Well the course is now over and my very big thanks to Richard and Josie Fretwell for hosting it at their Guidepost Dental Practice in Northumberland on Saturday 5th December
The night before leaving Newbury, I ran the PowerPoint on my laptop to check it and add a couple of slides. My wife ,Chris and I set off from Newbury about 10 am last Friday, had a slow and tedious drive up to the Morpeth area, arriving there about 8pm.
Josie and Rich were most hospitable, not least as their daughter Claudia had had her 6th birthday party that afternoon. Just as well we did arrive a little late.
So we settled down to some hospitality and a "gettitng to know you" evening with our hosts, deciding it was already too late to drive 30 minutes to the practice to set up the audio-visuals for the next day, just as we had done 20 times before.
Gremlins Strike
So bed by 11pm ready for an early start and allowing an hour to set up before 1st arrrivals at 8.45am
AWAKE at 4am. Finally out of bed at 5am. Last run through of Powerpoint. Laptop would not boot up!!
Mutliple attempts at diagnostics etc - continued over breakfast BUT luckily I had a full back-up on a seperate hard drive, so no panic as I could run it form Rich's laptop.
At the practice, set up his projector,laptop and cabling to the nearby surgery, to patch-in live video-link and remote mic. so delegates could watch and hear two cases as they occured.
BUT ..then unable to get video image to project. It appeared that both projectors were not picking up the camcorder output, though the onboard screen looked normal - people now arrivng- me still tinkering with cables and connections.
The show must go on ..
I had no option but to abandon the video- link part of the show though two patients had been booked for the demos.
I continued with the planned program with PowerPoint assisted presentation. The morning patient allowed a few of the delegates who had not seen "RA" used, to stand-in whilst Rich Fretwell carried out the live demonstration.
She then came through and gave a brilliant , unscripted review to the delegate of how her entire dental experience had been transformed since Richard Fretwell had been able to offer her the help of Inhalation Sedation (RA) for her dental treatment.
We had lunch at the local hostelry and a chance to chat to the delegates.
One more patient was to be seen in the afternoon. In the midst of my afternoon session, the calvary arrived. Josie Fretwell appeared - a little puffed, carrying an alternative camcorder which she brought from home, a half-hour drive way. Alas the connector wiring was not compatible. So in the end the delegates were unable to see the last case.
All's well that ends well
Well despite these technical setbacks we received the following feedback comments:
"Hi Richard, just a short note to thank you for the fantastic course.it was such a pleasure meeting you and Chris. Carla and I had such a lovely time. are there anymore courses on other subjects?!!!!"
“... all in all a great day”
“Enjoyable, Interesting, Very good in general”
“Very Interesting & delivered in a fun way”
“Very Very Good”
So many thanks to the delegates from Manchester, from Sunderland the Guidepost team and especially the delegates from Hastings - a 712 mile round trip !
Next ....
The next course in February in Newbury may even be over-subscribed if all who have shown interest attend and an extra course in Dublin in January now seems likely.
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