Shw mae, Bawb?
I am awoken…!
What a great event the 24 hour Shwmaeathon was! I must admit I was more than nervous that the whole thing was going to be a flop, and when the floods wiped out our broadband on Saturday and it still wasn’t working properly when I went to bed on Sunday night, I thought it might not go ahead.
But we had some kind of connection Monday morning, and the good people of Australia (including, Dee!) put my mind at rest straight away with their cheery greetings and their obvious enthusiasm for the idea.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I started at Calon Tysul, in the office of the leisure centre. There’s not much happens there at 3 o clock in the morning, but as it happens, Phil, who usually sleeps in a caravan in a car park beside the river had moved his caravan to the Calon Tysul car park, which means he saw the light on and came to make me pancakes almost straight away! Following such a lovely Australian welcome on the Hangout, that set me up for the morning!
By 9 or so, as the town started trying to use the internet, I started to struggle with connection speed, but Cat came to the rescue, setting up a hot spot with her phone, and the 4G connection worked well to tide us over the morning rush of TV and radio interviews. Cat herself took over the hotseat for a while, and our own HuwJones also stepped in.
There was quite a bit of shwmaeing of people bringing their children to swimming lessons between 4 and 6, and random children (including my own) calling in to be on YouTube, and all the time, a steady stream of amazing SSiWers (and ti was mostly SSiWers) came to talk to me and each other.
But the internet got too bad, and I had to move home in the hope of a better connection. Unfortunately that didn;t work out, and it got to the stage where I was barely taking part in my own shwmaeathon, because there was a 4 or 5 second delay between me saying anything and anyone hearing me. That got so frustrating that just after 10 o’clock, I upped sticks again and moved down to the house of the manager of Calon Tysul.
I’m gutted that that meant that the live broadcast missed the Llanelli Clwb Clecs World Premier (they sung an especially composed song for us) - as did I, during the move. Matt (the manager) had reported that he had a better broadband connection than I. He wasn’t wrong either - in his house, my YouTube feed threatened HD quality at times, whereas at home, it got so bad that just speaking caused a kind of logjam effect and cut my connection!
So we had a great time in the last 5 hours or so, with the Hangout almost full for most of the period, and people voluntarily leaving to make room for others.
At least Rhan 1 and Rhan 5 of the Shwmaeathon footage should be good, and rhan 2 was good enough because of the 4G connection via Cat’s mobile phone. I’m not looking forward to seeing how much that cost…!
I haven’t had a look at Heno and Prynhawn Da footage yet - I must get around to that soon.
I’m loathe to mention names, because I’m bound to miss someone out or something. But here goes:
I had amazing help from Dee, who kicked things off and finished them up, Huw, who made the trip to Calon Tysul to represent SSiW learners on TV, and helped with the hot seat when I was called to other things. I had great online support from Mila on the day, and Nicky (mostly before the event) - experienced Hangouters. Then there was the long termers who filled in if things became quiet - people like Lea and John Ifanc,
But hugest thanks go to everyone who took part. I love that I have a list of places which includes passages like: “Helsinki, London, Reims, Sgiwen, Trallwng, Helsinki (yes there were two from Helsinki!)”, or “Los Angeles, Machynlleth, Brittany, Karlsruh, Machynlleth, Basingstoke, London, Israel, Essen, Aberangell, Melbourne”. Those are genuine consecutive entries from my list of contributors.
And I guess you’d like to see the numbers:
Well, I “shwmae’d” a few more than 126 people online (I say a few more, because I have spotted 2 people who definitely aren’t on my list, which means there may be a few more that I missed) and a further 68 offline - ie in the Leisure Centre, giving a grand total of 194.
I spoke to people in 24 different countries / states / provinces / territories (USA and Australia are too big to count as 1 country each, so I’ve counted the states as separate entities). List below
I sung 1 song: It had to be either calon lân, coffi du or trôns dy dad, so those who are of a sensitive disposition will be pleased by which one I chose.
We heard 1 song, that unfortunately wasn’t picked up on the live broadcast.
The money collected online currently stands at £289 (the donations page is open until the 7th November, on MyDonate.BT.com/events/shwmaeathon )
My recovery time is currently 37 hours and counting!
Diolch i bawb a gymrodd ran - thanks to everyone who took part. I loved your company, and while the 24 hour thing was tough, the company made it a real pleasure. Diolch yn fawr!
After a number of requests, here is the list - in no particular order - of place where people took part in the shwmaeathon:
Cymru
Tasmania
Queensland
Victoria (Australia)
England
Massachusetts
New South Wales
Califfornia
Breizh / Brittany
Germany
Israel
Finalnd
France
Bavaria
Delaware
North Carolina
Italia / Italy
Missouri
Slovenjia
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Illinois
New York
Washington DC
