Quick recap: we were asked to collect 100 photos of anything, which we did, and we were then tasked with organising and categorising the photos of others, which we did. It was then left to the remainder of the class to assess our body of photographs and write a word that best describes our collection as a whole. Mine included words such as travel, journey, dark, trains, bananas. Not bananas. I just wanted to say it.
We were then put into small groups with those like minded individuals who had photographed themes of a similar nature, and to come up with, as a group, a more focused group identity and research that we could take forward. We all had themes of journeys and maps and plotting, so we brain stormed ideas such as mapping items and things that wouldn't normally be mapped, in unexpected places and the such. All was going well. Then i got the flu.
Not man-flu, proper bed from dusk till dawn dying in my sleep if i got any flu. Don't believe me? Neither did The Wife. Then she got it too.
The next time i appeared was the final day of the year, and the group had moved the project forward and was on the final day of working.
This is what i can gather happened in the interim period...
Through mass discussion in the group, a question was identfied as to why people can't get into college on time. Through research involving questionaires, looking at registers and surveys posed the question of motivation - why don't people come into college on time, and what would encourage them to do so? What incentive would motivate someone to come in half an hour early to college. Among the "public humiliation" and "severe beatings" for latecomers were incentives to be early as opposed to punishments for being late. Much of the questionaires filled showed a distinct lack of care for promptness to class and an almost willingness to receive some form of forfeit if late. Will Asken (from my group) noted that he a more thorough questionaire across a larger audience would provide more acurate and specific research if we were to do this over.
The one issue that was raise numerous times in surveys was that of food and specifically breakfast, so the idea came, would people make it in if breakfast was on the table? (literally and metaphorically) So the plan was to put on a spread of breakfast at a small cost to us to see how many people would turn up earlier. So fliers went up and people were told in the hope of bringing pogs through the door...
And this, actually, is where i came in. Ahh! Surprise! My group have organised a free breakfast, how nice of them!
From my point of view, as i came into the room that day, there was a flurry of activity around the breakfast spread. In my opinion there were only a few more than usual who turned up, but the atmosphere was great and those who turned up seemed to appreciate the efforts.
We later worked out that it would cost approximately £1 a week per student to run a basic breakfast at little/no profit and could feasibly work in bringing others in earlier. So the final question was "Would you be willing to pay £1 a week for breakfast at college?". Most were very positive about this and it could actually work.
David Gasi was the winner
