DanThornton

Tech, Geekery, Pop Culture, Miscellaneous

From Co-founder To Director At DPiP CiC In Just 15 Years

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I’m pleased to share that after a vote at the recent AGM, I’m now officially a Director at Digital People in Peterborough CiC (Community Interest Company) just 15 years after I originally suggested some internet nerds might want to meet up and hang out.

Things have changed a lot since then. Back in October 2010 it was an informal meeting in the pub. Now it’s a CiC with three existing Directors organising Peterborough STEM Festival and multiple related events throughout the year, along with our monthly DPiP meetups. Other local groups have come and gone, funding has become more challenging, and there’s been disruption due to a pandemic amongst other things.

From Co-founder to Director at DPiP CiC in just 15 years
From Co-founder to Director at DPiP CiC in just 15 years

In that time I’ve also moved from Peterborough and back again, watched my son grow from a small STEM Festival attendee to an enthusiastic volunteer, and watched some of the great things being done by the DPiP team of directors and volunteers both in my absence, and during my trips back to volunteer at every festival.

And since coming back to Peterborough I’ve been involved from the sidelines, partly due to other priorities, and also because my partner Liz has been chairperson for a while now, and I didn’t want to undermine her relentless hard work in any way. But I think we’ve found a way for it to work in a good way, and I have some ideas to help ensure it’s a positive step in the future both for DPiP, and for us.

So expect more updates about DPiP, Peterborough STEM Festival, and running a CiC in the future as I dive back into everything.

Promoting Peterborough STEM Festival 2025 With Slime

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How do you encourage kids of all ages to enjoy science, technology, engineering and maths? In my case, it’s by volunteering for a few hours of promoting Peterborough STEM Festival 2025 with slime.

The Peterborough campus of Anglia Ruskin University held a Family Day with various attractions and displays, and with the free 2025 Peterborough STEM Festival taking place on October 18th at ARU, we were invited along.

And while lots of things may have changed since holding our first STEM Festival back in 2016, the attraction of making slime is as strong as ever. In just a few hours, we estimated more than 200 children had spent some time experimenting with different amounts of common chemicals and food safe washable colourings to create their own pot of slime.

Promoting Peterborough STEM Festival 2025 With Slime - Dan and Andy
Me and fellow organiser/volunteer Andy promoting Peterborough STEM Festival with slime

The four of us manning the stall (me, Andy, Liz and Stanley), barely had time to breath before another request came for a pot of glue, some bicarbonate of soda and shaving foam, or a particular colouring.

And amongst the fun, and managing to be the one person who turned his own hands blue (and various kids comparing me to a smurf for the rest of the day), there are a few more serious aspects to slime-making.

Kids will happily ignore their smartphones etc if you give them something interesting, fun and entertaining to do. Especially when you explain that it’s fine when things don’t work out first time, and experiments often don’t succeed straight away.

And there’s a bigger need for these kinds of events than ever before. When a lot of education has gone back to rote learning, children are being led by AI, apps and algorithms, and concerns about safety means they’re less independent, having the permission to muck around and fail can be eye-opening.

It’s tougher than ever to find suitable venues, funding and volunteers, so if you want to support Peterborough STEM Festival or any of our smaller fringe events, don’t hestitate to get involved. You don’t need a PhD to volunteer, and your hands will be back to a normal colour within a few hours.

Returning to public speaking with a presentation at DPiP

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I was never a regular on the SEO/Marketing circuit, but I’ve been lucky enough to give a few presentations at various events over the years. Some were unconferences and small meetups, including Digital People in Peterborough (DPiP). Others were in front of fairly substantial audiences at larger venues.

That all came to a halt in 2020, for obvious reasons. And since then, my family has stayed cautious about large social events, due to the ongoing risks to both the healthier among us, and those who are immuno-suppressed and higher risk. But having gone along to a few smaller gatherings, including DPiP, I decided to volunteer to step in when speakers had to change dates at short notice and a gap in the schedule appeared.

Returning to public speaking with a presentation at DPiP
Returning to public speaking with a presentation at DPiP

Despite the relatively short notice, I still had a decent amount of time to prepare around my existing work commitments and deadlines. So obviously, I then decided to spend four days being ill, which meant cramming everything into the time left when I’d recovered enough to sit at a computer. Fortunately I managed to finish all my work and have a few hours to put together a presentation lasting 20-40 minutes on ‘the biggest SEO myths: fact or fiction’ (I still need to check it for correct image attribution etc before sharing it online).

That only added to the nerves about speaking in front of people for the first time in more than five years, and also the first time I’d tried presenting in a mask to minimise the risk of airborne infection (we also take a portable HEPA filter with us to lower the risk when eating or drinking, but it has a fairly small range and does make a low noise which might have been picked up by the PA system).

But despite all of that, the talk seemed to go pretty well – I was talking for more than an hour without any issues, had a load of great questions to answer, and I think my teenage son now understands what I do for the first time.

I’ve been reminded why speaking can be great fun as well as a useful way to introduce yourself to people. And also that DPiP is an amazing network and opportunity to try speaking and presenting if you’ve never done it before, get nervous in front of people, or just want to try something out in front of a really welcoming and supportive bunch.

If you’re in Peterborough or the surrounding area, and fancy speaking or just attending the next DPiP meetup on the first Thursday of each month, you can find all the details, here.