease office space and fund two full time positions that we can guarantee for at least twelve months, and then after that we will create two internships for school leavers. In schools the goal is to do an excellent job on our first contract.

In the long term our goal is to prove Centre for Cities wrong. We could not have made a better start. Read More!

Tudor Trust

The Tudor Trust are a funding group to whom we applied for funding for Beauty in the Universe. They said no. Not 'we considered you, but no thanks'. They didn't consider us. That is frustrating because I know how well this works for educating kids and building communities, but convincing a world that has ignored space travel and astronomy since the Moon landings that it will be effective is tough. They just think we are a bunch of nerds. To be fair, we are a bunch of nerds, but we are not JUST a bunch of nerds.

This Tuesday we deliver a taster session to a school in Burnley. I cannot wait to see the reaction from both teachers and pupils alike. They will get it then. Read More!