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 : Tuesday

Munch, Muse, Mooch, Mutter, Mix and Mingle at the Mall

Computer scientists sometimes find the art of conversation difficult. They tend to spend most of their time with other computer scientists talking about, you guessed it, computer science. I aim to facilitate a number of activities to help people mix and circulate, meet old friends and new people, talk about a variety of subjects. This will be realised by using a "Menu" of instructions and suggestions that all participants will have a copy of, maybe handed to them as they arrive at the Mall.There will be short periods where everybody is visibly and markedly standing on their own silently thinking. There will be periods where people are gathered in pairs, then trios, then quartets, and so on. At times people will be asked to seek out someone that they know, then someone that they have never spoken to before, then form a quartet of known and unknown people. At times it will be very quiet, maybe even silence will reign. At times it will be very briefly very noisy (a "group sneeze" - a synchronised shout of Hishee or Hashee or Hoshee or Hushee sounds like "Atishoo" / a 30" description of a Visit to the Zoo in your mother tongue with gesticulation). Most of the time there will just be the sounds of animated conversations. The event will have a shape (sometimes still, sometimes moving, sometimes huddled, sometimes spaced out), a sound (sometimes silent, sometimes "musical", sometimes a dynamic of whispering then gradually going up to shouting and then gradually going back down to whispering), color (a variety of colored cards will be held up by participants to aid co-ordination). The aim is to create an unusual, stimulating and enjoyable friendly ambience.