The Do Lectures
The Do Lectures is an annual series of inspirational lectures. The lectures are held at the Fforest camp in Cilgerran, West Wales. Although the venue can only accommodate a small audience, the lectures are archived and available for free on The Do Lectures website.
The Concept
The lectures are designed to inspire and inform people to help them make a positive change. All the talks are filmed and then delivered free to the World via the internet.
The tag line on their website reads: IDeaS+Energy=Change. David Hieatt explains: "People who do amazing things can inspire the rest of us to do amazing things too."
The lecturers are an eclectic mixture of innovators, artists, adventurers, entrepreneurs, politicians and campaigners. The speakers are chosen from the world of business, environment, food, social, education, sport and the internet. The underlining theme for the talks is the ideas (and the people behind them) that go and change things. Issues of sustainability and the environment are featured a lot in the talks.
Each speaker delivers a lecture for 25 minutes and participates in a Q&A session. The speakers are given a set of rules to adhere to. During the 2009 lectures, each lecturer was asked to present a "Big Do"; a larger or longer term challenge to themselves or the audience and a smaller scale challenge called a "Little Do".
During the weekend a number of the speakers also led workshops.
The lectures are filmed and made available on the Do Lectures website. In 2008 Tubby Brother made a documentary of the weekend and in 2009 the documentary was made by PopUp!Media.
The Do Lectures aim is to have 1 million views of the 2009 lectures. 2008 had over half a million views.
The Do Lectures regularly use social media technologies such as Twitter and Facebook to keep in touch with its audience and find new audiences.
History
- The lectures were founded in 2008 by David and Claire Hieatt, the husband and wife founders of the Howies ACTIVE clothing company.
- The Little Big Voice Lectures took place between 13 April, 2007 and 16 April, 2007. A tools boot-camp that became a forerunner of the Do lectures. There were 9 speakers who were each filmed. The talks were released as podcasts on the web.
- The first Do Lectures took place between September 4 and September 8, 2008, made possible by an earth tax donation from Howies; a tax that the clothing company donates to grass-root environmental and social projects.
- The 2009 Lectures were held between 3 September and 7 September, 2009. At this point, the Do Lectures was set up as a stand alone limited not for profit company. The 2009 event was organised and put together by Claire Margetts. Ben Bowen, also joined as an Intern in the last 5 weeks before the event.
- Shortly after the conclusion of the 2009 lectures, David Hieatt, Co-founder left howies after failing to buy howies back from The Timberland Company. He continues to lead the Do Lectures. His co-pilot on the Do Lectures is Andy Middleton, Founder of TYF.
- The Do Lectures has 5 founding partners who each paid £5,000 to become one: Fforest, Haxted Estates, Howies, Orangebox and TYF. They have first refusal on two tickets per year.
- Andy Middleton has compered the event 2008 and 2009 and is one of driving forces behind The Do lectures.
The Venue
The Do Lectures are held annually at the eco-friendly Fforest Camp in Cilgerran, Pembrokeshire, Wales. The camp is located within a 250 acre stretch of woodland between the Teifi gorge and the Teifi marshes nature reserve and offers a range of pre-erected tents on wooden decks. It has its own pub called Y Bwthyn. The auditorium is a giant hat tipi erected on the lawn in front of the lodge building. It is large enough to house 100 attendees on basic seating. The attendees and speakers spend the weekend together and are accommodated on site.
Finances
The Little Big Voice Lectures in 2007 and the 2008 Do Lectures were both financed by an earth tax donation from howies.
The Do Lectures is a stand alone Ltd company with the goal of becoming self-sustaining. This is to be achieved through the sale of tickets, contributions from "founding partners" and donations. The Do Lectures are also searching for sponsors. The Directors are David Hieatt and Clare Hieatt. Its mandate is to re-invest any profits to create more talks.
Lecturers
The Little Big Voice Lectures, 2007
- Andy Middleton
- Dan Germain
- David Hieatt
- Elliot Grove
- Jon Matthews
- Matt Bagwell
- Phil Carter
- Russell Davies
- Tony Davidson
The Do Lectures, 2008
- Alastair McIntosh
- Andrew Whitley
- Andy Cummins
- Andy Kirkpatrick
- Aubrey Meyer
- Cary Fowler
- Dafydd Davies
- Gavin Pretor-Pinney
- Gerald Cooper
- Guy Watson
- John Grant
- Ken Yeang
- Malcolm Carroll
- Matt Jones
- Michael Braungart
- Michael Fordham
- Paul Chatterton
- Russell Davies
- Tamsin Omond
- Timothy Ferriss
- Trevor Baylis
- Yun Hider
The Do Lectures, 2009
- Adam Lowry
- Alan Moore
- Alastair Humphreys
- Alice Taylor
- Andrew Reason
- Ben Hammersley
- David Rosenberg
- Duke Stump
- Gabriel Branby
- Geoff McFetridge
- Gerald Miles
- Gregor MacLennan
- Jane Davidson
- Michael Pawlyn
- Patrick Holden
- Paul Deegan
- Rolf Potts
- Tim Birkhead
- Tom Taylor
- Tony Davidson
- Uffe Elbæk