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NOVEMBER 2024
01 November
08 November
15 November

Friday 1 November
Richard writes

For those of you who follow these blogs, both of you haha, and those people who have listened to our education podcasts, you will know that Molly and I do not have a great love of social media. It can be good, you can keep in touch with family and friends who live a long way away from you, but, in our view, there is too much rubbish on there.

It is, without a doubt, a source of bullying and can contribute to poor metal health in some people. There are some people who seem to think that if they comment on anything and have lots of likes and followers, then they are important. Sad but true.

However we both accept that social media is a great way to get a message out to more people and so, on that basis, we will be building a social media platform for Owlbut. On Monday we will upload a pinned link to all the social media platforms that we will be on. Feel free to welcome me to the modern world. My granddaughter is educating me in how to use some of these platforms. If it all goes wrong, blame her

Finally here are our plans for the coming week:-

Monday 4th November - upload of social media links

Wednesday 6th November - upload of an extra fun video about Remembrance Day

Friday 8th November - weekly blog

Saturday 9th November - November education podcast

One of us will be back next week.

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Friday 8 November
Richard writes

It was on 12th November, this coming Tuesday, exactly 15 years ago, that I came through the arrivals doors at Heathrow Airport after almost eight years overseas. Actually I'd only been about 4 hours overseas, 17 hours over land on that journey but I had been almost continuously out of England for those 8 years. It took me a while to find my feet, they were on the baggage conveyor belt but had no label, and then I settled back in the country I had been born in some time ago.

During those eight years I had worked with schools in Poland, Australia, Thailand, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa and also visited Brunei, Germany and South Korea. It was exciting and, most of the time, enjoyable.

Once back I began to re-establish contacts with those people in education with whom I had worked before and with their encouragement and support, a lot of hard work and some hiccups, drinking a glass of water backwards doesn't work but can clear nasal congestion, Owlbut's World of Learning emerged on the world wide web.

As a simple stand-alone learning resource it was successful. We had over 14,000 unique visitors in our first year, at which point I stopped looking at statistics. I also had emails congratulating me on the resource and thanking me for my work. At this stage it was just that, my work.

One of my early supporters on my return was a teacher who had been involved with a paper-based resource I had run, back in 1994-95, which followed a year-long journey I made around the coast of England. He wanted me to do it again and use the internet, and my new website, as the basis for the resource. I readily agreed and work began on that.

That too went through some growing pains, a few false starts, but the basic site was always there. I knew it wasn't really something I could still do alone, filming, talking and operating a puppet is pretty tricky, so I needed someone with whom I could work, trust and who understood the principles and ideas behind the whole venture. Over some 5 or 6 years, through COVID and beyond, I kept working on things. I learned a lot about people, problems but also that if you really believe in something, and a few others do too, you must never give up. In itself I think that is a pretty good lesson for young children to learn as well.

But now, working with my friend Molly, who fits the trust and understand requirement perfectly, we are ready to begin yet another journey, a three-year (at least) planned journey. Slowly at first but then moving into that original idea that I shared with that supportive teacher, sadly now the late Doug Brown, some time ago. A journey that I know will benefit the learning experience of so many children way beyond our primary target of home educators and also a journey which, we hope, will get young people out into the natural world, gaining more understanding of that world and be able, nay wanting, to experience the awe and wonder in that environment.

Despite our general fear and even dislike of some parts of social media, we now intend to promote our new venture even more by bursting on to the social media scene. Scarily, with my umbilical hernia and Molly's recent stitches, that could get messy, but at least, in common with so many others these days, we can share it with you. We hope you and your children or grandchildren will join us, Owlbut and Colin, if only for the possible medical revelations and see our site grow and our newest team member and her "Little Owl" grow too.

It will all begin, the social media burst not anything medical, on 12th November tying in nicely with that date 15 years ago when I returned from my own unique journey that had sparked my own curiosity, imagination and creativity. If I had to add another word to those three pillars of learning, it would be fun. Oh yes, learning should be fun.

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Friday 15 November 2024
Richard writes

Welcome, to what is planned as the final blog of 2024. We may do a little something near Christmas, although what could top last year and if you missed it you'll never know, but you'll have to wait and see.

There will be another Education podcast in early December but we must now concentrate on the opening of the School of the Air on January 6th 2025.

Having said that, next Wednesday we will be uploading another of our Fun Videos, this one looking at hibernation and showing you how to make a hedgehog home. Currently there is no inheritance tax if you leave said home to your children.

Again, in early January, we will upload all the standard intros and outros (a Mollyism which I love) to our weekly videos; just as a bit of a taster.

As from Monday we are also launching ourselves fully on social media. Little reels and shorts (it won't be me in shorts) each day to tell you more about our site, ways you can join in, what to expect, our sponsors and a few reminders to ask you, if you can, if you would like to contribute, financially, to our work either via our GoFundMe page or our Patreon page. If you join our Patreon page at a certain level you will get a monthly video, only for our patrons, of all our out-takes and bloopers or anything else funny that has happened to us. I have no idea what it means but let's see if we can go viral with one of these uploads. Not only do we want to get more people to come to our site, use our material to learn, get outside into nature but we also want you to know that learning, and indeed life, can and should be fun.

Our start date of January 6th is well-known for being twelfth night, a fine play by young Bill Shakespeare and the last day of the twelve days of Christmas song. As a treat, and hopefully as a big enticement over those twelve days, rather than sending you a partridge, two turtle doves, three French hens etc, we will post a little video each day on our site.

We look forward to seeing you at the official opening of the School of the Air on January 6th. Can we find someone famous to open it. You'll have to wait and see. I must now go and get ready for that twelfth night opening. Should I be cross-gartered because, as we know, foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere. Join us to learn and have fun. Thanks Bill, I think you wrote them (but if not then thanks Francis or Christopher or Edward, oh Delia what did you start). Maybe it was ten lords a leaping but certainly not monkees, although Mike Nesmith was a good writer but perhaps to a different drum while flying to Rio. Well google it

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