Shilling for The Institute

In case you were worried I was out of pocket for volunteering, I did get paid for driving to the last Job Fair instead of taking public transport. And I was doing the same thing last Tuesday in the local big "wedding-reception" hotel. I've done this most years because that's what institutionalised folk do - try to ingratiate self with the boss. It's a little biy more than that - it's nice to talk yo budding scientists - but not much. And this year I was called to the Waaterford Coast to deliver a Yaris-load of wood-chippings for mulch; so I missed using my voucher for a midday Farmer's Dinner [not a bit like R] and tea-or-coffee. Dang!

Lacking [m]any potential students, I went on a Progress round the room talking to anyone who was conspicuously between clients. My opening gambit was about the brochures, were they useful. One person suggested that everyone has to hand out brochures because everyone else hands out brochures: you'd stand out, and not in a good way, if you had nothing to give. This is one of the issues with election posters about which Ireland goes bonkers for every election and referendum.  The clear beneficiaries of this thoughtless bandwagonism are printers. Is it beyond the wit of man to call everyone round a table and call a halt on the waste?

I also edged up to the woman running the show for The Other Midland Institute. I asked her about their brochure-on-a-USBkey. Yes, they did exist but . . . they still printed pallets of brochures each year. I can't help feeling that The Kids in the milling throng at these events see the brochures and the people handing them out as unspeakably dull - but still more interesting than a day of classes in their unspeakably dull schools. Such a waste, and such a failure of imagination.