Picture courtesy of Phil Wall

On September 13th Bettakultcha returned to the Corn Exchange. As the nights are drawing in the amazing ceiling in the corn Exchange isn’t a hindrance to seeing the Bettakultcha presentations on the screen it adds to the whole experience of the night.

So as the sun set over Leeds, over 200 like-minded people gathered to listen to 12 speakers. No one knew what they were going to speak about though. We love the element of surprise.

Also making a return to the Corn Exchange was Bring Your Own Bottle which was much applauded, however we forgot the Bettakultcha cork screw, sorry.

For me Bettakultcha went in a blur again, setting out the chairs (thanks to Mike Wallis and Dom Hodgson), checking the sound and setting the screen and lighting then checking the sound levels (still need a little work with the sound) not to mention ensuring the slides work properly can mean Ivor and myself don’t always get to experience the night for myself.

This time at the Corn Exchange however I managed to experience a lot more of the night, for me it was one of the best we’ve had. I’m not going to review the talks here the best way to do that is to see the videos when they come.

What I do want to do on the post is thank everyone involved in making Bettakultcha.

First Ivor Tymchak, who as the co-oragniser with me does the bits I can’t do. Be the compère.

If it wasn’t for him Bettakultcha would be a very different night altogether. Maybe need to have a chat about some of the gags mind :-).

Not there on the night, but the man who literally lights up Bettakultcha, Mike Chitty (we borrow his projector).

Eleanor Snare and Robert Sharples, who help check all your tickets as you arrive.

And all the speakers who are brave enough to stand there for 5 minutes and share their passions and also have the drive to actually spend the time to put together 20 slides and get them to me on time. It takes more effort than you think.

Here’s a list of the brave men and women who stood up and made a stand for 5 mins at least. Regardless of whether you loved them or hated them they took the plunge.

• Dan Ladds
• Dr Chris Empson
• Heather Lloyd
• Jack Dearlove
• Beckie Senior
• Dominic Hodgson
• Phil Sheridan
• Peg Alexander
• Mick McCann
• Jonathan Ferguson
• Craig Robertson
• Lydia Slack

Also the brave/stupid people who took and the Random Challenge and won, or at least got a draw.

At the break in every Bettakultcha we like to feature the artwork of local artists. At the Corn Exchange we we’re luck enough to show the great work of Phil Wall (he kindly created the picture at the top of this post). He’s got an amazing project going check out his blog Project Photo Doodle to find out how you can get involved.

Finally thanks to all the audience. Veteran Bettakultchaists or Bettakultcha virgins thanks for coming and being perplexed/bored/entertained/educated.

We’re plannig the next Bettakultcha in Leeds at the moment as soon as we have it sorted we’ll let you all know. In the mean time the next Bettakultcha is in Huddersfield at The Media Centre on September 28th, it’d be great to see you all there.

You can buy tickets for Bettakultcha Huddersfield here.