When SSiW first launched, we found it amazing, humbling and hugely exciting that people would spread the word about it - and we were so grateful, we’d talk about it loads whenever anyone said that they’d told someone else about the course. We’d talk about it on the forum, we’d talk about it at home, we’d even tell our parents and friends about it…
Then, over time, with kids and busy and life and stuff (yes, a list of excuses), we stopped paying attention to the people who were spreading the word. It started to seem normal - in other words, we started taking them for granted.
Which makes me feel embarrassed, and slightly ashamed.
Not quite as ashamed, though, as the fact that although we stopped saying thank you properly, you lot didn’t stop spreading the word - as our non-stop stream of new learners shows.
So this thread is our attempt to say both sorry and thank you.
Please post in here any time you spread the word about SSiW, in any way, so that we can thank you properly - to help make sure we never forget again how important it is to keep saying thank you…
Well, if someone signs the petition who doesn’t seem to fit the usual pattern, I look to see more and sometimes email them. Usually they do know about SSiW, but the odd one or two have joined us! Not much call for leaning Welsh round here, I’m afraid!
Last year told classes of sixth form students about ssiw, ssis etc
When staying in llanberis told a non welsh speaking hotelier about ssiw
Told friends of ssiw 2 of whom have tried it
Told a chat group about ssiw when after three months with ssiw the tutor who had brought some mynediad books put them away and suggested canolradd
At a day visit to nant gwytheyrn shamelessly plugged ssiw to the clasd based learners who attended.
At another chat group convinced someone to try ssiw and he’s now coming on minibwtcap 4, another also gave it a go i believe
At same chat group gave details to a publican who overheard our welsh
Same chat group again told all the staff in the cafe about it
Shamelessly plugged ssiw when out on a date with a welsh learner.
Plugged ssiw when staying on ynys mon and finding the hotel receptionist didn’t speak welsh
Plugged ssiw to the welsh highland railway marketing director to try and get the volunteers speaking welsh
Plugged ssiw when renting a cottage from the non welsh speaking owners in mini bwtcamp2
plus whenever anyone who is a first language speaker says i’m doing ok i always mention ssiw!
I hope you mean from now on because if you want me to list everyone who has ever endured me preaching to them about the course I would crash this site without even trying. The local Welsh teachers must be getting annoyed with me by now.
I believe a long standing learner of some ten years is still having nightmares over that ridiculously complicated question you asked before you recommended ssiw. (plug added!)
I’ve sort of been talking about SSiW to every single person I’ve met…
Last time was today, a few hours ago, actually! I was with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while and we ended up talking about Welsh (this always seems to happen with me). She’s interested in learning Spanish so I recommended SSiSpanish (and then kept on talking about SSi and about how it works for like an hour)
I had them 5. I took them from the table when bootcamp finished. “You can take them as many as you want.” said @anon86454181 but I felt (all of a sudden) too shy to grab one bigger amount and take them with me. At the end of my visit to Cymru only this one remained in my wallet and since then it’s there, always with me, prepared to be handed to one of potential new learners. But until then, it spreads the word by itself whenever I open the wallet. It is the biggest treasure in my wallet.
I would be very happy if I’d see one day that at least one of those lucky 4 who the card was handed, joined SSiW, this lovely community and I’d be even happier if I’d hear from them how they’re doing.
But … instead of you saying thank you to me … let me say a big THANK YOU for being here for us! If there wouldn’t be SSiW I’d (probably) never really learn Welsh. I’d probably always stay with just “bore da”, “Swt ywt ti”, “nos da” and what’s more to it, still moaning how I can’t learn/speak Welsh at all.
Does dim eisie i ddweud diolch i fi. Dw i’n gorfod i ddweud diolch i chi.
Every single person who tells a single other person about SSiW is helping drive the project forward. I would like to be able to share a pint with every single one of them, every time.
The very least I can do is try to find out who they are and what they’re doing, and thank them for it…
Thinking about it, most people tend to be passive consumers. Someone in a thread said, ‘watching rugby doesn’t involve effort’ and if you, as I do now, just sit on the sofa watching TV that’s true. Now I’m not saying boats and planes and buses and trains, staying in the Red Light district and running round Paris after tickets was as energetic as playing but it did entail some effort. I guess those like I was were always a minority, so, numbers learning with SSi will always be a lot higher than those on the Forum and fewer still will tell others!
You, yourself, Aran gave me a statistic about numbers who act, to show me that I could not expect more than a tiny percentage signing the petition! So it is with telling about SSi, but those so us who do, do so convincingly!
I really can’t remember how many people I’ve shamelessly plugged SSIW to over the years but it would include numerous nurses at work, people at church, on the bus. I know it’s been enough to add the rider that you don’t pay me to say these things. But the last time was on a train last week from Irkutsk to Ulan Bator. This was to an American in his twenties who was spending 3 or 4 months and his life savings, travellling through Europe, Russia, China and SE Asia. He has a degree in German studies (and managed 6 years of university level German without having been to Germany!) but is now realising there are a lot of other languages it would be useful to know. 25, for a start. I did my best to persuade him that Cymraeg would be a useful one to go into the list, for when he visits Wales, Patagonia, Australia, Borneo, Slovenia, Belarus. And what better way than SSIW?
Dw i ‘di bod yn dweud wrth pawb bo’ fi’n dysgu Cymraeg efo SSiWelsh… But no-one who’s actually interested in learning Welsh, unfortunately. But today it turned out that a Czech friend whom I’ve told about it (and who intends to sign up for SSi Spanish when she has the energy) had talked to her native-Welsh-speaking friend about it, and she might get her English-speaking husband to give it a go. So there’s a turn-up for the books.
