Laughing and learning at first Pecha Kucha
On Thursday night I learned about hemp oil, reducing waste, javelin throwing, leprosy in Nepal, and much more.
The Pecha Kucha at Resthaven, held as part of the Cambridge Autumn Festival, was almost a full house, with 89 people in the audience learning and laughing.
The event gets its name from the Japanese term chit chat, and is a presentation format that has 20 images at 20 seconds per image.
Each presenter has precisely six minutes and 40 seconds to talk about their chosen topic.
Each speaker was introduced to us by the hilarious Dr Richard Swainson, who is also a columnist for the Waikato Times.
He also delivered a Pecha Kucha on being three handshakes away from Napoleon - a light hearted and clever speech.
Waikato writer and film maker Claire Ashton talked about woman jockey Linda Jones and Dr Nick Marsh from the Cambridge Visionary Group talked about the positive effects of hemp oil and how it is different to cannabis.
Cambridge’s Nicola Turner from Mainstream Green shared her story of reducing waste, and Meg de Reus spoke about her trip to Nepal.
Ben Langton-Burnell told us his goals of javelin throwing, and spoke about how many injuries the sport had given him.
It was the first Pecha Kucha to be held in Cambridge, but if there is another one I will certainly be going back.
It was a good way to learn about a range of interesting topics at a fast pace.
It was organised by Steve Tritt, who bought Pecha Kucha to Hamilton in 2008 and formed the Hamilton Pecha Kucha Trust to manage up to four events a year.