Your full summer fix of Wright History is now available!
…plus last shout for Lost Worlds & two questions, on which we’d welcome your thoughts
As those of you who read our last missive here will know, we’ve been cooking up what we hope you’ll agree is an exciting array of entertainments as your summer fix of Wright History between traditional terms. As I (not-at-all-subtly) hinted, this summer’s centrepiece will be …Wait. Hang on… I really should observe Wright History tradition here, so it’s time to unleash the drum-rolling hound…
Laydeez and Gentlemen! I present unto you…
We know that many of you have exciting travels on the horizon, but whether your summer will entail far-flung adventures or home-based relaxation, what better way to spend six summer evenings than with a glass of something chilled and a bit of Mongol-based mayhem, murder, and mercantile monopoly?!
Next up, in our traditional Short & Sweet Saturdays strand, we have The (already-announced) Pre-Raphaelites in August, and we’re now delighted to reveal what we have in store for the first two Saturdays of September…
This is a Short & Sweet format with which we’ve been flirting for some time - namely starting with a fundamentally important work in its earliest incarnation, and tracing how it’s been reworked and re-presented by subsequent generations. The Odyssey is an obvious candidate for this treatment - even a cursory familiarity with Odysseus and his fantastic exploits makes it easy to see why his legend has captivated so many over the centuries. So get your noise-cancelling headphones at the ready (those Sirens can be jolly persuasive), your swashes ready for buckling, and join us on some block-busting adventures through the ages!
The last of our Summer offerings to be announced is a bricks-and-mortar day school, namely…
The Northern Renaissance at Pickering
This one is probably pretty self-explanatory, but for more details, just click the link!
Speaking of Pickering…
… a reminder that this term’s Pickering course is Lost Worlds, which starts next week. If you’ve not yet booked and would like a reminder of what you’ll be missing if you don’t, please click here.
And speaking of Lost Worlds… its online iteration also starts next week. For a reminder of what Robert will be covering, please click here. It’s not too late - the more the merrier!
And as I seem to be in the mentioning imminent courses zone… a reminder that although this May’s plethora of bank holiday weekends ruled out a Short & Sweet Saturdays course this month, we’ve sought to make up for that with this term’s first Short & Sweet Schooldays option, namely Matisse. If you’d like to refresh your memory of that to see whether you’d like to join us, please follow this link.
To see all courses now available in calendar order, click here.
Finally, we’d like, please, to ask for your thoughts on two points. To that end, I’ve included a quick anonymous poll below, and we’d be really grateful if you’d take a few minutes to let us know what you think. I think that the poll options I’ve suggested are self-explanatory, so you may well want to just scroll down to the poll itself. But in case a little background might be of interest…
First, you may have noticed that we’ve been experimenting with the number and duration of courses per term.
Since we started as Wright History, we’ve been striving to hit a balance between what’s feasible for Robert to do to the standard we all expect of him and offering what you like in terms of content and form. We’ve made some mistakes along the way.
Robert, juggling too many courses
Thus, for example, last year we offered more courses than we probably should have, because we wanted to tick all boxes in terms of content/approach (e.g. classical, medieval, modern, art historical, modern art, archaeological, pre-historical, etc.). Result: one burnt-out Robert! He was ‘on camera’ so much that he had little time for recuperation (or, indeed, much sleep!), let alone planning future courses. We’ve also tried repeating courses, canvassing demand beforehand, but they’ve not tended to attract many registrations for the second outing. As more Denizens join us, the prospect of repeating courses may become more do-able. But where we are right now means that I need to ensure that Robert has time to deliver, research, and design courses which will appeal to as many of you who are with us now as possible.
We know that some of you like having 10 weeks of Robertian Pearls of Wisdom (TM) in your diaries, but also that it’s too long a commitment for others. So we’ve experimented with the number of 10-weekers, seeking to cater to all content tastes across any given term with a combination of 7-weekers and an increasing number of Short & Sweet courses. Feedback thus far suggests that this term is the closest we’ve got to hitting the sweet spot, but that may not be representative of everyone. Do please let us know whether or not we’re on the right lines. It’d be really really helpful for us to get a feel for that as we’re finalizing our programme for Autumn.
The second point on which we’d love your opinion is much less complicated! What photo should we have on our home page? As you know, we need to recruit more Denizens, and I want to make sure that our website successfully conveys the high quality of Robert does. We all know that first impressions count!
When we started out, most people who came to our website already knew him (and in many cases me), so we could get away with being a bit cheeky, knowing that the quality of our “product” [bleurch] was already established. Thus, for example, Robert Pointing At Interesting Things has become a bit of a Wright History in-joke! But please cast your mind back to when you didn’t know how good ‘Imself is. If you knew nothing about us, would you have thought we were worth spending your hard-earned time and money with us? In order to ‘hook’ someone who doesn’t already know us, should we start being more formal? Personally, we both prefer to deal with businesses who aren’t just pushing a staid, corporate line - i.e. they show a bit of personality, and that they’re human! - and we get the impression that you like that too. But potential new Denizens may not agree. Does our home page suggest that we’re not serious or professional? Should I keep the pointy photo, or have a more standard-issue one of Robert Being Obviously Scholarly?
Thank you in advance for your feedback! But before I sign off and leave you with our poll…
Whether you’re celebrating the imminent royal festivities or fervently avoiding them, we hope that you have a wonderful bank holiday!
PS There’s a new Duffywatch post here, for those of you who are interested in such things.
Over and out from Wrightington Towers. Bring on the poll!
Please cast your votes (no photo ID required!)
Thank you!