Thank you Duncan!

For some time now, I’ve been very lucky to have found myself in meetings and conferences with Duncan Dallas about once or twice a year. After attending a conference about a year ago (and one that I had helped to organize), I remember him being frustrated by the emphasis there seemed to be on the impact of our work. To paraphrase, I remember him saying “All anyone is talking about is impact. It seems you’ll never get anywhere that way.” For whatever reason those words were ringing in my ears this morning, and I was puzzling over what he meant as I walked to work. I resolved to write to him this morning before the week got underway, sat down to my email, and found this message:

"Dear cafe organizers, I am saddened to have to tell you that Duncan Dallas – founder of café scientifique in the UK and long- standing supporter of cafe scientifique world-wide – died yesterday after a short illness."

Duncan was totally committed to the ideals and philosophy of cafe scientifique and to increasing its reach across the world; most recently his work with the cafe sci schools project in Uganda. The cafe scientifique network will continue to be a tribute to his vision. Yours sincerely Ann Grand I am in shock from this news: physically in shock. If you knew Duncan you may be feeling that shock right now too: a pit in the stomach and a numbness of the extremities. Duncan deeply inspired me. Really it was his selflessness that inspired me most. I always felt that Duncan cared deeply, but never about ownership of the cafes themselves, the café “brand,” or even the café story. That combination struck me as an essential magic that makes grassroots movements happen. It also struck me as an exceedingly rare quality. Someone was asking me recently via email about the origin of cafes, and in describing Duncan I wrote that “He has managed to be simultaneously hands off while also present and encouraging as cafes have taken root on every continent sans Antartica. He falls into the inspiringly selfless category…” Happily I cc’d Duncan on that email exchange, which triggered my last email conversation with him. The last post I can find in the thread is him saying: “The Wellcome Trust Library seems keen to round-up historical material about Cafes, but how on earth would we find what people have done and why?” So there is a bit of a project that could use some continued work. I’ve hastily set up a site this morning that allows café organizers to share their story: www.sciencecafestories.com If you are a café organizer use that site or use some other method, but please do find a way to share your story. We’ll miss you Duncan. Thanks for everything.